Tag: Nikon D80

Fun with Air Swimmers!

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Whew! Back from vacation! Cobalt and I had an epic time visiting both our families and having double Christmases (note: double Christmas was really awesome – it was great to see both of our families and share Christmas traditions with both of them – minus all the traveling involved to make it happen)! We also had a little party at our house in Colorado for New Years. It was so good to see some of our friends that we don’t usually see for that too. Yay holidays!

Anyway, Cobalt and I brought an Air Swimmer shark for our niece and nephew when we went to visit his family. We had a lot of fun setting it up for them, especially as the Air Swimmer shark also turned out to be HUGE, probably about the size of our niece. In fact, she had trouble holding onto him by herself. Also, the instructions warned us that the Air Swimmer had not been tested to fly above 4000 ft above sea level and we were higher than 7000 feet! But in the end, we got him properly set up and he actually flew pretty well. The kids and I took him down to the basement of Cobalt’s mom’s house so we could play with him. Here are some pictures from the fun!

A and Finn watching Cobalt blow up the Air Swimmer…

A and the Air Swimmer downstairs…

C and the Air Swimmer. He was really great at maneuvering the Air Swimmer. We decided that all those video games make for good practice for making Air Swimmers swim!

The kids stole my camera when I was playing with the Air Swimmer so there’s me!

We loved this… When you are done playing with the Air Swimmer, you can dock him to the remote control so he doesn’t fly away (by the way, in the FAQ on the Air Swimmers website, it says to not play with your Air Swimmer outside because it will fly away and you will be sad… we liked that part too!).

Anyway, this guy was REALLY fun to play with! I highly recommend getting one for you or for a kid in your life. :):)

How were the holidays for you? Any awesome presents? Talk to me! I’ve missed you guys!

Stars!

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Today’s fun with lights post involves stars! So now basically, I turned all my out of focus light into star shapes (instead of those pointy starbursts from Tuesday’s post). This is also done by messing with the aperture on a prime (non zoom) lens. Basically, I cut out a star shape on cardstock and taped it in front of my lens. Then I used a really wide aperture (refer to this lovely picture from Wikipedia if you need to refresh your memory from Tuesday – the top is a wide aperture and the bottom is a narrow aperture) to take all these pictures. This wide aperture + the star in front means that all of the out of focus light turned into the shape of stars instead of circles.

Anyway, below are some other fun examples of stars. The top is my Christmas lights again.

So I’m not sure how many of you know that I play trombone but I do (I used to play it a lot more in high school and college… boo grad school eating up all my time)! Here is my trombone covered in stars:

Fun with tealights and mirrors, part 1:

Fun with tealights and mirrors, part 2:

Yay! Shapes! What shape should I try next? My friend Jem has done this with music notes! Super cool idea! Do you guys have any fun plans for this weekend? This is my last full week in lab before Cobalt and I escape for the holidays so I will probably be working… :p

Fun with Christmas Lights!

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I’ve decided that today’s and Thursday’s posts will be full of fun with lights! Today we focus on Christmas lights! I bought some purple Christmas lights (though they look red in these pictures…) this weekend and put them up around mine and Cobalt’s office. So immediately, the camera came out and I had to play with various settings. Today we are exploring starbursts! I briefly talked about them last week in my post about A but here’s how it works. If you have a prime lens (so it doesn’t zoom) and you set your aperture really narrow (= a small hole in the lens), any out of focus light will be the shape of the petals of the aperture (Click here for a picture of a large (top) and small (bottom) aperture from Wikipedia). So the smaller the aperture, the more starbursty the out of focus light becomes. It’s kind of fun to play with…

Anyway, here are a few more pictures of me playing with my Christmas lights…

Those of you who are my friends on Facebook have probably seen this one by now (It’s a self portrait taken with my awwwwesome remote control for my camera… TOTALLY worth the extra cash btw for those of you who are thinking of purchasing DSLRs… makes family pictures during the holidays SUPER fun/easy):

More starbursts:

Getting these Christmas lights was actually one of the highlights of my weekend. Life has been fairly ridiculous for us lately so anything that I can do to make our office/house more relaxing/comforting/etc is a huuuuge plus.

