Lomohut - idiotically genius » Photography

Photo Tip: Crystal Clear Night Shots Without a Tripod

James — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:22:41 +0000

I was in Sakuragichou the other evening and saw a familiar site: landmark tower and the ferris wheel. I’ve been wanting a good shot of it at night to use as a background for a while as it is beautiful.

I was lucky enough to be there at night, but without a Tripod. My camera (Panasonic DMC-FX01) is a few years old, but it has some neat features, wide angle for point and shoots (28mm) but overall it is your average digital point and shoot of a few years old.

Normally when I’ve tried to take nighttime shots on a flat surface it always ends up a bit shaky from the button press. I realized a simple, easy, and most importantly free way around this that every camera could easily do: self-timer.

I put my camera on a ledge – lined the shot up as best I could, set it for “night time landscape” mode, set the timer and boom. Crystal clear no tripod.

So if you need a night time shot and without a tripod – just look for a flat surface and remember your self-timer. It works wonders.

Yokohama, Japan

Cross Proccess

James — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 16:33:53 +0000

I got back my cross processed shots from Galviston and wow, they are simply amazing. Of course I won’t b doing it for every roll (too expensive, 5 dollars for a roll and 13 bucks to develop). However..wow. It really brings the blue and green out in the film.On Sunday at 1am, we (my family) decided to supprise my step-dad’s family and drive up to Granbury instead of meeting them halfway in Waco. 324.33 miles and 5 hours 30 minutes later we arrived. Everybody slept some except for me, and we all went to sleep when we got there for about 4 hours. After that we went over to one of my step-dad’s sister’s houses had lunch, met with the family for a little bit, then me and my step-dad had to leave. We ended up leaving at about 4 and got back to Houston at around 8:30. Shaved an hour off of the time it took us to travel because we only stopped once (I had to pee really bad, but it was about 3 hours into the trek). Other than that, it was a smooth way there and back, that left me tired as hell with a test to take the next morning of which I scored an 81 on.The photos are of part of “The Strand”, that old fisherman, and the surfer chick (this time by me). The Strand is a few blocks area of galviston where there are a lot of shops, food, general entertainment type stuff. That particular shot I belive was taken where they life-size chessboard (well, right outside of the chessboard). The old man, well he was fishing and caught 3 fish or so.

800 640Street

800 640Old man fishing

800 640Suferchick

Left handed notebook

James — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 15:41:31 +0000

Today, I have finally gotten what I have wanted my entire life. A Left handed notebook! It is so great, I don’t have to write around that peskey spiral, writing bliss for lefties. I imagine that it isn’t nearly as orgasmic for a right handed person to be writing with a regular notebook since well, they were designed for you. I got it at the bookstore on the San Jacinto College Central campus. It was a bit more expensive than a regular notebook (assuming here) since it cost me $2.50. I may stock up on a few of them on monday just to be like ‘hey look what I have!’.——I have been massively busy for the past few days working on that contract. However the app is comming along nicely, looking really slick and should have a a demoable version to the boss in a day or so. It has taken me more time than I expected (getting refamilier with .net/C#), so I’m unsure of how the payment will work, if it will be the flat rate or hourly, either way I’m still happy (even if it results in me getting paid less than I would have otherwise).——Today’s pictures are just random shots that I took with my lomo lc-a. I stil have not had time to go get that film developed. Maybe I will run the slide film on down to One Great Photolab today to send them on their cross processing way, then on the way home, drop by the 1 hour photo and drop of my current roll (if it’s full, not sure if it is or not). So withour further ado.

800 640Giant spoon – doubled

800 640American piss water..err beer..

800 640Kevin and probably me doubled

Galviston

James — Mon, 14 Jun 2004 00:31:37 +0000

I just got back from galviston today, from a 2 day trip (left friday night, got back on sunday). On day one, we got to the hotel (the flagship, on a peir off of seawall), checked in, ate some grub, then went swimming..in our clothes. Saturday was a pretty good day as well. First time I had gone to the beach in a long time, and had a fun 3 hours or so there swimming with my cousins / family. The water in the gulf is too warm for my likings. I spent most of the time in the water with my cousin looking for cold spots of water (isn’t normally warm spots of “water”, but maybe that’s just swimming pools…). Everybody got burned atleast a little bit, even myself, got a bit of red on my nose.The day did get better though, once we got back to the hotel, I got my trusty Lomo LC-A, and convinced my cousin to go out shooting with me. Now, some of the photos I will not describe because I want to wait until I take my film in, and then give the story at that time, even if they don’t come out, I will desscribe it then. So, after walking down the seawall a little bit (and a few shots later), I saw this guy under the pier, with a ratched tie down tied to two of the supports. Naturally, I walked over there, and took a few shots with my lc-a. I talked with him for a few and found out that he was from Yosimite, and that’s what the rock climbers do there. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind getting back on there so I can take some pictures with my digital camera, to which he agreed. This was truely amazing to me, that he could keep his balance (while jumping even!).That made my day, but then when I was walking away, to head back up, and get some shots on the pier, I saw a photographer taking photos of the guy (only from a bit of a distance). She was shooting with a Canon A80 if memory serves correct. We had a nice talk about cameras (including lomo’s), photography in general, and took a few shots of this surfer chick. I found out she was from Cambridge, MA. She was quite cool. We started heading up to this fishing spot off of the end of the pier, after the of the parking lot.We finally got there, after talking with a fisherman, and his daughter, and seeing the 3 fish they caught. I noticed that it cost money to go to the end of the pier to fish. Not wanting to be a non-paying stealing type of guy, I went up and asked if I could go back there to take some photos and specificly said I would not be fishing. Wellp, it was pretty packed back there, and the guy started going off about how he has children to feed and that everybody must pay regardless of fishing or not. At 20 dollars a head, I’m sure he is feeding his children, feeding them, and feeding them well at that. However, not having the money to get back there, and not really wanting to sneak on back there, I just turned around and headed back to the hotel for a nap.Today (sunday) as we were packing getting read to leave, I looked outside across the street and saw some white smoke. Which quickly turned into black smoke. Followed by some sirons and and some more white smoke (from putting out the flames). The funny part about this all, is that it was a greese fire in the back of the reasturant, yet nobody was moving or seeming to care.

800 640View at night

800 640Surfer waiting for a “wave”

800 640Birds attacking our cheetos.

800 640

800 640Guy walking on the tie down