TheRightPic.com

This is the blog for my photography site, www.therightpic.com.

Lately most of my posts are about interesting photography tutorials or stories I find on the web. If you have any good links let me know and I will post them with a link back to your blog or site! Enjoy the site.

If you are looking for our royalty free images our gallery is located here.

Anything you find in it is free for download and use for personal or business purposes.

On the left you will see a list of categories that we have posts about.

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Here are some pictures from a trip I just took with my family to the Uintas wilderness area in the Utah Wasatch Mountains. Very pretty.

I have about 454 mosquito bites, however. Hopefully I did not contract West Nile Virus…

This is one side of the lake. We spent a lot of time in this area for a couple of days trying to catch fish.

This next picture shows the ‘mirror’ of Mirror Lake. I know there are Mirror Lakes all over, I guess Mountain Men weren’t very imaginative when it came to naming things.

“Let’s call this one Mirror Lake, Leroy…”
“That is a right fine idea, Earnest. I was thinking Silver Lake, myself, but we done named one that the other day.”

This area in the Uintas has a lot of mountains that don’t have any trees. In fact, there is a mountain called Bald Mountain (again a very imaginative name) that is shown in the last picture, but this next shot shows a typical scene when looking around the area.

Here is a shot of Layne and Marshall fishing on the first night. I know this breaks rules of composition by not letting you see what the kids are looking at but I liked the stances of the two of them.

On the second day we took a hike up to some other lakes. This one is called Bonny Lake and is about a mile from Mirror Lake. They spelled Bonny wrong according to our family:

There were some pretty wildflowers near the lake (and also all over the area)

My Dad and I hiked up further to another lake called Scudder Lake and got up there in time to be met by one of the very reliable afternoon rain showers. It didn’t rain too much until we made it back to camp I am happy to report.

We had a good time. I have heard it said when you have nothing else to say, stop talking, so I think I will apply the same principle here.

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My second post from Tokyo. Wow. Doing some blogging now; it doesn’t even hurt yet.

I did it! I conquered the Tokyo subway! It wasn’t too hard.

Here is a quick recap of what I learned yesterday:

In the Tokyo subway systems there are several ‘lines’ such as the Ginza Line and the Eido Line and each one has a certain route. The lines overlap so you take, for example, the Ginza Line to a certain stop that crosses over to the Eido Line and then get on that line if you need to so that you can reach your destination.

It is fairly easy to understand the subway maps hanging on the walls once you get the basics down.

The trains are frequent and all you need to know is either the name of the place you are going or the first letter of the Line and the station number of where you want to go. For example, G6 is the station outside the hotel where I am staying. It is the 6th station on the Ginza line. Yesterday I ended up on E12, which is the 12th stop on the Eido line, to get to the museum I went to.

One thing I don’t like about the trains is the money machines. They give you about 1 second to choose English text and to start trying to figure out how much to pay, etc, before they go back to Japanese. Well, that isn’t a very good description but anyway the money machines are a pain but once you fiddle with them a few times you get the hang of it.

I went to the Eido - Tokyo museum yesterday. It was a pretty cool place to go. Most of the musuem is located in the part that is hanging over the ground. I read a review that said it looked like an imperial walker but I don’t know about that. It was impressive though. It is a large structure.

There is a massive escalator that goes up to the museum.

There are many scale models throughout the museum that show life in Tokyo (Edo) throughout the last 400 years.

And most of the exhibits have pretty good English signs so that you can figure out what some of them are. Although in some places there is about 7,000,000 Japanese symbols describing something and one word in English that says something like ‘Dress’.

There are a lot of good examples of Japanese art and some interesting glimpses into Japanese life in the past. All in all it was a good time.

I didn’t go anywhere else, except to eat my favorite pork dish, because it was raining. I will try again today. Hopefully it will not be raining.

