Photolog

My random life, infront of the lens.

Photo Walk.

Recently I joined a local Facebook group called VISION|HEIRS on a photo walk in Downtown Sioux Falls, SD. It was Bitter cold, windy, and the most fun i have had in a while. We didn't stay outside too long as the feeling in my toes was lost rather quickly. 

The adventure moved indoors to a local bar called Lucky's. They used to be known as the pool hall and now there are only a few tables left over. After a beer, some bar food, and a major amount of photo geeking i managed to snag a few photos. This was one of my favorites of the night.

Awesome night, new friends, and more knowledge. We need to do this again soon. 

Jon

Lucky's Bar in downtown Sioux Falls, SD. 

dad went too far.

Come on Dad... Hurry up and take the picture...

Playing with some toys, with my son. That is how this started. About 10 mins into playing I go this idea. With a very sour look on my son's face, the shot was set up.  

so this was created using my 70-200 F2.8 and two speedlites. One on the ground behind and to the right of the ring, with a plastic bounce diffuser. The second on a tripod, with a 43" shoot through umbrella in front and to the right, pointing down at about a 45 degree angle. . Both speedlites were set to 1/64th power and 35mm zoom. Shutter speed was 1/100th at 70mm F8.0. Hand held as close to the floor as i could get. 

My son has since lost all interest in letting me play with his toys... 

Jon

41/52...

here is a panorama i shot this week while i was in Jacksonville, Florida for work. it turned out surprisingly well due to the fact that when it was shot i was slightly inebriated, and had no tripod with me. this was had held with my canon 28-135 at F3.5 and ISO 3200!!!

i think i got lucky on this one.

Jon

@jonseaton -instagram @thejonseaton -twitter.

single file please...

here is a shot i did on the same day as 40/52...

literally a short walk on my local bike path, led to many beautiful photos. this one is not HDR, the wind was too high for me to get a decent bracketed exposure. so i shot to the left and really underexposed the sky. the sun was shining directly on the trees so that helped a ton. all post was done with lightroom. i added a graduated filter to the bottom to lighten it up a bit, and boosted the vibrancy and saturation a little. probably one of the most simple photos i have taken in a while, but it turned out amazing.

thanks again for reading.

jon

@jonseaton-instagram @thejonseaton-twitter

35/52...

this is my first attempt at the Brenizer method. this method consists of stitching multiple photos together to achieve a focal length and aperture that can not be matched by most lenses.

this photo of my son is comprised of 70 photos all shot with my 50mm f1.8 on a canon 50D. i used photoshop to stitch them together and crop the image down. this is about 55 photos worth cropped and re-sized.

due to the cropped sensor i am using an effective focal length of 80mm at f1.8 each image was re sized to 1500x1000 before stitching. after i finishes the image is 6674x4333 with and effective focal length of 18.125mm at f.41. that is super impressive depth of field, and due to all the images being hi res the final image has TONS of detail.

you can google the Brenizer method to see plenty of tutorials, and the calculator i used to figure the effective focal length and aperture. i have a feeling i will be using this method more in the future for some of my still life photography. it takes some extra time, but the finished product is well worth it.

jon

33/52...

this week i did some shots of my son doing some "light painting". i have a few friends that do Poi, and my son has always loved watching them spin fire, and LED lights. a few months ago i found this toy at a local store, and purchased it for my son. after it being neglected for a while we took it out the other night and snapped a few pictures. i will be posting some of the other pics from that night in a few days. the big boys were plating with fire.

the best part of the whole night was the adults giving my son high 5s and genuinely being stoked on my son spinning. the smile on my sons face was priceless. I'm sure there will be some new LED toys coming soon.

Jon

@jonseaton - instaram @thejonseaton - twitter

28/52... Part 2.

ok, so i had the chance to edit a few photos from my trip.... so i decided to make today a double post day.

this was on the way back from Devils Tower, WY. the whole day was overcast and spitting. there was literally no good shots all day. i spent a better part of a 4GB CF card trying to catch something. needless to say i was upset. i had never been to the Devils Tower, it has always been something i wanted to see. i wanted to take some amazing photos, but i had such crappy weather.

on the way home the clouds broke, and the most amazing landscapes started popping up. i was just in awe! i saw this and pulled over. i had been looking for a safe place to stop for about 10 miles. i have about 40 photos all AEB for HDR to go through. this was the fist batch i decided to look at. i didn't have much time, the sun was already behind a large hill behind me. i did what i could to compose about five different angles, and spots. hopefully the rest turn out as good as this one!!

thanks again for looking.

jon

@jonseaton- instagram @thejonseaton- twitter

Vacation time...

20120508-162215.jpg

Well, currently I'm in Florida on vacation. So I'm not sure if I will be getting a bunch of photos.... Or none...

Today I went to the beach with a friend, and was able to snag a quick HDR shot of the sand, water, and sky. I'm hoping to get a few more coastline, or sunrise photos if I can.

Thanks again for looking.

Jon

@jonseaton - instagram @thejonseaton - twitter Facebook.com/seaton.jon - Facebook.

14/52... break stuff...

i do not have a fancy studio... or even an expensive set up. this was shot using a piece of white foam board, and a white cutting board on the floor. my Canon 50D and canon 28-135mm was on a tripod, as low as it could get. i had one flash set up on camera right, with a 45 inch shoot through umbrella. i used our fridge as a reflector and positioned the umbrella up high, pointing down at a 45 degree angle, at about 45 degrees off center of the vase.

my roommate was my assistant, he had the fun part of dropping things. nothing special, just me trying to time the explosion by eye. we literally broke about 6 things. everything from Christmas ornaments, to a really ugly wine/margarita style glass.

post processing was done using Adobe light room, and Photoshop CS5. i had to fill in a spot in the lower left corner due to my roommate not dropping it in the center. this was by far the most real editing i have had to do for this 52 week project. but i am glad it was nothing too extreme.

jon