Rain Photos into Video #2

Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody #11 is playing in the background

So I promised giving it another shot...so here it is! I will probably try again, hopefully getting a little better each time. During our almost daily afternoon shower, I decided to take a few more photos. I really like a few of the series that I included in the video and will probably do some similar shots next time it rains! 

Let me know what you think!

Fun with Photos...and video?! And a business card?!

Since there was a quick rainstorm just a few minutes ago I decided to take a few photos. I also wanted to try a little time-lapse-style video with some of the photos. So here it is! Nothing special, I will probably try again and use more photos which will make it a little better - oh and also do it horizontally of course so it's not a pain to watch. I have never posted a video on my blog, since this is a photography blog, so don't be too disappointed!

I also played around with the idea of a business card - for my photography of course. So I will show you what I came up with! I would absolutely love to upgrade my camera to a Canon 7D, but until I either have a good job or make money off of my photography, that will not be happening! I was reading a blog the other day that recommended upgrading photo equipment every year if you work professionally...but I don't so here we are going into my 5th year! In the meantime I will enjoy my Rebel XTi, and though it has passed its 4th birthday, it is still doing well! The photos in the video above were with my favorite and best lens, 50mm f/1.4 - which has also done me wonders with portraits. Anyways, the business card....

 Front 

The real reverse has my phone number on it so
might as well keep that to myself! But here
is a version without my phone number!

I printed a few out just for fun. The cardstock I used is not quite as thick as a business card normally is and it is slightly gray in color, but I added a little tab just to see what it looked like...any thoughts? Part of me thought it looked good, then I put it down and thought it looked random and out of place. So I don't know - obviously it would be a lot of work to put it on every one, but I tried just for fun! Here are photos of the front and back I took...

Don't mind the colors, they look a little different in person than on the screen and there was no need to edit them to look like they should! I guess I could figure out some kind of logo to put on that little tab - then it would probably look cool. Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated! Otherwise, I am hoping to get a great photo of lightning sometime soon. Florida has so many thunderstorms, which is great for people who like thunder and lightning and rain (like Christina and I). If it weren't for all the mosquitoes, we would probably be on our balcony every time there is a thunderstorm. But there have been some great *potential* lightning photos, but no successful ones as of yet. I'll keep you updated!

Answer to Yesterday's Poll (AKA Night Photography) and Some Fresh Photos from Today!

APPARENTLY some people were "afraid" to vote because they thought they might be wrong! Well that's okay, but next time you definitely don't need to be afraid, especially because the vote is completely anonymous. But to those who voted, thanks for your participation! As Sarah pointed out to me, I actually tagged my Twitter post with "#nightphotography" so if you caught that, well done!

So yes, this photo was taken at 11:30pm. That may shock some of you and any of those that have dabbled with photography at night, it may not be much of a surprise. Now, the answer to your question: Well, how was this at night if it looks like it was during the day?!?

Answer: I took the photo with my 50mm f1.4 lens. Shutter speed: 3.2 seconds, Aperture: 1.4, ISO: 800. Basically I used a faster film speed, which allows you to take a faster photo (I would have needed 6.4 seconds if I used ISO 400 - half the film speed = twice the time). Also, the aperture is how "open" the lens is while taking a photo, the more open = more light coming in, but less focus on everything in view, or the depth of field. Make sense?! If not, that's okay. I would suggest taking your camera out and playing around - if you have a point and shoot you can play around with the ISO - try taking the same shot at night or dusk with ISO 100, 200, 400, 800 and look at the difference! For those using a DSLR, it is obviously much easier to tweak these settings and you can see the difference immediately if you are changing the ISO but leaving the other settings locked.

Also - use a tripod at night. Since the camera is taking a longer photo, if you are not using a tripod, I can almost guarantee it will be blurry!

Here are a couple fun shots I took today since it rained and I love taking photos of drops of water! These two photos were taken in Boca Raton, FL - where it's cloudy today and I'm not sure what to do on cloudy days here...it's always sunny! Click to enlarge to get a better view as always.

And here are some photos that I have taken over the past few years of droplets - these photos were taken in Massachusetts and New York...

Below you can see a little trick I use sometimes with water droplets - the flash. The first shot is without a flash, and the second is with. You can see the huge difference it makes when using a flash with water droplets, since each droplet catches the light from the flash - so it brings out so much detail! Sometimes you can tell you used the flash and other times it just looks cool!

These two photos are examples of using the flash and, for the most part, not really being able to tell the flash was used. They turned out to be two of my favorite photos of water droplets I have taken...

That's all for today. Hope you are having a great day and if you are bored tonight, go try some night photography! Or take some photos of water droplets today (if you can)...I would love to see them - I will even post them on my blog if you send them to me!