Fireworks photography
As usual, the family attended the fireworks in West Bend, WI last night, but for the first time I set up to take pictures. The threat of rain didn’t manifest itself, so I would get to snap some pics this evening.
After setting up, I confirmed some notes I read earlier in the week from Scott Bourne’s PhotoFocus blog, and sat and waited. Shutter set to 4 seconds, ISO set to 200, aperture set somewhere around 5 or 6. C’mon, dark!
The first few bursts went off and I had to adjust my focus point upward to exclude some of the landscape and buildings. I did a little experimentation during the show (shortened the shutter speed), but not much else changed.
Nearly 200 shots later, the show came to a close. How did they turn out? The ones worth keeping I posted to Flickr and to a Picasa web album.
Samples:
Things I learned:
- Short shutter speeds (under 3 seconds) don’t look very good. Unless you time it absolutely perfect, you don’t capture enough of the fireworks trails to make a good picture.
- Higher is better. Find a box, a ladder, high ground…something. Eliminate the landscape as much as possible.
- Keep snapping. True, you’ll get lots of crap shots, but you’re sure to capture some gems, too. As the display wears on, you’ll get a better feel for how high and how long the launch process takes and be able to time your shots.
- Wind matters. The trails will follow the wind. The windier it is the longer the trails flow while the shutter is open. You can get away with slightly shorter shutter speeds if it’s windy.
- The light from the explosion does illuminate the area around the burst and (unfortunately) lights the smoke puffs from other explosions. When the choreography (?) allows for pauses between bursts, take advantage.
- Like in my lightning experiment, I found that the use of a remote shutter works well. It’s great to watch the big picture while you’re still firing away with the remote.
It was great fun and worth the effort of bringing the gear and setting up. Trying something different helps get my photographic juices flowing. What should I try next?
Lightning photography
Of the many podcasts to which I subscribe a few are photography-related. They cover all sorts of random topics, and once in a while one catches my ear. One specific episode dealt with trying to capture lightning bolts. How can this be done? In the words of Doc Brown, you never know when or where lightning will strike.
While I don’t have a great camera, I have a DSLR where I can control most of the settings to some degree. The podcast recommended setting up your camera during a storm, putting it on a tripod, and letting the shutter stay open for a long time. Typically, a shutter on a camera stays open for only a fraction of a second. Conversely, you can crank up the shutter time to leave it open for a full second…or 5 seconds, or 30 seconds or more.
During one of the most recent storms, the situation seemed ideal. No rain but a fair amount of lightning. I decided to start with a 30-second shutter speed and got everything set up. After framing the camera to shoot through the lattice in the patio window, there was no need for me to look through the viewfinder – a perfect opportunity for the remote shutter button.
Click (shutter opens)…wait 30 seconds (no lightning)…shutter closes. Click open…wait (nothing)…close. I have a new appreciation for how long 30 seconds is. Of course most of lightning had passed, so I have a lot of pictures that look like the one to the left. Very dark except for one neighborly outdoor light.
However, early on in the shoot I was lucky enough to capture the shot to the right. I think it was actually multiple lightning strikes during the 30-second exposure, but I think it looks pretty cool.
With this kind of luck, I should end up with dozens of lightning pictures, right?
Wrong. I have 130+ pictures of darkness and one picture with lightning. I have one other photo where the lightning strike was out of the frame, but that’s it.
Ideal conditions: stormy, no rain, background with no moving objects and no other light. Set up early in a very dark room (even the bright scenes in the movie we were watching threw enough light to get in the picture), pick a shutter speed that works for you (10-30 seconds), and use a remote shutter release and a tripod. Ideally, shoot through an open window to reduce glare.
I will do this again. Once the gear is set up, the photography part is as simple as can be. Sit on the couch and just keep firing.
In case you’re interested, the two photography podcasts that are in my iPod are Christ Marquardt’s Tips From the Top Floor and Scott Bourne’s PhotoFocus.
Tornado sighting
Even though the picture didn’t quite turn out the way I would have hoped, I saw my first tornado yesterday.
I went to Mendard’s and was walking from my car to the front door. As I approached the door, I see at least a dozen people standing and looking out toward the parking lot. Odd, and a little disturbing, since that’s where I was headed. Many of them had their phones out pointed head height away from the building.
OK, I’ll bite. I turn around and quickly see what everyone was staring at. I whipped out my phone and got the following photo:
Cool. This was clearly in the latter stage of the cyclone life-cycle since it lasted only a few minutes before it disappeared back up into the clouds.
NYC 2010
In celebration of our 20th wedding anniversary, Monica and I decided to head to New York City for Memorial Day weekend. Let’s do some sight-seeing! Let’s see a show!
