4 May 2012

Penny production at the Royal Canadian Mint ends today.

(There are a few other reasons to have a photo of pennies today, too.)

Gray / Staso

An interesting brick: internet research tells me that Staso was a brickworks in operation in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, during the 1950's. That's just outside of Pittsburgh, so this little brick is a long way from home.

Note the American spelling of "Gray".

Now that I have the God Nikon, I'll occasionally think that I should have bought the Nikon 60/2.8G instead of the 50/1.4G, because it's somewhat sharper at the middle apertures. But sometimes I'll let the fast 50 run and play the way it's meant to, and then pure resolving power doesn't seem to matter so much. If anything, this photo would benefit from more consistent softness.

This is also where I should make a joke about the photo being hand-held, but in truth the camera was on a monopod.

This is the only time in nine years that I've selectively softened and lowered local contrast.

(see also: "Staso / Gray")

D800_DSC1000

I'm a little surprised that it took me this long to get here, but this is finally the 1000th photo taken with my D800.

While I can't read the name of the boat – the angle's wrong, even if there was enough resolution – I'm willing to bet that the person onboard isn't wearing a hat. And I can see that the plane directly above the sail already has its landing gear down.

Hammer

This is one of my three favourite hammers, photographed using a flashlight during a long exposure.

This is also the first photo that I've posted that I took with the D800 and 85mm PC-E lens. Taken at f/16, this is actually a bad example of the camera's ability to capture detail, as diffraction has considerably reduced the peak sharpness. I'd still consider it 'good enough' and will have no hesitation in using this combination when I need large prints.

Blue Siding

Really, if they didn't want me to trespass, they shouldn't have painted the building blue.

(I had to walk past three other warning signs to reach this one. They're very protective of their parking lot.)

230,000 Volts

I have it on good authority that there's no point in photographing anything but flowers in the spring, because the trees are bare and ugly.

Involving Yellow

One of the best things about travelling is being able to photograph signs with different wording, or even in different languages.

Ottawa, Ontario.