Around the beginning of 2004, I started getting interested in photography. Initially, we had a cheap Fuji FinePix 2400
we had as the family digital camera a few years ago - the color was bad and the pictures were a little grainy, but it
worked. Then at the end of 2003, I bought a Canon S30 and took some decent pictures with it while I learned about exposure,
aperture, macro and color correction. Then I took a big step and bought a Canon 300D and I loved it. The D-SLR camera is the
way to go. I have several friends who own this camera, so we can test out each other's lenses and talk about how to take
good photos. It's really fun. In March, 2005, I bought a used Canon 1D, the first really nice professional digital camera
(came out ~2001) and I shot with it until 3/2008, when I picked up the nice 20D and the great 5D. My friend Daniel has taken some great photos - his goal "is to take one really
good picture per month." Sounds like a good plan!
Below I've collected some of my pictures. I'm trying to get better at it. It's a learning process. Most of the
images are fairly high quality and rather large, so I hope you have a fast internet connection!
Other relevant pages:
Photos of the Month, 2006 (2005).
Select photos each month starting January, 2006.
Camera Tests: "Is there a difference in UV filters?" "What do different focal lengths
look like?"
Sensor Cleaning using SensorSweep and a home made swiper.
Lens Tests on various lenses (Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, 70-200mm
f/4L USM, 100mm f/2 USM, 50mm f/1.8 II, and Zenitar 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye).
Canon 1D - some tips and tricks.
My equipment with comments.
Canon 300D and the firmware hack!
Galleries:
6/11/08-6/18/08: Trip to Mexico for Chris & Tiffany's Wedding!.
8/29/07-9/6/07: Trip to Bratislava, Prague and Vienna.
5/13/07-6/14/07: Trip to Japan and Korea.
2/17/07: Winter Retreat at Toah Nipi in Rindge, NH with MIT GCF.
12/21/06-12/31/06: Trip to PA for Christmas break!.
10/31/06: Harvest Party at FKCC, kids having fun and candy!
10/5/06: Elephants in Boston for the circus again.
10/2/06: Mr. Magnet's demo - liquid oxygen, magnets, plasmas, explosions!
9/30/06: MIT Glass Pumpkins. Expensive, but beautiful and unique.
9/23/05: Jon and Libby's Wedding. Road trip to PA with the MIT GCF.
9/11/05: Sept. 11, 2006 - MIT hack. A full-sized firetruck on the dome!
8/18/06: Candle Pin Bowling with MIT GCF.
7/29/06: Vacation Bible School at FKCC. (~7MB of pix).
7/4/06: Fireworks from July 4 in Boston.
7/1/06: Soccer at MIT post Worldcup game.
5/27/06-6/16/06: Vacation in South Korea --
Trip Photo Summary;
Jeju: 1,
2,
3;
Busan: 1,
2,
3;
Seoul: 1,
2,
3,
4;
GyeongJu.
5/25/06: Vacation in Pennsylvania --
Tang Soo Do gym
Softball
Flowers
4/22/06: IVEC conference in Monterey, CA - Check out the jellyfish!
4/02/06: Outside near the Charles River - Ducks, pidgeons...
3/16/06: Repairing the Canon 35mm f/2 - How to fix stuck focus.
2/23/06: Papa's 60th birthday - A trip to PA.
1/13/06: Best of Florida - our favorite pictures from the Florida trip.
1/13/06: Trip to Florida --
Disney world --
Busch Gardens.
1/08/06: A Sunday Stroll (artistic).
12/21/05: Christmas Break in PA --
Shooting range --
hockey game.
11/11/05: Youth Group Retreat in Maine (friday)
(saturday)
(artistic).
10/31/05: Halloween day (coming soon).
10/29/05: Electric Plasma Discharges.
10/29/05: Fuji Reala ISO-100 film in the Canon A2.
10/7/05: GCF Retreat at Toah Nipi.
10/6/05: Elephants in Boston for the circus!
10/6/05: Conference in Williamsburg, VA in film!!
8/26/05: Skate Boarders. Here's what you can do with 8.5fps!!
8/20/05: Colt Park, RI picnic. With MIT Mission.
8/5/05 to 8/7/05: Vacation Bible School (friday)
(saturday)
(sunday) at the First Korean Church in Cambridge!
7/22/05: Lancaster, PA. A visit to Amish-land.
7/21/05: Gavin's Hockey game. Some action shots!
7/20/05: Trip to Pennsylvaniva. Reception, mini-golf, flowers, etc.
7/15/05: New York City. The Big Apple with Heidi and her parents.
7/9/05: Colin & Heidi's
wedding photos!! (on Daniel Nagaj's website)
7/4/05: Fireworks!. From July 4, 2005
4/21/05: A Day In The Life of Colin @ MIT. Photos taken all day 4/21/05.
4/16/05: Bowling with the Youth Group.
3/16/05: Why is it hard to photograph birds?
12/24/04: Blue Monster Claymation (2.4MB, *.avi) taken with the Canon 300D in
AWB (you can see the color shift from pic to pic as it tries to adjust the color). The quality is low to keep the file size down.
