Tag: photography

Photography-related posts. I talk about inspiration, settings, gear, other photographers, etc.

New Camera – GoPro Hero9 Black

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
 “GoPro” Cedar Park, 2021

Today I bought a new camera: the GoPro Hero9 Black. I’ve owned a cheap action cam for a couple of years, but the poor quality of the stabilization made it pretty much unusable. I only paid $35 for the Victure AC600 and the old adage “You get what you pay for” certainly applies here.

The GoPro Hero9 Black cost $399, but the quality is amazing. The stabilization is unreal! I’m going to have a lot of fun using it to record my bicycle and motorcycle rides.

Take a look at the video I made while wearing the GoPro on a chest mount:

And below is the $35 Victure for comparison. Apologies if you suffer from motion-sickness, but I even applied Warp Stabilization using Adobe Premiere Pro! You can imagine how bad it is straight out of camera.

The GoPro cost 10x as much as the Victure, which is quite a jump, but because I never use the Victure, it’s basically worthless (however, it did include various action-cam mounts and hardware which I can use). Also, the GoPro has timelapse capabilities which surpass my Fujifilm X100T, so my timelapse videos of clouds will see a big bump in quality.

I’m very happy with the GoPro Hero9 Black. I haven’t bought a decent quality camera for myself since 2015, so I’m really enjoying that new camera feeling!

ISS Fly-By

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/2, 10 sec, ISO800
 “ISS Fly-By” Cedar Park, 2020

Tonight the International Space Station (ISS) was very bright as it passed over Texas, and I had my camera and tripod set up to capture it. I didn’t really know what kind of settings to use, so I just went with a typical exposure that I normally do. Unfortunately there were a lot of clouds obscuring the view, but I think the photo turned out okay.

I made a series of 10-second exposures, then stacked them in Photoshop to create the composite image above. You might notice that there appear to be double stars. This is because I hid a few layers in the Photoshop stack when the ISS was passing behind the clouds so the overall cloud coverage would be reduced, and this resulted in the star trails having a gap in them.

FYI, this website is a fantastic resource to see when satellites will be flying overhead. It uses Google Street View to show you exactly where to look from your viewpoint! Just make sure that your watch is synchronized to the atomic clock so you know when to look up.

When Interests Converge

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/105 sec, ISO200
 “Sunset” Cedar Park, 2020

It’s nice when interests converge. For instance, I love bicycling, cameras, and clouds. So when I get to combine the three, it’s so nice! Of course, I can take care of the bicycling and camera aspect myself, but need a little luck with the clouds. It’s nice to be prepared, though! What’s the saying? “Luck favors those who are prepared”? Something like that. Anyways, one good thing to come out of the pandemic is that I spend more time bicycling than other activities to relieve the stir-crazy feelings.

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO320
 “Bike Sunset” Cedar Park, 2020

またね～

Cloud Instagram

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Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/3000 sec, ISO100
 “Cloud” Cedar Park, 2020

こんにちは！

I decided to shift my Instagram account subject matter to just pictures of the clouds (and sky), since I am pretty convinced that they are my favorite things to take pictures of. My Instagram has been a mix of clouds, travel, and food, but I think I’ll just focus on the one subject. I’ll keep all my old photos, including my earliest where Instagram meant spontaneous snapshots, just for history’s sake.

Anyways, we’ll see how it goes! I’m not very active there, with the main effort being this blog, and then my daily photo post on Flickr. But Instagram is still fun to browse and see what friends and family are up to!

またね～

Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/2300 sec, ISO100
 “Cloud” Cedar Park, 2020

New Light

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/100 sec, ISO1250
 “New Light” Cedar Park, 2020

Mariko is upping her Zoom class lighting rig with this new LED ring-light system. We need to order the iPad holder for the center, but for now, she’ll just use it as a directional light. The brightness is adjustable, so it can be used to add a bit of fill light nicely, or you can crank up the intensity and bounce it off the wall or ceiling. It’s pretty neat! I might even use it for my work meetings. 😃

Spotting Comet NEOWISE

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 10 sec, ISO800
 “Comet NEOWISE” Cedar Park, 2020

I finally saw Comet NEOWISE! Thanks to my friend Jeremy’s tips and advice, I was able to spot the comet just over the treeline and captured a couple of photos with my Fujifilm X100T camera. It’s the first comet I’ve ever seen so I was pretty stoked. 😄☄

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/2, 13 sec, ISO200
 “Comet NEOWISE” Cedar Park, 2020

I make Mariko laugh when I came back from the photo session because I was carrying my tripod/camera, had my headlamp on my forehead, and around my neck was my compass and binoculars. I struck a pose and she said “Dasai!!” (uncool) 🤣

Slide Photo

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/15 sec, ISO200
 “Slide” Cedar Park, 2020

On my desk here at home is a little box of slides from when I used to shoot slide film with my old Minoltas. I’m not sure where this photo was taken, but it appears to be from just after we moved to Texas from Japan. That would be about 21 years ago. How time flies!

Anyways, I was using my old light-box (22 years old!) as a back-light to I could try taking a photo of it using my Fujifilm X100T. The result wasn’t too bad, but it can’t compare to a scan from my Epson 4490 scanner.

I hope you had a good day!