Stars at Night

When I was taking pictures of the moon, my camera also captured some tiny stars. In the top left of this picture, there is a little bright spot which is a star. There is also another one on the bottom right. To capture all of the stars, you would want to set your camera to the darkest possible settings. Have the highest aperture, lowest ISO, and slowest shutter speed. This would allow the most amount of light to enter your camera and allowing you to see the stars.

Blood Moon

I used to not be able to take pictures of the moon but now I am, how, might you ask. Here's how, to take pictures of the moon, you must have a camera that has a detachable lens. Any point and shoot camera (lens doesn't detach) won't be able to capture a very quality picture of the moon. If you have a camera with a detachable lens, you want to use the light meter but instead of having it in the center, you want it to be completely over-exposed. This will allow you to get definition on the moon instead of taking a picture of a bright white light.

Aligned

This lunar eclipse won't occur again in the United States until 2021. A lunar eclipse is when the sun, Earth, and moon are aligned in a straight line and in that order. On all other days, the sun shines on the moon and the moon reflects the light onto the Earth. In a lunar eclipse, the Earth blocks the moon from getting any of the sun's light and makes it appear red. A solar eclipse is opposite. The order of the three planets goes sun, moon, Earth. The moon blocks the sun from reaching the Earth.

Tree Branches

Just after the sunset, when the moon had just risen, it became blocked by tree branches. I found it annoying at first but the utilized them to help manipulate an interesting picture. I positioned my tripod and camera to capture the branches in front of the moon. This worsened the definition of the craters on the moon but instead made an interesting design on the moon.

Lunar Eclipse

The night of January 20th into the early morning of January 21st there was a lunar eclipse. It began at around 9:30pm and continued into the early morning hours but I went to sleep at 12:30am, just as the white started to return to the moon. I took this picture at 11:48 pm, as the sun merely started to cast its light back on the moon. I believe it is my best but I still have many others from the first time the moon was blocked from sunlight by the Earth to the sun returning to the moon.

Miniture

I've taken macro pictures of flowers before but these flowers are different because of how small they are. I was able to get multiple bunches of flowers in the frame and have them fill the entire picture. I set the focus on the front of the flowers to capture the flowers and water in focus. I think this might be one of my best macro pictures yet.

Pattern

On this leaf, it had a very intricate pattern on it. The veins appeared to look almost like a stained glass window. The glass pieces making up the window crooked but arranged to make a rectangular window. For the leaf, the pieces are the veins and they are arranged so that they create a leaf. Maybe this is where the idea of stained glass came from.

Up Close 

Moving away from raindrops, I focussed on other objects I can photography with my macro lens. One of the orange leaves from yesterday's picture was this redder than orange-colored leaf. With a macro lens, I am able to get extremely close to objects. I set the leaf behind another leaf and photographed the design on the leaf. There are the sharp edges, veins on the leaf, the tip, and the dark spots on the colored leaf.

Orange

The next raindrops I took pictures of with my macro lens were these two. I angled my camera so that they were in front of a tree still full of orange leaves. I admire how the background of leaves is deeply blurred but if you look in the raindrop you can see a vague outline of the leaves. I also admire the crisp distinction between the left raindrop and branch. You can easily tell where the raindrop ends and the branch begins.

Mirror 

This picture is of the same raindrops as the last picture. In this picture, I changed the focus and exposure. I set the focus to the trees mirrored from inside the rain and I darkened the exposure. I like how the viewer can see inside the raindrop. It is something that I didn't see with my bare eyes until I adjusted the focus.

Morning Glare

I took this macro picture of hanging raindrops soon after the sun rose. I wanted to showcase the water and how it reflects light. The water that is on the branch casts a very harsh shadow toward the camera. Almost making the picture overexposed. To know when a picture is overexposed, the photographer has to see their picture on a bigger screen than the camera. When I took this picture I thought it was exposed correctly, but on my computer, I can see the blue, red, and green that make up the display. This is one of the biggest indicators of an overexposed picture.

Dew

I came back to this plant for a second time to showcase the dew. It always seems to have dew on it because I went but after this picture for a third time, and there was still dew on it. I like how the focus is on the hairs and there are objects blocking the main focus of the plant.

