Monday, February 20, 2006

weekend at the cabin

I got to spend last weekend with my parents (heh, yeah, I "got" to) (I love you mom & dad!) and go up to Redding. Lots of fun, free food, yadda yadda. We spent Saturday night up at our cabin near Trinity Center where there was snow on the ground and crystal clear skies up above - picture perfect in my opinion. We arrived pretty late and found the cabin to be a brisk 36 degrees inside and well below freezing outside. I was not to be deterred; my dad and I hopped in the car, hit the "4 wheel drive" (it's a Honda Pilot - trust me, the quotes are necessary) and went down to one of the local landmarks, the old barn. I took a few long-exposure images of the barn and the stars. The first one was shot at 400 ISO and a 180 second exposure; the second one was shot at 1600 ISO with a 225 second shutter. Neither one was photoshopped beyond what you could do in a darkroom (curves, levels, desat, etc...). I learned a lot from shooting these and can't wait to get back and try again with my newfound knowledge! Thanks dad for being a trooper in the twenty-something degree weather! (The neighbors reported the next morning that it got down to a low of 14 degrees that night)

I took a bunch of picutures of the barn and other stuff in the daylight, but I don't feel like going through them tonight... While I was out shooting on Sunday, however, I noticed a speck inside my lens. A mere piece of dust might not seem like much, but in the world of digital photography, it can mean a superb image with just a picture.

Now I've done a lot of stupid things in my lifetime, plus I like taking stuff apart, but I never thought I'd combine the two. Long story short, I took apart my 18-70mm zoom lens for a brief minute or two to get at the piece of dust, then put it back together before too much dust had a chance to settle on the glass. Everything turned out alright, and the lens works just fine. Here's a pic for your enjoyment:



Alright, I debated whether or not to post this here, but here goes. Eric over at Subnixus is giving away a trip to Las Vegas (or a handsome cash prize) to one lucky winner in about a week; the only catch is you have to link to his site to enter. I figure the odds are pretty good so I may as well enter, but after reading around his site the last few days I found some of the stuff pretty interesting. Poke around a bit if you feel so inclined.