Photo 365 Project: Day 18

Day 18: Mike

Was trying to take my own passport/visa pictures at home (in preparation of my trip to Burma!!!), and my friend Mikey was over so I had him stand at different areas of my house to see how the pictures would come out. I deleted all of them per his request afterwards but I couldn't find it in myself to delete this one, I don't know why I just like this picture haha. Well, I told him and ended up sending the picture to him and he was cool with it, so that was my shot for day 18...

Thanks to Mike for helping me out that day!

Photo 365 Project: Day 17

Day 17: My Mama Yvette :)

Taken at a small little breakfast/burger joint where drunk people go after hours in an attempt to sober up. All the lights in the place were red, so you know what that means... vintage edit! Haha, I have two portraits of her from that night, but I like this one more because it's unposed. I just waited for the moment and struck :) Too bad she's not a fan of this one, but this is my blog, so this is the one that goes up!

Thanks to Mama Yvette for letting me take pictures of you even though you're sensitive about what pictures of you go public :)

Photo 365 Project: Day 16

Day 16: Lights, Camera, Hyphy!

A day with my cousins for Lunar New Year. We all went to Dave & Busters down in San Jose, and at the end of the night our accumulated tickets allowed us to each have a fun (stupid, really) light up ring. Since I had my camera with me I came up with the idea to start playing with the rings, and it led to a whole set of these pictures, with this one being my favorite of the bunch. Low ISO, low aperture and long exposure to get the effect.

Thanks to my cousins for a fun filled evening and changing my opinion on getting these rings!

Photo 365 Project: Day 15

Day 15: Family Dinner

Went out as a family in celebration of my Uncle's birthday. Some thai place out in Fremont. Food was ok. I decided to bring my camera along since I hardly have any pictures of my immediately family (those who live in my house counts!). None of them wanted pictures of them taken, so it was quite frustrating. I remember as a child (when i hated pictures) going on vacation with my family and hating sightseeing because we literally had to stop every 5 minutes to take pictures. Now that it's my turn I hate that they won't let me take decent pictures of them. Oh how karma works, right? Meh, still got off a lot of candids, and this was my favorite of the bunch. No edits, just straight from the glass.

Photo 365 Project: Day 14

Day 14: Smile!

Forgetting the dates now that I'm so behind! Oh well, this was from a tiny set, I shot a bunch of us getting together before going out. This is my friend Maggie, who refused to look at the camera the whole night. I was able to sneak in a couple of shots, and this was my favorite of them. I know she thinks it looks awkward and horrendous, and while I won't say it's horrendous I will say that I like the kind of awkward feeling I got from this shot. fyi she looks much better when she actually wants a picture of her taken :) Played around and edited using the toy camera setting in Aperture.

Thanks to Maggie for "participating" in the shot!

365 Project Fail

Man it's been awhile since I've posted. But, luckily for me I'm still shooting, so I'll just post a whole mess of pictures as entries. I already said from Day 1 I'm going to have trouble keeping up, but it's better that I keep at it then drop out during February...

Photo 365 Project: Day 13

Day 13 (1/27/11): Just Outside

I'll take a break from people pictures for today. Snapped this while I was waiting for my friend Mike to come pick me up. My neighbors house across the street from me. Used my 30mm lens so things were a little tight (mainly me not being able to get the entire tree in the shot). I could've gotten closer but I didn't want to look like some strange pervert pointing a DSLR at my neighbor's home so I stayed on my driveway to take this shot. I love the natural lighting and hope to experiment more with shots taken in broad daylight. Hmmmm, HDR anyone?

Photo 365 Project: Day 12

Day 12 (1/22/11): Photo Session

Day 3 (and the final day) of Vegas. Haha ever since I saw this hybrid couch/bed in our suite I knew that I wanted to do some sort of "classy" picture with it. It didn't turn out exactly the way I imagined it (I'm not exactly a fan of the way I was posed) but I still like it enough to use it as one of my pictures for the year! Of course a black & white finish was used to make it "classy" haha.

Thanks to Carlo for taking the picture and cousin Rachel for posing with me!

Photo 365 Project: Day 11

Day 11 (1/21/11): Elabator Picture!!!

Day 2 of Las Vegas. Another category where the wide angle fisheye shines - elevator pictures! Taken at the Planet Hollywood Westgate Towers. Usually my friend Cipriano does the elevator pictures but since my DSLR was with me he told me to take the shot as soon as the elevator doors closed. I was in a bit of a shock but acted fast - switched the mode to green box (a.k.a. auto mode) since I knew I wouldn't be able to meter the shot and just fired away until we hit our floor. Of course being me I put a vintage scheme over it!

Thanks to everyone for making the shot as awesome as it was!

Photo 365 Project: Day 10

Day 10 (1/20/11): 30mm Magic!

Day 1 of my trip to Las Vegas gave me a lot of great pictures to work with, but this one truly stuck out for me. Taken with my Sigma 30mm f/1.4. After reading on POTN I realized that a lot of people feel that they receive soft copies of this lens, and it made me hesitant to buy it. I eventually caved in thanks to Amazon's 10% coupon code and after getting this picture I don't care how "soft" my lens is, I'm an official believer of this lens. Very little post processing done because I didn't want to mess with a picture I adored so much, just a little sharpening here and there.

Thanks to Christine for making herself so preTTAY for this shot and Cipriano for serving as am awesome background to blur haha.

Photo 365 Project: Day 9

Day 9 (1/16/11): Whatever This Thing is Called.

I am beginning to skip more days haha. For this picture I was just taking random shots at my friend Richard's house when I started to take pictures of his piggy bank (yes that green thing is said piggy bank). The picture turned out pretty cool so I removed some of the little things around it and stacked the books nicely to get a clean shot, and this is what came out. I think my Aperture was too high since the edges are blurry, but I still like this shot and will keep it as one of my 365 photos.

Photo 365 Project: Day 8

Day 8 (1/13/11): Looking On...

I went to the CA Academy of Sciences on the 13th with my friend Diana (shown in the picture). I got a lot of shots that I really liked, but this one struck me for a couple of reasons. This shot was random as I was just testing to see how wide my fisheye lens was, but when I got home and processed it I added a vintage scheme, and upon taking a second look I really liked it. I think I just really like the vintage edit, it makes pictures have a much more deeper and mysterious feel to them than they really do haha.

Photo 365 Project: Day 7

Day 7 (1/12/11): My New Baby

Didn't get a chance to go out, but I did get this bad boy in the mail today. I'd do a review on it but I don't think I understand enough about photography to have a significant say on the quality of the lens. Still, I can't wait to get out and shoot with this!

Photo 365 Project: Day 6

Day 6 (1/11/11): Motion Blurred Mints

Trying my hand at motion blur photography. I really want to get a handle for this technique so that I can start taking pictures of people with it. I managed to get a nice blur but the "motion" in the blur isn't as apparent. Expect (maybe) to see a couple more motion blur shots in the next couple (or even more) days. I sharpened the Andes mints (as my focus needs work) but I left the background alone this time.

Photo 365 Project: Day 5

Day 5 (1/10/11): Merry Christmas?

Snapped the tree one last time before it's taken down. Yes we still had our Christmas tree up in January, so sue us :) Had to do a lot of sharpening, I guess my f stop was too low (high?).

Photo 365 Project: Day 4

Day 4 (1/9/11): Hyphy in the Dark Ronald (First attempt at HDR)

Went out to the Community Center parking lot to take this picture at night. Set up my tripod to a 10 second timer, took 3 pictures (-2, 0, and +2 exposure) and stacked them all together to get this. Fun, but now I want to take some HDR pictures in the daytime to get more of an HDR effect. Still, this was pretty cool and I look forward to more night time shooting :)

*And for those of you in the know, yes, I am wearing my BARF!

Photo 365 Project: Day 3

Day 3 (1/8/11): Serious Sarah

Skipped a day. Meh, it was bound to happen! Got this shot inside of a Starbucks while they were waiting for their drinks. Looked amazing on my 3 inch LCD on the camera, but once I uploaded it I noticed that her face was VERY blurry. Still, I loved the shot, so I edited it until I got it to something I liked. I sharpened around the blurs as best I could, blurred out the background as much as I could (to make her face look sharper) and added a "vintage" color scheme over the picture, since vintage pictures have a natural "blur" to them haha. This was the final product, enjoy!

Thanks to Sarah for patiently staring at something while I shoot haha.

Photo 365 Project: Day 2

Day 2 (1/6/11): Photo Bomb

I set up my new tripod to play around with, and I was focusing on my garbage can. Right before I pressed the shutter button my sister jumps right in front of the camera, giving me this shot. Luckily it was a good one. A little editing to brighten her face, and you have Day 2 of my Photo 365 Project!

Photo 365 Project: Day 1

Yes, I know I didn't start on 1/1/11, and realistically I probably will not have around 365 pictures by the end of 2011, but I'm going to try my best to upload as many as I can. Starting.... now!!!

Day 1 (1/5/11): The Finger

The picture is really grainy, but I still like the picture a lot for some reason. My white balance was set to something completely different (I think 'Shade', I forgot to change it since we set foot in the restaurant). As a result a lot of my pictures from that night were way off in color, so I had to edit a lot of them. In addition my shutter speeds were way too slow, or my hands were way too shaky. It was my first night out with my t2i and it should be very fun (or depressing) to look back on this in a year from now :)

Thanks to David for giving me a great expression and a really fun shot!

Goodbye 2010!