Magnify

With my macro lens, the closest I am able to get to an object is 0.98 feet. Since my camera has a focal length of 90mm, I can get extremely close to an object. With this picture, I got as close as possible to the raindrop. I then set the focus to the bottom of the raindrop to make the entire raindrop in focus. The raindrop also magnified the part of the leaf underneath it. The brown and pink colors in the raindrop is part of the leaf.

Circle of Water

In the center of this plant, was a circle of water. Only in that circle was water, everywhere else on the plant was dry. I don't understand why the water made a circle like that. It could be water likes to stick to itself or that the sun 'burned' a hole in the water and left the other part still wet.

Star

Near the rainbow leaf, was this leaf. This leaf was partially above water and had a deep wedge in the middle of it. I took the picture with the sun behind the leaf. The made some of the water glisten and reflect the light. I put my camera very close to the water to get the best reflection. I made sure to capture the entirety of reflection to percieve the complete star.

Rainbow Leaf

One of the leaves that fell into the water underneath the sweet gum tree, looks almost like a rainbow. The leaf is red, orange, and yellow, and where the water touches the leaf is blue. Under the rainbow leaf are a dead leaf and some mud. The dead leaf almost seems to have scales on it. There are spots of a darker brown and spots of light brown.

Sweet Gum

Looking up from the flowers, I found this sweet gum tree. Even though I took this in late December, there are still leaves on this tree. I noticed the lighting from the left side of the ball. It lit up the left side while the right side remained very dark. The ball also appears to still be wet from the rain storm as well. Some of the light reflects while the parts where the light doesn't reach that part of the ball seem dry.

Wall of Water

On another similar flower, instead of focussing on the center of the flower, I focused on the pedals. On one of them, it was covered with raindrops. From this picture, it is clear to see the extreme depth perception of a macro lens. The raindrops and petal that are in focus are all the same distance to the lens. Anything else, even if it is a few millimeters farther from the lens, is out of focus.

Icicles

This flower has the same 'hairs' that the first flower when I took pictures with my macro lens has. After the rain, the 'hairs' must have become filled with water. This makes them almost look like icicles. The light reflecting off of them, they are white like ice and straight. When I was taking the picture, I didn't notice the brown object on the 'hairs.' It isn't too big so it doesn't completely ruin the picture, but it is still bothersome.

Hanging

On the flower next to the last one, the raindrops were hanging off of it. I purposely had the focus on the raindrop instead of the flower. I also like how the viewer can see the complete circle of the raindrop. Since the raindrop is hanging, it becomes a sphere. Unfortunately, the raindrop reflects light. This made finding the right exposure extremely hard, causing the picture to be slightly brighter than I would have liked. Luckily, a quick fixing of the exposure in Photoshop fixed it.

Rain

After a heavy nighttime downpour, I took these macro rain pictures. This first one is of a single raindrop on a flower. The hardest part of taking a picture like this is making sure the focus is correct. The water magnified the air bubbles on the leaf. On the bottom of the droplet are tiny white dots which are the air bubbles. I tried to have the focus directly on the air bubbles which would also help to have the entire droplet in focus.

Filament

In the center of all flowers are filaments. It's the object that sticks up out of the middle of the flower. I like this picture because of the natural contrast in colors. The bright pink is the main part of the picture, but it doesn't overpower the light green. The focus on macro lens' is very sharp and small. There is a tiny line where the object is in focus and everything else is out of focus. The farther the object is from the focus line, the more out of focus it gets.

Dew

The second to last and my favorite picture in the first trial with the new lens is this picture. It is of a flower that hadn't grown its flowers yet. When I was taking this picture, I didn't notice the dew. Looking over it later, I found the 'hairs' sticking off the flower and dew on the hairs. It is my favorite because of the precious focus on the forefront flowers and the drastic decrease in focus as the viewer looks farther back in the picture.

Fuzzy Leaf

The next flower I took pictures of wasn't a flower but a fuzzy leaf. I have taken pictures of this type of leaf and different types of leaves before, but never this close. With the picture this close, I think the white fuzzy part caught an ant. The viewer of the picture can also see the very tiny water droplets on the white parts.