Tell me how you feel about Christmas lights! Do you like them? Hate them? How much is too much? I’ve seen a lot of people wrapping Christmas lights around just the tree trunks in their front yards this year… I’ve gotta tell you that I’m not so sure I’m a fan. It looks like a lit up post in the middle of a dark yard… :-/

Speaking of Christmas lights, here is my favorite picture I took with Instagram in downtown Denver this weekend:

Mountain Girl

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When my friend Jem was in town a few weeks ago, we went up to Chautauqua Park in Boulder with our friend A so that A could model and Jem and I could practice taking portrait shots. Chautauqua is awesome for photography because it’s snuggled up to the base of the Flatirons that look over Boulder (so it’s very picturesque) but it’s also annoying because if you don’t get there at exactly the right time of day, the sun makes taking pictures really hard (it’s too bright or it’s already hidden behind the Flatirons)! The lighting was definitely a bit frustrating when we were there but it made for a good challenge to get good pictures of A! Yay portrait practice! Can’t wait till you get a DSLR too A so that we can model for you to return the favor! :) Anyway, it was really fun and A did a great job being photogenic so I’d have to say this was a success.

I love the picture above because the rock A is standing next to mirrors the giant Flatirons behind it. I love the pictures below too… Take a look!

This one I am proud of because I just learned to make that reflection of the sun in her sunglasses into that starbursty shape. I love it. It makes the pic look super epic.

For some reason, I love the dramatic backlighting and A’s windblown hair in this picture. Plus you can see the Flatirons in the background.

This one is fun because you can see me and Jem in A’s glasses. Hi Jem! :)

What are you like in front of the camera? Are you an absolute ham like I am (sometimes it’s seriously really hard for me to decide if I want to be in front of or behind the camera…) or do you run from the camera? Is there something you really hate about yourself in pictures of you (I always feel like I’m slouching in pictures :p)? What about something you love?

By the way, don’t you love how beautiful and sunny all those pictures of A are? Yeah… it’s been ridiculously warm here… So much for December being wintery. Though I guess we are supposed to get snow this weekend…

Dropsy Turvy

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Yay! A post! And one with crazy water droplets! The pictures in today’s post comes from last weekend when my friend Jem was in town and we gave each other various photo challenges. This one was by far the hardest because it requires dropping water into a bowl full of water and capturing the droplets falling and landing in the bowl. You have to have a lot of light so you can use high shutter speeds (so the drops don’t look blurry) AND you have to take hundreds of pictures so that you can at least get a few cool pictures. So the set up is pretty much as complicated as taking the actual picture. Jem and I made an impromptu light box and pretty much filled it with all sorts of lights. I think the best way to do this type of photography is to use an external flash but Jem and I didn’t have one so we had to improvise with a couple of desk lights, an overhead light in the room, etc. Anyway, then we set up the background behind the water (in the picture above, it is the sheet music – this picture was inspired by this one taken by Patrick Latter). Then we played with a variety of camera settings (longer and shorter shutter speeds, smaller or larger ISO and F numbers, her camera vs my camera), backgrounds, and the water itself (we added blue food coloring to the water at first and then some milk). Fun times.

The picture above and the pictures below are some of my favorite pictures from my camera.

