close, closer

Playing in the macro mode of my Canon S3 IS. I have lots to learn about macros.

S3 IS playing

Canon S3 IS with the zoom stretched to the max 12X, on a sunny October 31, 2006. I was shooting from the street down towards the harbor past Capital Iron's outdoor merchandise. These are 3 baskets sitting atop a packing crate. Shot in 'P" mode, white balance at sunny, exposure compensation at -2stops, F/4.0, and 1/1600 sec. shutter speed. This long lens is great fun. It is not as sharp as the shorter lens on my old Powershot. My disk space is filling up fast with these large pictures. I will eventually need to do some serious culling or just burn them all and delete.

I finally learned how to do a 'photocopy' with my scanner and printer. Its quite easy when you take the time to read the manual. Sigh.

We had pears for dessert today. I must go out and see if I can rescue any more of them. It froze last week, and rained torrents two days ago. I am finally over my cold and slowly getting my energy back. I have much to do in the garden and on my web page. Its time to get at it. :)

panorama

Today I tried doing a panorama with my Canon S3 IS. I just shot my kitchen area from sitting in my comfy chair in my computer/reading/light garden room. I did not use a tripod nor pay any particular attention to lighting settings or cleaning up the kitchen area for a good set up. I stitched 4 exposures together with the Stitch Assist software that came with my camera. It turned out not to bad, I think. What do you think? I had done 5 shots but the last one was too much out of line and light with the rest. That stitch assist program is pretty cool. I can move each individual shot around to line up any horizontal or vertical lines. I did not try that, but its possible. My camera manual says I can take 26 photos in its panorama mode. Man that would make one huge photo. This one is reduced from 7700 pixels wide to only 1000, as it was too wide for blogspot to load. Hope it shows up on VFXY.

Black and White Conversions

click photo for larger version. and click again for even larger.



Playing with some digital converstions to black and white. One of the pier at Sidney and the other of a sailing ship shot from the Anacortes ferry on our return trip to Sidney. The pier is with the Canon Powershot A50 and the Ship is with my new Canon S3 IS and its 12x lens. That ship was a looooooong way from the ferry. I love this long lens and all the rest of the stuff I am just starting to learn.
I did a sound byte with it after shooting photos. This is done in the playback mode. I can do audio in the shooting mode as well, of course, along with movies. The playback mode does 1 minute clips. The movie mode runs for an hour, I believe, or as long as the battery is alive, which ever comes first. The sound clip I did in playback mode was clear. I can set the volume for recording and for playback of any audio.

Island Challenge

This is about the only good photo I got from the Island Challenge tour (pre 1927 cars). We toured around Victoria to some interesting places I have never been to before. It was good to see everyone. No one from Campbell River will be at this week-end's Can Am. That leaves us to speak to holding the meet in Canada next year. I hope Finalys are there, and can volunteer to hold it somewhere on the mainland next year.

I have 3 jars (apx 1 cup) of blanched plums, frozen. Gave some to A & T. I picked the grapes also, and shared them. When we get back from this week end, I should pick more blackberries to freeze. We are eating tomatoes (few) and spinach from the garden.

Today, a most wonderful boquet arrived at our house. The Grants send their thanks for the B & B. The flowers are a very classy move. They are gorgeous and have a lovely vase with them too.

I am taking my 35mm Canon, my old digital, and my new S3 IS on this short trip. Hope I get an opportunity to get some good shots to finish off the Velvia on the 35mm. I am anxious to see how the time exposures turned out... or not -- probably or not.

I have been spending hours and hours on this beta blog stuff. Mainly due to my limited knowledge of how things work.

I have been spending quite a bit of time reading on photo.net too. Philip Greenspun has taken back the management of the site. He has run Brian M. off the site, it seems. Nasty stuff. Must wait and see how things shape up with all the revisions. It might be a totally new and interesting site. I would not doubt that Brian will surface again. Hopefully with a web page critique site. That would be fun.

The wars continue in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Not something I like to think about at all.