About 2 hours and more than 500 shots later I finally did it: I shot lighting! One needs patience, lots of nerves and luck. I didn’t readup on how to do it before, but in the end I pretty much figured it out. The full battery ran out, that much I was using the camera.
Exposure time is not so important, especially when you are exposed to the light polution of the city. I kept it low, from 6 to 10 seconds. I tried with 30 seconds (maximum) but it was just to bright.
What I found, is that getting the Aperture correct is the way to get it right. Increase it when the storm is further way, decrease when it’s closing in. In the end, when the storm reached our block of flats, I did set it around f/5.6 and f/6.3. This was good. I was continously shooting every 6 seconds keeping the trigger down (didn’t have my cable handy).
Except for the camera technique, there were a few more challenges, e.g. the actual danger when the storm got closer: keeping windows open is no good. Also the incoming rain was making everything wet. Great fun however, even though only 20 shots did contain actual lighting.
My gear at the time of shooting: Canon 450D equipped with the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. I thought putting my 30D to work too, but I lacked a second tripod.
Today I walked along the Wisła (Vistula river) in Kraków. The past week it didn’t stop raining and it starts to show.
It is the first time that I personally see such event. The river seems to be taking over the city. The Wavel castle is still safe standing up the hill. The Dragon on the other hand is suffering from lack of attention as all eyes and cameras are now on the Vistula river.
Meanwhile, the construction of the new pedestrian bridge is on hold. At this moment they are trying to build and maintain a wall so the water is not streaming directly on the site. Seems like the bridge gets baptized prematurely.
More pictures on Flickr.
To apply a keyword to all your selected images using Apple Aperture 3, make sure to turn off the Primary Only mode using either the Edit-Menu, or the button in the right bottom corner that says [1]. It should be unselected like in the screenshot here below.
You can then use whatever method to add keywords, e.g. using the Control Bar (press D) and its Keywords Controls (press shift D).
This has been bugging me for a week. Maybe I pushed the Primary Only button by mistake. Yes, you can do it using a batch change. But luckily, you don’t have to do the simplest thing the hardest way. Just, careful where you push!
The two, new features in iPhoto ’09 I was interested in turned out to be uninteresting, for now..
- Places: Only works if the camera has GPS tracking. My Canon 450D and 30D don’t have that. You can put a photo on the map, but you can’t move the pin to the exact location.
- Flickr Uploader: Really, really lame! FlickrExport for iPhoto is much more superior!
I’m wondering with the Faces feature: if I’m splitting up my iPhoto library into years, can I share the Faces information between libraries? Faces is also not really worth it BTW. Nice toy though.
I’m unimpressed with iPhoto ’09 .. They should have put more work in it. Wasted 79 EUR. I should have waited for the ’10 version or so.
And you still can’t make a smart album with a filter saying ‘Event IS <name here>’! Grrr.. ‘Contains’ is not good enough!
We’re reaching the end of January 2009, and I’ve been busy making at least 1 picture a day. Sometimes very silly pictures like the dolphin statue. There are however a few good ones.
During the past weeks, the main problem I faced was the lack of (natural) light. I tried to take pictures at night, with only the moon and streetlights helping me. I learned quite a bit.
Here is an example of the river Main in Aschaffenburg (Germany). It got a thick layer of ice. The building, Pompejanum, is a replica build around 1850 of a house in Pompeii.
More pictures to come! Eventually I will make some kind of wall poster for every month with pictures making a mosaic.
All pictures can be viewed on Flickr.
I started 2009 by vowing I would take at least 1 picture each day and post them online. Yesterday my camera’s battery went dead after shooting around the house, so I’m using whatever I have (no, I’m not drawing! .. yet). Today it was my iPhone, but maybe tomorrow it would be the camera from my MacBook.
The pictures are uploaded to Flickr, with comments. I don’t think I’ll have to blog about each single one..
It’s known since the day people started to use batteries: remember to either charge it, or take backup with you. I was shooting some important statue, and after the second shot it said ‘Change battery pack’. Oh, well, it’s lunch time anyway, and I headed back to the hotel just to charge my battery.
Odd, but walking around without making pictures isn’t fun anymore.
This is a painting I did last evening from one of my pictures. I thought making a big, printed poster of it, but that was too easy. So I went for gear and an hour later I had a moment of great satisfaction..
This was the first time I went out with my tripod. Usually I just shoot wildly and freely and .. blurry. However, I only shot at the end. I like the walk itself more. What I learned was that hiking with tripod isn’t all to bad and future pictures might be just even better!
Actually, I got a bit lost in the woods. Lucky I found some people and we had some fun with their 4 dogs. A good map is needed!
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