Thursday, March 22, 2012

What My Navel Saw in Tokyo

Occasionally, I use a technique where I put a very wide angle lens on my camera, hang the camera from my neck at navel level, sort of casually have my right hand on the camera with a finger hanging over the shutter button, and walk around snapping photos of things my navel sees.  I don't do it often because it is a less involved sort of way to take photos, but it does give an angle of view like a 6-year old sees and I was one of those not too long ago so I enjoy the chance to relive the past. :lol:   It is just another technique to use sometimes like shallow dof, perspective distortion, panning, etc.  I took some photos like this a few days ago in Tokyo.  I will put a few in this post, but I have more here:

http://www.bakubo.com/galleries/Japan/Tokyo%20People%20from%20my%20Navel/index.html

OMG!  When I look in your ear I can see clear through to the other side, dude!

 She's a Guitar Girl
Stretched out on the Yamanote-sen train in Tokyo.  Where do you think you are, kid?  This ain't New York or London. :-)
Generally, an 18-28mm equivalent fov seems to work well.  I don't use AF.  I usually set the focus to something like 4 feet and the aperture to about f6.3, f7.1, or f8.  I use A mode and let the camera choose the shutter speed.  Can't use auto ISO because you would often end up with a low ISO and low shutter speed so I set the ISO depending on light.  Usually ISO 400-1600 to get shutter speeds that are fast enough.  With really bright light though you can often use ISO 200.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Fishing for fish

Hoping to catch one:
Caught one:
 Don thinks he's hooked a lunker in East Texas, 1978. Turns out he lost it though. :lol: We were in a boat on a small lake and I had put my fishing rod down for a moment and picked up my camera to take a photo of some lily pads in the water when suddenly this happened. Really lucky to catch that expression on his face.
 Probably only about 20-30 minutes later I caught the largest largemouth bass I have ever caught.  It was about 6 pounds, which is pretty good.  I still can't believe that I don't have a photo of it.  On the way home I stopped by my cousin's house to show it to her and ask her to take a photo of me holding it with my fishing rod.  She took a couple of photos and then the next day went to San Antonio with a friend.  About a week later I asked her about the photos and she said she had changed her film in San Antonio and left it sitting on a bench.  Photos lost forever.  Maybe someone found the roll of film, got them developed, and there is a photo of a much younger me smiling and holding my bass in a box in someone's closet right now. lol

Alligator with fish, Everglades National Park, 1999