Thursday, February 21, 2008

Thursday Arch Series

Weird stuff with a wide angle lens. All the office buildings bow down in obeisance to the Arch. Shot at 17 mm, the shortest lens I got, on a Canon 5D. The 5D's light sensor is the same size as a frame of 35 mm film so there is no "magnification factor," as with most DSLRs. So, WYSIWYG (what you see i what you get) in the viewfinder. The short focal length creates optical distortion at the sides.

I bet there are going to be a lot of CDPB posts today about the lunar eclipse. I went out in front of my house to shoot it with a 400 mm lens, the longest I got. I know zip about astronomical photography and it was difficult. Not enough light for the autofocus to work. Manual focus was hard because the subject was dim and I wear trifocals. I tried to shoot at 100 and 200 ISO for maximum clarity but, damn!, those celestial bodies move in a 20 or 30 second exposure. I wish I'd tried a higher ISO but after a while I couldn't feel my fingers and I weenied out from the cold. I know, Mitch, this is nothing. If it's 20 F. here it's probably zero or below up there. Minnesotans are made of harder stuff.

TOMORROW: Crown Candy

5 comments:

Mitch said...

All hail the man in snow pants and big mittens.

Thanks for the mention today, you were right, I was up on the roof with my 2000mm lens shooting the moon and it was below zero up here in mpls.

Love the arch today, it deserves a good bow...
I have been experimenting with my wide angle and have discovered that if I keep the center target on the horizon, the bowing effect doesn't happen. You might have to crop the picture, but it works.

Thanks,
- Mitch in Minneapolis

U "R" Us AKA Captain Crowe said...

Lots of interesting technical discussion here! I got a decent moon shot last night. The autofocus in my 300mm lens was sporadically working at full zoom.

I don't play with the wide angle enough though. Will have to see what I can get my buildings to do with it...

Olivier said...

encore une bonne idée pour mettre en valeur cette arche. bravo pour toute cette imagination.
another good idea to emphasize this ark. bravo for all this imagination

Patricio said...

Just found your blog doing a Saint Louis search... GREAT pictures, love them all! Hope you don't mind but I think I am going to add you to my "Blogs I Enjoy" list.
PC

Rob said...

Cool arch pic! Which lens was this taken with?

so many lenses... for now, I am stuck with 17-85mm on my DSLR crop cam.

I tried it on the moon with dismal success. I took out my Canon S5 IS point and shoot cam and teleconverter and faired much better than the DSLR. Go figure. I must add, yes, it was darn cold standing on my deck behind the tripod.