Heart and Soul, Part II

Members of the Indiana Photographic Society, another photo club I belong to, have a second chance to get exposure for their "Heart and Soul" images. On a First Friday art walk night this past Friday in Fountain Square, the club opened a two-month-long exhibit in which the photos are perched atop the book stacks lining the main room of the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library branch right at Fountain Square.

We don't have nearly as many spaces in the library as we did for our "Through the Lens: Heart and Soul" exhibit that ran from April 9 to the end of May at the Garfield Park Arts Center, but we each got to display four images (I'd had eight on display at GPAC). We used images from the GPAC display for the Fountain Square exhibit.

Friday was opening night of the display, which runs through the end of August. The photos in this post are from Friday's opening reception at the library. A nice twist to the reception for this show was the ambiance music, provided by club member Dave Wensits, who played acoustic guitar and sang various folk songs. That's Dave performing in the top picture and the one immediately below. The top photo is a perspective shot that also shows some of the visitors (including club member Albert at far left) enjoying the entertainment, and, in the background, a visitor checking out some of our images atop the book stacks.

Above: Liz and Dave confer about the refreshment-munchies setup strategy.

Above: Club member Bob adds his contribution to the snacks display.

Above: Albert and Sheri chat near the coffee pot.

Above: Erik preparing a beverage.

Above: The spread included cheese cubes, chips and guacamole, veggies and dip.

Above: Dave, Phyllis, Jim and Albert near the snacks.

Above: A view of the lion's share of the images on display.

Above: Dave's images, which were to the right of the ones above.

Above: Images offered by yours truly. From left: "In Thought," "The Tree," "Window to the Arts" and "MacAllister Center." All are high-dynamic range captures taken in February 2011 at Garfield Park in Indianapolis.

Above: Albert (standing behind me in the upper right corner) suggested I might get an interesting shot shooting a picture of this fish-eye mirror, and he was right. At left, shooting a photo of three seated visitors and using her flash and flash diffuser setup, is Albert's wife, Sylvia.

Above: Club members (from left) Sylvia, Marikay and Jim.

Visiting Hendricks County, Part II

Yesterday, you saw the single-frame shots from inside the Hendricks County Courthouse. Today, as promised,  are the high-dynamic range (HDR) versions -- the melding into one of three different exposures of the same shot, using the HDR software Photomatix.

 

 

 

 

Tamron delivers the goods in new 18-270mm PZD VC lens

A lens with a relatively slow variable maximum aperture has to be loaded with advantages and features to get me to even consider purchasing it. I've been looking for the ideal do-all, light-tote lens for spur-of-the-moment and/or one-day travel outings for some time, and Tamron recently put the answer to my quest on the market in the 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD lens ($650). I was fortunate to make the decision to buy on the final day of a $50 mail-in rebate, softening the wallet lightening a tad.

The lens is an upgrade of Tamron's previous 18-270mm that is equipped with a traditional auto-focus motor. The new model -- designed for APS-C sensor cameras -- has the novel PZD (short for piezoelectric drive) technology as well as upgraded vibration compensation (VC) technology that effectively makes this a more compact -- and lighter (15.9 oz.) -- lens that covers an expansive 15x focal range.

To top it off -- and this was the clincher for me -- Joe Farace, who reviewed the lens in the June 2011 edition of Shutterbug magazine, says the improved VC technology was so astute, he was able to not only fire the camera hand-held at 1/8 of a second and get sharp shots, but also to fire off three hand-held auto-exposure bracketed shots as slow as 1/8 second -- and still get sharp images. Wow ... being able to shoot HDR without having to worry about packing my tripod each and every time? It got my attention, and I took the plunge. I've been very open to Tamron products; Tamron's 28-75mm f/2.8 lens has been my primary walk-around since summer of 2007. And even though the 28-75mm was made primarily for full-frame camera users in mind, it has served me and my two Canon APS-C sensor cameras well; I just get more effective focal range (because of the 1.6x multiplier) for my millimeters.

The photos you see in today's post were all HDR treated shots -- three auto-exposure bracketed frames melded into one in Photomatix -- taken using the Tamron 18-270mm PZD lens Monday evening in the two hours or so before dark, my first test drive of the new lens. And yes, all of these bracketed shots were hand-held. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic.

The lead photo (at the top) of the dense cloud formation through which a bit of the lowering sun found an opening to splay these unusual ray patterns, was taken on the western fringe of Garfield Park, looking over over the Manual High School campus (right).

Several variations of the scene appear in subsequent photos below, including a monochrome conversion of a scene similar to the one above. In two instances (near the bottom), I provide two versions of the same scene of the main entrance to the Garfield Park Arts Center -- one treated through the exposure fusion option of Photomatix (the more realistic "look"), the other treated with the tone-mapping option (the more artsy, painting-like veneer).