random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

257/365: /bin/tcpdunk.

This was downright fun. I’ve had my TriggerTrap v1 for a while now, and haven’t really used it a whole lot. Tonight, I decided to change that. I started off with one thing, then switched to another. The initial intent was to try and catch water drops falling, with a laser directed at the TriggerTrap. I setup the tripod and the camera (prefocused) and killed the lights. After a few attempts I realized the trick was to break the laser beam with something and then set a delay to trigger the flash a little afterward – like 0.060/second or so was about right for gravity to do it’s thing. I soon realized I couldn’t make water drops big enough to disrupt the beam so I started fetching things and just dropped them in the water. Here I’m having fun hitting the surface of the water with a CAT5 network cable. I’ll definitely be doing more of this but I’ll need to get some larger clear container to hold the water easier. 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

256/365: Panorama, iPhone Style.

Today was the big reveal for the iPhone 5. While I’m not getting one of those anytime soon, I do have a 4S I carry. Turns out, that new panorama mode is available on the 4S as well, so I got to try it out. Now, normally you get up to 240 degree coverage of the view but I got curious what happens if you, say, add a fisheye lens (my Olloclip) to the mix. The answer is I can keep going right on past 360 degrees :). Photo is of the new Toronto Premium Outlets under construction in Halton Hills (Hornby). 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

255/365: Washered Up.

Spent the entire night waiting on an ISP to show up and fix a problem. So, I didn’t get out for a photo today. However, I did have my iPhone with me and I found something to photograph nearby anyway. Here, we have a bucket full of lock washers. 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

254/365: Accidental.

This is the intersection of Ninth Line and Fifth Sideroad here in Halton Hills. A couple weeks ago, a transport truck had a little “Whoopsie” while turning the corner…. the trailer took out the pole supporting some wires and the traffic lights. At that moment the intersection became a four way stop, and the locals are griping something fierce in the Georgetown Independent that nobody is fixing it. As for the photo, I rather liked the haunting way the disabled stoplight hangs over it’s temporary replacement. The car that went through the photo didn’t bother much with stopping either. 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

253/365: Hilton Falls.

Went for a hike today with my wife. We ended up walking about 7 kilometers around one of my favourite places – Hilton Falls. Here you can see the water flow is a mere trickle compared to the usual, but there was still enough water to take a photo. The low water did make things rather easy to cross over and get photos from the Mill side. Again, I’m pushing a D800 RAW file, but no HDR this time…. instead I’ve just tweaked the exposure slightly in Lightroom.

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

252/365: Colourfield. 

Today I travelled to Stratford with my wife. For some reason, I opted to take 10SR to get to the highway instead of my usual routes. Well, serendipity struck and as we were passing Andrew’s Scenic Acres this mass of colour caught my eye. They have a huge field filled with flowers of every colour. Naturally I had to pull over and point the camera at it. This photo has has a slightly different workflow as my Aperture library is in a bit of a funk, so I’ve processed this RAW image through Lightroom. I’ve also been reading a bit about D800 RAW dynamic range so I fed this single RAW image to Photomatix to see what I could pull out of it. 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

251/365: Jerusalem Artichokes.

Spotted these growing beside the Homer Watson Trail in Kitchener, while geocaching with the BFL Crew. While most of the crew was searching out and signing the geocache nearby, I was placing a flashlight on the ground and trying to make these yellow flowers look good. I believe they are Jerusalem Artichokes based on this website that I found for identifying Ontario’s wildflowers. 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

250/365: Ortonized Hydrant.

Been a while since I’ve played with my Orton filter. So, here’s a fire hydrant near my office, all “Selective Orton” the way I like to edit. 

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

249/365: Transmission.

This is just a happy accident to be honest. I was shooting a new commercial development on my way home and I looked over toward the lights from the highway and the communication towers. On a lark, I pointed the camera toward the towers to see what I could come up with. During that time a plane leaving Pearson (CYYZ) flew off in the background but it just happened to be the perfect direction for the optical illusion of a transmission going from one tower to the other. Saw that and decided I was done for today’s photo of the day …

random thoughts, Uncategorized
Posted on

248/365: Speyside Sunset.

Today we had a lot of rain in the Toronto area. I mean a lot …. but we needed that after the absolutely arid summer we had. The clouds departed (for a bit) at sunset, and here I’ve stopped to capture the moment the cloud curtain was pulled off the sun that was setting in Speyside (near the Milton/Halton Hills border). I only had a few minutes before the sun dipped below the treeline but fortunately I had my “good” camera with me and a handy spot to pull over and park. What I like is how the sun still seems like a bright object on my computer screen the day after I took the photo. I swear I can see spots in my vision after looking at the photograph. Now THAT’s some dynamic range 🙂