I got some goodies in the mail today from Hong Kong. I was planning on taking a picture of all of the cool stamps and the beat up envelope that they came in, but that was coming between me and playing with my new gadgets. I have a lack of will power when it comes to new toys, so no photo of stamps for you…

I bought a set of Kenko Extension Tubes. They allow me to use my normal lens to do macro photography. The main reason for this purchase was to allow me to get some more artistic, close up shots of rings and flowers etc. at weddings. The bonus is that I get to use them to take some really cool close up shots of stuff to put on my wall. Fun times.

First up, my tooth brush. I tried to get a shot of my cat, and they my wife’s ring, but it was too dark in the living room and they kept moving. My toothbrush is better at holding still, and happens to be in a nice holder under some bright lights.

After coming to my senses I realized that pictures of the wifes toothbrush were boring, even in macro.

Stealing my wife’s orchids from our living room and setting on the railing of our deck in the sunshine got me two things.

1. A look from my wife that said, “they fall 3 stories and you are in big trouble.”
2. Good lighting and something a little nicer to look at then things found in a bathroom.

Without the extension tubes:

While visiting my sister for Thanksgiving I took a break from all the turkey to have some “camera fun time.”

I had a couple of goals in mind while shooting. My first goal was to get some photos that my sister and her husband would want to hang on their walls. I tackled this by getting some shots of their new house and his old trucks, some old barbed wire for the rustic western look they are going for in their decor, and some shots of their kids and horses. My second goal was to get better at capturing clouds and good sky details in my photos while still getting good foreground exposure. My approach for that was to set my exposure to 1.5 stops under-exposed and bump up the foreground when I processed the photos on my computer afterwards.

Enough talk. Here some of my favorites and the slideshow.

The barbed wire shots.

My favorite of the barbed wire shots:

My brother-in-law’s truck (classic Dodge Power Wagon):

A couple of the scenic shots and my niece:

One of the “nice things” (frrm a photo standpoint) about the part of North Dakota where they live is the air pollution from the coal burning power plants and the effect that has on the sunsets. The one below is not at all uncommon. I loved it.