Nail it - Wordless Wednesday

I can't ever just have a regular Wordless Wednesday. It's just not how it works out. I've always got something to say. Just ask my husband.
The announce from last weeks Wordless got forgotten. So, I'll take care of that now.
Amanda - are you up for joining us again? We might have to start calling this 4 chicks and a dude. You know the drill Amanda.



Rules
The poster (that's me) will post a picture and its settings. No other verbiage is allowed. The commenter's (that's you) will guess in the comments section below how my picture associates with yesterdays (Tuesday's) picture. It can be a setting. It can be a play on words. It can be a theme. In every photo there are numerous ties, thus creating no right or wrong answer. Just make a comment below and you will be entered into our drawing to be our next guest photographer.

What if I am not good enough to be a guest photographer?
You are good enough. We love all kinds of photographers! That's what makes this so much fun. We believe that everybody has a unique view of this world and we want to see it through the lens of your camera. Any camera goes, camera phone, point and shoot, film camera that has its photos turned into jpgs., high end professional grade cameras, any and all of them! So make a guess and have some fun!

How does this all work?
The contest will go on until my (Brandi's) next post. I will use random.org to choose the winner and post the story behind my picture and what the connection is, along with my photo for that day. All you have to do, as our chosen winner, is email us your picture before 10pm on your post day. Usually on a Sunday, but we are flexible. The photo has to be yours, has to tie into the picture from the day before, and 3C1D has to be authorized to use it. Just remember to keep checking back with us to make sure you get the post about who has won.

Only one guess per person. Have fun!

READY! SET! GO!!!!

Nikon D40 kit lens @38mm
aperture f/5
shutter speed 1/1600sec
ISO 400
natural light/direct sun

Rosy Cheeks and Rosy Sunset

This photo is tied to the pink seen in Jay'me's post. I first noticed the pink hats, followed by the pink boots, gloves, scarves, and snow pants. I considered something snow related but decided I could use a technique I've read about which has you picking a background with color to shoot out of focus. Tonight it was a sunset. The foreground is a window in our family room with blown seals allowing condensation to form on the inside of the pane of glass. I was further inspired by some of the reading I've done recently concerning texture. I like the results and already have ideas for what I want to try the next time I try this technique.



Canon 30D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8
Shutter 1/125
Aperture f/4.5
Exposure Compensation -1.0
Natural Light

I used a stop less on my metering due to shooting directly at the bright sky. I feel it really allowed for better contrast, color, and overall exposure. After messing with saturation and contrast I sharpened a bit and converted to JPEG from RAW and poof, here ya go!

I should also mention that I used an aperture less than wide open to increase the DOF just a touch. Sometimes I get carried away using wide open apertures and there is no recovering after the fact. What is something you do that might qualify as a bad habit? For me, it's without question using too wide an aperture.

Tomorrow we'll have Dan with us once more as the most recent "winner" from Wordless Wednesday. Can't wait to see what you do Dan!

Scott

Pull it

You all know how much I love machines, gear and such. I'm so glad the trend stayed so I could post my own photo. I had huge ambitions today. Far to lofty for me to actually tackle on a dark, gloomy, Chicago winter day.
I had to box away my lofty goals for today. Tuck them away for the glorious spring time that will be coming soon (hopefully).

As a result, I had to pull something from the achieves today. Good thing I have lots and lots of photos with gear and such in them. I chose this one because I think this chain is beautiful, just like Scott's picture. Call me strange but I've been in love with this photo since the moment I took it.


Nikon d40 kit lens @34mm
shutter speed 1/1250sec
aperture f/4.5
natural light

Here again is that "sweet spot" on my lens. The perfect balance of bokah and crisp depth of field. This picture makes it look like I know what I'm doing. I assure you I do not.

Considering more than half of the United States is covered in snow and ice, I'm wondering what everyone is taking photos of. There is only so long you can stand outside and freeze to death taking a photo of snow covered foliage before the roar of a fire and the need for hot chocolate takes over. Tell me what you're taking photos of. Oh and please chastise me for not getting a Speedlight before the eternal darkness fell upon us.

