I woke up to some fairly spectacular colors in the sky this morning. I have to say grabbing my camera to make this shot really did a good job of getting rid of the morning grogginess.
Sunrise NYC — Nikkor 24mm f/2 AIS @f/2 handheld
I didn’t really have time or the mental wherewithal to set up a tripod for this, which would have helped. I’m also not a big fan of how the sky bleeds into the skyline, but otherwise it looks pretty much the way I saw it. Not the worst way to start out one’s day.
Now available for order on the Apple store for delivery on 8/28, beating their announced September launch.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL?mco=NzgxMDc2NA
Real Snow Leopard — 300mm f/4.5 AIS ED-IF
Just got back from the Japan Street Fair in midtown where I stopped for lunch. The fair is a lot smaller than Japan Day in Central Park, or Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but made for a pleasant lunchtime diversion.
Balloon — D200 & Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AIS
Mochi Men
Yo-yo Tsuri (ヨーヨー釣り) winner
Yo-yo tsuri is a festival game in which you try to pick up a water balloon yo-yo floating in water by hooking onto it’s string. Since the hook you use is on a line of twisted paper, it will break if it gets too wet, so you must be careful! At least, I imagine you should be. I’ve never actually played as far as I can remember.
I’ve made it so you can post replies without having to login, since I haven’t yet gotten around to tying my logins to anything like OpenID which would make things easier for people. Posts will be marked as anonymous, and you don’t get the ability to edit or delete posts like you do if you’re logged in, but it’s much more convenient. The commenting form will also appear alongside the tiny link by clicking on the “T” icon at the end of each post.
I didn’t allow for anonymous posting initially due to spam concerns, but I’ve obfuscated the structure slightly to make it a bit more difficult for automated bots. Hopefully I won’t have to implement a CAPTCHA, as I really hate CAPTCHA.
In addition to anonymous posting, I’ve also changed the left column of photos to be random rather than a few I had put up months ago and never bothered to change. The links go to the blog posts, not the full sized images.
Today work was pushed back into the evening — I’m writing this while waiting for some emails — in order to break for a boat ride. I brought along my trusty D200 and 85mm f/1.4 AIS to chronicle the event, which ended up being a good choice.
While this picture works at thumbnail size, once you enlarge it you can see the reflection of New York in her glasses which really makes the shot. Like most of the pictures I’m putting up, this was shot wide open.
These 2 photos, also at f/1.4, really show the dreamy soft quality this lens has at wide apertures. I toned down my usually punchy colors for today to match that ethereal look.
Another shot in which reflection plays a key role, you can really see how the lens loses the softness as it’s stopped down — even a little @f/2.8. The direct sunlight also added to the contrast giving it a different feeling, closer to reality, than the rest.
All content © Tai Shimizu unless otherwise indicated.
