Ben is Project Fifty: #5 of 50

#5 of 50: ISOlation

What I learned:  With a big aperture (f/1.8) and the 7D's insanely sensitive sensor, you can almost shoot in complete darkness.  This picture was taken handheld with ambient light at 9PM @ ISO12800.  Yes you read that right, twelve thousand eight hundred.   Notice the noise.  There barely is any! This is a picture of Grace's cousin Ray's 2.5 WRX sedan on 18 x 9"Advan RS clones, hella flush style.

The slight blurriness is caused by a lil' bit of camera shake.  Even at 12800 the shutter speed was pretty slow (1/10th of a second)  It was that dark outside.  The light on the front bumper is from a street lamp ~30ft away from the car!

A 85 f/1.2L ($2000) would kick ass in this situation, however the 50 f/1.8 ($90) did an admirable job.

Ben is full of turkey.

On Friday (Black Friday) we held our annual Thanksgiving get together at my house.

I have to say that I am thankful for my family and friends.  This has been a hectic 2009 and I'm glad all of us could take a break in our busy lives to just sit, eat, drink and chat with each other.

Ben is Project Fifty: #4 of 50

#4 of 50: Talong

What I learned: Eggplants are tasty vegetables (when prepared correctly), they have firm flesh and their outer skin is a unique purple color. Nike decided to make a colorway of the revolutionary Air Foamposite One basketball shoe in a color-shifting hue based on the skin of this vegetable.  These limited edition shoes sold out quick.  I set up the shoes on a white piece of construction paper and in a pitch dark room. I used an off-camera external 580EXII flash held above the shoe with my left hand while I held the camera in my right hand.  I believe this picture shows what kind of color reproduction ability the 7D has.  What can you learn?  Well for starters:  Talong is the tagalog word for eggplant.

Ben is a fan of the new 5.

BMW took the wraps off its new 5-series (F10 chassis code)

The car has a lot of the new 7-series in it's design language. I am a fan of the E60 and a HUGE fan of the E39 so I enjoy both the wilder and more classic BMW shapes. This design is a mixture of both with some sweeping lines on it's profile and a more upright facade.

The interior design looks very up market and the driver facing center console is back!

The car will be equipped with either a 3.0 liter turbo (not twin turbo) inline-6 producing 300hp or a 4.4 liter twin turbo V-8 producing 400hp. Both will be available with either a 6-speed manual or 8-speed automatic transmission.

What do you think?

I can't wait for the eventual M5 (rumored to be a 5.0 liter twin turbo V-8 making over 570hp!)

Ben is not saying anything.

Just got this email from Freshjive clothing for a shirt called "Hope is Fading Fast"

They reference a blog called "World's Got Problems" that discusses how the current administration is more of the same ol' same ol'.

Ben is Project Fifty: #3 of 50

#3 of 50: Shoe-off

What I learned:  I want to do more off-camera lighting.  In this picture I had two light sources 1) the on-camera flash and 2) my 580EX II flash that was acting as a slave to the camera.  I placed the 580EX II directly perpendicular to the wheel and where my camera was.  I then turned off all of the lights in the garage.  I used the 7D's auto focus assist beam to fire off bursts of flash so I could focus on the wheel.  I then shot a couple pictures to gauge the exposure I would need.  Afterwards during post processing I desaturated some of the wheel and masked off the centercap, to retain the super high contrast between the bright red centercap and the very cold desaturized wheel.

Ben is Project Fifty: #2 of 50.

#2 of 50: Spin

What I learned: It is hard to be a DJ.  No wonder they get all the girls.  I fail at even DJ Hero, so I can't imagine being a real one.  Jed and Jay came over to watch the game (Chargers FTW!) After the win we played DJ Hero for a while.  I took a picture while Jed was playing.  The 7D was attached to my tripod and I did a long exposure of 6" at f/3.5 ISO 200.  Live view is amazing!

Ben is Project Fifty.

I decided to give myself a project.

After not finding what I needed during my constant cycle of buying and selling camera gear I have come to the realization that I have no idea what I am doing.  I have owned nearly all of Canon's L-glass and DSLR bodies and yet I am not totally sure if I knew what I was looking for in each of those expensive items.

I have sold everything, my 5D, 5D Mark II and all of my lenses.

After much deliberation I bought a Canon EOS 7D (for the second time) as I found that it included everything I knew I needed in a camera (big 3" high resolution LCD, sensor cleaning, great high ISO performance, built in flash and off-shoe flash commander).  The 5D Mark II was amazing, but I decided I needed something with a better auto focus and saving $1000 also helps.

I also sold ALL of my L glass.  For me it was overkill.  I didn't need a $2000 ultrazoom or the ultimate portrait lens.  I did it because I thought the glass would make me a better picture taker.  And while it did make cool pictures, I was always obsessed with something better, which cost me a lot of money and didn't really teach me anything.  Or so I thought...

Today at George's Camera I bought myself a copy of the least expensive lens Canon makes, the EF 50mm f/1.8 Mark II (also known as the nifty fifty).  This lens cost me $89.95 + tax (Compare this to my former $1799 70-200 2.8L IS)  The lens is made mostly of plastic and has no ultrasonic motor.  It is light and sharp as a tack and easy to control.  No frills, just a basic 50mm lens.

I figure, if I can make pictures with the most basic and fundamental of lenses then I can make a decision on what I need as a photographer.  With all the choices and opinions out there, it is easy to get lost and just buy something for the sake of having it.

Project fifty will be a series of fifty photographs I take on a daily basis for fifty straight days.  The only tools I can use are my 7D, the 50 1.8, a tripod and my 580EXII flash.

My theory is if you only have one tool, you have to learn how to use it to make it do what you need to do.  Hopefully I am right.

Here is entry #1.




#1 of 50:  Something's missing.

What I learned:  The 50/7D combo in the dark is good, but not great.  The high ISO sensitivity of the 7D's sensor plus the huge f/1.8 aperture is a great combo for low light photography.  This combo is also not forgiving to bad technique, like mine.  I tried to grab a candid of Jed and capture his freshly mustache-less face, but the auto settings (I was in aperture priority mode at f/1.8) decided on a really slow shutter speed which doesn't go well with movement, hence the blur.  I post processed the picture to have an antique mood by desaturating a bit,  warming the resulting colors and adding slight vignetting.  Not all images are perfectly sharp and bright colored.

Ben is drinking beer out of a bong looking thing.

Tonight we celebrated Neil's birthday at Costa Brava in PB.

They serve Spanish food, specifically paellas and tapas.

We drank a mixture of beer, wine and Sprite from a beer decanter called a "Porron"  The goal is to get the Porron as far from your mouth as possible.

The place had GREAT sangria and patatas bravas (spicy fried potatoes).  The paella was really oily, but delicious.  The seafood was fresh!  The pork sausage and onions were not good at all, they seemed gamey and overly salty.

I brought along my Powershot G10 and put my 580EXII flash mounted on top.