MmmmKay... Thanks.... Bye....
Brandi

Frosty the Snowman

Brandi has been playing around with different perspectives. Scott has been using HDR and both have been getting some great shots. Poor Jay'me has been having some technical difficulties and doing a great job working with what she has. My latest photography obsession has been getting those awesome warm, glowy, Christmas lights as a background. I have spent the last few nights practicing, messing around with all my settings to get this right. It is probably because the Christmas season is in full swing. We, down in the central part of the state have no snow (all you northerners are stealing it from us) to use for my Christmas portraits, so lights it is. I actually love Christmas lights, they are one of the absolute best parts about Christmas but I have always had a hard time getting them right. So while this shot is far from exactly where I want to be, considering where I was at (read, I shudder at looking at my Christmas light picture archives) I was pretty pleased with what I got.

Nikon D2X
ISO 400
Lens My Nifty Fifty again (love this lens!!!)
Aperture - F/2.8
Shutter Speed - 1 sec.
No Flash

All I did to the picture was give it a touch of fill light in Lightroom. Mr. Snowman was an absolutely perfect subject. He never argued or gave me a goofy, unnatural smile and he always sat exactly where I wanted him to sit. I had a lot of fun practicing on him. My connection to Brandi's picture is tenuous at best. If you look at her shot you can see some holiday lights and decorations set up around the storefront, that's what I used as my connection. Sorry but it is the Christmas/holiday season and I had to jump on anything I could :).

The key to getting nice Christmas lights is to have a really, slow shutter speed, so use a tri-pod or something to help you stay steady, and as low(wide open) an aperture as you can get to get that nice blur look. Also your subject should be not too close to the lights themselves. Mr. Snowman here was a few feet away in reality, and do not, I repeat do not, use a flash unless you absolutely must. Here is an article worth reading about to help you with those holiday light pictures.

Now settle yourself down with the lights off and your holiday lights on, grab yourself a cup of hot chocolate or coffee or whatever floats your boat, and join me in enjoying this most beautiful part of the holiday season.

Welcome Myndi!

Clap your hands ladies and gentlemen. Lets give Myndi a warm 3C1D welcome!

Here's a little info on Myndi by Myndi-
I'm married with 3 kids and love my life! I wouldn't say I'm a great photo taker, but hey...I have a camera, and when I think of it, I really like to take photo's.
I'm going to add in that Myndi is 3C1D family. She's actually married to Sere's brother and she's a friend of mine. Weather you're family or a stranger like last weeks winner Amanda, we love equally around here.

Myndi's Inspiration-
This was such a fun experiment! I went out today through our neighborhood and took some pics of what I thought would relate to the Rex in front of all that green. I thought about toys, an animal, like a squirrel just like Brandi thought, anything green, which would be ok...but then I thought about teeth. So, this is what I can up with, the teeth from Rex to the teeth in the Halloween decoration I saw in out neighborhood the evening. I don't photo shop, so this is the pic my camera takes.

And what a great photo it is Myndi. Check it out gang.


Cannon Rebel EOS
aperture f5.6 @ 33mm
shutter speed 1/250 sec
ISO 400

This dude is seriously scary. Thanks so much for joining us Myndi.

Sere's up tomorrow. Can't wait to see where she's going with this!

xoxox,
Brandi

Dinner?

My dinosaur has eaten your duck for dinner.

Nikon D40
kit lens @38mm
aperture f4.8
shutter speed 1/40sec
ISO 200
manual
natural light

This is the guard dinosaur that has been in my parents bushes since they moved into the house in 2002. Rex even stayed and guarded the house during the construction that followed my parents house fire.
Technically Rex is a toy from the original Jurassic Park movie. I'm not sure how or why it came about that Rex lives in the bushes but he does. We dress him up for holidays. He's got his very own Santa hat. We leave him dinner. Just last week he had a fork and plate in front of him. He's just like a regular family member.

I set about finding a photo today and thought I would find another animal to photograph. I tried to get my parents grumpy cat Gizmo to participate but she just asked me to speak with her agent. Pretentious little brat.
I looked around for squirrels while I was taking photos outside. All the squirrels in my parents neighborhood must be watching the University of Iowa game (Go Hawkeyes!). Not a single one to be found.
Then walking up to the front door, I spotted Dear Rex. He was a good sport.
Nothing overly complicated in this photograph. I was in spotty shade (from a tree) so I needed to watch my exposure. I didn't want to get 'hot spots' and I didn't want to underexpose all the details in Rex's coloring. Borrowing my brothers CS4 Photoshop, I gave Rex a little tweak to balance him out. I really wanted to play up the dirt and grit he has in his mouth from eating Scott's duck. So I highlighted those areas and gave them a little boost.
A great afternoon spent playing with toys.

