Macro Test

I know that both my 24-70mm and my 50mm look great paired with my new D7200, but I’ve heard that any flaws in lower quality lenses, like my Tamron 70-300mm, will become more pronounced with the more advanced sensor. After taking my telephoto out for a test drive with new body, I can safely say that my fears were unfounded. If anything, it looks better. Since I now have less noise at higher ISO settings, it I can get away with faster shutter speeds and higher apertures, resulting in cleaner images overall.

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Venice Cafe

It looks like the weather is finally starting to break. That means lots of puddle reflections on my long overdue walks.

First Walk Through the Snow

Do you see what I do for you? I had enough house repair and photo work to do that I could have easily stayed home, shrouded in the warm embrace  of my Spider-Man hoodie. But, no. I decided that I needed to brave the elements so that I could bring all of you photos from the first snowfall of the season.

By Popular Opinion…

I guess I’m doing requests now. I snapped some photos on a walk that I didn’t really deem anything worth posting on here.  But, I figured they were good enough for Facebook where they started getting some positive feedback though.  So  I compromised and tweaked the photos  a bit to get them ready for prime time.

What do you guys think? Were these worth posting, or should they have languished in obscurity on my hard drive?

I’ve been working on book and job application stuff all the last few days, but still made time for a walk with the obligatory bird photo.

First Real Snow

The bad snow has finally made its way to Ohio. It was gorgeous, the snowfall was gentle, there was no wind, the flakes were huge, and the temperature wasn’t too cold. I took advantage and went walking and shooing before work and on my break. Editing was fun too, I basically upped the contrast and clarity to try to emphasize the individual flakes.

A couple braves the first heavy snowfall of the winter to go grocery shopping.

 

My favorites for the night are a sequence I shot of a couple trying to get their groceries across the shopping center lot.

A couple braves the first heavy snowfall of the winter to go grocery shopping.

Autumn Hike

 

GoPro-ing Around Kent

I kept playing with the GoPro editor most of the night… and then the program crashed just as I was exporting the video. I put it back together this morning. It’s not quite perfect, but I thought it was worth posting anyway.

The New Downtown

 

There is a ton of construction going on in downtown Kent right now. It’s been going on for the last few years as part of a push for rejuvenation, but has exploded in the last few months. This clock tower and parking garage all went up the last few weeks. I even shot the photo from a freshly redone addition to the campus’ main walkway.

I liked the idea of the original shot (on the left) but I planned making the image an HDR from the get go. The more I looked at it, the less I was thrilled with the shot itself, so I wound up making it a very quick and dirty edit. Basically, I took the RAW image and opened it twice in Photoshop, one exposed for the sky and the other for the buildings. I still wasn’t happy with the building exposure, so I created an inverted Level layer and painted it to fine-tune the exposure. After that, I did one final level layer over the whole thing to get it right where it needed to be. I thought of posting it there, but the lampposts were bothering me, so I took those out. This shot was probably WAY more trouble than it’s worth, but It’s good practice, I guess.

 

 

Moth Montage

I decided to take a much overdue photo walk today and noticed, among other things, a group of moths in a flower bush. I took enough photos to experiment with the editing. Normally, I only choose one from a series, but I can’t seem to pick a favorite from these. So, I decided to post them all and let you guys decide. Tell me which one is your favorite in the comments below.