RocketHorse » Nature

Underwater Point and Shoot

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:01:53 +0000

I’ve never taken pictures underwater until this past weekend – It was so much fun! I was bobbing up and down in the waves trying to figure out the menu settings and adjusting the ISO. The camera was rated for 60 minutes in the water so I worked quickly. The first half hour was spent taking bad pictures while I tried to figure out what I was doing. I shot these pictures after I figured out what I was doing. Although I enjoyed this new challenge, I had to return the camera to the store since one of its seals developed a small leak. Nothing was damaged, but I didn’t trust it – I didn’t want to risk the seal on a $300 camera.

Early Morning Banyons

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:19:46 +0000

In Hawaii, early one summer’s morning, I encountered this row of banyon trees while jogging. I was taken by their size and the way the golden early morning light filtered through the canopy of leaves above. I took three shots – bracketed by exposure and then blended the exposures in the computer for a high dynamic range image.

To shoot a hummingbird

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:05:17 +0000

In the summer, I get lots of hummingbirds outside my window. Unfortunately, these little guys don’t linger long, so getting a decent shot takes the right equipment, the right settings, patience, and luck. I can’t always control the latter two, but can easily control the first two. For these images, I elected to employ my D300 with the 70-200mm VR. This lens is excellent as the VR reduces the natural shake in my hands – I’m not a tripod – and it’s a fast lens with a max aperture of f/2.8. For the first image, I wanted the beak in focus and allowed the wings to blur. ISO of 200 to maximize image quality, and a shutter speed of only 1/200. Since the relative motion of the beak was not much, it’s nice and sharp and the wings blur into the background. Note her little feet dangling in the background.

For the next shot, I wanted the wings frozen. In this case, I used an ISO of 800, again an aperture of f/2.8, and given the sun, was allowed an exposure of 1/4000 of a second. This was quick enough to freeze the wings, and on the D300, ISO 800 looks pretty good – not too much degradation in image quality. The depth of field (DOF) is deeper in the second image since the subject was a little bit farther away. For more info on DOF, I recommend this calculator. This bird is the male as he has green feathers: