effects

Train Of Thought

It is all about color. Light has a color temperature.  Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path. Light travels in the form of a wave. Different wavelengths = different colors in the spectrum.Light is either absorbed, reflected, or transmitted. If light hits something solid and is absorbed the object is black. If it is reflected it is white. Light going through something  is transmitted such as a piece of glass. If the glass is tinted green the light coming out is tinted green.  Some light is cool and some light is hot!  There is a shade of gray that is a  “neutral” gray  ( 18% gray)  and will reflect all colors equally. Very over simplified but it works for me and this is my blog ha ha.

Light has a color temperature

It is kind of neat how well todays cameras will automatically figure this out for you – up to a point. Then if you use the automatic settings you might turn the little dial (or select it on a menu) and choose sunny, raining, cloudy, or night hoping to compensate for the lighting situation.  This works fairly well, most of the time but, yep there is the but, when there is a mixture of ligh sources it usually fails. Sometimes the temperature (kelvin blues are 5,000 kelvin and up  while reds are  3,000 and lower) of a light source can add to the photo’s creativeness and at other times it can ruin it.

Nothing sucks worse than shooting a family group photo in front of the all the presents and having everything tinted orange or capturing a great skiing shot only to have the scene tinted blue.  Shooting in RAW format makes this a non problem because you can adjust the white balance with the software.  To get the color right the camera needs to register white as white . What all the little sunny and cloudy settings do is tell the camera to adjust the color temperature over one way or the other (shift)  to get the whites white. Incandescent  lights turn everything  an orangish red light temperature.  In film days filters  were used to shift the light coming in the lens.  In digital you just tell the camera hey I am shooting in incandescent light and it shifts it over for you.  Cool no?

Here is a photo where my friend Tim took a  LED flash light into the train and waved it around (light painting) while I took a long exposure shot. I held a standard flash light  on the side of the train to paint the lettering.  It took us several tries for me to get close to what we wanted. The errie looking light in the train, the red letters showing red, and the rest of the train and background dark.  And no Tim in the pic.

One of these days Tim and I need to go back and improve upon what we started.

When I am not lazy and really want the white balance set right I use the gray card and maually set the camera to the right kelvin setting. Sometimes I guess at the kelvin setting and after entering it adjust. Real lazy days I use the software and adjust the RAW file.

My mind is now wondering why my D80 only has a max flash sync speed of 1/200 but my older D70 has 1/500 sec.

Ok nothing to do with light but all about perspective – since I was on a train of thought:
Tracks Two

This evening we stopped on the way home from Vacaville at the Vic Fazio Wildlife Refuge.  By the time KRP had worked the wagon through all the mud it was almost dark. This is known as a last ditch shot LOL.

Shot at

  • f/5
  • 1/1600  sec
  • IS) 1600
  • @180mm

Limited light sometimes bring interesting results.  That are only visiable after pushing the expore to get a look.

Night Flight

photos © kmilyun

If any info is wrong above please let me know cause I have forgotten more than I know LOL LOL

Green Screen and School

Monday school started back up. The first day for Adaptive P.E and Tuesday I have Adapt. P.E. and the first day of Adaptive swimming. Umm … wonder how I am going to like swimming? It is suppose to be over 100 deg.  so I dunno – I might melt!

My friends and I needed to purchase our parking permits at the college admin office. Good grief the line was all the way out the building and it was hot. So, we decided to walk on by all the youngsters in line and went into the building. Cathy walked up to the first available window and told the gal she wished to purchase a permit. The clerk obviously noticed she had just cut in line but sold her the permit and then me one also. Then she asks me if I had just walked in and cut in front of everyone while glancing over at the security person. Cathy tells her yes we did – you should really have a handicapped line and then she walked away. The gal just gave me a funny look and I turned and walked off also.

I spent the afternoon reading a few chapters and then I started playing with the video’s again. I am starting to figure out the green screen effects but have a long way to go.

I bought some green cloth yardage and made my own and a few pieces of green poster board. It is kind of interesting to me how it all works. Lighting the screen is problematic since I do not won any studio lights. It makes it hard to get it right using my room lamp and desk light. It is like setting up the flashes for photography shots. Only I have a good set of photography flashes and I do not have any lights . … see I just had to B about something!

Today’s attempt at a video:

Beam Me Up

I should know better than to let all the electrical impulses bounce around in my mind where they inevitably form thoughts, thoughts can be good, bad, or indifferent.  The what if, should-a, could-a, would- a’s, are fodder for the squirrel that runs around in his cage in my brain.  If reality is a magic trick of electrical impulses – then who is watching?

As the name of this blog states: lots of forks or paths to meander down. Somethings are consistent on the main artery but where it gets interesting is wondering off along one of the many side paths. The detours along the way run the gamut of fun to unfortunate.

Visiting friends, taking a trip, figuring out how to do something new, all can be fun and exciting.  Being diagnosed with MS would be one of the crappy paths. The balancing act for me is trying to keep the fun things on the main roadway and the less desirable stuff limited to a side path. Not always an easy thing to do.  Sometimes the squirrel in the cage reminds me has it goes around in circles getting nowhere of the old saying: “even if your on the right track you will get run over if you just sit there”.

I do not spend a lot of writing here giving reports on the latest ailment of the day , what went numb, what hurts, cog fog, etc. although I do like to b a bit. I prefer sharing the ordinary everyday stuff and maybe sometimes I succeed in doing so.  Amongst all the haphazardly written posts is my quest to fight off the sucko stuff of MS and entertain myself along the way.

I wonder if on of these days the squirrel cage is gonna break and the squirrel will just get flung out by the centrifugal forces – then what?  Is the flag moving, or is it the wind?

Beam me u p – please! (another hokey kmilyun video):