January 24, 2012 - State of the Union or 4 More Beers!

January 24, 2012 - State of the Union or 4 More Beers!

In honor of the State of the Union address tonight - we have here "Four More Beers!" Hopefully this should be amenable to folks from either side of the aisle, give or take the teatotallers party, which I'm not too concerned about.

The beers pictured here include the 80 Shilling from Mad Fox - shown here ensconced in a Outer Banks Brewing Station Growler, Oude Kriek from Hannsens's, La Trappe Quadruppel and Winter Solstice from Anderson Valley. Yes, these are "just the beers in my fridge" at the moment. Or, rather, some of them. Some are local, some aren't. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, we'll drink each of them.

Photo was taken with my Canon 5dII and the Zeiss 28mm lens. Used flash - mounted on a light stand, to the right of the photographer. Shot the flash through a white "shoot through" umbrella, which you can see clearly if you look at the reflections on the bottles.

January 20, 2012 - Victory Headwaters Pale Ale

January 20, 2012 - Victory Headwaters Pale Ale.
Victory Brewing Company of Downingtown Pennsylvania is, in my opinion, one of the best breweries in the country. Their beers are always well crafted, flavorful and very fresh. The subject of today's picture is a bottle of Victory's Headwaters Pale Ale. This is a fairly recent addition to their lineup - hoppy and refreshing. At 5.1% ABV it falls into what I'd consider a sessionable beer - you can have more than one without needing to consider dialysis. So many beers these days have adopted the "imperial" moniker and thrown in more of everything. This isn't one of those beers, rather, just a well made drinkable pale ale. Would that more breweries could concentrate on making quality styles, versus trying to outdo the other guy. Cheers to Victory!

Photo details: Canon 5dII, Zeiss 28mm f/2.0 ZE lens, hand-held. ISO 100, 1/60th second at f/7.1. Used a canon 430exII flash off to camera right, gelled with 1/4 CTO, triggered with an ST-E2. Retouched slightly in Lightroom.

January 10, 2012 - Clamp mount gadget

January 10, 2012 - DIY Clamp mount gadget. This is the clamp with 1/4-20 screw mount that I used on Commuting Fun shot a few days ago. It really is about as simple as it looks. One 1/4-20 pan head screw, a 1/4-20 nut to hold that onto the clamp, a washer and a square-ish flat bit of metal with a 1/4-20 tap on it. The bit of metal was a left-over from a computer rack-mount kit from several years ago. The clamp is a ~$1 item from the local big-box hardware store. I can't/won't claim to have had an original idea here - have seen lots of implementations of this on other blogs, such as Strobist.com.

Taken with Canon 5dII, Zeiss 28mm f/2.0lens. ISO400, 1/30th at f/2.0. Everything was hand-held and lit with overhead incandescent lights.

January 9, 2012 - Snowmageddon 2012

 
January 9, 2012 - Snowmageddon 2012

January 9, 2012 - Snowmageddon 2012. Or "Omighad it snowed - lets all drive like we're insane."

Image was pretty simple - 5dII on a tripod. with a Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm f/2.8 lens. Exposure 4/10th of a second, f/8.0, ISO 400. Lit with a 2 AA-Cell Maglite, with the LED bulb. Used a Canon RS-80n3 wired remote trigger to fire the shutter.

The Good: quick and easy here. Found a bit of snow on the hydrangeas, parked the tripod and fired a few shots off. Was using "P" program mode, so let the camera do most of the thinking. Played the light around a bit, which if you want, you could call it light painting. I'm not thinking it was fancy enough for all that. The LED light is a good bright bluish white - there's a lot of power in a small "spot-light" kind of package. Who needs a "gridded spot"??

The Bad: Another Quick and Easy shot with "ya get what you pay for" results. Could have done some more composing. Here we have another big ball of stuff, basically in the middle of the frame.