OK, let’s go. We stayed at the Hampton on 8th Ave. between 51st and 52nd streets and hopped a sight-seeing bus a few blocks away.
Yes, there are millions of people. Yes, there are lots of crazy cabbies. One of the things I didn’t properly appreciate the first time I visited was the classic architecture of many of the buildings. Here are a few shots we saw on our tour.
We went past all the major attractions: Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, Macy’s, Wall Street, Battery Park, United Nations building, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, and Central Park.
We elected to get off the bus at Battery Park (south tip of Manhattan) and try to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. Sure enough, it’s still there. So is Ellis Island (immediately below). The bottom photo shows both Liberty Island (left) and Ellis Island (right).
After walking past the Staten Island ferry dock and the South Street pier, we hopped back on the bus to finish the tour. Past the UN, Trump tower, and back up to Central Park.
From there, we wandered through the street vendors and back to our hotel.
Other highlights of the trip included visiting the High Line (pictures here), attending the Broadway musical Wicked (outstanding!), heading over to the Intrepid aircraft carrier, and popping into Grand Central Station for a quick peek.
Lots to see, lots to do. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we were able to walk to most sights. We did take the subway (just to say we did), taxis (good for when your feet need a break), and the tour bus as various modes of transportation. There are also bike rentals, carriage rides, and bike taxis if you crave something different.
Two thumbs way up for the trip in its entirety. Would highly recommend everyone visit at least once in your life. Certainly a sight to see.
goodasnew
After cracking the screen on my iPod Touch a while back, I underwent the task of replacing it myself.
Fix in progress:
Now that I’ve taken it apart and had a chance to look at it under the covers, I’m much more knowledgeable about how it fits together. The glass LCD touch screen is held on the device by a strong adhesive on the top and bottom to the now broken frame – amazing but true. The black plastic frame snaps into the back of the device and holds quite well. The frame is damn near impossible to get out without breaking it. As you can see, I failed in my attempt. Back to Amazon to order a frame.
New frame in hand, I thought I had everything I needed. The picture on the left shows the replacement LCD touch screen, the new frame (with button), and the still-working base of the device. The picture on the right has everything lined up ready to snap in place. * SNAP * Touch screen works great, things slide as they should…but the button does nothing. Um, that’s kind of important. There’s only one button on the whole thing. It’s sort of critical that it works as designed. Damn.
Back to the pry bar. I hadn’t applied the adhesive (thankfully), so the tough part was the frame. Remember when I said above that the frame is hard to get out? I didn’t quite break it, but it looked a bit askew when finally removed. Unfortunately, while trying to remove the frame I ripped the cable that runs from the touch screen to the base of the device rendering the touch screen useless. Double damn. Time to order another touch screen.
Second touch screen in hand, I went about putting the unit back together and was still having trouble with the button. Here’s where it gets a little better. While looking for some sort of button fix, I found WirelessFinest that sells the whole kit (LCD touch screen, frame, and button) as one unit. Plug it into the base, snap it in, and you’re golden. Clearly, this is what I should have purchased in the first place. Ordered, received, and installed in less than a few days.
I’m happy to report that the unit is back on its proverbial feet and works quite well. I spent about $100 on many parts that I didn’t need (hopefully, I’ll get $20 back on a touch screen I didn’t use), but only needed to spend about $40 for the full replacement kit.
If you ever crack one of these and need some advice, please let me know. I’d be happy to walk you through the fix, if needed.
I highly recommend WirelessFinest for their service and product selection, but I couldn’t find the kit on-line without contacting them directly.
Bonus anniversary present for Monica!
Fantastic Gymnastics Finish
Congratulations to Clare for finishing her first year in AAU gymnastics last weekend! Reedsburg High School was the venue for the AAU state meet, for which she qualified earlier in the year. The quick summary is that she earned two top 5 medals in beam and bars and took 9th on vault in the 13-year-old division. Due to various issues, she scratched on floor which took her out of the running for the all-around.
She competed at the Intermediate Optionals level for the first time this year which she really enjoyed. It allowed her to focus on her strengths and stick to those skills that make her look good. Her beam routine had a couple of wobbles but was very well done. It’s amazing how graceful she can be while spinning, leaping, and running on that narrow beam. On bars, she was solid as ever using someone else’s grips. (Of course her grips ripped the week prior to the state meet. Not enough time to replace and break in a new pair.) Great routines!
One interesting note about AAU is that there is no age limit for the competitors. There were 3 or 4 ladies who were beyond high school, the oldest being 42! The girls mocked them slightly for their simplistic skill set, but I give them a lot of credit for performing in front of a good size crowd at this meet.
That said, it looks as though this will be Clare’s last year in competitive gymnastics as she looks for other athletic opportunities. Not to worry as she’ll still be in the gym keeping her skills up but on a less demanding schedule.