What do you think? It’s craziness! I love how the pictures (which have been adjusted only for white balance and shadows) look ridiculously 70’s… So many colors…. How are you guys? It’s getting to be holiday season so I’ve been thinking a lot about traditions. Do you have any awesome traditions that you do every year? Is it something you’ve done forever with your family or is it something you and your spouse/significant other came up with? What’s the story behind it? I want to know everything! :D

Top Secret Crochet Project pt 1

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Meet Woky! He was my top secret crochet project #1 of the fall. This isn’t the current top secret crochet project mentioned in Monday’s post though. You’ll have to wait on that one. Anyway, this is Woky. He is an ewok in case you were thinking he was a cute teddy bear with a hood (:-/) and his hood is removable. I made him for my friend Jem! A few months ago, my friend J suggested that we make crocheted ewoks together and I thought that sounded fun! J is a much faster crocheter than me so she finished her ewok in record time. Meanwhile slow Potassium took months to finally finish Woky (this does not bode well for my current top secret crochet project….). It was awesome in the end though because I finished Woky about a week before Jem was supposed to come into town for a visit. Somehow she figured out that she was getting an ewok though I think she was still happy that she was right. She promptly named him Woky! :) Before Jem came into town, we took Woky to the pumpkin patch for a photoshoot. So without further ado, may I present Woky!

This is before the pumpkin patch; Woky decided he wanted to ride the great shark Finn across the house… Cobalt can’t look at this picture without thinking of riding the sand worms in Dune…
Ewoks in the corn maze!
I think Woky has chosen a pumpkin….

I am super proud of Woky. I’d say he turned out pretty well! His pattern was pretty hard (I had to keep asking J for help… that’s partly why he took so long to finish…).

In other fun crafty news, my friend Jem and I are thinking of starting an Etsy shop for our photographs and possibly my crocheted creatures (though I am super slow so I’m not sure about that). Anyone have any comments about that? Do you have an Etsy shop? Is it awesome? Stressful? Let’s discuss (topics: Etsy/ewoks/anything else you’ve been dying to tell me)!

Curious…

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Whew… I hope you all had happy Thanksgiving weeks last week! I took last week off from posting because it was technically vacation at school… grad students don’t really get vacations from lab (those darn cells, always needing something….) so I took a vacation from my other activities (such as writing in here) instead.

So what have I been up to?

Well besides reading a bunch of young adult books (I read 3 books in about as many days… :-/) and eating (over the past week, yours truly has helped eat 1 turkey breast, 1 turkey, and 2 ducks… not to mention a ridiculous amount of stuffing, mashed potatoes, and other delicious Thanksgiving favorites), I did lot of arts and crafts. These include a super secret crochet project, fun crafts from a “Crafternoon” with my sis in law and other friends, whale drawings, and (of course) photography. My friend Jem was in town for Thanksgiving so she and I gave ourselves various photography tasks. So in the next few days/weeks/etc, look forward to posts about all those crafts up there plus more star photography, pictures of our friend A modeling for us (see pic above for an example of that), and cool water droplet pictures similar to this one by Patrick Latter.

In other news, I am starting an informal class that meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at school. Depending on what my homework is like, I might have to switch these posts to Tuesdays and Thursdays for a bit so I can spend Sunday and Tuesday nights doing my homework instead of planning fun blog posts… :-/

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you do any Black Friday shopping? Are you doing any Cyber Monday shopping right now? What is your favorite activity to do to relax? I loooooove being creative (or reading).

DSLRs and what I know about them

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Gustav wants to learn how to use a DSLR too…

First off… Our wedding pictures are up! I’ll post some on here on Wednesday! Cobalt and I have to figure out which 50 we like the best out of all of them for our wedding book. So many pictures to choose from!

Anyway, today’s post is about DSLR cameras. I have had a few people ask me if I have any advice on picking out DSLRS/getting into photography. So I thought I’d write a little post about it. Obviously if you have more questions, go ahead and ask and we can continue the discussion over a series of posts.

The bottom line
I think when you get your first DSLR, it’s good to just go with whatever used one that fits properly in your price range. You don’t know what you want in a DSLR yet but you need something to practice on. So if you can find a used (but not too used obviously) one that fits well in your price range, I say just go for it! As you play, you will notice features you do and don’t like in a camera and then when you are a more experienced photographer who can afford a brand new DSLR, you can get a really nice one with all the features you like.

