Where's the adventure?

Well here it is, the end of another year. This Blog a week was a big rough the past couple months, but it was fun to try something different this year. I have been doing pictures daily some years or close to it other years, and I think 2012 I might take a little rest. Although I will still try to keep things interesting since I don’t want to give this up! However if you can always check out my past 8 years of photos http://www.wesleyaston.com/pad.html

It was a great year and here are a few video Highlights from some of our trips.
Thank you for viewing my stuff!

The Holidays are here, and the best thing I can do is not think about how busy work will be. Thats the only thing that makes me not like this time of year. So I have to find things to keep my busy to enjoy them. And I did just that! Went Ice Fishing a couple times, and had some great sunny weather, and even some great fishing too. Spent some time with family xmas eve, and had a new years party too. Even though it didn’t snow and the weather was pretty warm for this time of year it was a good time. I guess we planned out the right Christmas card…….. red rock and no snow! The good weather had stayed around for a while, so we even went out with some friends to shoot some clay pigeons, it was great. I finally shot the shells my sister got me about 7 years ago!

We were able to get away for a weekend, even though it was a quick one, to Moab. I had some high hopes for shooting some startrails, but the cold and huge full moon though otherwise. We at least got all cameras going and tried to find some interesting angles in the little time we did have there. I did pick some bad spots and didn’t use a ton of the shots I took. However it was fun to give this a try. I would like to try more for next year, although longer then a couple minute video.

I have found a new way recently on how to shoot Startrails very easy. Usually I would just leave the exposure open for as long as I could let it go, but the downside of that is I don’t know if the picture will be overexposed till the end. So the new way……. Stack them! How? I have found a program that will do it so simple, but if you want to know what it is you will have to ask me. It makes them so easy to do as long as you can have your camera take a picture for about 30 seconds one after each other for at least 40 mins. I haven’t had the best lighting to try it out, but doing some in my backyard with city light pollution I still got some decent ones. Even the ones I tried in Moab, I had a huge full Moon adding to much light too. I am waiting for some warmer weather this Summer to do more.

This year I have seen some awesome timelapse videos on the net and think that I would like to give it a try too. All I can say is that it will take a ton of time to make something work right. Sure once you figure out what sort of thing you want to do, the most thing you have to do is have time to sit and wait. 1 hour of shooting could get you less then 30 seconds of video, so having multiple cameras going is a plus! I tried multiple angles with the 7D, T1i, and both GoPros, but the sunset wasn’t exciting, and I shot a picture every 7 seconds which I think I should have done it every 3 seconds cause the video was to choppy. I am not even going to post it cause it was lame.

I have been working on my own camera slider to make the timelapse a little more interesting. More to come with that later. Here are just a few of the scenes I tried one night. If done right then it could have been sweet…. I failed.

Panorama pictures are fun to do for many reasons, mainly cause they look awesome if done right! They don’t make a lens that is 360 degrees but you can make a picture that way. Or maybe your wide angle lens just isn’t wide enough and you want to get more into the shot. I have even used this technique when I was too close to a Hawk with my zoom. I took a couple shots and then blended them together.

We here is the way to do it. For one make sure you have some software that will merge this for you. Next is it is best to shoot in Manual mode so all the exposures are the same, even a good thing once it is focus then to turn the auto focus off. Tripods make this easier to do, however if your a steady shot you can do it with your hands if your software is amazing at blending your shots. Start on one side of your shot and make sure you leave extra so you can crop your photo down. Next make sure you over lap each shot just a bit so that they can easily be lined up. Now once you blend them together and edit how you like. Simple!

I feel it has been a tough year to get any decent shots of Sunsets/Sunrises, maybe cause I haven’t looked much. It seems that the colder months always bring some fo the most dramatic clouds with them, along with some color if your lucky. The downside for me this time of year is that I only get 2 tries a week to get any sunset shots. With it getting dark at 5 p.m. I will be at work if open or close, and I have seen some sweet light this past week while looking out the window. I am going to try a little harder this year to get more shots of that sweet color. Not only is it hard to get the right clouds that don’t block out the light, but you need to find the right foreground. I think I need to find a smaller pond to try some new stuff to. We will se what this winter will bring.

Markai picked up a couple lights the other day to keep tha cats from getting to bored, yes bored. Monkey really wants to get out of the house, but since an unfortunate accident the other day he is staying in the house. It is funny to watch the cats when they hear us pick up the laser pointer and start batting at the floor even if we haven’t shined it there yet. It does get boring after a little while when they realize they can’t catch that little red light. Meka finally tried to get the pointer out of Markai’s hand, he isn’t stupid. Well I had an idea in my head to try and take a picture of a shadow made with the laser pointer, so we gave it a shot. Wasn’t as awesome as I hoped. Then the crappy art came into play, but it was fun trying to guess what the other was going to draw.

I have had 2 sisters get married this year, and only have 1 left to go. Not sure if that will happen soon or not, but there is no problem with waiting. The nice thing is when I get to go to a wedding and not be the “photographer.” It is nice to sit back and enjoy visiting others, and watch the others stress, along with a few trips to get more food.

I have been thinking of doing some family photos lately to make a few extra bucks. It isn’t my favorite thing to do, but it was some good practice this weekend. My cousin was wanting some pictures done, so what better practice then to shoot the family. It was a little tough finding a good spot, but we finally did. I bought my umbrellas and things seemed to work out great. The colors were nice so I didn’t have to do much editing at all. Thats just the way I like it. However I think if I did this more often I would need a better lens. Some of the pictures seem a little soft on the sides and I don’t like that. But heres a few samples from that day. If you need some pictures done then feel free to hit me up and see if we can work something out…