One of those rare days
I use iGoogle as my home page in my browser. Love it. One of the features of this arrangement is the ability to add widgets to the page and plug in RSS feeds from blogs (like this one 
).
As you might imagine, one of the built-in widgets shows the weather. This one allows you to the weather in multiple cities – I watch Sun Prairie (so I don’t have to look outside) and Fort Myers, FL (where my parents are). Almost without fail, it’s waaaay nicer in southern Florida than it is here. Who knew? I say *almost* because today was one of those rare days where I happened to view the page when sunny Sun Prairie was warmer than Fort Myers. Woot!
Small victory, but I’ll take it. However, the forecast for the next few days looks a little more promising in sunny FLA than it does in the Sunny Prairie.
(Just noticed it was April Fool’s day. This better not be some sort of joke…)
Oh, the humanity!
If you’ve seen me lately, no doubt you’ve seen the headphones or ear buds in my ears. I’m a huge fan of podcasts and always (yes, always) listen to something when I’m not doing anything else. Heck, I’ll listen even when I’m doing something else. It’s just audio, right? Very easy to multitask. In fact, I’m doing it right now…
My iPod Touch was *sniff* a good friend. Until last weekend.
I stupidly slipped my iPod into my back pocket before the UW hockey game and it, as you can see, cracked mercilessly. I had done it a hundred times before with no repercussions. No biggie, right? I discovered it when I got home and immediately my mind went to figuring out what to do next.
(Interestingly, I’m a bit surprised at how this picture turned out. The front/bottom edge is in focus, but the far corner is quite blurred. I sort of understand why it happened, but clearly, I need to take more pictures to know what to expect when the shutter clicks.)
Back to the issue at hand. I remember recently seeing a video of someone replacing the screen on an iPhone and, while difficult, it was doable and relatively cheap. The down side was that it was time-intensive. It would take a few days to receive the replacement screen plus a day or more to do the fix. And it might not be successful. Or I’ll snap something during the process and be back at square one. I have other mp3 players (no iPods) that I could use in the interim, but they wouldn’t be as smooth. My experience has been that an iPod Touch or iPhone are by far the best listening devices.
I don’t need more hoops to jump through, so I decided to replace the iPod immediately and try to salvage the old one anyway.
After finding a replacement kit on Amazon for $15, I ordered it, received it, and it’s waiting for the operation. I’ll try to capture some video of the process and post it a bit later. Wish me luck.
Name that car…
Clearly, I know nothing about cars. Found this on The Oatmeal.
When does 20 minutes = 8 minutes?
Another tournament visited, another tough day on the court. UW-Platteville was the site of last weekend’s volleyball tournament for the Wisconsin Performance 16s Black team. Leaving the house at 7, we made the trek to Platteville (never been) and found the fieldhouse easily – Thank you, Garmin.
To all tournament hosts: Could we trouble you for some open wi-fi at these things? We have lots of time to kill. kthxbye
Anyway, of the 8 teams (16’s) that were there, we finished 8th. Ugh. I know it’s not all about winning. I know the goal is to improve as a player week after week. Team improvement should naturally follow, right? The thing is, we ARE getting better in small increments. The frustrating part is that the other teams are also getting better during this time. As they say, it’s an uphill battle.
In an effort to improve the team, Coach Emily asked that I record some games. She thought, and I agree, that it would be helpful to show it to the girls and have them see what we all see. Move your feet! Go get it! Call it!
For each game in the post-pool play tournament, I set up my camera at two different vantage points and recorded the action. Each game lasts about 20-25 minutes of real time. Knowing that YouTube videos can only be 10 minutes long, I was afraid I’d have to chop the footage up into multiple uploads. Not to worry. Upon editing the clips down to action-only sequences, there was really only about 8 minutes of footage per game. Obviously, not too many long rallies.
If you dare to subject yourself, feel free. We wear white with red trim – Hannah is number 61 (setter).
Game 1:
Game 2:
To end this mini-rant on a positive note, I must commend my daughter. In reviewing the action again and again (*eyeroll*), I couldn’t help but pick up on the fact that she was always there to help her teammates up, she clapped words of encouragement, and she tried to keep the team fired up – a chore in any environment, especially true that day. On the way home she commented how she really doesn’t care about wins and losses, she just wants to improve.
OK, she’s got it right. I’ll shut up now.
(In case you care, I captured the HD footage on my Canon Vixia HF100 camera and downloaded the *.m2ts files to my computer. They’re great quality for TV, but way too big and unwieldy for a condensed 3-4 inch YouTube window. I converted them to much smaller *.m4v files using AVS Video Converter, then assembled and chopped them together using Adobe Premiere Elements. I could have put transitions and themes and other fancy stuff in, but that would just take time.)
