03 May 2007

Pictures: Mostly Birds, Clouds, and Pretty Things

More Pictures!!!

Captions:
* An amazing picture of Wes (left) and Bunza (right – look at that face!) posing back-to-back.
* “Look’t the soize of it!”
* A view through the mango tree.
* A high shutter moon shot – thought it looked neat.
* A little bird with a bright turquoise stomach that reminds me a lot of Peeps (the heavenly Easter candy), that really make me want to catch one and pop it in my mouth. Probably wouldn’t melt as deliciously though : ) And sorry this is so dark.
* A cool yellow bird.
* Neat cloud shot. I watched the top of this cloud expanding like a marshmallow in the microwave as the storm built. It’s so cool how quickly weather changes here – ‘cuz of the ITCZ I think?
* Two of the cool iridescently blue birds with stark white eyes (hope you appreciate these bird shots Grams & Gramps ;). I like the one that’s got it’s wings open just about to alight.
* Here’s a nice illustration of how incredibly dusty things get over here. It took some good scrubbing to get that shoe clean too!
* I’ve been trying ever since Philadelphia to get a good shot of the moon, and this one turned out alright – I’m not really sure why there’s a double image and that line is one of the powerlines outside my homestay house.
* I barely got this picture of one of the really neat herons that are all over and amazingly graceful.
* This is a cool shot I got when I was playing around with the shutter speed trying to take a picture of the massive downpour of rain coming down. (This one goes out to you Jizzle!)









































































































Posted by H. Ryan Jones at 5:41 AM

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3 comments:

  1. Unknown09 May, 2007 09:55

    Ryan,

    Wonderful Pictures!!!

    as for the doubled image moon (it is artistical!), how long is the exposure time? Night shots generally require long exposure time and you need either tripod or very steady hands during the exposure. Try putting the camera on something solid and steady, and just use your hands assist to tilt it at the right angle towards the moon. I have got fairly good shot of moon this way.

    Good luck and all my best of best wishes fly to you!!!

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  2. H. Ryan Jones09 May, 2007 22:30

    Ludan,

    Thanks for the tips, I have been putting the camera down and using a slow shutter speed. The biggest problem I had was actually having the shutter open too long. You wouldn't happen to know what an ISO setting is?

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  3. Unknown13 May, 2007 00:50

    Hi Ryan,

    Here are some explanations of camera parameters. You may have known most of them already, but I will just put all of them here in case you need it.

    Exposure is controlled by two parameters: the aperture and the shutter. On most cameras you can decide one of them and the camera will figure out what value of the other parameter to use to get a sufficient exposure. For example, in Aperture priority mode (denoted as mode "A" on my camera), you can fix the aperture parameter to be 2.8 (the smaller the number, the bigger the aperture. On my camera the aperture can be adjusted from F2.8 to F8.0), then when clicking the shutter, camera will decide the shutter speed to use. Which parameter you choose to fix depends on what effect is desired. Big aperture (small number) gives small depth of field and is often used when intending to bring only one subject sharp in focus while the background in blur, a close-up shoot of flowers for example. Small aperture gives large depth of field and is good for scenery shoot where objects at very different distances all in focus is desired. Fast shutter speed is used when you want to freeze something in motion, for example a running tiger. Slow shutter speed can be used when you want to capture the trail of a moving object. It's all depend on which effect you want.

    ISO (acronym for International organization for standardization) is a parameter related to light sensitivity. As a rule, the sensor's lowest ISO rating is optimal for the amount of light to make a capture with the best details and least noise. However with low ISO, long exposure time is needed.

    In the case of moon, although the subject is not moving, due to long exposure time it's very hard to keep the camera still (even the wind affects), so you got that artistic trail effect. Since there isn't much detail to be captured (dark sky bright moon), I think highest ISO is the better, enabling relatively shorter exposure time. Then if you can control the aperture, try setting it to the biggest (smallest number), it also helps to reduce the exposure time. Or fix the shutter to the fastest, it should automatically set the aperture to the biggest. The exposure time will still be long due to the low light, but should be reduced a bit.

    That's just my (very limited) understanding of camera plus some googling. Play with you camera and see what you got :) Let me know if there are more questions and I will try my best :)

    Take care~

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