366 Project

[Mr Darcy]

I have been really inspired by Rodney's 52/2011 project, and have decided to attempt my own.
I do not intend to post a picture a day, but I DO intend to take one. I wonder how long I will last...
Anyway, here is #1
A Damsel Fly on the fern outside the bedroom window.

Available light. 200f/2 + TC2E3. 1/80@f/16. Through a dirty window (SIGH).
I know I didn't nail the focus on the eyes, but I love the detail in the wings. Besides I have to leave room for improvement.

[Geoff M]

Hey Greg, all the best with the project, you have chosen a bad year being a leap year and the extra photo day!

I completed my 365/2011 yesterday. My project was not themed which made it easier, but even then it was a real struggle to find subject matter or the time on some days. (viewing the images will reveal those days where there was a struggle!)

If you are interested in seeing them click the link in my signature and thn navigate to the 365/2011 gallery.

[Remorhaz]

Hi Greg - I hope you enjoy your year of shooting - I'm sure we'll see some amazing work - all the best - Rodney...

[aim54x]

Greg....what a way to start the year off!

I completed my 365/2011 with the final uploads tonight, and started my 366/2012 as well. I didnt miss a single day on my 365/2011, every image posted was taken on the day, but as a result there were many placeholder images that were quickly taken as the deadline approached.

Good luck and make sure you post the images somewhere!

[Mr Darcy]

Day 2.
Still going strong. Phew!

[aim54x]

[Mr Darcy]

Well I made it to the end of week two. Though I needed a good stiff drink to get me through

[surenj]

All the best Greg!

However, this stiff drink looks a little like someones spit from that angle.... just sayin...

[TonyT]

Cheers Greg well done

[Mr Darcy]

This one is for Pam. Since I announced I was going to have a crack at this, she has been at me to take a photo of the lilliums in the front yard. Once I got her to show me what a Lillium was, I though ...umm OK... But today I got a new toy - a Lastolite Octabox, so I took it outside and tried it lighting one of those flower thingies. I must say I was impressed, and Pam is off my back. For now - it will be the magnolia next - you watch.

For those of you who care:
SB800 fired into a 36" octabox camera right, about 150mm from the flower. Triggered by an SB900 on camera. Master was set to No output. Slave was set to TTL. 105VR at 1/60s f/16 ISO200 D3. Jpeg taken as I still haven't worked out the ins and outs of Murray's D3. I did a 2 button reset earlier in the day & didn't realise it would set me back to jpeg.

[surenj]

Beautiful tones here Greg!

[aim54x]

Very nice work there Greg!

[colin_12]

Yes but you love every minute if it Greg

[Mr Darcy]

This is from our walk yesterday. While the others were captivated by the main fall, I was very taken with the moodiness of the clouds in the other direction.

As we discovered yesterday that Flickr strips out Exif:
D200 85mm f/1.4 @f/8, 1/200, ISO100
Taken from Rocket Point. One of my favourite vantage points overlooking Wentworth Falls.

[Mr Darcy]

Just so you know I'm still hanging in there...

Day 031 Nails by gregdarcy, on Flickr PS I just noticed that some of the earlier photos have broken links. AFAIK the photos are still there. I will attempt to fix them.

PPS I just read Leigh's POTW thread. I'll have to start posting some of my rejects

[Remorhaz]

Just so you know I'm still hanging in there...

Not screwed yet

(I know it was poor - but it's early morning yet...)

[Reschsmooth]

Just so you know I'm still hanging in there...

Not screwed yet

(I know it was poor - but it's early morning yet...)

You nailed that one. [yeah, I went there]

[Steffen]

Yes, you make a lot of good points with this image

Cheers
Steffen.

[surenj]

Nailed, screwed and hanging by the hook.

[Mr Darcy]

Day 47 and still going.
Yesterday I went for a walk and managed to capture an elusive shot of one of those over photographed icons of Australia. For those interested this particular viewpoint is about halfway down Furber Steps. FOr some reason I have never used this route to the bottom of the valley before. I went down here, then along several kilometres ot Golden Stairs at Narrow Neck, then up.

Day 046 Those sisters by gregdarcy, on Flickr
It would have been better in the late afternoon so the sun was on the near face, but I believe the photo in the camera is always better than the photo in your head. Even when the image is not as good. I might go back again in a while at a better time of day. (when my legs recover!) It will probably mean a walk back up int he dark though.

[Remorhaz]

Sorry Greg - I'm getting the Flickr - Photo is not available message.

[Mr Darcy]

Thanks Rodney.
I'm still seeing it, but I did geotag the photo which forced a republish from LR.
I have reset the link. Hopefully it will be OK. If not, click through

[Matt. K]

Greg
Some lovely work there. I think the lilliums are superbly presented. An image in the classical style and a wonderful still life worthy of being framed.

[Mr Darcy]

Day 065 Sewing Box

[Mr Darcy]

Another view of the racing snail...


Racing Snail

[Mr Darcy]

Another snail (Well almost )
One of the first photos I made in this 366 project was of a bell on a mirror. I quite like the shot, but was bothered by the double reflections "blurring" the image. So I acquired a sheet of black perspex and tried again using that as the reflecting surface...

Day 067 Nautilus Sculpture

Much better result IMO, but I found I needed to adjust the exposure in the top half relative to the bottom to a much greater degree. Thinks ... maybe a silver sheet of perspex

[surenj]

Nice one Greg. Now you need to give that surface a little wipe.

[Mr Darcy]

Nice one Greg. Now you need to give that surface a little wipe.

I did. YOu would believe how quickly the dust settled on it again.

[Mr Darcy]

Day 90 and still hanging in there.
I have learned a lot from this process and perhaps the most important lesson is that I still have a long way to go.
One quarter down. Three more to go. I wonder where the other six days are? I thought we would have had a couple of them already.

Anyway, this morning I went for a walk along the local tourist strip. Not a place I normally visit especially on a weekend, but the shops were mainly shut, or just opening up. Only one cafe was open and it was doing a roaring trade. Apart form that it was lovely and quiet.

Day 090 Street Cafe by gregdarcy, on Flickr

[Mr Darcy]

I went to the farmers market at Blackheath this morning. That meant I didn't have Pam telling me I shouldn't be taking photos of people, so I could indulge. I liked the framing of this one.

Day 098 Home again

[Mr Darcy]

Today a milestone of a different sort.
I am not at all bothered by the technical deficiencies of the photo. Nor indeed of the subject.

For many years now, I have been making my own bread. I usually use a breadmaker for the daily loaf, but for special occasions I like to knead it myself and bake in the oven. This ends up with a better quality product.

I have always lusted over Sourdough though, but have been too scared to try it without someone else's starter. I did try making my own once, but it went horrible - blue mouldy.

After watching Hugh make some a few weeks ago on River cottage everyday I thought I would give it another go. I followed Hugh's method, including the Rhubarb (WTF!!!) and despite some early doubts ended up with a viable starter. About two weeks later (on Thursday), I bit the bullet and started in on the sponge. Friday night, just in time for dinner the first loaf arrived out of the oven.

Absolutely magnificent if I do say so myself.
(Note to self lower the oven temperature a little but preheat longer next time. And slash deeper!)

If you are interested, the accompaniment in the red dish is a pasta with a chicken provencal sauce. (ie Leftover stew)

Now can I repeat it?

[Mr Darcy]

I have spent the last two days on an oven building course.
Great fun & we got to taste the proof of the pudding so to speak.

I also got to bring the demo oven home with me. So there is now a little adobe structure just by the carport. It will probably stay there. It is too heavy to move without a team of olympic standard weightlifters.

Day 112 The first pizzas

[aim54x]

Looks awesome!!! I'll bet that the pizzas would taste pretty good as well

[Mr Darcy]

Buried treasure by gregdarcy, on Flickr

[surenj]

I also got to bring the demo oven home with me.

Next time we visit, we could have home baked.

[Murray Foote]

I think I saw the first post but not since then. A very engaging series, well done (with more to come).

Hmmm. How about an image from the D800 accompanied by a 100% crop?