Canon vs Nikon
As for the different brands, I have a Nikon because of just what I said above – my old boss’ husband was selling his old Nikon so he could buy a new one and I really wanted to try it out so I bought it. I haven’t looked back since. It has been so fun. The biggest differences I’ve seen between Nikon and Canon at least is that Canon products (the camera body, the lenses, etc) are usually bit cheaper (though experienced photographers will tell you that Nikon has better picture quality… I have no idea if this is true… I’ve seen professional photographers with both Canon and Nikon cameras). I like the Nikon cameras because you can change all the settings while looking through the view finder (as you’re taking a picture). As far as I can tell, Canon uses a series of menus that require you to use the viewing screen to change settings, but you’d have to ask a Canon person about that. It’s funny how hard it is to switch back and forth between them…

Learning how to use your DSLR
I actually took a class but it wasn’t as hands on as I would have liked. I learned a lot about photography in general – like lighting and composition, etc. It also got me started learning about how to use Photoshop to play with my pictures. A lot of camera stores offer more hands on classes that you can take. They generally have classes dedicated to either brand and any skill level. I learn the best by just trying things out so for me, the most helpful thing was to go out on photography adventures with friends and their DSLRS. We had a range of photography skills and were able to teach each other little things as we played. Some camera stores put on events like Mike’s Camera did with the zoo day where you can play with all sorts of cameras and they are there to help you. I would definitely recommend looking into what cameras stores you have around you. They usually have a list of fun photography events or classes in the community.

I think that’s all I can think of for now! Do you have any questions? Let’s hear them! I hope this was helpful…

Halloweekend 2012!

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Yay! Halloween is this week! Cobalt and I celebrated all weekend! On Friday evening, we had a Halloween party at our apartment. We dressed up like Frankenstein’s monster and his bride as you can see in this picture.


Then on Sunday, we had some friends over and we carved our pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch last week. I of course made my pumpkin into a shark. It was a bit tricky because over the course of last week, a squirrel decided that my pumpkin would make a tasty snack and started taking little bites out of the whole pumpkin. Needless to say, I moved my pumpkin inside before too much damage was done but I did have to think cleverly about how I carved it to get rid of the bite marks. The picture on top has most of our pumpkins – Cobalt’s was a little too dark to be see in this picture so I posted another picture below with just my shark pumpkin and his skull pumpkin.


Yay!

My mom is in town for the beginning of this week! I am excited to hang out with her. What are you guys up to? Did you do anything special for Halloween this weekend?

Pumpkins acquired + rocks!

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Busy weekend here in Boulder! I think I can safely say I got most of the stuff on my to do list done. Could always have more relaxing of course but you know…

Anyway, as mentioned in Friday’s post, we went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday! I got that epically sized pumpkin shown up there and my friend A got that normal sized pumpkin that she’s standing with. I had originally chosen a similarly sized pumpkin with the perfect orange hue but then I found that fatty and fell in love. You know how it is…

I also like him because he has such a good stem… looks like a shark fin. Wahaha… stay tuned till next week to see the carved version!

Anyway, we all got nice pumpkins and then we headed up into the mountains above Boulder for some rock climbing in the afternoon. It was a perfect day for it: warm, sunny, not too many people on the rocks. It was my first time actually bouldering outside so it was a neat experience. After we tried bouldering a little, we just scrambled around on the rocks. Here is a picture of Cobalt and our friend M staring off at Boulder.

In case you don’t believe that we were actually that high off the ground, here’s what the city of Boulder looked like from our perch. I love the colors of the trees and I love how small everything looks in this picture:

Awesomeness! I had so much fun this weekend! Can’t wait to go climbing again! And I definitely can’t wait to carve my pumpkin. I am thinking a shark because of that awesome stem but I don’t know. Anyone else have any ideas? What did you do this weekend? Something fun I hope? How’s the weather where you are? Still fall-like? We’re supposed to get some snow later this week… :-/