Dick Stone Photography

Baysox Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Wed, 01 May 2013 01:05:00 +0000

I went to the Bowie Baysox baseball game on Sunday and took my camera with me. Here are a few of the photos from that day.

New Life Emerging

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 21:57:00 +0000

I don't have a lot of spare cash right now to buy a macro lens, but I have been wanting to do some close up photography. For Valentine's Day, my wife gave me a set of Polaroid Close Up filters to allow you to take macro photographs without a special lens. I noticed that in one of my planters in front of the house, there was a plant breaking through the soil. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out the close up filters and a good image of life starting to renew after the coldness of winter. Below is the unedited image.

The following version was edited with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, removing all color except for the green of the plant. I thought that the green would be a more artistic statement of life after the dead of winter. I like both images for different reasons. Which do you prefer?

Mushroom

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:47:00 +0000

I decided to take a little walk around my neighborhood to get a little exercise. On my walk, I discovered some mushrooms growing on the side of the road. One tip that I had read recently for improving your photographic technique is to try taking photos from a different perspective. So rather than photographing these mushrooms from a standing or squatting position, I got down on my stomach to take the shot.

The photo was taken with my NikonD40x with an 18-55mm zoom lens set at a focal length of 19mm. ISO was set at 100 with a shutter speed 1/100s and an aperature of f/5.

Pink Flower

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 23:48:00 +0000

Last month, I bought the Ion Pics2SD film, slide, and photo scanner. I have been in the process of going back and scanning a lot of my old photographs and slides.

This photo was taken of some pink flowers in front of my house using the technique of zooming through the entire focal length of my zoom lens during the exposure to create the zoom effect. I was pretty happy with the way this one turned out.

Allen Pond-To HDR or Not To HDR

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:48:00 +0000

When I decided that I wanted to devote more time to the hobby of photography, I started to do a lot more reading on the subject. I was able to get a free subscription to Popular Photography magazine and I started to visit a lot of photography websites and forums. One of the things that I started to see a lot of was the subject of high dynamic range imagery, or HDR.

The idea behind HDR imagery is to process a photo with a greater range of colors to more closely represent a scene as scene by the human idea. In photos where there are a great deal of contrast, bright areas are often over exposed and shadow areas underexposed resulting in the loss of detail of those areas. HDR is designed to even those out and bring out the details in the entire scene.

On the surface that would seem to be a good thing. However, a major complaint of HDR is that a lot of photographers end up producing images that are not "realistic" and actually are more surrealistic. I decided that I want to explore HDR a little bit so I have downloaded a trial version of Photomatix Pro 4.0 to give it a try before I decide whether or not to dive in to HDR.

The first step is to photograph a scene multiple times and bracket the exposures. Then, all of those images are combined in the Photomatix software to come up with a final image. I decided to use the following photograph that I took on a walk around Allen Pond here in Bowie MD. This became my base photo at "normal" exposure.

Next, I create four more images by adjusting the exposure value (EV) in Lightroom 4. I created duplicate images at EVs of +1, +2, -1, and -2. I then imported all five of these images into the Photomatix software to come up with the image below.

You can see that the sky in the HDR photo is a bit darker and the clouds stand out a bit more. You can also see a lot more detail and brightness in the trees on the right side of the photo that were very dark in the original exposure. All in all, I am very happy with the results. Below, is another version of the photo using one of the more artistic presets in the software.

Obviously, this is more of an artistic interpretation. It is not something that I would do a lot of, but it is something that I would want to play around with every now and then to try to evoke a certain mood or feel. I will continue to experiment with the trial version of Photomatix until I decide on whether or not this is something I want to explore more fully.

No Swimming Allowed

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Several years ago, I took a walk at Allen Pond here in Bowie. I came across this scene with a bunch of ducks standing on the shore near a sign that said "NO SWIMMING ALLOWED." I thought the juxtaposition was funny. This photo was shot with Kodachrome slide film.

Key West Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:39:00 +0000

I bought a new toy today. I found the Ion Pics2SD photo, slide, and negative scanner. I have started the process of scanning a bunch of old family photos and slides so that I can have them stored digitally. Sadly, a bunch of my old photos are missing, but I did find this sunset that I took from a boat on a sunset cruise in Key West.

Path in the Woods

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:14:00 +0000

During a recent walk around Allen Pond Park here in Bowie MD, I captured this image of this Path in the Woods. I wanted to capture the light filtering through the trees to create some flare from the sun.

The photo was taken with my Nikon D40x with an 18-55mm zoom lens set at 18mm. ISO was set at 100 with a shutter speed of 1/15s and an aperture of 3.5. I did a few adjustments with Adobe Lightroom 4 trial version.

Here's the Pitch

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 01:44:00 +0000

One of my favorite things to photograph is sports. When photographing sports, my goal is to stop the action and to capture the ball in the photo. Here is a photo of a Bowie Baysox pitcher delivering the pitch as the ball is about to leave his hand.

This photo was taken with a 70-300mm zoom lens set at a focal length of 280mm. ISO was set at 200 with a shutter speed of 1/1000s and an aperture of F/5.6.

Willow

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 01:47:00 +0000

This morning, it was raining early. When the rain stopped, I decided to head up to the Allen Pond Park to take a few photos. I took a number of shots, and will probably post a few over the next few days. The first one is a black and white photo of a willow tree.

The photo was taken with my Nikon D40x with an 18-55mm lens set at 26mm. The aperture was set at f4.5 and a shutter speed of 1/500s.

Ocean City, MD

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 01:12:00 +0000

Recently, I have started to get reacquainted with some of the features on my Nikon D40x. I have always loved taking photos in black and white. On a recent vacation to Ocean City, MD I took this photo of the beach from the fishing pier on the boardwalk. I have adjusted the overall contrast and brightness of the entire photo, with extra emphasis placed on the sky and clouds.
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This photo was taken with my Nikon D40x with the 18-55mm zoom lens set at 18mm with an aperature of F/7.1 and a shutter speed of 1/200s. The ISO was set at 100. I also had a polarizing filter on the front of the lens.

Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Stone) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:53:00 +0000

When I was younger, I really enjoyed the hobby of photography. My first 35mm camera was an old Pentax K1000. I was mostly interested in sports and landscape photography. Over the years, as I started to have my more responsibility in my life (job, wife, and family) I began to lose interest in my hobby.

A few years ago, as digital photography grew, the bug started to hit me again. I took the plunge and bought a digital DSLR camera, a Nikon D40x, which I have used to take a lot of sports photos at my local minor league ballpark. Most of those photos I have taken with the camera set on the sports photo setting on my camera.

Recently, I started to think about seriously pursuing my old hobby in earnest. I have started to reacquaint myself to some of the other functions of my camera, including shooting in black and white. I am hoping that I can find time to pursue regular photo shoots besides sports photography. In particular, I hope to be able to take some high quality, creative landscape and nature photos.

This blog is my attempt to chronicle my progress in this endeavor. Most of what I post here will be taken with my current Nikon D40x, thought there may be some photos taken with other devices like the self portrait below that I took with my cell phone and published through Instagram. Please feel free to leave any comments regarding any of the photos that I post here.