Dustin Diaz Photography

56/365. For Frodo! ~ Aragorn (LOTR)

I didn't think I would think this so early, but... I love my SB-900. Having owned an SB-600 for so long, I didn't think there was anything more than I would love from the 900 except more power, and larger zoom range on the head. Oh no no. Just the UI itself was fun to play with. Despite my interest in learning the math behind flash exposure... I don't "actually" like thinking about when I'm taking pictures. And yet at the same time, I don't want full TTL either.
Enter the SB-900 with it's cool ability for you to just plugin numbers, and let it do its thing. Tell it what aperture you want at what ISO for a given distance — it recommends a power setting :) — Not to mention, you can also set it to "distance priority" where my camera sends it my exposure information, and the flash makes up the exposure based on how far away your subject is (LOVE).

If all that was jibberish to you.... here it is in simple terms (by the way, this counts as my strobist info).

I walked up to that tree on the left, set my flash on a stand behind it, and pointed it over at that other tree on the right. I set the zoom head to 24mm (even though I had a 50mm prime on my camera), then thought to myself "Hey, It's Bokeh Wednesday!" — So I told the flash I wanted to make an exposure at f/1.4. I also made a "guestimate" that the tree was ~about~ 10 feet away.... so I twisted the power setting dial until I saw a reading of 10 feet.
I walked away, kneeled down, and took this shot. It was like magic :)

Yes, I know, not the most exciting photo in the world, but I was quite happy with how well lit such an ordinary scene was.

And now that I'm done boring you, Happy Bokeh Wednesday!

9/365. Hey, I can dig it, man. ~ Platoon. Today was photo friday, ironically it falls on the most uninspiring day of the week. I shot with Braden, Marcin, and Emily. I started off with the 24-70... but eventually switched off to the trusted 50 and got what I wanted... and now I'm ready to go home and watch cartoons. Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend. See you tomorrow.

5/365. Today was the dreadful return to work day after having such a long stay-at-home-and-do-nothing vacation (which btw, was awesome). This is the infamous Sparky (The Gmail Dog (who belongs to silicon monkey)) during his brief recess time outside. He absolutely loves this his ball (like many dogs).

Nevertheless, it was a successful fifth day. I shot a few flowers that I thought would be nice... but then I thought "I've already shot like a thousand flowers!" — and clearly, I have no shot Sparky enough. Cheers! And Happy Monday :/

it seems like the season is lasting a while.

This is a small bridge near Building 43 at Google. There's no real reason for it being a bridge — poor planning I suppose. You can walk right next to it without walking over anything. I'm also loving shooting in 4/3's (or, of course 3/4). It looks more like the magical rectangle thus being more pleasant to the eye. HBW!
Explorer'd!

It's kind of hard not to shoot leaves when you're surrounded by them everywhere. Here is +1

Christmas Eve is in just a few hours. Erin bought these great plant seed berry thingies and set them on the table. I wandered about the living taking pictures of everything "except" this. I filtered through all the pictures on the camera and decided to take a few more. This shot was one of those and it turned out well. Merry Christmas Eve Everyone.
strobist info: SB600@1/8, to left — ceiling bounce

Still green, and not quite fully yellow