340/365 - Jim - Travel Lights

( f/16 112mm 3 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I left for Canada this day and didn't have any time to take a proper photo. This was taken in the car on the ride up there. It was just the car lights in front of us and looked very boring, so I did a little Photoshop effect to make it less boring.

317/365 - Jim - Farm Show Ferris Wheel

( f/16 70mm 13 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

The Butler Farm Show is going on this week about a couple miles away from my house. As I'm typing this I can hear the tractor pull going on. I never get the chance to photograph ferris wheels at night, so this is my rare opportunity. I didn't go in to the farm show, but instead just stood across the road from it with my tripod and zoomed all the way in. Then I used a remote with the camera set to bulb and just left the shutter open for various times to check the results. I was a little annoyed by the two bright lights on the right, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.

205/365 - Jim - Time Keeps On Slippin'

( f/8 70mm 0.8 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

To match the photo my dad took, I set my camera to take a photo of my clock every minute for 15 minutes. Then I used the merge feature in my camera to merge six pictures together. It was pretty simple to do and I got to just lay around while it was doing all the work. I have been sick all day, so laying around is nice...

185/365 - Jim - You spin me right round baby

( f/22 18mm 1/15 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It was a nice day so we took Jameson to the local school playground. He had a blast and I was able to take some photos of him. I thought of this shot before even going, so I was ready for it. I made sure to set the camera to aperture priority to get the longest shutter speed to show the motion.

149/365 - Jim - Color Spiral

( f/14 24mm 30 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Many thanks to Kyle for sending me a guest post! He sent me some very cool motion blur shots. In an attempt to somewhat match his theme, I got the only thing I could think of with LED lights in it... A Glade Plug-in Light Display air freshener. It has 3 different colored LED lights that alternate and blend. I set the camera on a tripod and set it to take pictures every minute for 30 seconds. Then like a goofball I spun that thing around like crazy and let it slowly wrap around my finger to become a tighter spiral. I'm going to have to try the ferris wheel shots, but I'll have to wait for the Big Butler Fair or the Farm Show...

149/365 - Kyle - Motion Blur

( f/8 4 sec FujiFilm FinePix S700 )

Kyle is currently a senior at Warner University majoring in Church Ministry and minoring in Communications (photography and video). I've never met Kyle, but he was directed to my site by my dad. My dad suggested he get in touch and send me some of his work. Here is some of what Kyle emailed me:

When it comes to photography I am a motion-blur fanatic. It is just my thing. I did not have a tripod on me that night, so having the rides blur while everything else stay focused was hard. Just had to hold my breath!

085/365 - Jim - Sliding Motion

( f/3.5 32mm 1/13 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It can be difficult to portray motion and still have a decent photo. To create this effect I set my flash to rear curtain. This allows the shutter to be open longer and expose more for the ambient light, then at the very end of the exposure it will flash. That final flash will somewhat freeze the action. In this case you can see the blur behind Jameson and then his face is still somewhat crisp from the flash. I don't do this very often, so this was just some trial and error. Jameson loves playing at the mall playground, but his time was cut short when a kid puked and we got out of there in a hurry.

016/365 - Matt - Drip Drip

( f/5.6 55mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D40 )

Motion! It took me a long time to get a decent motion picture. I also don't have a tripod yet so I could not do a lot of my ideas. That's definitely on my wish list!