Heritage Village Largo Florida HDR photographs

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Railroad station at Heritage Village Largo Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mountedOne of the most popular places for local photographers to go and make photographs is Heritage Village in Largo.  As is often the case with these commonly photographed places, I had never been there until this past weekend where I had my first opportunity to make a brief photo survey of the old building interiors and exteriors, with the former being much more interesting.  The railroad station shown in the above and below images was perhaps the most interesting of all since it was fully decorated with old time suitcases, signs, etc.

Railroad station at Heritage Village inside out view with suitcases - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mountedThere is no question that suitcases of the past with how they showed wear and tear are far cooler baggage than modern luggage and their bland plastic housings.  However, I cannot say I would want to lug one of those bulky suitcases around with it banging against my leg.  Of course none had wheels for pulling effortlessly behind oneself.  

Classic Florida log cabin at Heritage Village - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mountedI imagine many people still live in log cabins similar to the one above, but with perhaps a few more modern touches inside.  

Early 20th century style classroom at Heritage Village Largo - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mountedThis old classroom was very cosy and free of electronic distractions.  I could fit comfortably in the desks and appreciated their ambidextrous design.  Being a lefthander, I suffered through many right-handed designed desks in elementary through high school.

Big tools at Heritage Village in Largo - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 3-exposure HDR tripod mountedI thought to myself how strong farmers from a century ago must have been to be able to wield such large and heavy tools.  None of the tools were available to touch.  I would have liked to have given them a try!

Nikon D300s 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg Florida with Lisa

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Lisa with her new Nikon D300s and Nikkor 70-300mm lens during our first photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaMy first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson of the fall was this morning with Lisa and her newly acquired Nikon D300s.  The leaves may not be changing color or anything like that in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, but things were definitely not as hot and a bit less humid, which is what early fall amounts to here!  Like a majority of my photography students, Lisa had only experience with small or point and shoot digital cameras so I started basically from the very beginning introducing her to the DSLR world.  It may seem like a big leap going from a point and shoot to a pro level DSLR like the Nikon D300s, but in another way it is a great simplifying of photography as each shot becomes about five tangible settings, not like on a point and shoot choosing the right scene mode or trusting auto mode to make what you want.

In that way, within minutes I had Lisa using her D300s in full manual mode switching between photographing still and moving subjects, changes lenses and learning how to read the histogram as a way of confirming exposure in the field.  It is easier to do this in fact with a more advanced camera like the D300s because every setting has its own dedicated button, no need to ever venture into menus.  

This was our first of four photography lessons, with the second already booked for next Monday.  I look forward to helping Lisa continue to build her DSLR photography skills!

iO6 Panorama Feature on iPhone 5 first photo example St. Petersburg Florida

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Before I went to bed last Thursday, I set the alarm on my iPhone 4 for 2:55am.  This was not because I have a new paper route or decided to follow in my grandfather's footsteps and be a milkman, but because I want to insure I was able to get one of the first preorders in for the new iPhone 5 that here on the coast would be first available at 3am Friday morning.  So I rumbled out of bed and began refreshing the iPhone 5 page on apple.com.  Another reason to be one of the first was that I had already secured in my buy-back price for my 2-yeard old iPhone 4 on the great site gazelle.com for a whopping $146!  That's right, it basically meant that the new iPhone 5 would only be $54 out of pocket, if I could get one before October 1st.  

Well, my early rising paid off as my iPhone 5 (white, 16GB, AT&T) was delivered on the first available date (Friday the 21st).  It took almost four hours to sync all my backup data to it, so I did not have much opportunity to test the new iOS 6 panorama feature until yesterday (Saturday).  I was walking Kiki around Crescent Lake Park, a common Saturday evening activity and with the wide open views from the lakeside, I had my first chance to test the panorama function.

I saw a video of how it works so I knew you do not take five or six separate shots in a row, but rather turn the panorama feature on and then glide the camera over the area you want to photograph.  There are visual guides to keep your framing on track, and I must admit I was rather wobbly in my first attempt as you can see in the unedited image above.  

