Friday, October 19, 2007

Some Pretty Pictures

I got a new camera about a month ago. A Canon PowerShot S3 IS, it has a super zoom (12x) and much more manual capability than my PowerShot A530. I haven't had much time to explore it, and the learning curve is steep. Yesterday, I took it out in the yard so I could see how it would do.

Going to Seed

Queen Anne's Lace

I feel like the color is a little warmer, and I really like the depth of field in the top picture.

Ferns

This is a small piece of a larger picture. The larger picture didn't work at all, but when I used Photoshop to zoom in (which I generally do to check focus issues), I got this piece which I quite like.

Pokeberry

I love pokeberry. I picked the bunches with ripe berries and stuck them in the freezer so I can make dye when I have time and acetic acid*. If anyone has idea about where to find this stuff, please let me know.

*Which I still haven't found. My dad tells me acetic acid is used in photo processing as a stop bath. He has some, but it has pH indicator which would be problematic. He used to take and develop black & white photos and tried to teach me once when I was in high school, but I failed the first step -- winding the film onto a spool in complete darkness.

2 comments:

Valerie said...

Nice photo's. I'm dying to go out and take the obligatory "leaves" photo's now that they've finally changed. But here I am stuck behind a paint brush, slogging on an off white shade named "linen".

When we were on vacation, I vowed that I would spend one afternoon per week increasing my skills with the various settings on my camera. It's been a month and hasn't happened yet.

Jessica Madsen said...

Acetic acid is the main ingredient in vinegar (the other being water). Most food grade vinegars are 5% acetic acid. If you need a higher concentration of acetic acid, it is available from chemistry supply companies.

Hope that helps!