Pink with a hint of Green

The next flower I took pictures of resembled a lettuce head. Except for being green, the flower was pink with small parts green. I enjoy taking pictures of this flower without the macro lens because of the waves in the petals and interesting color, but now the flower looks even better. The leaves look sharp and rough around the edges but smooth in the center.

Macro

While trying out my new macro lens, I photographed several of the same objects as before just much closer. I have taken many pictures of this purple and white flower. With the new lens, I am able to get extremely close. It allows the photographer and viewer to see things that the human eye can't see clearly. For instance, who knew this flower had small 'hairs' in the center. A human eye and regular lens can't see them, but a macro lens can.

Blurred Motion

Similar to the picture of the bridge and lights going around the pond, is how I took this picture. I had a long shutter speed which captured several seconds of the water moving, this made the water blurred. Since it was a long exposure, I had to use a tripod to keep the rest of the picture still. When taking a long exposure picture, the photographer has to not touch or move the camera during the exposure as it might cause the entire picture to become blurred. 

Night Reflection

While looking at Christmas lights, I found these at a pond. To reduce the grain/noise in the picture, I kept the ISO low. I changed the aperture and shutter speed to complement each other and make a great picture. I settled with a larger aperture and longer shutter speed. This picture was exposed (shutter speed) for 4 seconds. This made the clouds in the sky blurred but the white in focus. 

Full Moon

One day after the winter solstice, I took this picture of the moon. It took me multiple pictures before I was able to find the right shutter speed to take a picture of the moon. I wanted to have then moon be bright, but not too bright that it would be overexposed. There were some clouds that night which made it hard to take a full picture of the moon.

Blurred

The other picture I took with a slow shutter speed was this one. I set my camera on a tripod and angled it straight down. I like this picture better than the last one because of the leaves are more in focus and the camera is closer to the water. I also like how you can see the waves in the water that was caused by the rocks. 

Flowing Water

At a creek, I was taking pictures of the water with a fast shutter speed (nothing blurry) and I wanted to change things up. I increased the aperture and slowed the shutter speed, for a more blurry picture of the water with the objects sticking out of the water in focus. Overall, I think the picture is really interesting and something, not every person takes a picture of.

Blowing in the Wind

It was incredibly windy the day I took these pictures. This was one of the few pictures that weren't blurry and had random objects in the picture. I think this is one of my better pictures. I like how the picture is basically black and white with the exception of the rose. 

Golden Leaves

The next leaves I took pictures of were light yellow and orange. They almost look golden to me. The way the sun hits the leaves to bring out the color. Then in the background, the sun doesn't reach those leaves leaving them dark. The leaves in the background are also the same as the ones in the foreground. They look interesting as they are an out of focus representation of the leaves in focus. 

Bottom Up

Similar to the picture two days ago, I also enjoyed this picture for the same reasons. I also like how in this picture the red colored tree is much fuller and has much more leaves. Another feature of this picture is that the trees in the top of the picture have very few leaves on them. The amount of leaves decreases as you move up the picture. 

Fire Streaks

On another red tree, I zoomed in really close and filled the frame only with the individual leaves. When I later looked at the picture, it reminded me of fire. The leaves moving right to left almost look like a fire. I also enjoy how the background is a dark green. It doesn't distract the viewer from the leaves but it complements them because the green makes the leaves stand out. 

Fall Foliage 

Away from the waterfall, some of the trees had changed color their colors into fall mode while others remained in summer mode. I choose this picture because I liked how the trees filled the entire picture. I also like how only one of the trees is red while the others are green. While the red tree is small and doesn't reach the heights of the tall green-leaved trees, it still looks interesting next to the big green trees. 

One in a Bunch

Moving away from the waterfall, one of the bushes I found was all green except for this one leaf. I found it interesting how only one of the hundreds of leaves was red/yellow. While I didn't capture the entire bush with only this one red/yellow leaf, I purposely wanted to focus the picture around this leaf. But from the green background, it is clear that all the other leaves are green. 