Still, there was a large portion of the image that was usable.  I cropped out the left, right and bottom edges and found a decent remaining image.  The exposure was a little off and there was a lot of noise in the sky, but overall I thought the new panorama feature in iOS 6 on first impression seems to be very usable.  I look forward to trying it again with a more steady hand and in different light.  

Have you made any panoramas with iOS 6 yet?  Post your examples in the comments below.

1-on-1 Canon G10 Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Mari

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Mari using her Canon G10 in manual mode creating a patterned floral shot in St. Petersburg FloridaThis morning I met long-time dog park friend Mari for a 1-on-1 Photography Lesson using her Canon G10, an advanced point and shoot style camera.  It was my first time to get hands on with this category of camera, which I had long been curious about, but I found the controls to be too cryptic to compete with a full DSLR in terms of usability.

Mari often is up early walking around the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront with her dog Sport and usually only uses her iPhone camera to photograph all the sunrises she sees.  Now she can bring her G10 along and use the power of manual controls to get the exposure how she wants it to make creative and sharp shots.  I taught her the shutter speed and aperture threshold settings from which she would then need to start to increase ISO, and how purposefully overexposing or underexposing a shot can lead to great results in the right circumstances.  

It was nice to see Mari outside of the dog park and start to help her improve her photography.  I will look forward to seeing her sunrise photos!

Heat Lightning in the Cloud Heavens over Florida

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Space Stars Earth Cloud Lightning Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 20.4 sec bulb mode tripod mounted with cable release

As Kiki and I were returning from our customary after dinner walk, before us in the deep twilight sky was a large cloud flashing from within.  I went out onto my back patio with Nikkor 80-200mm mounted to my Nikon D300 mounted to my Induro CT214 tripod having set the shutter speed to bulb mode.  I put the focus on infinity, the focal length to 80mm, locked the ballhead, connected the cable release and began making long exposures noting the flashes of light.

Heat lightning is a common sight in the Florida night sky, but rarely do you see distinct bolts of lightning creep horizontally across an isolated cloud.  Usually the sky just flashes in general, and unfocused giant flash bulb.  Tonight this cloud formation appeared as a witch's cauldron brewing a silent power.

Clouds illuminated from within before the night sky - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 14.7 sec bulb mode tripod mounted with cable releaseStill, the lightning was very elusive and most of my shots turned out like the one above, revealing only the flash, not the bolt.  

1-on-1 Canon T4i DSLR Photography Lesson on pelicans with Nicole

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This morning I met Nicole for our second 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg.  The topics for our lessons continue to be based on assignments she gets for her photojournalism class.  Today's topic was wildlife, so we went out to The Pier to photograph pelicans and anything else we could find along the way.

It was a very sleeping morning out at The Pier, hardly any creatures were stirring.  The sky was mostly overcast, but the humidity was heavy, putting a general malaise on all, but this meant the pelicans were extra approachable allowing for some very closeup shots of the large birds.  There were a number of males and females in various sitting, standing and preening positions allowing Nicole to get a good range of shots to submit for her class.

We concluded by photographing a few semi-curious squirrels in North Straub Park.  Barring any of her classmates making a quick trip to Africa, I am sure Nicole will end up with the best shots once again!

Dreaming in black & white portrait of a young woman

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Dreaming in black & white portrait of a young woman - Nikon D80 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2 ISO 200 1/200thSome photos you edit immediately, some you get to years later, others you put aside because you know eventually you will want to edit them.  The latter is the case for the above photograph.  It was made two months ago, but it was not in the right mind frame to edit it until apparently today.  Occasionally I would look at it in my Random folder in Aperture 3 and think, do something with this photo now?  No, not yet, but keep it here, I will do something someday.  

I wanted the image to have a dream-like feel to it, so the choice to process it in black & white was natural.  I chose a push process filter in Nik Silver Efex Pro and to that applied a yellow filter to really soften the whites and leave just a few shadows for contrast.  I used the glamor glow filter in Nik Color Efex Pro to also soften the image.  

In composing the shot I did not want the young woman's face to be seen directly, as that would lead the viewer away from vague dreaming and more to wondering who she was.  The profile view shows a little, but leaves a lot a mystery, especially what might she be looking at or what is the expression on her face?