Our Wordless Wednesday winner from this week, Myndi, will be posting tomorrow. Watch for it.

Dewy Fireworks

Canon 30D
Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8
Shutter Speed 1/200
Aperture f/2.8
ISO 100
Aperture Priority
Natural Light

I went out this morning to brave the frigid frost and dew and had a blast. It's just amazing what there is to see in your own backyard. In case you're wondering, I live in a modest home with a small yard that backs to a small wetland area. On the other side of the wetlands is more houses - a lot more houses. This means as I crawled around my yard and the wetlands I again had ample time to further incriminate myself as the weirdo of Lake in the Hills. I can't wait to see what my next door neighbor has to say.

For this shot I used my macro lens and a small aperture coupled with a tripod and remote shutter. I tried to highlight the end formation. I succeeded to a point but you can see that some of the droplets at the end are blurry. This speaks to the challenge of aperture selection. I actually thought I had f/4.0 dialed up but while uploading I discovered I was at f/2.8. Bummer! F/4.0 has slightly more depth of field and is sharper on the whole and is still sufficiently small to achieve a beautiful bokeh. Oh well - next time.

As it is, I'm happy with the results. I had to wait for quite a while for the sun to peek above the house next to mine but in the meantime, I managed to get many other shots. All in all, though I froze my tush off, I had fun crawling around with numb fingers (you know it's cold when you can't tell if your finger is on the shutter release button!). So get out and shoot you photogs!

Scott

Poison

In the immortal words of Brett Michaels from Poison circa 1989

Every rose has it's thorn,
just like every night has it's dawn
just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song.

I fully understand why all of you from my generation hate me now. I accept it.


Nikon d40
18-55mm 3.5-5.6
ISO 200
f5.6
1/320sec @50mm

Seeing Scott challenge himself to do a shot he's long wanted to attain pushed me over the edge to finally get this picture. I've made quite a few attempts at this photo. It's a difficult shot to get without a macro lens and it certainly would be sharper if it was a macro lens but, some days we just have to work with what we're given.
I set up some tripod lighting, created the most ridiculous set up, using things I had around my house (like my favorite black skirt) and camped out on my bedroom floor for the better part of an hour. Taking shot after shot making adjust after adjustment. On something like this where the smallest movement in light position effects everything I had to be careful.
I would love to hear from some of the macro "professionals" following our blog for some tips for improvement. I'm always open to some constructive criticism, can't get better without it.

I am happy to report though, that at the end of my hour I had several pictures to choose from that I would happily post and have connected to my name. This, my friends, is a successful mission.


******
In other blog news - Amy, the proud winner of last weeks Wordless Wednesday will be joining us for her guest post tomorrow. Can't wait to "meet" her.

Additionally, with Jay'me's absence we never announced the winner from Wordless Wednesday two weeks ago. Congratulations Allison! We'll be sure to keep you posted on when Allison will be joining us for her guest feature.

If both you girls could kindly send an email to 3chicks1dudephoto@gmail.com to get further instructions that would be wonderful. I promise the entire guest photographer process is super easy and I'll make it as painless as possible.

Looking forward to the new faces. Stop in to see what Amy gives us tomorrow and then Sere will start off the work week on Monday.

xoxo
Brandi

Summer Coming to an End

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Shutter Speed 1/4000
Aperture f/3.2
ISO 400
Mode Aperture Priority
Natural Light

This photo comes from Woodstock Square, the site of the movie Groundhog Day. It's a fantastic square that just screams "quaint Midwest town" and most of the sites are of the big variety: the Woodstock Opera House, the gazebo, the brick roads, you get the idea. And when I went to photograph the square, I thought I would walk away with a photo of something large. But while I was strolling through the square enjoying the sunshine, I was struck by these flowers. I noticed two things immediately. First, the bees LOVED them and were zooming around with glee. Second, what appeared to be a rather large bloom was actually many small blooms bunched together giving the illusion of a larger bloom. My wheels started turning and I thought about why this might be. Could it by evolution in action? Are bees more attracted to big blooms? I certainly don't know. Maybe it's for defense and the bigger blooms are meant to look like something else. Whatever the case, I promptly popped a squat, screwed on my macro lens and tried desperately to capture a bee. And because you didn't get a picture yesterday (sometimes, the holiday's get the better of you) you get 2 today! WooHoo!!! I'm not cheating, I'm catching you all up!

Here's the bees - I call it "Summer Lovin'!"


