Steve's Photography

A place to share my photography journey. My Flickr photostream.

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2015-02-21 - Mendocino stars on Flickr.

One of my first attempts at shooting the night sky. This is up in Mendocino, CA. I figured there was less light pollution up there so it was a good time to try to get a shot of the sky. I used my Lumix GM1 camera with the 20mm f1.7 lens. I shot it wide open at ISO 1600 for a shutter speed of 20 seconds. I like how it turned out. I'm going to have to try doing this some more, though maybe using my 25mm f1.4 lends instead. I hear the larger the aperture the better for this type of shot.

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2015-02-19 - Tequila! on Flickr.

Saw a few whisky shots on Flickr today so decided to try my hand at a little "booze" photography. I used my Panasonic DMC-G3 this time around since I have a hot shoe on the camera to use some remote triggers with an off camera flash. I set the bottle and shot glass on a piece of black acrylic and had the flash off to one side and a white reflector off to the other side. I decided to go with a bottle of tequila instead of whisky because I thought this particular bottle was a bit more interesting that the whisky bottles in my little bar. It has the nice wood cork and the little metal emblem with leather wrapping and a nice little logo. Cheers!

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2015-02-05 - Levi Stadium seating on Flickr.

I had the chance to attend a vendor meeting over at the new Levi's Stadium today so I made sure to bring my camera along. We were able to wander around a little bit to check things out. A great opportunity to get some shots of the stadium without a flood of people around.

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2015-02-04 - A little of that ol' Harrah's tonic on Flickr.

Remember the good ol' days in the casinos when they would give you the free drinks in branded glasses? I used my Lumix GM1 camera with Olympus 45mm lens for this shot. I turned off all the lights and used a black light to illuminate the glass of tonic water.

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2015-01-18 - Mad scientist Kimberly futzing with atomic structure of the universe. on Flickr.

My girlfriend unearthed a couple of Astrojax balls she had forgotten she had and broke them out to show me, thinking they might be good for light painting. I grabbed a couple of quick shots while she twirled them around in the living room. I really like the effect they have. We'll have to play with them some more. I shot this with my GM1 camera with 20mm Panasonic lens on the tiny little Manfrotto Pocket Support tripod.

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2015-01-17 - Nuts! I mean... Bolts! on Flickr.

Part of my 365 Project. I had my Lumix GM1 camera with the Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens with me on a trip to the hardware store so grabbed a shot of a bin full of bolts.

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2015-01-10 - GTR Wheel on Flickr.

2015-01-10 - GTR Wheel Went to the local auto show this afternoon to check out some cars and perhaps get a picture or two. With all the crowds around it can be a challenge to get a good shot of the cars. I brought along my DMC - GM1 camera and primarily used the Panasonic 14mm lens. Post processing was done on my smartphone using Snapseed, my favorite mobile photo app.

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2015-01-09 - Milpitas Sunset on Flickr.

Day 9 of 365 - As I left work today, the sunset looked to be a very dramatic red. I decided to zip on over to the Don Edwards Wildlife Preserve in Milpitas to get some shots, but in the 10 minutes it took me to get over there, the dramatic red had left the sky already. All I had with me was my DMC-GM1 camera with 20mm lens and a small pocket tripod, so I made do with that. I did a little post processing of this photo using Nik Software Color Efex. Just a little tonal contrast.

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2014-01-07 - A new toy! on Flickr.

Another image from my Project 365. I received a new flashlight that I ordered last week so I figured it would make a nice subject for the day's photo. I used the Olympus 45mm 1.8/f lens on my DMC-GM1 camera for this shot. All my fancy photography lights were off at someone else's house so I just put the flashlight on a piece of white plexiglass under the living room light and bumped up the ISO pretty high to compensate. The flashlight is LA Police Gear's new LED EDC (Every Day Carry) light. It can pump out up to 330 lumens using a single CR123A battery, or over 500 lumens using a RCR123A battery. A nice little flashlight!

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2015-01-05 - A penny for your thoughts on Flickr.

I started doing a "Project 365" for 2015. Basically a project to take and post a picture every day to help spur some photography creativity and skills. Eight days in to the year and I've managed to keep up with it so far. We shall see how long I manage to keep up with it. During these short winter week days it can be a challenge to get that photo in since it is usually dark by the time I get home from work and I don't always have time during the work day to take a photo. I figure the project is also a good way to help keep my photo blog a little fresher as well. I may not share every photo I take here on this page, but I will be posting them all on Flickr so you can check 'em out there if you like.

The photo above was taken with the Panasonic 45mm macro lens on my DMC-GM1 camera. I used Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 to convert the image to monotone (not quite black and white.)

The inspiration for this picture was finding a wheat penny in my pocket change that day. Alas, it was not one of the $20,000 wheat pennies. It at least gave me an excuse for a quick picture.

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I made my usual trip out to Arizona to visit family for Thanksgiving and while there I took a little hike through a local park called Honeybee Canyon Park. It's a little park surrounded by various housing developments but it sure can feel like you're out in the middle of the desert as you are going through the canyon. I brought along my Lumix G3 camera and a few lenses while on the hike, including the 20mm pancake, Panasonic 45-150mm and the Rokinon 7.5mm fisheye.

Lots of dramatic looking clouds in the sky during the late morning while I was hiking about.

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One of the local photography Meetup groups has been having some light painting sessions and I've managed to get in on the action. I had a lot of fun and some pretty cool results. I'm looking forward to playing around with light painting some more. This batch was taken at Sutro Baths up in San Francisco.

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I took my new Rokinon 7.5mm Fisheye lens with me on my recent business trip to Las Vegas and I ended up using that lens the most while there. The large buildings and large spaces seemed well suited to the fisheye lens.

First night in Las Vegas I got some long exposure night city shots from my hotel room using a tripod and a remote release. There were some lightening storms going on north of the city and I caught a bolt of lightening in the one picture, though it's a little too small to really stand out.

One thing about getting up early to attend the classes/conference was that the lobby of Caesar's Palace was fairly empty that early so no need to fight the crowds for a decent picture of the statue in the middle of the lobby.

I'm looking forward to more fun with the fisheye lens!

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A friend at work let me borrow his Samyang 7.5mm Fisheye lens to play around with a bit. The lens is a manual lens only as there are no electrical contacts between the lens and camera. There isn't much manual focusing to do with it though. The lens looks like you can focus from a few inches away from the subject to about a foot and anything further away than that you set the focus to infinity. You can manually set the aperture from f3.5 to f22.

I've only taken a few shots with it but it looks like a fun lens. It's amazing how much of the scene you can capture while standing so close to the subject.

The prices on this lens seems to be dropping so I may have to pick one up for myself.

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I heard about Fireside Camera & Panasonic hosting a photowalk up in San Francisco. I ended up winning a Panasonic Lumix TS25 "Tough" camera. Sweet!

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I ended up picking the wrong spot for getting some nice fireworks photos from the Great America fireworks show. Though the fireworks were only partially visible from where I was standing, I got some interesting effects from just out of frame street light. I got a chance to play with my new Triggertrap dongle/app.