BrianHursey.com

Im march a non-profit organization contacted me requesting use of my
pictures in their magazine.  The group is IAPMO (International
Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials) they are having a
conference in Atlanta in September/October.  The released this
magazine to I think all of the members of the international group.
They have listed four of my photos located at  Page 2 upper left hand
corner, Page 3 left two photos, and page 4 bottom photo. I am excited
that I have finally been published on print. Just wanted to share it
with you all.

You can download the article at
http://brianhursey.com/files/drought_article.pdf You need adobe reader
to view it.  You can download the reader at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/ however most people already
have it.

Well the last week was fun. Last week I when to Panama City with Katrina’s family. I was the only man on the trip. However who cares it is Florida and it almost cost us nothing for a week rooms in a rented house.  I had fun taking pictures and eating and lying on the beach in the morning.  I messed around with some long exposure sun set photos. I really enjoyed doing this. I mainly used a tripod and shot three separate exposures. See bellow

What I really like about vacations is the food. It is nice being able to go out to eat every night and try place you have not eating before. I have some suggestions for people who go down to panama city

-Boon Docks:

-Bayou Bills Crab House

I had some fun messing with photography. I decided to try and shoot sun sets I read that you can set your camera at f22 to take the photo. I did this and I noticed something on the results of the photos. My sensor was dirty. Now I have to find some sensor cleaners.

I am trying to get ready for a wedding I need to shoot next June.  Friends weddings and family events are always good practices. I have gone from a person who uses as wide open of an aperture as possible to a person who tries to decide on what aperture to shoot depending of the situation. My lessons have included shooting at a wide open apiture with natural light at a wedding reception. This has changed into a shooting less of a wide apiture with a flash at weddings. This allows me to have a wider focal range. This way if I am taking a picture of two subjects I will be able to keep both in focus because of DOF. It did not seem to big of an issue with my 50mm 1.8 lenses however when I got to 85mm it became more of an issue. So its a win lose situation. I don't use natural light however I don't have as many DOF issues with subjects. 

 The next issue I have discovered. Well I have known I need this for a while. However I was never planning on taking pictures at weddings.  So I invested in some good fixed focal length lens. My 85mm f 1.8 for portraits and my 50mm 1.8 lens.  The problem is that you do not have the flexibility you would have with a variable lens So what I need to do is get a variable lens so I can have the flexibility I want. What I am looking at right now is a  SigmaZoom Wide Angle-Telephoto 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG . This should give me the flexibility I need. To gather the shots I want. 

List of equipment I would like to get before next summer:

1.  SigmaZoom Wide Angle-Telephoto 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG .

2. Canon430EX Speedlite E-TTL II

3. Replacement 50mm 1.8 lenses - Autofocus does not work any more on my old one.  

 Here are some shots that I took at the past two weddings I was at.

You see I have started using raw photos instead of jpegs. The reason I do this is because I like having the ability to fully manipulate files if I need to. This allows me to be able to recover issues cause by over exposure or under exposure that you can not recover with jpegs.

One issue I have been having is that the open source tools that I use do not read canons raw format correctly. I always have to manually adjust color and exposure each time. This normally takes me 5-10 min a picture to adjust where I want it. To me it seems what is the point of manually using a white balancer and filters if I never have the pictures look the way I have taken them.

So I have found a work flow that keeps the color and exposure. I have found that if I export useing to *.tif useing canons "Digital Photo Professional" after that I open it up in my raw photo editor of my choice. That tool is rawtherapee.

Jpeg generated from Canon's Proprietary software to use as a baseline test:

Rawtherapee *cr2 unchanged conversion: (note the color difference in the from the baseline)

New work flow export to tif then open with rawtherapee: (note the color matches to jpeg created with canons software)

Well I have been waiting to get my film from my Canon A-1 Film SLR camera developed.  This camera was released in 1978 and my mom bought one and used it through my childhood. When I started becoming interested she gave me the camera. Some people ask Brian why do you like shooting film.  I get greater satisfaction out of how my photos turn out with film vs digital. My main camera will still be my Canon 350d EOS DLSR however I still want to shoot film for scenery architecture and portraits.  With film you have to know what you are doing to get your photo. I know because the majority of the photos that I took did not turnout the way I wanted them to do. When a photo turns out it I get a greater joy and satisfaction out of the photo.  

