[CauseISaidSo]

Well, I was thinking more about the one he lost to the kite. You’re right, I don’t think any tracker is going to help if your payload deposits itself in your neighbor’s pond!

This website, http://www.byonics.com, is where the near space guy got his tracking device. They have kits for $33 or $98 with GPS. I’m not sure what equipment you need to receive the signal, though, so that would also be another added cost.

[CauseISaidSo]

I haven’t actually played with it, but I don’t think you have to worry about bricking your camera, NoBigDeal. The way I understand it, it doesn’t REPLACE your firmware, it just runs additional software on top of it from an SD memory card. Remove the card and your camera’s back to original specs.

orionid, while I haven’t used CHDK, I am a Canon user, both P&S & DSLR. My first digital was the Canon Powershot G2 and several pictures from it are in my top entries.

The only thing I’d say about it is to check with the CHDK website for specific models and even firmware before buying one, if your specific goal is to run CHDK on it. They suggest downloading the software to an SD card and taking that into the store to check the camera’s firmware version before buying to make sure you’re getting a compatible level of firmware.

[CauseISaidSo]

Ha! How’s a boy supposed to learn his science if there aren’t a few fires or explosions involved?

The guy who writes the column is named L. Paul Verhage. I found links to a PDF book he wrote and several older N&V columns on the Parallax website here: http://www.parallax.com/tabid/567/Default.aspx

He’s also got several videos of space launches on YouTube. Here’s one of his earlier ones that goes to 85K: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPhXCxYEKA0

The only thing about this is that I think you need LOTS of wide open space (he does a lot of his launches in Kansas and Idaho, I think). There are also a few FAA rules that I don’t remember exactly (weight limits, distances from commercial air traffic, stuff like that). But it does sound like fun stuff to play with, doesn’t it?

If nothing else, you could get some pointers from his articles about how he tracks his payloads so you don’t end up losing another camera. 😉

[CauseISaidSo]

Cost BTW, will of course vary, but a cheapskate like myself can get a passable 36″ print for under $50…. I’m still looking at printers, tho and will pay more if they have a better print process than Kinko’s.

I don’t know about Kinko’s equipment, so I can’t say if they have a better print process, but I’ve used these people once and was really happy with the results: http://www.elcocolor.com/poster_special.htm

They’ve got an internet special where they won’t do any kind of post-processing (which I wouldn’t want them to do anyway), just print exactly what you send and you have to order a minimum of two posters, but their prices are pretty hard to beat I’ve found. For example:

20×30 = $9.95 luster/glossy, $12.95 Fuji metallic
30×60 = $30 luster/glossy, $38.95 Fuji metallic

If you try them, I strongly suggest going with the Fuji metallic for that image. I printed a couple of photos on it and I really like it.

Oh, and finally, really cool photo!

[CauseISaidSo]

You can just barely tell in the small view here, but if you enlarge the pic you’ll see that stars are visible above the clouds. That’s really cool. Clear skies, storm clouds, and lightning.

[CauseISaidSo]

An urban landscape is still a landscape.

Awesome! That’s how I interpreted it, but it’s always good to get the official word.

[CauseISaidSo]

orionid, I think I remember you mentioning Nuts & Volts magazine at some point. If I remember correctly and you read/know of it, do you read the near-space column? It’s a guy that uses weather balloons to loft experiment/measuring/photographic packages up to about 110K feet. He gets some pretty cool images where you can see the curvature of the earth.

[CauseISaidSo]

yeah, but watching a camera catch a high altitude wind while snapping photos from 1300 feet on a 24 inch parachute and drift into the sunset does the opposite of wonders for my wallet and that warm-fuzzy feeling of success.

😆 Sorry, I’m not laughing at your misfortune, but I can vividly picture that scene and imagine the sinking feeling you must’ve had watching it fade into a dot on the horizon.

Well, I don’t know who originally said it, but I think “with great risk comes great rewards” might have to apply here. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that.

[CauseISaidSo]

I can see it now…. “So I got bored one day and tied my camera to a kite string…..” “So I got bored one day and stuffed my camera into a carboard tube filled with half a pound of potassium nitrate….” “So I got bored one day and bolted my camera to a shotgun…” “So I got bored one day and put the wrong film in the wrong camera…” “So I got bored one day and cut up a soda can…” etc, etc.

See, I’d like to hear a bit of the story behind some of those kind of shots. Surely your first one didn’t turn out and you had to make revisions. What worked/didn’t? How did your end result differ from your original vision?

If nothing else, my first question on some shots is “what were you on and where can I get some?” that allowed you to come up with that idea! 😆

[CauseISaidSo]

It’s a neat idea but I don’t know that I would always have much to say.

Oh, I agree that not every week would be worthy of an essay, especially if it’s one from the archives. The write-up for most of my archive shots would consist of “so I was at this beautiful place and took a picture…”

But I guess even then, in some cases you could say why you chose a particular angle or what you were trying to highlight. But again, if there was no conscious thought to it, that’s OK too.

[CauseISaidSo]

Thanks for the feedback and congrats, U-Man.

So, unless the next few turn out pompous or something
That was my biggest fear about that post – both that I might come off sounding that way or that it might open the door for that. Definitely not my intention to make it an avenue for bragging.

