The Noblesvillain

Today I interrupted my lawn mowing to capture some macro images of a lilly in our back yard.  It had been raining earlier so a few droplets of water sat on the petals.

This month I have been digging into macro photography techniques and snapping some images.  Unfortunately, most of the advice centers around using a tripod, something that I'm resistant to, as it doesn't match my more casual shooting style.  Since I was at home today and saw this image, I decided to get out the tripod and see how much difference a still camera makes in taking an image.

In the end, I found the tripod helps quite a bit.  Like a lot of things in photography, under otherwise perfect conditions, you can get by with

• fewer megapixels
• a cheap lens
• camera shake
• focus problems

etcetera, but in less-than-perfect conditions, any of the above start to combine and trash your images.  Today I was able to take a few good images hand held (such as the image above), but took even more successful images with the tripod.

I'm shooting with the original Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) and these images were captured with a very cheap Sigma 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 DG zoom/macro lens.

The first image (above) was taken with ISO 400, f/9.0, 1/160s, 200mm focal length, manual macro focusing. I used the smaller aperture to get a deeper depth of field which then forced a higher ISO setting (especially since I was hand holding).  The nearest and furthest petals are losing sharpness which pleases me that I got the depth of field pretty close.  I lack experience judging this type of photo, so I'm not sure whether the loss of sharpness is a foul or if it helps direct the eye towards the center.  I don't know the classic answer, but I like the effect and it captured what I was trying to achieve.

The next image (just to the right) is one of the last ones I captured.  At this point I'm using the tripod which allowed me to use a longer shutter speed (and thus a less noisy ISO setting).  ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/80s, 200mm (320mm equivalent) macro focusing.  The stamens are in sharp focus, but the pistol (right 20% of picture) is out of focus.  The contrast of the petals and the green background pleases me.  One challenge for this image was capturing it while the flower moved in a light breeze.  I think 1/80s was enough to stop that motion, but if it had been combined with any camera/lens movement, I would have lost the sharp focus.

The final image I'll note comes from the middle of the shoot. (Ha! I'm avoiding mowing the lawn by taking pictures and I call it a 'shoot'!)  In this image, the entire flower is in focus, but nearby elements (the buds behind) are in soft focus.  The Bokeh effect in the background adds a pleasing sense of depth and an impressionist feel.  I used ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/100s, 133mm to shoot the shot (not macro).  Due to a longer distance from the subject, a larger aperture still keeps the flower in focus.

By actually getting out and shooting, I've learned several things.  Some of these reinforce information from the text I've been reading, other items relate to my limited budget and consumer-grade equipment.  For all of the images I took today, I had to manually set exposure.  I'm not sure why my camera body isn't setting exposure correctly, but it is producing  dreadfully underexposed images (almost black).  By setting both focus and exposure manually, I got better reinforcement about metering and didn't use the internal meter as a crutch.  Here are some other lessons:

• Don't hesitate to take a shot.  Even if the shot fails, you'll have learned something; on the other hand, it may be your best shot of the day.
• Give yourself the best chance to get a good image.  That means getting the best equipment and using all available techniques.  For me, I'm lucky to have a macro-focusing lens at all, so I need to do a better job at keeping my tripod handy (but if the shot won't wait for the setup time, take the shot!)
• Cheap lenses work best a f/8.0 (most/all lenses work best there, the better lenses continue to work well further from f/8.0).  Do your best to balance your ISO, shutter speed, and aperture to balance the noise, shake/blur, and distortion.  A mistake in one area (like shake) can ruin an image.
• Take a shot that you know will work, and take another that's on the edge of your working envelope.  Take one shot with ISO 400 (or even higher), even though you know it will add some noise and you'll loose some saturation and sharpness.  If you only take the shot at ISO 100, you may get home to find that what looked sharp on the LCD is actually very blurry and you lost the shot entirely.  Better to have two shots (at least) that both work (and one that's stunning) than to have one with great color that you can't use because it isn't sharp.

If you're a pro, you'll already know whether the shot is going to work or not, so you don't have to guess, and you've less to learn from making a bad exposure.  You can identify a pro because they just take a few shots, but they know the are all good images (perhaps not usable, but good and worth taking).  An element of hoping for good exposures remains part of my workflow.

 

Day Lilly and images this page by Tim Sherrill and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Memorial Day weekend the three boys in the Sherrill household went camping in the back yard.  The boys are 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 and can be trusted around fire (wow—I’m not sure I’m there yet!).

The boy’s got to extend their bedtime as the sun was still up.  Adam got to sleep on a crib mattress (we should all be so lucky to have a mattress when camping!) and Mark & I each had an inflatable camping pad and fleece sleeping bag.  We built a camp fire in our fire pit and roasted marshmallows.  The swings where right there, so we had everything we needed!  We had nice weather, with the evening getting cool enough to make our blankets and sleeping bags just right.  Each of the boys woke up one time in the night (one for fireworks, the other disoriented), but went right back to sleep.

Jenny got to pretend that we were far away, and I appreciated having replacement batteries for my reading light within walking distance.

For our first time experimenting with backyard camping, it went very well!   My brother reminded me that we did the same thing growing up (I seem to remember a much smaller tent) and we slept under the walnut tree (which was a danger in itself!) in the thick, green, smells like attic sleeping bags.