This is why I am going to continue my photography adventures with my Canon A-1 and continue to take pictures. My next project is going to be black and white architecture pictures.  I am going to search for some moderately inexpensive but good B& W film. From what I have been reading film B&W in most cases still has a better result with film.  I originally was going to get my film developed and have prints done and then I was going to scan the 4×6 photos into my computer. However after reading I can just get the film processed negatives from target for $1  and I can add a target cd that has 1500×1000 jpegs on it for only $1.99. The target cd has a better resolution of photos than the $3.99 kodak cd. See some of the photos I took with the A-1 bellow.

Well I have always wanted to try and capture sports photography. Most of the churches players in the team are in my bible fellowship class. So it has been like a get together each game. I have been trying to catch action shots of the games. I have been using my 85mm f1.8 to take most of the photos and it has been going well. So what do you all think?

I found this really cool tip, I have had issues with using the built in flash. The reason I have always had issues was because of the harsh light produced. I have always liked using natural light so that the photo is not washed out. This is the reason I have two lenses that are at f1.8, my 50mm and my 85mm ,and I do not have the money to get the canon flash that I want.  The problem with having the aperture wide open is that you have a really shallow focal range. This is not good when photographing events with two subjects, one normally is out of focus. This is great for single person portrait photography, but not for events. I found that f2.8 is a good range when taken pictures of multiple people, and in that case for indoors you really need a flash.  Anyways I am ranting lets get down to making a diffuser.

 Supplies:

1. Camera with a popup flash Examples: (Canon 20D or XT,  any Nikon SLR)
2. You need a white plastic film canister. I use Fujifilm 400iso for my film slr so this will work. "Ohhh no I haven't shot film in years"  Sometimes photo labs have some extras laying around. Next time you get photos ask nicely and maybe they will give you one. 
3. Ruler 
4. X-acto Knife

First of all measure the width of the plastic on the side of your flash… Its ok to have it to small you can go back and trim.. Notch it with the measurement and then cut. Take you time X-acto Knifes are sharp. :)  I have cut my self a few times in my life.

Second slide the canister on the flash. If it is to snug trim a little so the cap will fit on, you want the canister to keep its original shape.  Note: I had to Notch out the inside of the cap the same width of my cut before to have the cap stay on. You always can use clear tape to hold the cap on.

Finally go out and shoot. With the diffuser it reduces washout and harsh light and shadows and warms the picture. 

 One tip I would recommend adjusting your exposure by at least one stop to compensate. Tip from John Wallom

Without Diffuser: 0 exposure

With Diffuser: +1 exposure

Idea found at: http://photojojo.com/content/diy/diy-film-container-flash-diffuser/

Well we has some super cells came through the aria. They were lined up like a train cars, two of them came through oakwood ga producing winds, hail, and torrential rain that caused localized flooding of streets. The first cell me and my dog were in the bathroom under the stairs. We heard hail and banging for 4 min and than came out.  The second cell about 20 -40 min later, I got locked out of my house and truck when the second cell came through the area. My wife talked me into trying to make it 1 mile down the road to a friends basement where she was.  So I grabbed my dog and in a big hurry to get out of the door and make it to that house in 6 min. I locked my self out of the house and out of the car. So with my dog in the car and my self locked out I only could seek refuge in the garage. I left the door open so I could keep a eye of my dog and my car. Wore a hard back "Unix Network Programing" book as a hat and prayed. I knew the book would come in handy one day.  It was a very intense rainfall and hail storm.  I did get quite worried because channel 2 was piloting a coarse of a tornado towards the general direction of my neighborhood.   So I survived, scared my wife to death when she heard me in the garage and not able to into the house. 

I have always been fascinated by severe storms.  I knew I should not of left. I did not feel safe with out a basement.  Moral of the story is do not leave your house in storms. 

 CNN saw my pictures I submitted and selected them for CNN. They called me and asked me if they could use them I agreed. I dont know where they put them. Here are the links and the photos I submitted. 

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-4035

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-4034

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-4033 

First Super cell:

Second Super Cell:(Stuck in garage)

Well it seems like life has been busy the past year I am not able to post as much as I want to. Well I think this is happening to every one the older we get. We get a more hectic schedules, more responsibility, more people relying on you. Well because of this things build up and I want to post about them, but I don't have time. Then more and more things build, then I don't want to write a big post. Well I am not going to write a big post, well I hope not. I am mainly going to have three subjects in this post family, friends, and photography.

Family:

I had the great opportunity to go to Washington DC in January to see my nieces first birthday. I do not get to see my sister and my brother in law often now since she lives in Washington DC. Even though she lives so far I always like going to her house because she is in the city. I like the city because of the photography opportunity, we will get to that later. Well its amazing how quick children grow, and what is it about kids that make you want to take so many photos of them. We had her birthday at Gymboree. That place is quite interesting, I think is is great place for interactions with other children and learning stimulus. Immediately it made me think of a Family Guy quote from “Saving Private Brian"

Stewie : B-Brian, wha… what are you doing? Gymboree is that way.
[pause]
Stewie: Brian, it's parachute day!
[pause]
Brian: I just want to swing by the army recruiting center and give a piece of my mind to that jerk who tried to brainwash Chris.
[pause]
Stewie: We are gonna be so late. I'm not gonna have a partner.
[pause]
Stewie: I'm gonna have to be partners with the teacher.

Friends:

Well this past week actually two weeks ago I got to go down to clayton state to eat lunch with all of my college friends. It was very nice seeing all of them. It is crazy how quickly things change in just under two years. We of course went to our favorite place moes. John, I promise next time I will come down on a Friday so we can hang out outside of work.

Photography:

I finally got to go and take a follow up comparison picture of photos that I took at the lake last march. It is amazing how drastic of a change that has happened. National Public Radio liked the photo so much that they put it on there webpage http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2008/02/growing_georgia.html

I also of course took some pictures while I was in Washington DC see the pictures below.

Did any one else go out and see the lunar eclipse? Well I decided to go out and take pictures of it. I only was able to capture an hours worth of photos, because the batteries in my remote died. It is interesting I learned something I never knew. When the earth goes in front of the sun. The light is blocked off however the read wavelength of light bend more than the other colors. This gives the moon a red tint because the light bends around the earth.

I am a new user to digital SLR’s and I’ve had my Canon 350D for about a year. I got a new 75-300mm for Christmas. The lens is a very small and light weight long focal length lens. For this focal rage this lens is very inexpensive. You can get a much higher quality professional 70-200 L series lens for about 1k more. However how many amateur photographers would need such a lens? Now if you are the paparazzi needing to get that distant photo of celebrities on the beach maybe you want the expensive lens. However if you are the average joe like me you want a decent priced lens.

Build: The build quality of the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 is ok. It is light which is a benefit. You will not find a smooth zoom and focus with this lens though. I also would not recommend any abusing this lens because I feel it would have the same fate as my cheaper 50m f1.8 lens.

Image quality: The image quality of this lens is OK… I have noticed some softening of the image at long focal lengths. The sharpness decreases the longer the lens is zoomed out. See the two images below. One is shot at 75 and the other at 300. Both are of the same subject. See the softening of the subjects at 300mm? I would not recommend using this lens in low light conditions. This is a slow lens so I would recommend a tripod and a flash if you are going to use it in low light conditions. I would even recommend a remote to use so you don’t move the camera when you depress the shutter. I would use this lens for brighter out door conditions. The lense suffers from CA (Chromatic Aberration) this degrades the image quality, but hey you get what you pay for. It still is a good entry level telephoto.

75mm:

300mm:

Conclusions: If you are on a budget and do not need a top of the line telephoto lens. Just one for every day photos this one is for you. If you want award winning crisp long focal length photos this lens is not for you.