[Mr Darcy]

Not quite what you asked for Murray, but instructive none the less.
I was out with both the D7000 and the D800 today so I decided to take the same scene with both cameras. As the cameras were hand held, there is some variation in the viewpoint. In both cases I used the 105mm f/2.8 wide open in aperture priority ISO100. The D7000 chose a shutter of 1/1250s while the D800 chose 1/1600s. Not sure why. It may have been changing light levels in the couple of minutes between exposures, though I didn't notice it myself. While I don't normally do this, I have posted these four images on FLickr at their original size. So feel free to click through to larger. They were converted to JPG sRGB though. They were all taken in RAW Adobe RGB. I used camera profile = Adobe Standard and process = 2012 in LR4. Apart from the cropping and conversion, the only processing is to apply the LR4 lens correction. In both cases, the focus point was on the birdsnest. (And yes. I forgot to turn off the watermark too )

D7000 uncropped.

D7000 Birdsnest & Leaf by gregdarcy, on Flickr

D800 cropped to match the D7000.

D800 Cropped to match D7000 by gregdarcy, on Flickr

D800 crop on the birdsnest. (This is 601x401 so it will be unresized here)

D800 Detail by gregdarcy, on Flickr

And a similar crop on the D7000 (this came through at 636x424

D7000 Detail by gregdarcy, on Flickr

I found them instructive. I hope you do too.

[Mr Darcy]

Several photos from the last week today.
I am finding I am using available light where once I would have brought out the strobes. I think I am capturing more of what drew my eye to the scene in the first place, though the photos tend to be less polished technically. These are all examples.

Day 138 Tools of the trade


Day 137 Swamp hen


Day 134 Fuschia

I find I am also paying more attention to the negative space in the image, though the best example of that this week would be "all gone" that I posted in the Week 20 thread

All are uncropped.

[Mr Darcy]

I finally got around to trying Rodney's method for stacking star trails

Click through to bigger.

I forgot to do the twilight shot, and there is also a worrying hook at the start of the trails. Maybe I forgot to lock down the tripod head.
Still I am impressed. This one is 1024x683 I uploaded 7360 x 4912 to Flickr so you should be able to get to that. If you look closely, you can see 2x plane trails; 1x satellite in Polar orbit, and several satellites in geosynchronous orbit. I hope. Otherwise I may have quite a few hot pixels.

I basically followed Rodney's method, but used the "Open as stack in CS5" option in LR4 on all 250 photos at once. I went off to breakfast & when I got back they were all done. The actual blending of the layers took only moments.

EDIT: EXIF lost so: D800, 14-24f/2.8 @f/2.8, 14mm , ISO1000. 250x 30 second exposures. 1 second between exposures.

[aim54x]

Nice star trails Greg!

[Mr Darcy]

I am slowly coming to terms with the D800. I have yet to check the focus though. I think that will repay dividends.

[biggerry]

thats a nice shot Greg, nice textures (multiple ones at that) and complimentary colours to boot.

[Mr Darcy]

Thanks Gerry.
I hope you like this one too. I was planning to put it in Week 23, but that doesn't seem to exist.

[Mr Darcy]

This is why I bought the fisheye:

It crosses the celestial equator and the trails should have curved back the other way. It took me a little while to realise that the curvature in the fisheye was counteracting the change in curvature of the trails.

so I defished:


Each has its pluses and minuses. I will have to choose each on its merits.

EDIT: D800 16mm/2.8 @f/2.8 ISO1600. Camera pointed straight up. 283 exposures of 30 Seconds each. Then the clouds came over. I took a total of 513 photos before the batteries gave out.
That brings me to an interesting observation. The camera reports 199 photos per 16Gb card, but for this type of shot, I am getting over 400 on the card before it spills over on to the next. Clearly there is a lot of compression happening on these mostly black photos.

[Mr Darcy]

Sara

[Mr Darcy]

I went to Leura today. As usual, Josophans was worth a visit.
I quite like the voyeuristic feel to this image, as well as the "I'm about to go in here...YUM" look on her face.
(If you are not aware, Josophans is one of the better Chocolateries (???) in the Sydney region)

[Mr Darcy]

Did I mention I am in peeping tom mode?

[Mr Darcy]

I keep getting blurry photos from the D800. I can't work out why.

[aim54x]

I can only wonder why Greg....cold night?

[Murray Foote]

Perhaps it had something to do with painting the end of your lens black.