It's easy to practice photography when you have such good-looking subjects. :)
16 years ago
Showing posts with label cora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cora. Show all posts
Dinky Fifty
My EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens finally came in the mail today. I ordered it online the same day I bought my camera (2 weeks ago) so I could save $10 and ended up kicking myself for it because it took so long to come in! I really wanted to experiment with it while I was in Vegas. Luckily, my co-worker Ken was nice enough to loan me his EF 50mm f/1.4 USM for the weekend. I was actually going to decline, didn't want to get used to the faster lens and get stuck with the 1.8, but I wanted something other than my zoom to play with so I borrowed it anyway.
So now that I had both in my possession, it was time to test out to see if the 1.4 really is worth 4x more ($389 vs $99). First of all, the 1.8 is dinky compared to the 1.4. It's made out of a cheapy plastic that is lighter and shinier. It's super light and surprisingly quite smaller. It really is a no-frills lens. It took a while to get used to the 50mm in general... it almost reminded me of my first 35mm camera when I was 13 (won it in 7th grade for selling 12 boxes of chocolate). No zoom, no frills, just get close to your subject and shoot. The 1.8 was quick and it was easy to adjust aperture and shutter speed to get a good amount of light in, especially since our media room is kind of dark. However, the preview for each photo seemed so blurry. I was disheartened but kept on shooting. After I viewed the pics on my computer, I realized that the larger aperture had such narrow depth of field that it blurred out everything except for the very point I was focusing at. It was even more ridiculous in the 1.4. (I was shooting both in Tv, letting the camera choose the aperture)
50mm f/1.8 II // quick and dirty
50mm f/1.4 USM // super quick and much more vibrant
So, for now I'm not a good enough photographer to show much of a difference between the two so I am happy to practice with my 1.8. It's small and light and will be much easier to work with when I'm not freaked out about knocking it on a wall. At $99, you really can't complain.
P.S. Doesn't Cora look silly with short ears?
Fun with Photoshop
Okay, I don't want to fall into the bucket of amateur-photographer-discovers-photoshop-plug-ins but I will admit it is a lot of fun. Sure it's easy to go overboard (overprocessed images on Facebook bug me too) but I think they might make for neat prints framed on a wall.
I will probably stick to the more traditional method of touching up through Photoshop for my regular photos but why not let loose once in a while and go click-crazy? :)
I used 3 different presets for this shot of Cora. I wanted to get an extremely burnt, but not overexposed, contrast since the original image was so boringly brown. Brown dog on brown carpet against a brown background. I also played with a pixelating tool which made for a cool shadow around her head.
I had a nice, clear outdoor shot of Max that was, well, almost too clear. This was a good way to practice with "airbrushing" tools to eliminate blemishes, minimize pores and do just about everything my collection of Bliss products promises to do.
My last picture was a "happy accident" that Aai took with the camera as she was trying it out for the first time. Again we had a white dog against a white shirt in front of white cabinets so I wanted to play with color and contrast to add dimensionality. Adding the frame was a fun way to add balance to the edges.
Oh, puppy shenanigans.
Spent the morning with the pups today. And by morning, I mean 5:30AM to 7:30AM. Who knew that I could be up and about in the wee hours of the morning? I haven't slept in since... well, since we got Cora.
Lulu is definitely warming up to Cora now. She lets Cora snuggle up next to her and is pretty tolerant when Cora climbs on her to chew on her ear. Also they playbite for a good 30 minutes straight in the mornings. I've even caught her wagging her tail a couple of times! It's interesting to see that Lulu uses a soft bite when playing with Cora -- I put my hand in between the "my mouth is bigger than yours" biting exchange once and noticed that Lulu is very gentle whereas Cora's bites are super sharp.
Lulu is definitely warming up to Cora now. She lets Cora snuggle up next to her and is pretty tolerant when Cora climbs on her to chew on her ear. Also they playbite for a good 30 minutes straight in the mornings. I've even caught her wagging her tail a couple of times! It's interesting to see that Lulu uses a soft bite when playing with Cora -- I put my hand in between the "my mouth is bigger than yours" biting exchange once and noticed that Lulu is very gentle whereas Cora's bites are super sharp.
I love this face!
Just heard a slight whimper from downstairs as I am sitting here writing in my blog and I walked downstairs to find Cora next to the screen door, whimpering to go pee! Just a minute ago she was knocked out under the couch but at 10 weeks she can already walk down to the door when she needs to go.
So proud. ~.~
So proud. ~.~
Good Morning
This is what I wake up to in the mornings. Super cute, but super annoying when by morning I actually mean 4:30am.
Please let me sleep!
I can't believe it's been about 3 weeks with the new puppy and I haven't had the chance to write a single thing about her! Exactly 3 weeks ago we went to Sandra's co-worker's house in Lawndale to look at her 7-week-old puppies. There were 10 total but only 6 survived.
Max immediately fell in love with the runt of the litter, who they called Pookie. She was the smallest of the group but had the cutest face. Jo-Anne met with us and picked up the largest of the group, Tiger.
We weren't fully prepared for a puppy so our first stop was Centinela Pet Feed. We named her "Cora" in the car -- short for Coraline. Her skinny body and long tail reminds me of the rats in the movie. She knocked out in the car and didn't do much. She looked so frail for a 7-week old puppy. I remembered Lulu as meatier and more playful at this age but I thought maybe it's because she was the runt and was malnourished.
Jo-Anne called her puppy Lady and the next week was puppy week at Rapp. We took turns watching the pups while we both worked/had meetings but most of the time they played or slept in my cube. Lady seemed to be twice Cora's size. They were very feisty when they played together. After that first week, Lady stayed with us for the next 10 days while Jo-Anne was on vacation. Luckily, I also had quite a few days off between my summer flex days and 4th of July holiday.
We always had to keep a close eye on Lady because she would steal Lulu and Cora's food when we were not watching. She was always so hungry! She seemed to be about a week ahead in development and did things like bark, jump, run up and down the stairs a full week ahead of Cora. She was also more playful and rambunctious.
After two weeks of puppy terror Lady went back home with Jo-Anne and Cora was stuck with Lulu. Lulu is a lot more tolerant of Cora without Lady around and even lets her play with her face in the mornings. The other day I completely stepped on Cora's leg and she cried for about 30 seconds during which Lulu came quickly to see what was the matter. I'm hoping these two get to become best buds so they can keep each other company while we're at work.
So the biggest difference in my life so far is that I have not had a good solid 6 hours of sleep in 3 weeks! Cora wakes up every morning at 4-4:30AM to ask to go outside, and then wakes up again at 6am to play. No matter how much we try to tire her out in the evening, she always wakes up at the same time. At first I was worried that she was unable to hold "it" longer than 4 hours but during the day she's shown that she can. Not sure why she seems to have an internal alarm clock that likes waking me at the crack of dawn.
Max immediately fell in love with the runt of the litter, who they called Pookie. She was the smallest of the group but had the cutest face. Jo-Anne met with us and picked up the largest of the group, Tiger.
We weren't fully prepared for a puppy so our first stop was Centinela Pet Feed. We named her "Cora" in the car -- short for Coraline. Her skinny body and long tail reminds me of the rats in the movie. She knocked out in the car and didn't do much. She looked so frail for a 7-week old puppy. I remembered Lulu as meatier and more playful at this age but I thought maybe it's because she was the runt and was malnourished.
Jo-Anne called her puppy Lady and the next week was puppy week at Rapp. We took turns watching the pups while we both worked/had meetings but most of the time they played or slept in my cube. Lady seemed to be twice Cora's size. They were very feisty when they played together. After that first week, Lady stayed with us for the next 10 days while Jo-Anne was on vacation. Luckily, I also had quite a few days off between my summer flex days and 4th of July holiday.
We always had to keep a close eye on Lady because she would steal Lulu and Cora's food when we were not watching. She was always so hungry! She seemed to be about a week ahead in development and did things like bark, jump, run up and down the stairs a full week ahead of Cora. She was also more playful and rambunctious.
After two weeks of puppy terror Lady went back home with Jo-Anne and Cora was stuck with Lulu. Lulu is a lot more tolerant of Cora without Lady around and even lets her play with her face in the mornings. The other day I completely stepped on Cora's leg and she cried for about 30 seconds during which Lulu came quickly to see what was the matter. I'm hoping these two get to become best buds so they can keep each other company while we're at work.
So the biggest difference in my life so far is that I have not had a good solid 6 hours of sleep in 3 weeks! Cora wakes up every morning at 4-4:30AM to ask to go outside, and then wakes up again at 6am to play. No matter how much we try to tire her out in the evening, she always wakes up at the same time. At first I was worried that she was unable to hold "it" longer than 4 hours but during the day she's shown that she can. Not sure why she seems to have an internal alarm clock that likes waking me at the crack of dawn.