 

Here’s a YouTube video putting up the tent, getting ready for bed, and drinking hot chocolate the next morning.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark asked to say the Lord’s Prayer after our family prayer.  Surprised, I agreed and Adam, Mark, and I said the prayer.  Not having heard Mark do this before, I was stunned!  He had heard the Men’s Saturday Bible study group pray the Lord’s Prayer, but we hadn’t been working on it.  Perhaps this is something that happens at chapel for preschool.

Tomorrow I’ll post what Mark (and preschool, too, I suppose) has taught Adam.

P.S. This is the first time I’ve used YouTube for embedding video.  Let me know what you think.

The Thief recently posted his answers for the Name Game.  This list required the amount of brain power that I have available (low) and looked like I could finish it in one sitting.  I love my Star Wars name (because you never leave your 8th grade humor behind) and Soap Opera Name.

1.YOUR REAL NAME:
Timothy Paul Sherrill

2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(father and mothers' middle names)
Timothy Julie (Like that doesn’t stick out…)

3.NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad
Arnfinn Marvin (I’d get kicked out of pit lane)

4.STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Sheti (Awesome!  I’m either related to the Bantha/Tauntaun or something a one left behind.)

5.DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Monkey

6.SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
Paul Pipestone (This is good…I can use this one.)

7.SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Orange Chai

8.FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Tish (the sh sound stays handy)

9.STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie
French Vanilla Loaded Chocolate Chip

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet's name, street you grew up on)
Blackie Maple

11.YOUR GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of last name plus izzle)
Sheizzle

13.YOUR IRAQI NAME:(2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name):
Impaimill (It’s the newest pain reliever)

14.YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Newt

15. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
Polo Butterfinger

Yesterday I went to the Noblesville courthouse for the first time.  While the interior of the building amazed me (beautiful!), the proceedings did not.  The sentencing of a friend from church brought enough of his friends and family to fill the courtroom, but the evidence of support from the community seemed not to affect the judge at all.

Over the course of this trial (well more than a year), being a witness to how our justice system works has been a lesson showing how sheltered my life is.  While my view of the entire situation is sketchy, the prosecution's callus drive towards convictions and 'winning' at the expense of logic and reason toppled my engineering-centered world.  Rather than a well-balanced and reasoned impression of events, the prosecution shows its single-minded hunger for delivering statistics that impress an uncaring populace. 

The fact that their case lacked facts forced them into second gear, intimidation.  My personality lends itself towards building consensus and using positive-focused language.  My second gear is devoted to making decisions based on well-founded fact and risk minimization.  Perhaps our justice system must work the way that it does, but this was my first view of how direct and unwashed the system becomes once it gets its clutches into someone.

Unfortunately, right or wrong, my friend will be spending a few months (up to a year, really) in what could be called the department of incorrections.  When you read this, and later, should it occur to you again, please lift a prayer for my friend and his family.

This space hasn't seen an update for a while, so I thought I'd post an assortment of things that have been happening.

 

• This year's Great Circle Tour (for the 2007 version, see Half-Way Point, Arrived in South Dakota, and Return to Indiana), we went through Iowa, saw the Freiwalds in Windom, MN, stayed four days in Watertown, SD (including a side trip to visit the Westerburs in Brookings and the Stormos on their farm), continued to The Cities to see high-school friends in the area, enjoyed family at my Aunt's wedding (see Estee's Wedding), stayed with Jenny's friends in Sheboygan, WI (and met the house rabbit), and returned.  The Van added 2060 miles and it is now officially ready for new tires (it has to earn them, you know...).
• For my birthday, I got (myself) a Logitech Duet wireless music player.  It plays music in our kitchen and has a handy remote that lets you browse different things.  It clued me into Slacker Radio.  Other 'presents' were driving across the states of MN and WI and seeing my Colts beaten up by Green Bay (while I was in Wisconsin, no less).  It made lunch at A&W fun (a 60-year-old passer by to our table said to my Jeff Saturday jersey, "Go Pack."). 
• I've become a fan of Slacker Radio, especially their Christian Rock station.
• For organizing photos, I've upgraded to Picasa 3 (in beta) and it crashes more than it should, but it's a great program.
• I'm working on building a new computer (from on-hand components--they weren't doing me any good just sitting there) for the kitchen.

   

The landscaping around our house is as old as the foundation (1971 or so) and could use some updating.  We have already done a good job in the front yard replacing the old timbers with rolled concrete blocks.  On Sunday while Jenny was working, the boys and I worked on improving the back yard.

The boys helped quite a bit.  Mark gathered up chipped rocks and put them in the wheelbarrow.  Adam scared away any curious wildlife that may have interrupted our project.  I listened to the first weekend NFL broadcasts on the radio.  The work isn't finished, but is is well begun.

View the Web Album:

If you'd like to play a board game with my boys, you'll need to know the rules:

1. Playing pieces belong on the board, or the spinner, or the table, anywhere but your mouth.
2. Spin the wheel and then find that number on the board, or advance your piece, or count to the number on the spinner.
3. Play nicely with your brother.  This is more important than alternating turns.
4. Playing pieces should be right-side up.  You may play more than one piece on the game board.  Your pieces may speak with each other.
5. Construction implements are only allowed on the game board after you have successfully won the game, or if you have sufficiently explored the game board with your regular pieces.
6. Using your tongue to express the deep level of concentration is allowed.

Follow these rules and you will likely avoid being scolded by either child for "not playing right."

Follow the link for more pictures of the boy's visit to their great-grandmother and the "Chutes & Ladders" game play.