Canon 30D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Shutter Speed 1/2000
Aperture f/16.0
ISO 400
Mode Aperture Priority
Natural Light

You'll notice in both cases I had an ISO setting of 400 and a very fast shutter speed. The idea behind that decision is my attempt at freezing the flight of the bees. Turns out 1/2000 isn't fast enough as you can see the bees antennae blurred in the above picture. Plus, catching a bee mid flight is devilishly difficult. I might as well come clean - I haven't done it. But that's not for lack of trying. I managed to get this shot only by slowly moving closer and closer. That and the fact that they were literally "getting busy" allowed me to get really close.

The other detail to notice is the difference in aperture. With the flowers, I wanted to isolate a focal plain and bring to the fore a few blooms with one really the crux of the picture. With the bees I wanted to maximize my chance at getting the bees in focus from head to tail. So with the flowers, I shot rather wide at f/3.2 to get the tight depth of field. With the bees I stopped down to f/16.0 to achieve a much deeper depth of field. Those of you that have read multiple posts know we all like to play with depth of field and I promise this won't be the last time we mention it.

My connection to Sere's post is simply the colors. There are great colors in her picture of the carnival (Brandi's too for that matter) and I wanted to really concentrate on colors for this post. Plus, in the case of the carnival I attended this weekend there were fireworks. These flowers sort of reminded me of fireworks. So here you go, the fireworks of nature, both on the color front (the flowers) and the romantic front (so that's why they say "the birds and the bees!").

And I'm spent. What a weekend, what a beautiful flower, and what beautiful fireworks. May your day be blessed with the same. Till next time...

Scott

Where There's Smoke...

Canon 30D
Canon 24-70mm f.2.8L
Shutter Speed 1/1000
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 68.0 mm
ISO 100
Natural Light

Thank you Sere for giving me a reason to play with a new toy. Let me explain. A good friend of mine was helping me brainstorm about my previous post (the kaleidoscope one). I mentioned that I would like to play with a prism and asked if he had one. He didn't but he did have 3 lenses that you would find in a projection TV. Furthermore, he said I could have them! I immediately started trying different techniques and ideas but couldn't really come up with anything good. In the meantime, I managed to get this picture of the moon with the kaleidoscope and sort of forgot about the lenses.

At this point I must explain these lenses a bit more. To be clear, these are not the kind of lenses you put on your camera. They are in fact very high quality and include a glass element that is frankly the best magnifier of sunlight this side of the Mississippi! Which brings me to possibly the best part of this post.

Picture this: sitting at a red light (a long one too) with the lenses sitting on the passenger side floor (can't have them on the seat - they might burn up my car!) and an empty envelope on the passenger seat. It's a very bright day and the sun is high in the sky. What do I do? I immediately pick up a lens and the envelope and start focusing the intense sunlight onto said envelope. 2 seconds later (and I'm not exaggerating!) there is a smoking hole in the envelope and the laser this thing is throwing off has gone to work on my shorts! Luckily I managed to regain some level of maturity early enough to prevent the need for skin grafts. However, I was holding a smoldering envelope on RT 14 no less and the light was turning green. So I blew on it which of course promptly stoked the fire...literally! Now I have open flame in my car. FABULOUS! I managed to extinguish the blaze by holding it out the window whilst accelerating to 40 MPH in a 30 for the express purpose of putting out the fire. Yeah, safety first. That's me all the way. I can imagine what my insurance agent would say!

Which brings me to this photo...finally. When I heard about Sere and Johnny's fire I immediately said a prayer of thanks that no one was hurt. By the time she posted pictures of the blaze I was ready to be inspired and immediately thought about how to capture the really cool effects of this TV lens. One thing led to another and I ended up with this photo. I won't say exactly what it is but I want to hear what you all think. It's easy for me to see everything for obvious reasons but I'm curious about it's ambiguity.

I needed my remote trigger and tripod for this. Plus, I used the rapid shutter function, which on my camera allows me to take 5 shots per second. Additionally, it was important to operate in full manual mode so that the camera's metering didn't screw up the exposure. It was a lot of fun and I would encourage all of you to take some time to set-up something that makes you curious. I used to scoff at tripods and remotes and thought it was important to be mobile at all times. Though I still believe being mobile is great, I've learned to love taking my time and really thinking about the set-up and the lighting. I've learned so much by going slow and I think we all could. In the meantime, just remember: do NOT focus sunlight with anything while driving in the car.

