Check Up - Day 132 #CY365

Today prompt - "Check Up", take care of yourself and make your next doctor's appointment. Well I already had one on the books, so I pulled up my trusty "Sentara My Chart" app to double check my appointment for next month. My Valentines Day orchids and my office helped to fill the frame. Canon G15, 1/250 sec @ f/2.2, ISO 200.

Mark the Spot - Day 73 #CY365

Fill the frame, use the rule of thirds, blur the background and leave the viewer with no doubt as to what the photographer intended the photo to be about. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/200 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 400, one LED flash light with the beam focused narrowly on the cup.

Arranged - Day 71 #CY365

Today's challenge was to arrange something in a stack and use a shallow depth of field to create a blurred effect. I love photography books, well to be truthful, I love everything about photography. Anyway, I stacked some of my recent favorites, used a couple of LED litepanels, a macro lens and voila - we have a photo of the day. But back to the photography books - someone once said the two most important things you can do to improve your photography are: 1) take lots of pictures, hence the 365 project and 2) look at lots of photographs with a critical eye. While digital photos on a computer screen are pretty cool, in my opinion nothing beats the printed photograph for appreciating the work. Photography books are a great place to both see good photographs and understand how they were made.

Canon 5D Mark II, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400.

Caged - Day 21

One of the scrap iron birds caged in at the Chenman Scrap Metal yard in Norfolk Virginia. Each of the gates along the 24th Street side of the scrap yard are adorned with dozens of these amazing recycled birds. Canon 5D Mark II 1/400 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 100.

LLoyds Register

Dozens of old copies of the Lloyds Register Register of Ships line the shelves at the Norfolk Public Library's Service Center. The Register, published annually since 1764, lists information on all sea-going, self-propelled merchant ships of 100 gross tons or greater. Canon 7D, 1/125 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600, 85mm prime lens.

Cat 5E

- This is the connector on a Category 5 Enhanced, better known as Cat 5E, Ethernet patch cable used to connect a computer to a wired network. The cable has eight wires in four twisted pairs although in most cases only two pairs are used for communications. Each pair has a different distance between twists. This alternating distance reduces crosstalk, without affecting the characteristic impedance. The distance per twist is commonly referred to as pitch. Each pair contains between 51.7 and 65.2 twists per meter. How's that for dose of geek talk. Enough techno babel, here's some photo speak - Canon 7D, 1/40 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 100mm macro focused at about 12 inches from the subject. Light is from one LED Litepanel.

Total

- A total tower of "Total" at today's promotion event at the MacArthur Station in downtown Norfolk. iPhone 4, f2.8, ISO 80.

Harmony

- Definition: "a feeling that you are happy and your mind and emotions are well balanced" Macmillan Dictionary. This is the end result of this little miracle. I bought my first Harmony remote back in 2003 to control with one button a myriad of home entertainment devices. It brought harmony back to our household and replaced pages of instructions on how to watch programming from different sources. No more set the TV to Input 1, the receiver to audio input 2, A/V switch to position B; so on and so forth. I now have two of these babies and could not live without them. Canon 7D, 1/50 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600, 100mm macro.

Pizza!

- Another Lytro light field camera photo this time type a slice of veggie pizza from Granby Street Pizza in Norfolk Virginia. Change the focal point by clicking on the line of condiments. Lytro, 1/60 sec @ f/2.0, ISO 1600, 62mm focal length in creative mode.

Living Picture

- My first Lytro "Living Picture" for the blog. I took a picture of these spring flowers at the McDonald Garden Center in downtown Norfolk. Check out the variable focus by clicking on different areas of the picture to move the focus point around. Lytro, 1/125 sec @ f/2.0, ISO 200, 45mm focal length, in creative mode.

The Humble Moth

Moths are closely related to the butterflies, both being of the order Lepidoptera. There are over 160,000 species of moths, more than ten times the number of butterfly species. Butterflies get all of the glory with their bright colors and beautiful wings. Moths on the other hand tend to be more brown and unpretentious. They are not perceived in the same manner as their well loved cousins. But like much of mother nature, you just need to look close enough to see the beauty and glory. This humble little moth is hanging in close to our front porch light. The macro lens captures some of the fine detail of nature. This photo is also a good example of how shallow the depth of field can be on a macro lens when focused on a very close subject. As you can see the depth of field is less than 1/4 inch. Canon 7D, 1/160 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 100mm macro.

From Above

- This is kind of an odd view from above of a tulip bloom. The back lighting from underneath is illuminating the inside of the bloom. At first I wasn't sure that I liked this photo but there was something about it that caused me to come back to it. I think it was just the vantage point. Canon 7D, 1/200 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 100mm macro.

"Oh bliss, bliss and heaven...

- Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh..." - Alex from A Clockwork Orange. After 1,119 daily photos and blog posts, I finally get to use a quote from a A Clockwork Orange. I know it's lame, but what the heck, it's my blog. Canon 7D, 1/200 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 400, 100mm macro, three light sources.

Drops on the Edge

- A fine mist has been falling all day and these tiny droplets cling to edge of a Camellia blossom. Canon 40D, 1/160 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 800, 100mm macro, LED Litepanel.

Sleigh Bell

- Added a few gold and silver jingle bells to the garland surrounding the front door. Not only goes it give it a cool look but the doorway now has that sleigh bell sound as you come and go. Canon 40D, 1/80 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 800, 100mm macro.

The Jester

- The Court Jester leads a small army of Lego mini-figures. These plastic articulated figurines by Danish toy manufacturer the Lego Group were first produced in 1978. Since then over 3.7 billion have been produced. Canon 7D, 1/1000 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 400.

Sandpipers on the Move

These sandpipers were moving quickly along the shoreline at Sandbridge Beach, Virginia this evening. Canon 7D, 1/4000 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 400, zoom at 200mm focal length.

The Eyes Have It

- It hard to win a starring contest when your adversary has compound eyes. Canon 7D, 1/160 sec @ f/5, ISO 400, 100mm macro.

Your Move

- Canon 40D, 1/8 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 100, 85mm prime lens.

Sand Crab

- This is picture from a few years ago of a tiny sand crab on Hatteras Island North Carolina that never made it to the CIOPhoto blog. Canon 40D, 1/1250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, zoom at 400mm (the big gun).