Photography – Page 3 – Rugosa Rose Photography

Weekend in the Woods (pt. 2)

August 11, 2016August 11, 2016Posted in PhotographyTagged camping, redwoods, Richardson Grove State ParkLeave a comment

Hi everyone. I am back from camping. I thought you would like to see the rough conditions I camped in. It was tough.. 🙂

$80 / night for a max of 1 week.

Richardson Grove State Park, Garberville, CA.

The cabins are actually well insulated. They do have a bit of a draft that comes under the doors. That is easily fixed with a rolled up towel along the bottom. Each cabin is equipped with a base board heater in one of the rooms. This is enough to keep the chill of an overnight that got to the 50s away.

We took the two bed frames and put them in one room so we could have a king size bed. The frames are a full and a twin.

The counter worked great for us to store things, but we did no cook in the cabin. The weather was fantastic so we used our cook stove for breakfast (Coffee and steak and cheese omelets). We used the hibachi that was provided for grilling. And of course the fire pit was great for fires.

** The fire pit is on the other side of the picnic table.

Photos were taken with Samsung cell phone.

Richardson Grove web site:

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=422

To reserve a site:

http://www.reserveamerica.com/camping/richardson-grove-sp/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=CA&parkId=120076

Weekend in the Woods

August 8, 2016Posted in PhotographyTagged redwoods, Richardson Grove State ParkLeave a comment

Over the last weekend I spent time in the Redwoods. I went to Richardson’s Grove State Park to go to Reggae on the River. I ended up spending much more time taking pictures of the woods then going to the shows. And I am just as happy for it. I did some “tests” while there to try to help myself take better pictures in a forested environment.

Test photo order:

Av = aperture
Tv = shutter
A+ = auto
CA = creative auto

Results: AV takes a brighter picture during the day in an indirect lit location. Such as the woods. The next best may have been the CA and A+ both of which will activate the flash.

AV setting:

TV Setting:

A+ Setting:

CA Setting:

The pictures are not all exactly the same because I was doing this experiment without a tripod.

I am finding myself using the AV setting primarily when I am taking any pictures. Especially pictures I do not wish to use a flash with. I do like how a flash can light the subject, but I am finding some of the pictures I am trying for are trying to get the natural glow of the sun through a leaf, or fire among the coals of a fire.

heart of the fire

suntouched

I also tend to not use flash when taking pictures of animals or in public of people. Unless I specifically am taking pictures of someone for them I tend to try to be as minimally invasive as possible. When dealing with animals I don’t want to stress the animals out or startling them.

These pictures were all taken at Richardson Grove State Park, from 8/4 – 8/8.

Canon Rebel 5Ti

Lenses: Canon zoom EF 75-300 mm w/ UV filter

Canon EFS 18-55 mm w/ UV filter

Hummingbird Project

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016Posted in PhotographyTagged GIMP, hummingbirdLeave a comment

I have a fountain that gets visited by humming birds through out the day. Mostly they come to drink. I have gotten videos before of them taking baths.

My current project is to get good still photos of them drinking or bathing.

I can not seem to use my remote to take the photos. Once I set the camera up and go back inside if I wait too long the camera seems to go to sleep, then the remote does not activate the picture.

So to combat this right now I am taking photos through the glass door. I am using the camera’s built in flash at this point.

Original untouched photo

Edited with Gimp 2.

Here are the first 2 photos from yesterday.

Original image

Image touched up with Pixlr

Here are 2 more taken today.

I am trying out different editing tools. I would be interested in what people think.

Welcome

June 17, 2016June 20, 2016Posted in Photography, Uncategorized2 Comments

sunset on treasure island — Sunset from Treasure Island

I have enjoyed photography most of my life. 35mm was just so expensive in the day. The cameras, film, developing and so on. The advent of digital gave me more options. The small “tourist” camera like the cannon elf was affordable and gave a pretty good picture for the time. Then cell phones got better. Now I could use my phone, which I already carried, to take pictures when I went somewhere. This worked for a while.

This year I decided I wanted to take better pictures. I wanted to get back to the feel of the 35mm camera. To be able to change lenses to suit the type of picture, environment or my mood.

This moved me to the Canon rebel T5i. I purchased a kit from amazon. This came with the camera body w/ strap, 18-55mm lens and a 75-300 mm lens. I purchases a 50mm lens separately. The kit came with a couple of filters, tripod, bag, batteries and SD cards.

Originally I posted my first week with my new camera on my gardening blog. (which you can see here). I have not continued to post. I wasn’t really happy with the format of the photo posts. The theme I use on my gardening blog works well for there, but is not great for doing photo albums and primarily posting pictures with some descriptions.

So here we are. I purchased a domain that I felt could follow me no matter what I did with photography.

I am slowly getting into photo editing as well. I am less interested in making a “fake” photo. I want to use these programs to enhance my photography with white balance, focus, sharpness and those type of things.

I have been playing with Photoshop express. This is defiantly geared towards doing changes in a pre-defined manner. I also have a program called Gimp 2. This has been very intimidating for me to start using, but I am determined I will.