Floating Away

Before I get to today's photo I want to ask you all for some extra thoughts, prayers and love for one of our Chicks.
Sere, as you all know, lives in rural America. Her husband is a farmer and they are a farm family. Working hard everyday to carve out a little (or well, huge) piece of land to grow something for the world to enjoy.

Last night around 7pm CST the machine shop housing the tools for the farm caught on fire and was destroyed. The shop is the closest building to Sere's home. Fortunately, no one was injured and her prized Siberian Huskies were all safe as well.

In a world where your success is directly linked to the tools you have loosing a machine shop is a devastating blow. Please say and extra prayer, send some extra love or just some kind thoughts for Sere and her family as they navigate through the mess that will come.


Now without further adieu,


Nikon d40
18-55 1:3-5.6
1/250 at 46mm
f5.3
ISO 200

I had quite a few ideas on what I wanted to do as a follow up to Scott's post. A few of them were a little more PG-13 building on the "moon" in Scott's photo. Around mid-day I was feeling a little despondent and couldn't quite get my "mo-jo" going. Thankfully I have a wonderful little girl that wanted to play outside in the beautiful sunshine on a gorgeous 78degree evening.
After numerous trips down the driveway on her bike we moved on to bubbles.

Ah Ha! Bubbles! BINGO

Watching them swirl around capturing the light from the sun, casting colors about just like a kaleidoscope.

Perfection

Taking photos of bubbles floating in the sky was pretty tough with the equipment I have. There wasn't enough depth in any of the photos.
As I laid in the grass feeling a little discouraged once again, I noticed a bubble just sitting perfectly atop a few blades of grass.

I knew I wanted to capture only the bubble in focus so I went wide open (f5.3 - sure would have been nice to have the f1.4 but...). My auto focus (the only auto I use on my camera) couldn't find the bubble so I had to do the focus manually. Not my strong suit given the fact that I wasn't wearing my glasses but I feel strong with how it ended up.

A calm, peaceful, delicate bubble, resting on the soft blades of grass in the remainder of the beautiful setting summer sun.

Where are you going to take us next Jay'me? Can't wait for the journey.

I got a 50mm Too!

Canon 30d
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Shutter Speed 1/400
f/1.4
Focal Length 50mm
ISO 400
Natural Light

So yes, I brought this lens out partly to needle Brandi a bit (I'm going to pay for this) but more importantly, it's my connection to Sere's post. This is a celebration of Sere's new toy. Hip, hip, hooray!!!

Now let's get serious. The beautiful thing about a prime lens is it forces you to "zoom with your feet." That is, if you want to view something from a larger magnification, you must literally walk closer. It's a great learning tool. You typically have the additional advantage of better optics. It's just plain easier to make a prime lens hence, you get better quality for your money, albeit without zoom capabilities. You just can't go wrong with a good prime lens.

As for this photo, the subject is part of an abandoned homestead near my home. I was actually hoping to get some photos of the rundown house and barn. Those really didn't turn out so you get faucet picture number 3. I was struck by the fairly bright blue against the dark rust. The contrast was too good to pass up. Plus, if gave me a chance to shoot wide open and show off the depth of field capabilities of a wide aperture. It's a fantastic tool to master and it can make the difference between a good photo and a great photo.

And just because Sere posted 2, I'm cheating again. This is in response to both Sere's second photo and to Brandi and her day in Galena.

Canon 30d
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Shutter Speed 0.3
f/22.0
Focal Length 50mm
ISO 100
Natural Light

This is a field near my home that happens to shelter about 1,000,000,000 mosquitoes. You know, I must be an idiot because I keep finding these places to donate blood. It's truly unreal. I'll say it now; my next photo is indoors!

Moving on, I pass this field daily and I've always wanted to set-up my camera after they cut. The rows and the colors are just perfect. Plus, there is something about the smell of a fresh cut field. I can't get enough of it. So I finally put tripod to earth and snapped off about 60. You gotta love digital!

I was hoping the sky would cooperate and give me a decent sunset but sometimes Mother Nature has different plans. So I decided on making the field the real star. I intentionally left out a lot of sky (which was hard because the moon was begging to be included!) and let the patterns of the rows do the talking.

Something totally different from the first photo is the aperture. I used a very small aperture to allow for maximum depth of field. As a result, the foreground is sharp as well as the trees. So all of you bemoaning your lack of a fast lens (wide aperture) remember, small apertures are really cool too! Okay folks, that's all for now. Stay tuned for Brandi - she's gonna knock your socks off!

Scott