I hate flying bugs, but I have a macro lens.

As Marci discussed in our family blog, she recently hosted a baby shower at our house for a friend. While that was going on, I grabbed my camera and went on a photo adventure to our neighborhood park/pond/trail. My main intent was to play with some new filters I got for my camera, which I did, and will discuss in future posts, but I found a tree with really pretty flower buds that was buzzing with lots of bees.

A quick note on bees. They fall into the "flying bugs" category of my highly scientific understanding of insects. 

I strongly dislike flying bugs. They don't gross me out, they don't scare me, they simply make me uncomfortable with their vastly superior mobility. When surprised by a flying bug, I typically respond in a fashion explained so incredibly well by the comedian Brian Regan (listen to that bit here --> Spider Webs and Bees).

That being said, as I recently purchased a macro lens for my camera, I felt an inexplicable urge to take pictures of bugs. Quite the dilemma.

Mustering up some courage I managed to snap some pretty cool pictures and avoided getting stung. 

However, there was one moment that I'm not proud off. I was focused in quite close on one of the bees and it flew right into the front of my lens with an ever so slight "tap". Oh man, you would have thought the bee had flow right into my eyeball with the amount of random flailing that followed that "tap". After composing myself, I could feel the nearby families' uncertainty towards me as they carefully escorted their children further down the walking trail. "Daddy, what happened to that man, is he okay?", "Yes dear, now let's move along."

Anyways, Bug Pictures from my flickr photostream!

HDR Photography is Fun! (HDR Part 1)

In the next month or so, I will be taking a weekend workshop on HDR Photography from Dave Wilson (Check out his work here--> Dave Wilson Photography).

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a style photography that uses various methods to capture a wider range of light in a photograph. As awesome as the technology in cameras may be, they are still not as good at viewing both bright light and shadows at the same time as the human eye is capable of doing. This is why you take a picture and it might not look as good or as accurate as what you were just looking at with your own two eyes. The various methods of HDR photography allow you to try and recapture some of that lost light range in your photographs, making them look more familiar to what you were seeing with your eyes.

However, these methods also allow you to extend the range beyond that which your eye can see at any given time and turn photographs into slightly unreal images all the way to full blown surreal/abstract images. HDR photography has also become somewhat of a trend recently, spawning such websites as "I Hate Your HDR". Also, many cameras, smartphones, and even post processing software have built in HDR "features" that either simulate a true HDR image capture, or do a very rough/poor job of creating an HDR image.

My interest in HDR photography lies in the first purpose I mentioned;  to capture a wider range of light giving a more accurate portrayal of what you are photographing.

Before attending the workshop, we were given a tutorial on the method of HDR photography that would be covered in the workshop. We were asked to go out and practice that technique (based on the tutorial) so that the workshop would be more effective (i.e., more time spent practicing photography and less time on which buttons to click).

So, here are some examples of my "practice."  Once I attend the workshop, I'll post another round of pictures to see if I've improved any. On the left you'll see an typical image, and on the right my attempt at an HDR version of that same photograph. Click on the images to enlarge them. Also, you may notice that the HDR photographs have a watermark for "photomatix", that is the software I am using to generate the HDR images. It is free to use as long as you don't mind the watermarks, which I don't mind while I'm learning.

Normal: Tree and Sky	HDR: Tree and Sky

Normal: Sign, Tree, and Sky	HDR: Sign, Tree, and Sky

Normal: Sign, Tree, and Sky	HDR: Sign, Tree, and Sky

Normal: Tree Stump	HDR: Tree Stump

2012 Cycling Recap

I wanted to do a quick recap of my cycling efforts in 2012 before I forget about the details.

For those of you who don't know, I decided to take up the hobby/sport of cycling last year.

I did this for a few reasons:

1. I have always liked riding bikes, why not take it up a notch? Also, it sounded fun!
2. My Dad had recently taken up this sport, had a lot of fun doing it, and saw pretty impressive health results from doing it.
3. I wanted to be healthier, but I was terrible at running and I had a bum knee.

Side note about the bum knee. In the fall before I got married, I, like many people, decided I should attempt to get in shape before the wedding/honeymoon. After making very little progress under my own direction, I enrolled in one of those boot camp style group workout programs. One day, our exercise was stair running. Around flight 85 of 100,  I injured (or maybe reinjuried? long story....) my knee. Running on my knee became very unpleasant after that. Outside of that injury, I thoroughly enjoyed the bootcamp program. It was the first time I truly saw myself as being able to be athletic in any sense and is realistically what jump started me to be more physically fit.

First things first, to cycle, one must have a cycle. I used my skills of cheapskatery thriftiness to procure a fantastically orange road bike on craigslist (as seen below).

As I mentioned in this previous blog post, I got a bit obsessive with my orange/white color scheme. Orange Jerseys? Check!, Orange Water bottles? Check!, Orange Socks? Check!, White Tires? Check!, and the list goes on.

Once I had a bike, I decided the best way to get myself to be serious about riding the bike was to sign up for a bunch of races throughout the year. (When I say "races", I mean race in the same sense that runners go to 5k races. Sure, it's a race for somebody, but certainly not for me.) I figured that if forked over the money for the ride that I'd surely train for it. This actually worked out fairly well.

Here are the major rides I ended up doing (in chronological order).

• Real Ale Ride (50 miles) (Didn't have GPS Logging yet)
• Cow Creek Classic (55 Miles) (link 1) (link 2) (Hadn't quite perfected GPS Logging yet)
• Tour de Payne (100 km)
• Tres Burritos (100 km)
• Hotter'n Hell (100 km) (Checkout the video I made of the ride here--> VIDEO!)
• Livestrong (100 Miles)

To train for these rides, I essentially just rode my bike as much as possible. I did a longer ride (30+ miles) nearly every Saturday or Sunday during June through October. During my peak riding season, I was also riding one to two additional rides during the week (during lunch, to/from work, or in the evening.)

Was all this worth it?

Regarding the "fun" aspect of it? Absolutely yes! It was great to (1) be outside in beautiful Texas and (2) strengthen friendships through many hours/miles of riding.

Regarding the health aspect of it? I'll let the stats do the talking. Every year, the company I work for does a health risk awareness screening for all the employees and this is where I got that data. Those screenings were also the first time I had ever seen stats on my health, such as cholesterol.

All in all, it was tons of fun and I hope to continue to have cycling as part of my life moving forward. Now to ramp up the running and swimming and see if I can pull off a triathlon!

My New Macro Lens! (and a lesson on being a cheapskate)

As I mentioned over in our Family blog, I'm making an effort to be more serious about my photography. In summary:

• I finally got a nice DSLR (Nikon D5100)
• I made a website (http://bensisney.portfoliobox.me/)
• I'm going to take a bunch of pictures as well as deal with the massive amount I've already taken.

On to the point of this post!

One of the fun, but expensive, aspects of having a nicer camera system is that you can interchangeable lenses. My camera came with the standard 18mm-55mm kit lens. This lens is a great all around lens, but it doesn't quite reach out and touch things. For that, you need a telephoto lens. I very quickly picked up a 55-200mm lens off of craigslist for roughly one fourth of the cost of buying it new to fill in this gap. It works great, but I got such a great deal on it that I'm still trying to figure out what is wrong with it.

Side note. If you want to get the good craigslist deals, you need to be first. To be first, you either get lucky, sit at your computer smashing F5 (refresh) over and over again, or use notifinder.com. Notifinder is an amazing tool that simply e-mails you when it finds something on craigslist for you. Check it out!

After playing with my camera for a while, I noticed that I just couldn't get as close to my subject as I tend to like to do. With cell phone cameras and point and shoot cameras, the lens systems are so compact that the minimum focus distance as well as replication ratio that you can get is actually pretty good. Not so much with the "every day" lenses for DSLRs. For that, you need either a macro capable lens, or a dedicated macro lens.

After doing some research, I settled on the Tamron 90mm Dedicated Macro lens. Being the cheapskate thrifty person I am, I started my usual process of buying something. Step 1! Figure out how much it costs to buy at the store and immediately decide that price unacceptably too expensive. Step 2! Start scanning the usual suspects (Amazon, Newegg, Adorama, Craigslist, Ebay, etc) for deals and steals. Doing this will give you an idea of how much you might be able to get the item for. Step 3! Patience!

After a few weeks of nothing, I finally found what I would consider a good deal. A independent camera shop  had decided to list their demo lens on ebay. This is essentially a lens that is in "new condition", never left the store, and was only pulled out of its box to let customers see what it could do within the supervision of store employees. After a fierce bidding battle that I won in the last 3 seconds, I won the lens for nearly 50% of the "retail price". Hooray!

A few quick observations, and then some pictures I've taken while playing around with the lens to get a feel for it.

1. Tripod, Tripod, Tripod... I haven't been able to get a clear picture without one.
2. At the smallest f/stop, the depth of field is incredibly shallow. This is especially noticeable when you are focused in on your subject at the minimal focal distance offered by the lens.

New PC Build Description

As I mentioned over in our Family blog, I recently built a new PC to be able to handle the rigors of HD video editing as well as photo editing. This post is for those of you interested in the specifics of the system.

Before I go into the parts list, I want to mention an excellent website that can be a big help when building your own computer. I used PCPartPicker.com to (1) Help find the lowest prices on parts (2) Keep track of which parts I had decided to use and (3) Provide helpful insight into possible compatibility issues as well as power requirements. The website is pretty awesome, I highly recommend you go check it out. I actually met the guy who created it, and that's how I found out about it. The feature I found the most helpful was the price history, this helped me know if the current price on the item was a good deal or not.

Alright, here is the parts list. I actually purchased all of these parts over about a month's time span. I waited until I found a good deal on the part before purchasing it. By doing this, I saved over $250 through mail in rebates, general sales, and combo packages. I owe a big chunk of that savings to my sister; who was willing to print off a parts list I sent her and go buy things for me. Micro Center, which does not have a store in Austin, had a super deal on CPU/Motherboard combinations, but with the catch that you had to purchase in store. Lucky for me, there was one near my previously mentioned, very gracious sister.

Parts List:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H ATX  LGA1155 Motherboard  
• Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory 
• Main Hard Drive: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB Solid State Disk
• Storage Hard Drive:  Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB Hard Drive
• Graphics Card: *EVGA 02G-P4-2643-KR GeForce GT 640 2GB
• Card Reader: NZXT APERTURE M Multi-Media Mesh Style Card Reader
• CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9500 AT Ball Bearing CPU Cooler
• Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case
• Power Supply**: Corsair Professional HX650 Power Supply
• Case Fans: 
• Cooler Master R4-MFJR-07FK-R1 200mm MegaFlow 200 Silent Fan (2x)
• * Cooler Master R4-S4S-10AK-GP 140mm Case cooler

* Not Pictured, still in the mail.
** Possibly going to be returned. It makes funny noises.

Here are some pictures of the PC. Not boring looking, but not screaming basement LAN Party either.