Patti's random noise

See me at Root Division on Saturday

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:52:59 -0800

I'll be selling my photography this weekend at the Root Division Holiday Art Sale. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by to work on your holiday shopping, or just to heckle me.

Over 30 local artists and craftspeople will come together for this one-night-only sale featuring fine art and unique hand made gifts. Rock, shop, have a photo taken with Son of Santa and explore Root Division's adult winter class schedule. Vendors include Root Division resident artists, jewelry by Reware Style and clothing and accessories by Lushorchid and Rotten Panda. With offerings ranging from paintings and photography to jewelry, hand-sewn clothing and even holiday wigs, everyone on your list will be covered. What could be better? Sipping a festive cocktail while you shop, knowing that you are also supporting local artists and Root Division's programs.

The Second Annual Holiday Art Sale @ Gallery 3175
One Night Only: Saturday, December 9, 2006
6 to 10 pm
$1-$10 Sliding scale donation at the door

ROOT DIVISION GALLERY 3175
3175 17th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
415.863.7668

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Playing with the new flash

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:39:40 -0700

So as I mentioned earlier, I got a new flash for macrophotography. It's pretty cool! Of course, the first thing I did was stick it on the camera and point it at something on my desk, in this case a stuffed animal. Here's the first shot:

IMG_1207-01

As you can see, the eye reflects the twin tubes of the ring flash, and they're firing equally. One of the typical complaints about ring flashes is that the light they give is extremely flat. The Sigma allows you to adjust the power, so that one side fires more strongly than the other in order to create shadows. Here's an example:

IMG_1208-01

Now the tube on the left is firing at 8x the power of the one on the right, and you can see that in the reflection. You can also see a little bit more of a natural-looking shadow effect in the fur right above the eye.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Canon flash photography tutorial

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 12:47:50 -0700

This is mostly a note to self, but here's a really awesome tutorial on using flash with a Canon SLR. This is particularly useful to me since I just got a Sigma macro ringlight.

Look for lots of flashy macro photos coming soon.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Photos from my Vegas trip

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:26:13 -0700

I finally found an hour to process some of the photos that I took in Vegas last weekend. The net result is that I'm quite happy with the vantagepoints I found, but now I'm having severe glass envy. I want a lens that reaches to 400-500mm, but they're wicked expensive. (My birthday is coming up, hint hint.)

The Anthem shot is what I had in mind when I went down there, but I'm not happy with the technical image quality. See also: want better glass. I don't think I could get away with printing it 5' wide and have it work

5KRio

Anthem5K

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Painting with Light

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 13:10:31 -0700

Last weekend I bought a couple of OddBallz light-up DNA balls to use in photographic experiments. We were originally going to juggle with them, but that proved to be a bit difficult, so we wound up just waving them around in interesting patterns.

The procedure was pretty simple: we put both cameras on tripods, and set them for remote shutter release. Then we found one spot on the ground and set it as the focal point, then aimed, zoomed, and focused both cameras on that point. The cameras were set for varying exposure times, mostly in the range of five to ten seconds.

From there, one of us would man the cameras while the other took the balls to the focus point, started them glowing, and then waved them around in patterns we thought might be interesting. At some point, Mark discovered that you could get really interesting effects if you moved toward the camera (and therefore got the light out-of-focus), and I figured out it was pretty easy to draw letters and shapes.

I shot the whole batch in raw mode, which made post-processing of the images pretty easy. The area wasn't quite as dark as I would have liked, so most of the shots had a faint image of the background showing through the lights. The raw processing to get rid of this was quite simple: increase the shadows until the background faded away, and then increase the exposure (and the brightness if necessary) until the lights looked good. Save and repeat for all of the images that are worth showing.

We both had a lot of fun with this shoot, and we're looking forward to doing it again. Our next project will be shooting glow poi, I think.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Bay Bridge

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:33:53 -0700

Here are two shots that I got of the bay bridge on my way home tonight. The first is taken from the Embarcadero, and the other is on the ferry just as it was about to depart for Oakland.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

More Kaboom

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Tue, 16 May 2006 16:53:16 -0700

I like both of these shots. The first one just has an interesting geometry to it.

The second one has the way-cool smiley face fireworks, although the shutter speed makes them look demonic.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Kaboom

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Sun, 14 May 2006 22:29:48 -0700

IMG_8474

Fireworks are easy! All you have to do is set the right exposure, point the camera, and then figure out the right times to open and close the shutter. I got two out of three right on this one.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Mothers' day

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Thu, 11 May 2006 10:26:30 -0700

For mothers' day, a triptych of the San Francisco skyline at night as seen from Treasure Island. Each of the three prints is 18x12, which makes the set four and a half feet wide.

Photo_051106_001.jpg

This is my favorite of my panoramas by a mile-- I love the way the light reflects on the water, and the exposure is just about perfect. It was shot using a Canon 70-200 f/4L lens, and the final image is stitched together from seven different shots. Unlike most panoramas, I took these shots in portrait mode rather than landscape, so that I could get as much resolution as possible.

Here's the original:

MediumSFPano

and the original on Flickr.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Kaboom!

nobody@vox.com(Patti) — Wed, 10 May 2006 16:13:03 -0700

This weekend is Kaboom, the annual fireworks display put on by one of our local radio stations. I'm trying to decide between going to Treasure Island and going to the Port of Oakland to take pictures.

Fireworks!

In the meantime, here's a picture from Fourth of July last year, taken from the roof of my loft.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend