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 18, 2012 - Quebec 7yr Cheddar from Cheesetique

January 18, 2012 - Quebec 7yr Cheddar from Cheesetique. Went to dinner at Cheesetique. We were going to go to Screwtop, but aborted that, after not getting seats. Dinner was pretty good. Picked up some of this cheddar afterwards. It is just wonderful stuff. Very piquent flavor, a bit dry and crumbly texture. There's some crystals as you bite into it. Know its available a few other places around, but this alone makes the trip to Cheesetique worthwhile. Also grabbed a chunk of Chimay cheese, which is not pictured here.

Photo was taken with the 5dII, 28mm Zeiss f/2.0 ZE lens and the 430ex flash. The flash was on a camera stand to the right of the camera. Had a bit of paper around it to try to limit the spill of light around the cheese.

This is a bit the opposite of yesterday's photo - this is just a sea of light colors. Needed to keep from overexposing it, while still maintaining some contrast.

January 14, 2012 - Pizza Night

January 14, 2012 - Pizza Night. We've been making home made pizza for a while now. CKB makes the dough, I do the topping and cooking. Tonight's came out pretty well - she had done some tuning with the dough, carefully logging the changes. This one was part sour dough and part normal yeast, plus was kneaded for an extended time on low in the mixer. As you can see it turned out nicely fluffy.

Photo notes - 5dII, 50mm lens, handheld. Used the 430ex flash, gelled with 1/4 CTO mounted on the camera, but bounced off the ceiling. Exposure is 1/60th at f/4.0, ISO 100. Tuned up slightly in Lightroom.

Critique: Nice rich colors - the pizza pretty much tasted as good as it looked. Didn't have to do too much post processing, filled the frame and there wasn't a whole lot of cropping possible. I'd have liked to have had a bit longer depth of field here, to get more of the pie in focus. The flash was on E-TTL so everything was pretty much program settings. Could have moved to manual, adjusted the exposure and thereby created a bit more depth and drama here. But, this was dinner, and it was hot and ready to serve, so I'll admit my priority wasn't 100% on taking the photo.

January 8, 2012 - Wine and Cheese at Screwtop

 
January 8, 2012 - Wine and Cheese at Screwtop

Tonight was the monthly pick-up for Wine Club at Screwtop. We met friends, did the tasting, and then grabbed a table for a bit more wine and some food. We started with a Cheese and Charcuterie Sampler - some of which is pictured above.

Photo was shot on the Canon 5DmkII, using the 50mm f/1.4, handheld. Exposure: 1/160th @ f/1.8 - ISO 100. Lit by available light - which in this case was a window camera left plus a bit of overhead halogen or incandescent lights. You can see a bit of the competing color balance - warm sparkles from the lights, plus the cooler sky colors. Minor retouching was done in Lightroom. Working the short Depth of Field again - the 50 is good for that.

What do I like about this frame? I like the overall warmish, inviting colors. I'm a big fan of wine and cheese, so for me, the subject matter is appealing. The contrasting shapes are fun, as well. Yes, that one cheese really is that orange. And delicious too! As was the Blue.

What could I have done better? I think my composition needs work. I tend to do most of my shooting with spot metering turned on, and the focus locked at the center point. I think this leads to everything being right smack in the middle of the frame. My bad habit is to just fire the frame, without recomposing to add a bit of interest. I had some of that going on here. I did do a bit of cropping, which is helped things a bit, but still, I have a lot of 'look right here in the middle' going on.

January 4, 2012 - Killer Kale.

Canon 5dII, EF 24-70 f2.8 USM zoom @50mm. 1/60th @ f/5.6, iso 200. Lit with overhead incandescent floods, plus a Canon 550ex speedlite gelled 1/4 CTO held below the camera pointed up at the kale, and a 430ex speedlite set to 1/16th power, buried in the greenery and aimed straight at the vase. Used an ST-E2 to trigger them strobes. Retouched in Lightroom to adjust the white balance, contrast, crop and then added some post crop vignetting.

We get a "green grocer" box now and then - today they screwed up and we got part of ours and part of one that probably should have gone elsewhere. There were 3 bunches of kale included. Not really sure what to do with it, other than use it as a photo subject. Anyone want some kale? Speak up!

Improvements - probably could use a bit more context to say "kitchen" in the background. I actually cleared the decks a bit, moving appliances and trying to angle myself to cut the paper towel holder and the sink out. I do like the hard shadow, ala Ed Wood, in the back ground. If I had another light, I could have given it some contrasting color.

Sad note today - Penn Camera is filing for Bankruptcy.