Photography – Page 42 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Proud New Father

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The new baby has arrived. Lensbaby that is.

Lensbaby

The above image may look like one of my Photoshop fake miniatures, but what you see is what came right out of the camera. The Lensbaby is a poor mans tilt/shift lens. And yes, I know the Lensbaby is NOT a true tilt/shift lens, but it’s also not $1500 to $2000 and happens to be available for the Sony/Minolta mount.

The Lensbaby is a manual focus lens that lets you focus on your subject and then utilizing the ball and socket design, move what they call the “sweet spot” of focus anywhere in the frame so that your subject is clear and everything that surrounds it is blurry.

My Sony Alpha 700 will shoot with this lens in aperture priority mode which helps with the light metering. Actual aperture is controlled by magnetic aperture discs that go in the lens

The Magnetic Aperture Set with the magnetic wand aperture removal tool and custom storage case ships with the lens. The discs allow apertures of f/2 (no aperture disk installed), 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, and 22

Lensbaby

I’m struggling with the manual focus but the lens challenges me to take my time and think about what I am doing. It’s light weight and rugged so it’s easy to add to the photo kit, just in case you see something that lends itself to this style of photography.

Las Fallas 2009

Fire Parade

Our trip to Valencia for Las Falls was a HUGE success!

Check out my updates from the trip HERE

Stop Making All That Racket!

Sapsucker or Woodpecker?

I was in my home office this morning and heard this guy outside. He was pecking to beat the band. I believe him to be a sapsucker as spotted previously but I could be mistaken. More likely a Downy Woodpecker which seems more common. He’s very high up in the neighbor’s tree, but the SAL-70300G did a fine job in the bright, early morning sun.

Elissa

The Tall Ship Elissa

The Elissa

Watching All The Gulls Go By

Contrast

Bokeh

Under The Radar

Ruffled

Wingspan

Galveston Oh Galveston

The weather for the last few days has been spectacular. Lows in the 50’s and highs in the 60’s and 70’s. I had Friday off and wanted to take advantage of it so I invited my friend Jim Henkel to head off on a road trip to post-Ike Galveston to have a look around.

The Flagship Hotel

Galveston is still very tattered. Lots of debris and devastation but signs of life and reconstruction were plainly visible. I wasn’t all that interested in documenting the destruction, but the sight of the Flagship Hotel was pretty compelling.

The Flagship Hotel

We checked out Seawall Blvd and then headed to The Strand (Galveston’s historic district) where they were making preparations for the Galveston Mardi Gras. And by preparations I mean people were busy stocking the storefronts with booze.

We found some lunch and then headed off to catch the ferry over to Bolivar Peninsula to have a look around. That was way more depressing. We took a quick look around and then made our way back to Houston.

The road to recovery is a long one for poor Galveston.

I Got A Basketball Jones

I was commenting to some friends at one of the recent Geek Gatherings how it had been awhile since I’d been to a basketball game. I’m not a huge huge fan, but Cynthia is. I enjoy it well enough but the real joy is watching Cynthia watch the game.

Turns out the person I was talking to was a season ticket holder and he said that he could hook me up sometime as he didn’t go to every game. I didn’t think too much of it until a few weeks later when he contacted me and offered tickets to the Rockets VS. Mavericks game.

The tickets are at the Red and White Wine Bistro, an upscale all you can eat restaurant and wine bar. Food was included with the ticket but you paid for the wine. And the seats are right on the balcony with a great view of the court.

The Toyota Center has a 4 inch limit on lenses so there was no bringing my long zooms. I settled on my 11-18mm with the idea of capturing some wide angle shots like this one: