Food mode

(edit: I originally wrote this post by email from my phone, however only 1 of the 2 photos I attached made it to the post.  Probably because I wrote it from a parking lot, then started driving while it was uploading and lost wifi connection!  I love technology, but it does have its limits. LOL)

Recently, my Galaxy S4 gave up the ghost.  Among various minor glitches, the first major thing to go was the default camera software. It stopped saving pictures, with either corrupted files or nothing saved at all.

I started using a purchased software and, while still shots worked fine, it corrupted, then lost, some video I took.

When it came time to choose my next phone, I was in a bit of a quandry; do I do what I usually do and get an older phone for cheap?  Or do I get the best new phone for my needs.  You see, I hardly ever use my phone as a phone.  For communication, I am more likely to text. I drive a lot, so even that is limited.

After examining my usage, it was two things that were the deciding factors.  One of those was camera quality.  It was camera quality that lead me to go with the Galaxy S6.  It got really good ratings, and I have been very happy with it.

It has not been until a few days ago that I finally got around to actually looking at the settings and options.  It turns out that there are modes that came with my old phone that are now available as free downloads.  Looking through the various modes available, I found several others I wanted to try, including a "food" mode.

Here are two photos to compare.

One is of a cheap grocery store stir fry meal, just out of the microwave and still in its plastic bowl.  That one was taken in food mode.

The other is of a Soda Jerks build your own burger.  It was taken with default auto mode.

Both were taken in fairly low light.  The burger picture has been cropped, but no other post processing has been done. These are raw photos.

What do you think?  Can you see a difference?

A.

Playing with fire

So I got an invitation to an event this evening; essentially, one man got to risk life and limb spinning a flaming orb of molten metal for our long exposure amusement. I wish I could say I was sorry I took part in this kind of thing, but I'm totally not :P

While I took many more shots, these are the more interesting ones.

Philippe

I love my BlackBerry

So these are before and after pictures using BlackBerry's built in software. 

I'm loving this phone :D 

Sent from my BB Z10, that totally doesn't look like an Iphone ... totally doesn't.

Fun with stitching

I use a program called Autostitch to generate landscape pictures from independent captures. I have to admit I'm in love with this thing, as it allows me to do things like this :)

Mixed feelings about this whole insomnia thing...

So this morning I got up at 4:40, yet again. Please don't get me wrong, I *love* the shots I get at this time of the morning, but I have to admit I'm getting a little grumpy about the whole lack of sleep thing...

Here we're starting to peak a bit

I fully realize I'm somewhat addicted to light, but sometimes I try and balance it out with a tree or something :P

Over here I was startled by a bird flying directly overhead, which ended up by the telephone pole by the time I was able to capture him.

Him and his buddies on the tree branches

New phone attachments

These shots were taken with new lens attachments for my Z10 BlackBerry phone  ; one is a fisheye and the other one is a macro. This type of photographic flexibility  is usually not seen with a phone. I am impressed 

Sent from my BB Z10, that totally doesn't look like an Iphone ... totally doesn't.

Weather incoming

I've got a piece of software that takes amazing panoramic pictures... unfortunately the best way to view them is in the software itself. The export isn't too bad though :)

Sent from my BB Z10, that totally doesn't look like an Iphone ... totally doesn't.

Bored on a sunny day

So I'm working from home and taking a break. it's gorgeous sunshine outside :D

Fun with filters

So I'm working from home this morning and I glance out the window; it's bright sunshine, the temp is about -20C and there is ice fog on the river. There *is* a sun there, I swear, but the camera refuses to capture it, instead giving me a large white area where the pixels were simply over saturated. Since I was barefoot while taking the shots, I decided to add a light blue hue to pass on how my feet felt during the shot :P
P.

Cold mornings...

(Philippe)

There was a four or five minute window where the light was hitting things just right, before the sun burned everything away...

Morning Traffc

This is a view I see every morning on my way to work; figured it was about time I tried capturing it :)

P.

Playing

It's that time of year again. Music from the annual Edmonton Folk Festival is drifting in through our windows, and out our south facing windows we can see the crowds on the hill. Every year I think that maybe this year, I should get tickets and actually go to the festival. I only ever hear rave reviews.

Then I see the crowds on the hill and realize that, as much as I'd love to check it out, I just don't have the temperament for it! *L*

Instead, I enjoy the view and take a few pictures. Once it gets dark, I like to start playing with the camera. For tonight, I'm particularly happy with this one.



There's a bit of noise reduction and local tone mapping done to this, plus it's 50% of the original size. The timing worked out rather well. I started off zoomed in as far as I could, then while the shutter was open, zoomed all the way out again. (Nikkor 70-300mm lens) In the second or so that took, the stage, which faces away from our balcony, suddenly lit up with a bright blue-ish white light, adding an extra element to the photo.

Night Lights

My older daughter and headed out to see the city Christmas tree, which had its official lighting this past weekend, and to experiment with a few other night shots.



Of all the shots I took, I ended up going with a relatively low exposure time.  High winds ruined the longer exposures.

The downward streaks seen in various places are "dripping" lights that move down the entire length of the tree.





To give an idea of just how strong the winds were, this shot was taken with a tripod and 4 second exposure. 



This one is another 4 second exposure.  The longer exposure times had the flags virtually invisible.

Zombie Zone

Anna:  I've been remiss in posting photos here.  Most of my photography lately has been for my craft blog.  I just haven't got around to uploading other photos here. :-(

To make for that, let's start with this one.



Not too long ago, the girls and a friend took part in a local Zombie Walk.  My husband was with them taking pictures until he used up both memory cards.  I was waiting at where they were supposed to finish the walk, but ended up meeting them part way through, getting shots of the zombies as they walked past me at an intersection.

I was trying to avoid using flash, so a lot of my photos just didn't work out.  Some of the failures, however, were still very interesting.  Like this one.  It looks so surreal. 

I like it. :-D

Morning flowers

Philippe: Up at 4:30, on site at 5:00. Morning shots rock :D

Picking up the camera

Anna: The following photos were taken by Philippe. He hasn't been taking photos very often lately, so he was looking for a reason to pick up the camera. :-D



This photo was an accident, really. He forgot to turn on the off shoe flash, so it ended up being a long exposure. With no tripod and shakey hands.

The end result turned out to be far more interesting than the clear photos taken afterwards. This photo is completely unadjusted, except for resizing.



Here we have a fuzzy looking baby snail. I cropped it rather tightly, mostly because it happened to be crawling over a piece of ... er... pleco poo. Taken using the macro lens and the off shoe flash. The snail is less than 1/4 of an inch long.

I have no idea what the orange bits are. We can't actually see them normally. Amazing what can be seen when using a macro lens.

At most, we've counted 18 baby snails, though there's no guarentee that there still is that many. They finally started hatching from one of the egg clusters on the underside of the lid, after I happened to move the light to a different position. I guess the extra warmth did it. The egg cluster than was being laid in this photo, however, fell into the water some time yesterday evening. I have no idea how long it was in the water before I spotted it, and decided against trying to fish it out of our really deep tank. It's still bobbing around on the bottom. At the moment, there are still 3 egg clusters in place. The very first one laid is as unchanged as ever. The second one, I can barely see way in the back, under where the filter is hung. It may have actually had some eggs hatched, but I can't see it well enough to say for sure. There's one left on the underside of the lid, and a few of those have hatched, though not all survived. I can still see some that hatched but never dropped into the water, dangling from the bottom of the cluster.

The babies are in a wide range of sizes, and one's grown amazingly quickly. They seem to hide in the gravel a lot, but they also like to go into the fake rock cavern and inside the skull we've got, so I doubt we ever see all of them at once. We'll see how many survive to get big enough to give away.

Our tank sure is clean, though.

Wide Angle

Philippe: Try and spot the hot air balloon :)

Muttart Visit

Philippe: Playing with Aperture again :)

Teeth

Teeth
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: Another photo from the family farm.

When I came upon this contraption, I didn't recognize what it was at first. Then I realized it was upside down. These are the teeth from an old binder - the machine that would cut the wheat stalks, tie them into sheaves, then drop them on the ground behind. My dad would pull it with the tractor while one of my brothers operated it. The rest of us would follow behind, picking up the sheaves and stacking them into stooks. I was so small, my youngest brother and I could both fit into the middle of a stook together! I don't imagine I was much help with the work, but I still have fond memories of it.

Barbed wire and lichen

wire0197
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: During our visit to my family farm, I had a chance to wander around a bit. There's an area that's a sort of graveyard of old cars and farm equipment. I found this roll of barbed wire there. Interesting to see it's been there long enough for lichen to start growing on it.