Small Details - Day 125 #CY365

Blades from a Gillette Fusion razor at 5x magnification. At this level of magnification you can clearly see the grinding marks from the placing of the edge on the blades. Canon, 13 seconds at f/16.0, ISO 100, MP-e 65mm macro lens, lit with a Litepanels Micro LED light, mounted on a tripod.

What I'm Reading - Day 124 #CY365 @ncsulibraries

Behold "bookBot" at North Carolina State University's new Hunt Library. This robot-driven bookBot automated book delivery system holds up to 2 million volumes in 1/9 the space of conventional shelving, enabling the library to provide more space for learning and collaboration. The bookBot is 50 feet wide by 160 feet long by 50 feet tall and is excavated 20 feet below the first floor. You know your a geek when you drag your wife to see a high tech library on your wedding anniversary. Canon G15 1/40 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 800.

My Eyes - Day 123 #CY365 #Creepy

This was a tough prompt for me. I settled on this tightly cropped closeup of my right eye. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/60 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, 100mm macro lens and an LED Ring Light as reflected in my pupil.

May Flowers - Day 122 #CY365

Today's challenge was to photograph a flower from a different perspective. I saw these daisies in a pot outside of a bike shop in Raleigh North Carolina. Following Katrina's lead, I took my picture from below using the face cam on my iPhone. I liked the way it captured the sun's rays illuminating the daisy. iPhone 5s, Camera+ App.

Healthy Vision - Day 121 #CY365 @ThisIsRobThomas

May's #CY365 theme is about vision. While today's cameras are quite remarkable at capturing what we see, their "vision" is not at all equal to our own eyes. Our eyes eye can actually perceive a greater dynamic range than is ordinarily possible with a camera. If we were to consider situations where our pupil opens and closes for varying light, our eyes can see over a range of nearly 24 f-stops while 8-12 f-stops is generally all one can expect from a digital camera. This is most evident in low light photography especially when bright highlights are present, such as a stage performance.

Tonight Cindy and I went to see Rob Thomas at the Durham Performing Arts Center. It was an intimate performance with just two musicians joining Rob Thomas on stage. The overall lighting was low but there was always a spotlight on the star. Even with spot metering enabled, my camera struggled to get the low light background exposed, resulting in an sharply overexposed star. Manual exposure or severe exposure composition is the only way to capture the scene and avoid blown-out highlights. Since the camera can only capture a limited dynamic range, much of the scene is underexposed. So every picture is a trade off, while our eyes make the adjustments consistently and our brains composite the image so we see much more. And yes, the show was amazing. Canon G15, 1/80 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 1600.

Uplifting - Day 120 of 365 #CY365

I love watching the ferns come back to life in the Spring. They sprout new stems and uncurl the beautiful leaves from a tightly wound center, one of the many uplifting signs of Spring. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/160th sec @ f/11.0, ISO 1600, 100mm macro.

Lego Buzz - Day 119 #CY365

Creating a little "buzz" with the Lego man. iPhone, Camera+ App