2010 was overall a good year. In terms of purchasing power, I've been able to buy a lot more stuff that I've wanted/needed now that I have a steady income. In honor of 2010 as well as to say goodbye to 2010 I'll write about 3 items that stood out to me: The great, the regret and the meh.

The Good: Apple iPad (32gb WiFi)

Without a doubt my favorite purchase this year would have to be the Apple iPad. I got the WiFi version because I just don't have a need for 3G at the moment. I have 3G on my phone, I can tether (via jailbreak) and in all honesty this device is not always with me.

Still, I've been able to do a lot of things with it that I normally wouldn't be able to on an iPhone or iPod touch. Taking notes in class (for the short time that I did before I just started skipping Microbio), drawing (Sketchbook Pro is hands down mvp app for me this year) and reading (iBooks has revived the reader in me) to name a few. Hulu and Netflix while in bed is also a great feature that I've gotten to use quite often.

It is definitely NOT a computer replacement, but those seeking a secondary device would not be disappointed with the iPad. I've convinced some of my friends to get one, and they love it as well. If I could do 2010 over again I would not hesitate to buy the iPad once again. It is by far my favorite purchase of 2010. At $599 MSRP for the 32gb WiFi I would not consider it a bargain, but from the use I got out of it, it was an investment that was worth every penny. I eagerly await the arrival of the iPad 2 this coming February.

The Regret: Canon Rebel xTi DSLR + 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Kit Lens

Photography is a fun little hobby that I've been interested in for quite some time now. So to jump into the world of DSLR's I purchased this camera in the summer for my sister and I to share (since she's also interested in becoming a so called 'photog'), I bought it used off my cousin (body only) and went on to buy the most popular starting lens, the 18-55mm Kit Lens, which comes standard with entry level Canon DSLR's. Initially I wanted 'the most basic DSLR set up' and that's exactly what I got. Almost nothing more.

All my friends and family members with DSLR's had more advance set ups. Better bodies, better lenses. Naturally I was jealous and felt like a complete noob in their presence, but of course, it's ultimately the person that will make the picture and not the gear, so I kept with my basic and started practicing. Now that I'm a little better I feel that my lens right now is too restricting, and I feel that I'm ready for an upgrade, both body and lens. I've ordered a 50mm f/1.8 prime lens (yes, still considered a newbie lens) and I'm still debating between a 35mm, 85mm or a 10mm fisheye. I also ordered a Canon t2i from Best Buy and I'm waiting for it in the mail (2 year free financing FTW!).

Not a huge regret, but a regret nonetheless. I wish I just shelled out the extra money (hell, I could've financed a t2i back in the summer just like I'm doing now!) and just went straight to the t2i, which is still considered an entry level DSLR. Now for me the price of upgrading is not only the cost of the t2i but also going through the trouble of selling off my current DSLR. The xTi uses CF as opposed to SD memory, and I had to invest in those as well, so it's just a bit frustrating when I should've just went straight to a camera that I'd be happier with for longer.

The "meh": KOR One Hydration Vessel

Ever since before 2010 I've wanted a glass Voss water bottle. I thought they were really cool looking and I wanted one for myself. When i finally got one, I realized how big and heavy they were (not to mention they were glass, smashing things in my backpack!). The KOR One Hydration Vessel was the ideal replacement for me. Initially it was everything I wanted in a water bottle: easy to use, easy to clean, BPA free and unique/stood out. When I got this in the mail I was surprised to see that it was just as big as the Voss water bottle, but it was much lighter and efficient to use, so I put up with it.

Now they (KOR) came out with a newer design called the Kor Delta. The Delta comes in two sizes, a small and a large (the large being equally big as the Kor One). Great, maybe I should have just waited.

The Kor One is real eye catcher and a very well thought out water bottle overall, but at $29.99 MSRP (plus tax and plus shipping if you order online) steered a lot of people away. The KOR Delta (the small one at least) retails at $22.99, which is a much more reasonable price seeing as how most 'nice' water bottles are in the $20 range anyways. But since I was a registered member of KOR I got a 35% coupon code one day and decided to buy a Delta anyways. So now I have a big Kor water bottle that probably will not see use outside of the house.

I don't necessarily regret this purchase as the water bottle promoted a healthier lifestyle in me. I was drinking more water, and ever since I bought this water bottle I have not bought bottled water, so I am heavily reducing my carbon footprint. Therefore, I'll just leave this purchase as a "meh", haha.

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So that's it for this post. I plan to use this blog mostly to talk about and review things that I bought/want to buy. I'm trying to write less in my blogs because I know people don't like to read huge walls of texts (and I tend to overwrite). I know I didn't do such a great job with this post but I hope to keep it brief enough to warrant your guys' attention in the future.

Happy New Year everyone! Have fun and be safe! See you guys next year!!!