Bob Crum

Occasionally I come up with a great idea. Besides photographs of the awards presentations, record video also. The idea sizzled... the execution fizzled. C'est la vie.

Broadcast quality video (would I dare shoot anything less) requires a tripod to steady the camera. I had the tripod on hand. However, to use the tripod with the attached 'smoother than butter' fluid video head required a particular mounting plate attached to my camera. I couldn't find it so couldn't use the tripod.

Fret not! Fortunately, I also had my monopod with me. The mounting plate already fastened on the camera works with the monopod. Hallelujah... let the video recording begin. No, you are not going to see the video. I know... I'm disappointed too but there's ample justification for withholding it.

For just a moment, visualize a drunk videographer on a ship being mercilessly tossed around on rough seas attempting to video record a vivacious mermaid frolicking on an iceberg. Obviously you'd love to see the beautiful mermaid but watching the video would have you quickly reaching for Dramamine. If you've never experienced motion sickness, you certainly would from watching my video shot on the monopod. It's awful. I'd be mercilessly cruel to put you through such an ordeal.

Wait, there's more. A second catastrophe. If it wasn't for bad luck, I would have had no luck at all! For unknown reasons to date, the camera did not record the audio with the external microphone attached. Good grief, I recorded silent movies! Unless I'm mistaken, the age of silent movies ended over 50 years ago! Maybe time to bring them back? I can do that!!!

By now it should be obvious that shooting video is my new and present danger... er... challenge. To that end, I'm now graciously accepting donations for the purchase of a camcorder... with which to properly record video for your viewing pleasure. Kidding of course!

Back to photography and a little tech talk. Photographing flowers indoors at the flower show is challenging. Fluorescent light mixed with outdoor ambient light often confuses the camera's white balance. Technically speaking, white balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in the photo. Our eyes are quite good at judging what is white under different light sources, but cameras often struggle getting white balance correct. When it guesses wrong, it often results in an unsightly blue, green or orange color cast. Obviously, a white calla lily would look horrible with an orange color cast.

What to do? Well, I could have used my Expodisc to execute a custom WB. But I would have had to do it everywhere the light was different. Too big a hassle. Instead, I took a chance and set white balance on automatic (AWB) and crossed my toes. Most of the time my camera does OK recording colors fairly accurately. If it flubs, like making a pink rose chartreuse, I could simple claim that I took artistic license. (I take artistic license a lot which explains away a multitude of flubs.) Actually, if the color is only slightly off, it's almost always correctable during post processing. The really uncorrectable ugly stuff goes into the trash can, which for me, is a large dumpster!

BTW, the Best of Show dish garden was extremely difficult to photograph because of the pastel colors. I shot many photos at various exposures. In the Photo of the Week, please notice that the green grasshopper is not purple!

Until next time, happy photoing!

Email comments, suggestions or questions to bob@fillmoregazette.com