Saturday, June 25, 2011

Week 33 - More Pinhole Photography

I've continued to play with my pinhole lens and I've gained a greater appreciation of when and where I like its effect.  Architectural photographs seem to work nicely. It also seems to work better with a heavy grain and a little vignette.  I could probably achieve the same look with gaussian blur in Photoshop but this is one of those situations where the process is at least as important as the final outcome.



Saturday, June 18, 2011

Week 32 - Trip to Vancouver

I was in Vancouver this week for a quick visit with family and was astounded by the number and variety of birds showing up to my Mom's feeders.  Too many predators in my neck of the woods I suppose.  That and I had to take my feeders down when a bear climbed up on the balcony one night and ate one of them.  In any event, it was a busy trip and I didn't have much time for photography but I did manage a few nice pictures.

Downy Woodpecker

Stellar's Jay

Purple Finch

Stellar's Jay

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Week 31 - Pinhole DSLR

After reading articles about professional photographers using pinhole cameras I decided to give it a try.  Simple enough to get started, I got onto EBay and ordered a few body caps for my Canon 20D.  Once they arrived, I drilled  a 1/4 inch hole through the centre, put foil tape over the hole and poked a hole in it with a pin.  I poked too big a hole in my first attempt and the pictures were unacceptably blurry.  Second attempt is a little better but I might try a third time with a smaller pin.

Here it is, my home-made, body cap pinhole camera.  Look closely at the center and you'll see the pin hole.


And here is a picture taken with this "lens".  It's a self portrait, or at least the grey blur on the right is me.


I'm still experimenting as to when the pinhole "lens" will be the right tool to use but it is fun.  The big downside is that every single speck of dust on my sensor show up and needs to be taken out in post-processing.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Week 30 - Best of Project 365 - May

There are a lot of pictures of flowers this month in my Project 365 so it shouldn't really be a surprise that my favourite this month is a picture of a flower.