Tulips!

Went up to Skagit (pronounced: 'ska-j&t ) this weekend to check out the Tulip Festival. It's really cool if you like: "the outdoors", flowers (specifically tulips) and checking out beautiful mountain scenery. The Mount Vernon area is quaint and reminiscent of a rural agricultural town. Hey! They also have an Anderson Rd.


[Olympic Flame] - Vibrant and Fire-y!


[Ile de France] - quite magnificent in terms of the depth of red they radiate.

Photo editiing: Want to fix barrel distortion?

Ever have those pictures that just don't quite seem right, how they seem distorted. Well I came across an interesting DPreview Article that guides a person through, to correct this aberration.

Reference Image:

PanoTools:

http://www.all-in-one.ee/~dersch/

Where did I go today?

International District

After some Dim-sum I whipped my camera out on the hunt for some photo ops.


Distinctively Asian - Walk about the I-district it can become very apparent the differences between Chinese and Japanese architecture. In particular, the cultural significance of the colour red as well as the larger accents tend to be traits of Chinese structures. Whereas Japanese structures will tend to stay more towards neutral colours, with accents that are not as bold.


Supportive pillars

Gene Coulon Beach Park

After poking around at Fry's - I decided to take a random road and see where it would lead me.


Mighty powerful sun! - pretty blinding actually was seeing dark spots after taking this shot.


Distinctive poise - Her arched back can almost be conceived as aristocratic.


A conversation to be had - to be shared with a loved one or a good friend

Re-learning how to take night shots pt. 1

Well, after "upgrading" my digicam from a Sony F717 to a shiny new, err should i say matte new Nikon D80 and whoa... I gotta re-learn how to take pictures! So to learn what my lense and I are capable of, I decided to fool around with some settings.

Experiment #1 Shooting at Dusk - how to hand hold a non VR (Vibration Reduction) 18-55mm f/3.5-5 lense

1. Knowing what F-stop I can stop down to
1/80 - produces really blurry pics
1/100 - produces soft blurry pics
1/125 - ok, given suffucient light, pictures start to become 'soft' and may start to blurry
1/160 - ok, good hand holding shutter speed

2. ISO sensitivity
1. ISO1600 produces noise in regions where one would expect gradients
2. ISO 1250 starts to produces visable noise
3. ISO 1000 noise is present, but no longer annoying

This experiment leaves out apperature, as I'm playing with shutter and ISO.

Sample(s):


Lower Queen Anne
f/7.1, 1/125s, ISO100


Near Myrtle Edwards Park, on the Helix Bridge
f/6.3, 1/125 s, ISO1600


Myrtle Edwards Park, waterfront
f/3.5, 1/160s, ISO1250

Seattle Walk-about

The Seattle Tour:

Starting off from, South Lake Union...


This was a cute little dog lounge place near Glazer's camera. I was passin' by before checkin' out some camera gear.


This place just looked 'artsy' - I thought this is the kind of logo'ing an art conscious company like Apple would do.

So go downtown, things'll be great when you're, Downtown ...

Ooooo... reflections - those who gaze upon others are really looking deep within themselves...


Cal Anderson Park, definitely a cool people gazing, read a book and chill kind of place. Thank you Seattle for sprucing up this once slummy park :)



This kid was just having too much fun!



Perspective, perspective? perspective! - it's always interesting spotting those details outside of the focal length dictated by the picture.



Mysterious water cave...?



Light, water and stone - wonders of nature



The setting sun, as it buries itself deep into the horizon, to rest among mountains




Heh, it's a water space/lego dude, playing with his puppy dog, can you see it?!