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Hi,

Been a long, long while since I posted anything. Guess I got a little burned out on the whole blog - take pictures thing, so I will be doing this here and there, nice and easy. Never done anything like that in my life, I am a very hot or cold person. Obssessive some would say. But moderation is my new middle name.

Here are some pics from Tokyo that I took yesterday. Just click on them to see a larger version:

The view from my hotel room. Yes, I think it is always muggy and cloudy in Tokyo, though I have been told by my Japanese friends I am wrong.

This is my favorite Japanese food. It is rice and breaded pork pieces with cheese, egg and some kind of a very tasty sauce that is made from soy sauce, sugar and a few other things. I am going to get the recipe for this and try it at home. Watch out, honey, I am going to cook!

And, yes Mom, I am using chopsticks!

This is what I had last time I was in Tokyo. It is very similar but is more ’soupy’ and has a candle burning under it which makes it get hotter and hotter as you eat it. You are eventually burning your tongue but you don’t care because it tastes so good. I couldn’t have it this time because it is on the dinner menu and we were there for lunch.

Here is a subway map of a place we went to yesterday, Shinjuku. I will be trying to figure these maps out on my own tomorrow as I go to a few spots in Tokyo. Wish me luck. Gulp.

Last one for now. My room at night. Will be experimenting a bit. I want to capture the actual look without the camera gathering all of the extra light. It would be very pretty if it looked like what I see with my eyes! Will post anything successful, perhaps. Moderation!

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I have been going through the small lessons at a site called strobist.

The photographer who wrote it details first of all a portable and cheap kit for setting up off-camera lighting and then starts to get into techniques for it.

Strobist

To start the lessons go here:

lighting 101

There also is a flickr group that is dedicated to the strobist mentality:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/

The tips are great and the recommended equipment is cheap for the most part.

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I stumbled upon this article today from popphoto.com:

http://www.popphoto.com/photographynewswire/4929/behind-the-lens-with-jasin-boland.html

Just a great article about a guy that gets to do the movie stills for action pictures like the Matrix and Mummy 3. Very, very cool article.

Keep an eye on the popphoto.com site, they are going to be doing an interview like this every month I guess.

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Here is a link to Moose Peterson’s blog where he is offering his readers a 10% discount on Nikon software for a limited time. While you are there check out Moose’s work. He is a great photographer.

10% off nikon software

I found out about this from Scott Kelby’s blog. Scott is also announcing a new subscription based training service today at his blog.

Kelby Training announcement!

Looks like a killer deal. I may cancel the college class in photography I was going to take this semester and do this instead…

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There is a guy named Bert Monroy who does Photoshop video podcasts.

He has some pretty good tips most shows. Here is a show he did about a slightly different subject but one which I think photographers will enjoy, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom:

If you like this you can go to his site here:

http://revision3.com/pixelperfect

or just subscribe using iTunes:

subscribe

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This is awesome. I have been researching some sort of diffuser for a SB-600 or 800 and have been contemplating buying a Lightsphere from Gary Fong or one of the Lumiquest or Sto-fen products for flash diffusion. There seem to be a lot of different kinds that are variations of the same idea and they definitely all have one thing in common, they are pretty pricey for what they are.

At any rate I found a link to this video in a forum post at photo.net. It is worth a shot and would cost about $2 if you use nicer materials:

If the video does not show up you can get to it here: abetterbouncecard.com

At abetterbouncecard.com there are also other videos and tips about making your own diffuser.

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I want to do another $20 Amazon giveaway so here goes:

I bought 2 lenses with my camera. I have a 55-200 from Nikkor and a Tamron 17-50 lens. The 55-200 is an OK lens but the Tamron 17-50 is a great lens. I just love it. It takes very sharp pictures and has a nice focal range. It is well-built, smooth in operation and focuses well. I am glad I did not spend the extra money on the Nikkor equivalent. I bought it primarily for weddings and portraits after reading a lot of reviews and recommendations.

What is your favorite lens and why?

I will announce a winner next Friday, the 14th of December, to the best comment about this.

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