Water Fall (part 2)

In this picture of the waterfall, I slowed down the shutter speed to make the water look blurry. When you slow down the shutter speed, more light is able to go into the camera making the picture brighter. To compensate for this, I had to zoom in and make the hole that allows light into the camera (aperture) as small as possible. While I didn't capture the whole scene of the trees and everything, I still think this is the better picture. 

Water Fall

This picture and tomorrow's picture are connected. I tried taking a picture of the same object two different ways: this picture with a fast shutter speed and the next picture with a much slower shutter speed. Unfortunately, the trees in this picture don't change colors. They are evergreens, meaning the leaves are always green. On the opposite side, the sun wasn't in the frame which could have ruined the picture, so that was good. But overall I think the picture is fairly boring and something anyone could take.

Sunset Bush

Zooming out from the sunset leaf, the entire bush looked like a sunset. Normally in Texas, fall is just a tree full of leaves turning into a tree with no leaves. This year I was lucky to find a tree that was able to turn colors before the leaves fell off. I like how the front portion of the tree is red while the back part of yellow. Then the background is dark which complements the leaves. 

Sunset Leaf

While the last leaf had all of the colors of fall, this leaf looks the best. I like how the red, orange, and yellow all flow together. It reminded me of a sunset when I took the picture. Everything coming together in one picture that captures the whole scene. Even the background is perfect. It is more of the sunset leaves which helps the one in focus stand out.

Berry Tree

Most of the trees at the arboretum had changed color when I took these pictures (as you will see in a picture coming later). I found this tree with very little leaves and a few berries on it. One of the leaves happened to be right next to one of the berry bunches. Not only that, but the leaf was all of the colors of fall. It was red, orange, yellow, and black. 

Full Bloom

The next flower I saw was this bright pink one. The flower itself is pretty cool. Since it is bright pink, it stands out against the dark green background. I like how the flower has different shades of pink in it. The top part is a lighter pink, and as you move down the petals the pink becomes darker. Then at the bottom of the flower is the dark green stem. I helps to bring out the color in the flower and to showcase it in the picture.

Broken

While walking around in the arboretum, there were several leaves that had changed color and ripped. I believe that the front leaf was consumed by an animal. There was another leaf behind the ripped one that hadn't turned red yet. I positioned my camera to capture the green in the spots where the leaf had a rip. While the picture didn't come out exactly how I pictured it, I do like the green line in the red leaf.

Mini Flowers

The next flower I saw were these mini flowers. I put my camera into the center of the bunch and started taking pictures. Unfortunately, the flowers are so small that you can't clearly see the centers of them. On the other hand, I like the deep green centers contrasting the white petals around the entire picture. 

Color

Like the black and yellow flower, this black and pink flower was dark in the center and became light towards the edges. Unlike the yellow flower, I was able to make the focus spread out in the frame. Also, in this picture, the background changed from a green to a much darker green. If I were to combine both of the past two pictures, it would be a really good picture. 

Black and Yellow

Along with the pink flowers, there were this (these, if you read this any day after it was published) multicolor flowers. I had the exact focus be in the middle of the black and yellow flower. While the center is clear and very detailed, the focus dissipates very quickly once you look at the outsides of the flower. To fix this, you can increase the aperture (make the number bigger since it is 1/that number) to soften the focus.

Pink

I returned to one of my favorite spots to take pictures of nature in Dallas, the Dallas Arboretum. When I went, there weren't too many flowers, but there were some. It was an overcast and windy day, perfect for photography. One of the few flowers I saw were these pink ones. I like them because of their bright color and how the flowers are complete and aren't missing many petals. 

Glowing Red

Towards the end of a sunny day, I found these leaves. While having the sun behind the leaves makes a very bright exposure in the background, it also helps to outline the leaves. Especially where the background is white, there is a clear focus and definition of the border. 

Reflection

In the last picture, I wanted to add a reflection and put the camera closer to the surface of the water. I did that for this picture, but I still don't completely enjoy this picture. I tried to take pictures of the water that was in the leaf but the focus wasn't correct. I guess I am going back to try again.