Granite counter top
Interesting. Looking back at the couple I took there, I think I might’ve dismissed it too soon. I had too severe of an angle and not enough of a contrasting foreground. I really like that first shot – it’s very creamy, both literally and figuratively.

strobist
Oh man, that site’s been on my to-read list for a couple of years now. Proper use of flash is probably one of my weakest areas and I really need to invest some time there.

off-camera cable
Yep, been thinking about that for a while. I think I’d like to get some kind of remote radio-frequency trigger.

flash zoom thing backwards
When I was testing this, I assumed it would be recorded in EXIF and so didn’t pay attention to it as much as I otherwise would’ve. If it is in EXIF, I don’t have an app that will display it. So, given that you’re suggesting it might be reversed, I’d tend to side with you. 😉

square crop
You know, I was just so pleased with the pic that I didn’t consider cropping. I just went and tried it. I don’t really care for the true square, because the circle itself is at an angle and so is really more of an ellipse. However, if I do what I think you intended and crop it so that there are equal borders/margins, then I think you’re right – it emphasizes more of the circle and does look better.

[CauseISaidSo]

My plan is to keep on learning till the day I fall over dead.

So loki‘s statement there got me to thinking. That’s why I’m here, and I suspect it’s the reason for a lot of y’all, too – to try to learn from others, “steal” some ideas, and generally improve our own photography, right?

With that in mind, how does everyone feel about asking the winner of the week’s contest to do a short writeup about his/her winning entry? What thought process led to that pic, what equipment did you use, any special techniques, what did you learn from it – those kinda topics. If the #1 entry that week doesn’t do the forums, maybe skip to the highest forum poster’s entry?

Since I wouldn’t ask anyone to do something I wasn’t willing to do, I’ll start it off. I hope no one looks at this as AW’ing (that’s really not my style at all). I’d sincerely like to see this from others and I’m just trying to get the ball rolling. Besides, I don’t anticipate having to do this very often at all. 😉

So, for “peace bullets” the idea just popped into my head, I took a couple of shots, and 15 minutes later I had my entry. NOT! I mentioned earlier that this was my first non-archival entry, but my original idea was to photograph my pistols (something like pic #2 from my alts) with a “Goldilocks”-themed caption (“but this one’s juuust right”).

First, I tried using a solid-color bedsheet as a pseudo-lightbox backdrop, but soon found out that the wrinkles showed up really well and since I wasn’t in an ironing mood, I moved on to other backdrops. Granite countertop was absolutely horrible, way too busy and the guns got lost in the background clutter. Next, I tried the wood table that’s the background of the #2 shot.

While I still didn’t really care for that pic (I thought it needed much better lighting), I DID really like the way the brass of the bullets reflected on the polished wood. So I tried various other “poses” to try to emphasize that and eventually just said, “what kind of design could I make with just bullets” and bingo – a peace sign. I know, how 60’s and ironic, right? I was worried that it might be too cliched, but I just really liked the gold of the brass against the deep red of the wood.

The equipment I used was a Canon EOS 30D with a 24-70mm lens zoomed to about 54mm and a 430EX flash on manual, ISO-100, f/11 to make sure it was all in focus, I/250 sec. Flash was mounted on the camera, camera on a tripod facing about 1.5 feet from the table. After focusing, I turned off the lights in the room so that the scene would only be lit by the flash.

I didn’t care for the results of the E-TTL automatic flash settings, so I put it in manual mode. I can’t seem to find the exact flash settings in EXIF, but I think I had the flash set to 1/2 power at 35mm zoom. I learned how playing with different zoom levels of the flash affected the picture – higher values (e.g. 100mm) resulted in more evenly distributed lighting across the whole picture, while smaller values (e.g. 35mm) focused the flash tighter and allowed the scene to “fade to black”, which is the effect I liked.

Edited note: U-Man believes (and I think it’s highly probable that he’s right) that I have the effects of the flash zoom settings reversed in the paragraphs above & below.

But the smaller zoom values also resulted in less light and a dimmer picture. So I kept the smaller zoom and bumped the flash power up a notch, which resulted in a slightly overexposed pic and then darkened the darks in post-processing, which resulted in the fade-to-black background and the brass seemingly “glowing.”

In all, I took about 50-60 shots at different angles and exposures over two nights before arriving at the one I entered (thank goodness for digital).

Things I learned:

1) A shallow angle leads to deeper reflections but then you couldn’t really tell it was a peace sign, so I had to find a good compromise.

2) Putting the flash on manual and tweaking the zoom level gives greater control over lighting (but does take a good bit of trial and error).

3) You may not end up liking the results of your first idea, but actually executing it might spark other possibly better ideas.

[CauseISaidSo]

I agree with Kestrana – Caradoc, you take some awesome lightning shots.

I’m already a fan of desert landscapes, but throw in some storm clouds and lightning and that just takes it to the next level.

[CauseISaidSo]

Ha! Good to know there’s a formal name for it. Around here, it’s colloquially known as frustration! 🙂

[CauseISaidSo]

Thanks everyone. (And yes rav, it do feel good!)

I’m coming to realize that farktography is a bit like golf, at least for me. See, the thing with my golf game is that if I could be consistently bad or even mediocre, then I could say, “ya know, golf’s just not my thing,” sell my clubs and move on to something else.

But every once in a rare while, everything gels and the ball goes exactly where I was willing it to and it’s chasing that feeling that keeps me coming back for more punishment. 😆

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