Clouds swirl over the tree tops, and how different they do look in the span of 24 hours!
One timelapse depicts cotton-like clouds over hazy, near-colorless mountain peaks. Counterintuitively, it is as if these soggy trees are smoking.
The other shows clouds dissipate at sundown over the woods to reveal brilliant sunshine.
The first crescent images are from the beginning of the month. I wanted to capture something that I'd call reversed scale: giant autumn leaves and a tiny Moon.
This blurred photograph, thanks to a shallow depth of field, with a resultant sea of gold in subtly different shades, turned out to be a surprise favorite of mine, though likely too abstract for the viewer.
And this timelapse of last week's half-Moon with wispy clouds veiling over it is dreamy enough to compensate for the current rainy cloud cover and staying indoors.
Almost.
This week in smartphone photography: 'tis the drinking-tea-all-day-and-wiping-paws-after-every-walk-oh-my-he-smells-like-a-wet-dog season.
Remaining autumn leaves flutter in the wind against the backdrop of a late October sunset.:
a) as a mobile still;
b) and as a now customary looping timelapse:
The dreariest of months, November, is almost here.
Just a tiny bit more of mid-autumn's golden glory—this time through DSLR macro—until the leafless and snowless drudgery of November.
I shot the following images using a new tiny toy: a telephoto lens for a smartphone. I've been hearing about detachable, or, rather, attachable lenses for smartphones for quite some time, but I've only started using one after getting it as part of my birthday gift this year.
This is a 8x CamKix lens with 1.1 f-stop, which obviously means that it can be used as a macro / portrait lens, too, considering the very shallow depth of field.
Naturally, this has been a week of experiments mostly with timelapse, but with a bit of regular photography, too.
As far as these particular images are concerned, even though the focus seems near-perfect, the overall photograph in each case looks more like a film still—a bit diluted. Of course, I've yet to read any articles on the technical limitations of attaching such a lens over the smartphone camera.
Nonetheless, I'm impressed with the overall capability and potential.
As mentioned in the previous blog post, a lens like this is not a replacement for, say, doing closeup wildlife photography, but, in the very least, it's a great supplement. Indeed, one could possibly get away with only a smartphone for travel purposes. Normally, at least one of my travel carry-ons is a large camera bag!
I can't wait to see what the wide-angle capabilities for these smartphone lenses are. In other words, I'm sold!
The Moon lay hidden beneath a cloud...until timelapse revealed it.
This is my very first experiment using a telephoto lens attached to a smartphone. All things considered, I'm pretty impressed. These lenses are not a replacement for, say, photographing wildlife up close and personal, but they're certainly a great supplement. Perhaps, you could even get away with just bringing a set along for travel. Normally, I have at least one carry-on just for a camera and a few lenses. Can you imagine how much space you'd save?
More experiments to come, since timelapse photography is quite addicting. Now if only platforms like Vine and Instagram didn't reduce the quality of large areas of solid color so much.
In honor of my birthday, I get to post my favorite accidental photoshoot of the last little while: this beautiful stag walking away into the dusk.
"Remove these chains at once, mother! I must embrace my lupine heritage in all this freedom!"
...and gone!
Sometimes, the weather in the Rocky Mountains changes rapidly.
This is even more evident with the help of a timelapse video. Watch the light change:
Now that I finally have a different tripod for a smartphone—instead of using random objects creatively—my timelapse addiction just might get worse!