Focal length. Some people consider it the “zoom” of a camera. It’s expressed, though not really explained, by the numbers on the lens that say “18-55mm” or some such. Essentially, it determines how close the subject appears, the magnification or lack thereof. There are, naturally, the obvious aspects of using focal length in composition –
Category: Photography
Odd memories, part nine
It’s funny – as a species, we seem to have a propensity for discovery, to explore uncharted areas in the hope/belief that something magical awaits just over the horizon. It’s probably responsible for most of our explorations across the planet. There is definitely a cool feeling when you’re traveling, and you see a new and interesting place awaiting you on your path
Not the right kind of composition
Just a quick image from tonight, as Jupiter passed close to the moon. Or at least, from the given perspective of one position in the universe presently occupied by Earth. Jupiter has often been much closer to the moon, distance-wise, even when not visible in the sky at all.
This is admittedly both not very good, and a digital composite. The reason for the composite is the wide disparity in light
Chasing megapixels
Some time back, I’d started a post on this subject, partially in response to a thread somewhere, but when I took too long to finish it I realized it was, in webby terms, no longer current, and simply let it go. But after another prompting, this time from The Straight Dope, I decided it’s worth pursuing anyway, and may provide a little insight into the whole digital photography thing.
Dead of winter
Well, okay, it’s really hard to refer to the dead of winter in the mid-latitude US in normal circumstances, and it seems it’s going to keep getting harder to do that with warming trends. The temperatures yesterday and today exceeded 21°c (70°f,) spurring some activity not just from me, but from other critters as well.
Above, a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) rides
Best of 2012
In recognition of arbitrary numbers assigned to seasonal patterns produced by axial tilt, I present my favorite images taken within the past 31,556,941 seconds, more or less – what some gauche people refer to as a “year.” Also note that these are not the best as determined by popular vote, unless you consider ‘popular’ to mean ‘me,’ (and no one
Finally
I’ve been working on it longer than I think I should have been, but I finally finished a page on the main site dedicated to macro photography lighting. The writeup isn’t the difficult part – it’s getting images that show everything that I want as clearly as possible. I’d like to think I have good examples up there now.
So if you’ve ever wondered why some macro
Second Best of 2012
I separate my images into broad categories to help locate them when needed, with some refinements into sub-categories as necessary. So when working on my “Best of 2012” posts, I decided to use these categories (with the exception of the previous post.) As mentioned earlier, two categories
2012’s Not-Quites, the Insects
So as I mentioned, I went ahead and put together my best images of this year – or, as it really should be, my favorites, since no one is voting on these but me. However, this year was notable in that most of my images, by a wide margin, were arthropods (which I still call ‘insects’ solely for convenience.)
Cut out for me
Alex Wild of Myrmecos (sidebar,) and Compound Eye at Scientific American, has announced that he will feature any “Best of 2012” sites from science & nature photographers in a post at Compound Eye. There’s already a nice collection of links, so check them out!
While I usually skip the whole “best of the year” stuff and rarely get engaged in rating my images, I figured