Literal
a) I,
Austin B, have completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of
work.
b/d) Since there was a blend of
two distinctly different forms of photography, I pulled information from multiple sources.
1. The
first came from http://www.spacedex.com/lyrids/locations/lyrid-usa-california.php
which gave me information about how full the moon was, background information
about Lyrids meteor shower, and showed information based on the country you
live in followed by region which was extremely helpful. Now the moon is
obviously brighter when it is full and therefore caused trouble for me when I
wanted to photograph the stars and Lyrids meteor shower. The shutter speed,
depending on the settings, allow for more or less light to enter, but because
the moon was 78% full on the night of the shower it made it difficult to set
the shutter speed and f-stop to an appropriate balance. The sky was lit from
the moon and the longer I let the shutter go the more light entered and washed
out my photos. I do not have any fancy equipment which also affected the quality
of my photos. Anyone with a 18-200 mm lens can replicate this which is nifty. The
camera I used has a 18-55 range so the distance between my subject (the moon)
and my lens is limited. My camera troubles are my fault because this site gave
great information to prepare. The peak time was from 11:30-4:30 am which took a
lot out of me but the sky was beautiful and although I did not capture any
meteors on my camera I saw dim beams of light.
2. With
http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases_calendar.phtml
I knew that there would be poor conditions for viewing the meteor showers.
Where I live is far from street lights, since there is not one light on my
street it I pitch black. This made for ideal viewing conditions but the weather
called for the opposite. The moon being near it fullest and brightest was going
to affect photographing from the roof of my house but I have no control over
the weather.
3. As
I said before, adjusting the shutter speed to the appropriate settings with the
odd lighting from the moon is difficult. It is even harder to do in the city,
so thank goodness I live just far enough from the street lights. This website
gives not only tips for photographing at night but also the math to backup the
adjustments of the shutter speed which was neat http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/how-tos/digital-photography-101-how-to-photograph-meteor-showers.html
. One tip it mentioned was having the use of a tripod. When I was taking
pictures I was not able to get a hold of one so I set my camera on a ledge and
used books to prompt the lens up in any direction. It was not as secure as a
tripod and it shows in the pictures with the oblong shaped moon. The other
great thing about this site was that it referred me to other sites that they
felt were a good source of information.
4. On
top of doing research for space photography, underwater photography tips needed
to be researched as well for the other part of my component. http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/underwater-photography-basics
gave good beginner tips for amateur photographers like myself. Lighting is
important with every photo and the same is true for photographing underwater.
Mentioned in the guide is an extremely important fact that water absorbs warm
colors like reds, oranges, and yellows. Using external light sources is a must
for a better photo or bright natural lighting depending on deep you would be
photographing. I try and show how different colors appear in different lights.
5. http://justbreezingwatersports.com/underwater-photography-explore-mysteries.html
was my other go to source for underwater photography. They gave similar advice
to the last source but they mentioned a key word: refraction. Because of the
special housing an underwater camera must be in while submerged, some photos
may appear vague. It points out this problem and gives a simple solution of how
to prevent it. I did not have to worry about this problem with my camera
because the whole camera is water tight not just the housing that would a hold
a much better quality camera.
Interpretive
I completed taking photos of the
sky and identified the moon and stars and also tried to identify constellations.
I also demonstrated how lighting changes the quality of underwater photography
which will help me teach my two hour presentation by showing examples of what I
teach. Light affects photos underwater as well as in space. I have photos to
show each and on top of this I have hours with my mentor to make the background
for prom which will be shown to everyone on May 4.
The difference is clear between these two photos. The one in brighter light on the bottom shows sharper details in the butterflies wings. The low quality is partially due to the 5 megapixel camera but the lighting plays a huge part in the quality as well.
This photo does not look like anything but one star. I like this picture because if you zoom in the star is a beautiful shade of blue. Even looking at it with a naked eye you can see that this ball of gas has a different hue compared to other stars.
Here you can see the blue star with the moon in the upper right corner. You can also see smaller white stars towards the left of the photo.
Applied
During my project I want to discuss
underwater photography, astrophotography, and microscopy. All have to deal with
current technology that allows sight where we once could not see. My
independent component has allowed me to show what basic technology can
accomplish and value the more advanced equipment. Not thinking about it until
now, it did help me shape my answers in a more structural way.
While taking photos of the sky I
realized that you can see so much from where we stand on Earth. Famous
astronomers like Copernicus used advanced technology for the time to distinguish
his heliocentric ideas. That is great but the sky is something we can always
look to and we can see that the moon moves and that the solar system is alive
with movement. Making space photography my best answer would not do my other
answers justice.
Underwater
might as well be whole new world next to space. The feeling of being underwater
is a feeling all its own. By trying to show the varying colors in different
lights was difficult to show because my camera is a sport camera which is alo
and auto focus camera. This means the camera adjusts itself to whatever
settings it thinks will produce the best image which is not always the best or
what you want. The buttlerfly appeared blurry because it was so close to the
lens and it could not focus on such a close subject.
Going
underwater is something we can do naturally. Each person can go to different
depths and with goggles we can see clearly. Seeing this is not the special
part, it is capturing it that is. This would be in the running to be my best
answer if I was talking about deep sea photo technology because we cannot get
there on our own. However the technology in general is not enough to make it
the best current technology in photography.
My
independent component helped me to visualize my answers more and try to
determine the better of the best in photo technology. Photography on a
microscopic level is something truly amazing and without my independent component
I would have chosen special photography as my best answer.
