Pinhole Camera Day 2012

Ranger Duck - view through a pinhole

Worldwide Pinhole Camera Day was Sunday, April 29th. Pinhole photography encourages us to look at our pictures through a different set of "lenses".  As a landscape photographer, I'm usually looking for naturally lit scenes with bright colors and infinite sharp focus from foreground to background.  But maybe my photos don't always need to be 100% sharp, centered, in-focus, and color-correct to capture the spirit of the scene or the moment.

Poppies, Morro Bay, 

30mm Lensbaby, f5.6, 1/250, ISO 200

Seaside Daisy, Piedras Blancas, 

300mm Pentax, f6.3, 1/800, ISO 200

Here's a pinhole experiment you can try at home.  Both photos were taken with a Pentax K5 digital camera using a tripod and natural light at ISO 200.  The first photo used a Pentax 50mm f1.4 lens set at f22 for 8 seconds.  The second photo was from a pinhole - f176 at 5 minutes using a Lensbaby 50mm pinhole optic.

Setting up the pinhole photo is challenging since you can't view the image through the viewfinder  But digital cameras provide easy and nearly instant options to see picture (this may be considered cheating to some film-based pinhole enthusiasts).  I set up the composition with a normal 50mm lens, f2 and ISO 800, and took a photo to get a sense of the arrangement and exposure, and verified exposure with a Sekonic L758 light meter.  Then I picked f22 for maximum depth of field and took the first image.  Next, I put on the 50mm pinhole lens, changed to ISO 6400 and took a 15 second exposure to see how it looked.  Finally, I hooked up an ISR Twin intervelometer and took a 5 minute photo at ISO 200 for the pinhole image.

Weekend on the Central Coast

Saturday was a lovely day on the Central Coast - the fog stayed offshore, winds were calm and temps got up into the 70's at the beach.  I visited the Piedras Blancas Light Station for a tour, checked out the Annual Cambria Wildflower show, and took an evening sunset tour at Hearst Castle.  My out of town guests stayed at the Sea Otter Inn on Moonstone Beach Drive in Cambria - very nice accommodations, and we had great dinners at the Moonstone Beach Bar and Grill, and the Sow's Ear, both in Cambria.

Fog Horn Building, Piedras Blancas

Staircase, Piedras Blancas Lighthouse

Late night card game, Hearst Castle evening tour

The Billiard Room, Hearst Castle evening tour

Temporarily Green Hills

California coastal hills are covered in golden grass for most of the year - hence our state nickname - the Golden State. Ok, maybe it also has something to do with the 1849 gold rush and  49ers (not the football team).

The great singer/songwriter Kate Wolf saw it differently:

Here in California
The fruit hangs heavy on the vine
There's no gold, I thought I'd warn ya
And the hills turn brown in the summer time

(Kate Wolf, Here in California, 1980)


With the recent late spring rains, the hill are brilliant green with tall grass. Here are a couple of photos from this weekend in the coastal valleys.

It's a pretty lush looking life for the cows in SLO county right now. Unfortunately, the grass has grown tall quickly and is covering those wildflowers that finally did bloom. It does not appear to be much of a year for wildflower photography.



Working Barn - Highway 46 near Cambria, CA

Cambria Chili Cookoff 2012

The 2012 Cambria Chili Cookoff and Car show was held on Saturday at the Vet's Hall and Pinedorado show grounds.  The sun poked out for most of the day to shine on the dozen or so groups cooking chili.

This year's big winner of both the People's Choice and Judge's Choice categories was Cambria's own West End Bar and Grill.  Their chili was quite good.  Noted chili pundit Frank X. Tolbert would have been horrified that most of the chili served had beans, and there wasn't a true bowl of "Texas Red" to be found.

Judges Deliberating

Chili Decor

The audience held their breath as the 5Hundy Social Club from Sacramento held a jenga match next to the cook tent.  They also had my vote for the best chili.

Pinhole Photography Day

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is April 29th this year, and the promoters encourage everyone to try out pinhole photography.  The website   http://www.pinholeday.org/    gives the basics of pinhole photography, and provides tips and instructions for making your own pinhole camera.  And a quick search shows gives many other resources and galleries on the web related to pinhole photography.

It's probably cheating to use a digital camera for pinhole photography, but I tried some photos with my Pentax K20 and a Lensbaby pinhole lens.  See the photos below.  I'll have to do some experimenting with the pinhole size to see if I can get the images a little sharper, but that may not be possible on such a small format camera (APS-C sensor).

Morro Bay Harbor by pinhole

Emergency Vehicle Show - Morro Bay - April 20 and 21

Photos were taken with Pentax K20 digital camera, and Lensbaby pinhole optic.  The pinhole is 0.3 mm - f176 - and the focal length is 50 mm - I added a 0.6 x wide angle adapter.  Pictures were metered at f22 then shutter time increased by a factor of 6 to get the correct exposure.  Digital preview gives near instant results of the pinhole exposure and composition.

April Cat of the Month

Just as soon as Fluff was appointed "Cat of the Month" at the North County Humane Society, he was adopted.  So a second COTM was selected - this month it is Monty - a rascally 3 year old who loves to wrestle and play.

Fluff - recently found a new home

Monty - still looking for a new home

Morro Photo Expo - Winning Photos

My Hummingbird at the SLO Botanical Gardens photo took 2nd place in the Morro Photo Expo photo contest.  You can see the other winning pictures at

http://www.morrophotoexpo.com/?p=1848

Storm Clouds Over Morro Rock

I took this time-lapse sequence of storms moving over Morro Rock on Friday April 13th.

Kitten Photos

Kitten are starting to arrive at the North County Humane Society shelter in Atascadero.  Some are so young as to require bottle feeding - every 2 hours around the clock.  Thanks to Sherri for her lessons on the care and feeding of young kittens!

Others are just the right age to start romping around, and much more difficult to photograph - he was just there a moment ago - stay still for a split second so I can get you in focus, you rascally kitten!!

Atascadero Egg-Mazing Race

Atascadero held the annual Easter egg race in the Sunken Garden Park on Saturday April 7.  Called The Egg-Mazing Race, the event was organized by the Atascadero First Assembly of God, and lots of kids, young and old, turned out for the fun.  I was taking photos, but pulled out the video camera to catch some of the action.  Watch the movie below - it's my first try at putting video clips together - lots of work, but fun, and good learning, too.

Atascadero Egg-Mazing Race Video - by Tom Lott

Morro Photo Expo

Last weekend was "for the birds" at the (almost) annual Morro Photo Expo in Morro Bay.  The theme was nature photography, but workshops covered everything from time-lapse video to butterfly photography.

http://www.morrophotoexpo.com

See some of the photos from the workshops:
 http://www.flickr.com/groups/morrophotoexpo2012/

I attended workshops on flower photography and time-lapse video.  But with birds everywhere in Morro Bay, I couldn't leave without a few bird pictures.

Snowy Egret, Morro Creek

Another session, titled Photographing Critters, gave us a chance to get up close with a variety of lizards, snakes, frogs and bugs.  The photos below were taken with available light using a Pentax 645 medium format 120mm macro lens mounted on a Pentax K-x body.  Exposure was about 1 second at f20; distance was 1 to 2 feet.  These critters were quite still to allow longer time exposure, and quite tolerant of many photographers pointing cameras and flashes into their cute little faces.