Fist sign of Spring

Perfect weather weekend!

Eric took a jog around the neighborhood yesterday while I just sat on the deck enjoying the breeze. We're in the 70s again today! We ran a few errand after church. Eric then gave both of our cars a bath to rinse off the salt from last week's snow. I ate my lunch by the deck and spotted the flowers already bloomed. So I hurry in to get my camera - I know I'm a geek :)

Aren't they beaaautiful? No photoshop alteration :)

Stitch photos...

Eric and I went on a mini get-away last week to celebrate me getting older. We went to a small cute little town called St. Michaels in Maryland. There are so many small cute little shops. We also had the most fabulous fresh cheap seafood dinner there. It was the perfect get-away! On our way back, we've stopped by The National Harbor. Here's my first attempt to stitch couple photos together to make this panoramic looking pic. What ya think?

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge

DIY Bokeh

I finally get a chance to try the DIY Bokeh and I'm LOVING IT! Below is my DIY Heart Shaped lens hood. The black paper cost $0.39 from local craft store and lots of tapes. I was able to make 3 of these fake lens hood from it.

This is the result. Not bad huh??? I'm still working on trying to get the foreground/target to focus right. This is the first time I have to use manual focus and as you can see, I'm not very good at MF.

Here's another shot with the snow flake cut out. I've used Martha Stewart's paper craft puncher for this cut out - the heart cut out I just did it by hand. The only problem I have w/ the snowflake puncher is I couldn't get it to center where I want it. The puncher only allow you to slide the paper edge in so much.

Both of these shots were taken w/ my 50mm lens at between f/1.8 to f/2.8 w/ tripod and a string of multi-xmas lights. Enjoy!!!

DIY Diffuser / Softbox

I've made myself a diffuser / softbox today. Its not very pretty but works fine! You can get the templates here. I've used cardboard boxes from snack and ziplock box and tissue paper as the diffuser.

Here are the shots. Note these shots were taken with full-auto and position the speedlite at 90 degree-angel. No alteration!

Original


With the homemade softbox


With Sto-Fen's Omni-Bounce diffuser

What you think? I think the homemade softbox works just as well as the Sto-Fen and cost nothing to make.