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Recommended Links:
- Canon Museum for camera/lens release dates and
original prices.
- NeatImage.com. Great software for noise reduction in a picture -
free non-expiring trial version!
- DPReview.com. VERY thorough reviews of all kinds of digital
cameras. I am very impressed by how thorough the reviews are.
- The-Digital-Picture.com. Everything about
Canon photography equipment, including honest reviews of everything and great photo samples.
- PhotoWorkshop.com. Free tutorials and tips In the "Canon
Digital Learning Center" icon.
- Usa.Canon.com
- ShutterFly.com, digital prints using Fuji Laser color printing.
- Ofoto.com, digital prints by Kodak using silver halide printing.
- BHPhotoVideo.com a top seller of professional
photography equipment. I use them to see what the maximum amount I should pay for a given item is.
- Infrared photography
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Scenery
(Not really updated anymore!! Since mid-2005)
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Animals
Why is it hard to photograph birds?
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Duck
(151kB, 2/5/05).
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
Birds
(170kB, 2/5/05).
Quantaray 500mm catadioptric
Cute Finch
(400kB, 9/6/04).
Canon 70-200mm f/4 L USM
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Happy Dog
(kB, 4/21/05).
Canon 70m-200m f/4 L USM w/1D
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Flowers and Plants
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Leaf
(143kB, 3/9/05).
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM w/1D
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Action
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Water Drops
(131 kB, 3/10/05).
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM w/ 1D
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People
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Macro
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Water on a Rose
(140kB, 12/2/04).
Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM with Macro adaptor
Ice Crystals
(175kB, 1/6/05).
Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM with Macro adaptor
Dime
(237kB, 11/24/04).
Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM with Macro adaptor
Candy
(253kB, 11/24/04).
Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM with Macro adaptor
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Other
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Gourd Bird House
(1MB, 8/21/04).
Kit lens at 55mm (Unedited)
Abyss
(177kB, 1/8/05).
Kit lens at 47mm
Entered in Sandisk photo competition 10/04-2/05
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Leaves
(164kB, 11/25/04).
Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM
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My philosophy of photography Three parts; all three together form good photography.
- Good equipment and good lighting gets you good quality pictures (although I've found that lighting can be even more
important than the equipment!): sharpness, color, dynamic range, aberrations, depth-of-field, etc.
- Good timing gets you interesting subjects: sunrise, birds, people, etc.
- Presentation helps convey your message: having the good lighting, using space well in a photo, having a story within your
photo, applying special effects filters, out of focus background, etc.
My Photoshop Usage
I love photoshop! It depends what type of picture I'm trying to make, but usually I start by adding an "unsharp mask" to
the picture right away (the background layer). I don't use extra sharpening in the camera because the sharpening algorithms
usually aren't as good as the ones in photoshop. The NeatImage noise cleaning software also has a sharpener that is supposed
to be very good. Next, with portraits of people, I usually copy the background layer and use the "Guassian blur" slightly and
boost the brightness and contrast slightly. Then I commonly use "lighten" or "overlay" and reduce the opacity to something
like 20-30%. This trick gives the people a slight "glow" and also hides features like the "5 o'clock shadow" of tiny beard
hairs late in the day, and hides wrinkles. If you are worried about losing some eyelash detail, etc., you can erase the top
layer so they don't get blurred. I have also been known to add a slight high pass filter to another copied layer to make the
details stand out even more. The "unsharp mask" is a miracle worker, but nothing makes up for a good sharp lens.
The "clone stamp" is another useful tool. There was a thin flag silhouette off in the distance in this beautiful sunset photo (in front of the reddish building nearest to the sun), but
it looked like a dirt spot on my lens and it was distracting, so I "clone stamped" the color right near it and covered it up.
You can't tell it's missing, but if it were still there, it would look pretty ugly! It also works miracles in hiding other
defects, especially in people pictures. In this picture I used the unsharp mask,
blurred layer and the high pass filter. My eyes are almost too sharp!
Other principles
- The principle of thirds is to break the picture into a 3x3 grid and placing interesting features at the intersections of
or along those gridlines. For example, a mountain photo might have the foreground grass in the bottom third, the mountain in
the middle third, and the sky in the top third. Furthermore, placing the mountain peak off center by one-third to the left
(if the lighting is from the right) or the right (if the lighting if from the left) makes for a very interesting picture. Of
course, there are many exceptions to this "rule of thumb," but it's a good starting point.
- A beginner's mistake (that I've been guilty of many times) is to put the subject right smack in the middle of the picture!
- The most intriguing pictures I've seen make use of space and a story inside a story, examples:
Birds in Porter Sq;
Pigeon
Photography Log
I doubt I'll remember to update this, but here goes...
- 5/5/08: Haha, over a year since the last update. Got the 5D and the 20D now. I want to get a Singh-Ray Gold'n'Blue
polarizer, but I don't want to spend $250. I'd also love to get a 9- or 10-stop ND filter to do ~30-second exposures in full
sunlight for a really dreamy feel, but they are out of stock everywhere and about $150 on top of that. Remember, me,
photography is about LIGHT not equipment!!
- 9/23/06: After looking at the indoor images from Jon and Libby's wedding, I realized my 1-D
just does not do well at high ISO. The images are noisy and Neat-Image tends to make them look detail-less. Some of the
outdoor ones came out great. for some reason, the RAWs indoor of people keep coming out pink in RSE. Man would I like to get
a 5D. I'm not interested in a 1.6x crop camera. But why? I don't take pictures of weddings except maybe once a year, and
I'm not paid for it, so why buy another camera? On the other hand, I did have some recent requests to use my photos for
brochures, reports, ad assignments, and even got offered $100 for a photo that the Old Farmer's Almanac was interested in!
But that's more of a rarity than a means of buisness.
- 7/7/06: I was flipping through Pbase.com and thinking about how many things have been photographed. There are literally
millions of images, hundreds of photo studies ("A study of light", "Failed self-portraits", "Colorscapes") -- Is there
anything left to document besides personal experiences? Will anyone care about my photos in 200 years? 20 years? 2 years?
What is the purpose of taking 10,000 photos a year (or possibly many more!)? Once again, the age of i-everything for everyone
has turned what was once an art that could support a professional into a diluted, meaningless passtime with no real purpose
other than to bring money to a few corporate executives and take it from the pro photographers who now have to compete with
Joe-had-no-training-but-has-a-nice-camera!
- 6/21/06: Nope, I haven't kept this updated... I've been playing with RAW files for bright flowers. They seem to have more
ability to adjust exposure/saturation than jpgs, which is really great. RSP 2005 has a highlight contrast slider that I use
all the time to increase exposure but not blow the highlights.
- 1/6/06: Hi, I'm back. Haven't done much here recently... I'd like to focus on composition and learn how to compose a
photo. It's really not that easy to do it well!
- 6/3/05: I sold a bunch of stuff I decided I didn't need. Now I've got two lenses (24-70mm f/2.8L and 70-200mm f/4L) and
one still to get rid of (500mm catadioptric - too much vignetting on a 1.3x FOVCF). I just bought a cheap fisheye, the Zenitar
16mm f/2.8 for $120, which is all manual. At f/2.8, it's pretty unsharp, but you can't tell it from the $700 Canon 17-40mm
f/4 at f/8. It'll be fun for some artistic stuff - not too useful, which is why I didn't want to spend much on a fisheye.
- 4/12/05: I learned a lot about film vs digital at http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/ and also the benefits of shooting RAW over jpeg. I alwaysa thought
film had more dynamic range, but his tests show the opposite! Even Kodak Gold 200 has only a 7 stop dynamic range and Fuji
Velivia was even worse at 5 stops (saturates the colors quickly), whereas the 10D gave him 11.7 stops! In terms of
resolution, the new Canon 1DS-Mark II is about equivalent to small format (35mm) film, but digital cameras have a long way to
go before they can impact the medium and large format film (competing in large format may require ~800MP!).
- 3/31/05: I've been experimenting with lighting lately after having a hard time getting the photo I wanted with people, so
I used myself as a model and shot about 100 pictures, mostly changing the directions of my flashes and even trying balance
with the available yucky fluorescent light. By the end, I was able to get fairly natural lighting with just the two flash
units bouncing off parts of my walls and ceiling. I'll have to try on real people again in real rooms where the walls and
ceiling are too far away or have a weird color, etc. I made a StoFen Omnibounce out of an old 1 qt plastic milk container -
Saved $15!
- 3/24/05: I just sold my EF 35mm f/2 and EF 85mm f/1.8 USM!! I'll miss them, but I don't want to get in the habit of
collecting lenses. Lately, I've learned that old saying is true "The camera does not take the pictures; the photographer
takes the pictures." While a professional cameras and lenses can get you very clean images, the adage "use professional
equipment to take professional pictures" is definetely false. Lighting matters almost as much as the camera and lens -- maybe
more so! (What is PHOTOgraphy? It's capturing light!). In fact, the winning photographs of two photography contests I've seen
recently had images with few colors (orange, blue and black for one photo) or blurred images (bicyclists). The first guy won
a Canon 20D and the other won some really nice compact flash cards and other stuff. You can only use one lens at a time to
take one picture!
- 3/16/05: Well, some of my more recent photos have had more of a message, but I still think I got my best
message photos by accident/luck!! Like the squirrel photo at why it's hard to photograph birds.
- 3/9/05: My photography style has been imbalanced. Too much focus on quality of the image and not enough emphasis on
delivery of the message. I have to make a conscious effort to compose and understand what I want from a photo. Take a look
at http://mit.edu/kkdb/www/photoweb/ - simple photos, good
message. "It is not the camera that takes the pictures, but rather the photographer."
- 3/4/05: Received Canon 1D. Viewfinder is a revelation compared to 300D, but photos are noisier.
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