Tomato

Most of the tomato growing season has been mostly wet. It's rained often with only a few days of sunshine here and there. Even when it didn't rain, the sky was cloudy. I was concerned that my tomato plants weren't getting enough sun for growth.

Finally, over the past week, we've had more sunny weather, and the plants have had a chance to grown and produce blossoms. Some of that blossom have produced fruit. They are still green, but I have hope that we'll soon have some delicious red fruit to eat.

Using the lens baby is a challenge. The lens baby does not have any electronics that can communicate with the CPU in the D5100. Everything has to be done manually. I chose f/4 because I thought it would allow for a balance of depth of field and exposure. I set my D5100 to manual mode and used a light-meter to set the shutter speed.

green tomato
Green tomato macro | Saturday July 20, 2013 | Nikon D5100 | 75 mm | f/4.0 | ISO 100

The 10+ macro lens allowed me to shoot up close to the subject. However, shooting that close meant that the subject's very slight movements caused things to go out of focus quite easily. I didn't think I would have the patience for this. I tried using a lens baby a few years ago but quickly gave up in frustration. Perhaps my photography skills just weren't up for the challenge at that time.

Tomato blossom
Tomato blossom | Saturday July 20, 2013 | Nikon D5100 | 75 mm | f/4.0 | ISO 100

Learning To Code

Leaves

The future belongs to those who create. And creating isn’t limited or bounded by the ability to program or code.[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"][Randy Murray](http://whowritesforyou.com/2013/07/16/not-every-child-needs-to-learn-how-to-code/)

I fully agree. I learned to code on my own in early high-school. I enjoy writing code now as much as I enjoyed it back then. But I've also learned to create art via [my photography](http://khurtwilliams.com). Learning to code didn't help with that.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Lens baby macro

Jochen Spalding posted an image to ADN that he took with a lens baby. I responded that I had borrowed a lens, baby but never got the hang of using it. He encouraged me to try again, so ... I did. After breakfast, I attached a 10x macro lens and attempted to capture some images. I tried taking some photos of raindrops on some leaves in the backyard. I noticed the spider, so I focused on that instead. It took some effort. The spider kept moving, and holding the camera steady was a challenge. I had to use my trip with the camera mounted a few inches from the spider. I used the flip screen on the camera, and I could not get close enough to shoot through the viewfinder without disturbing the web.

I could do better. I could have used a narrower aperture to get more depth of field and perhaps used a flash to provide extra illumination.

In the afternoon, I decided to try again with a different subject. This is a flower from one of the many hostas growing in my garden. The challenge here was the slight breeze that caused the flower stalk to sway slightly. It made focusing difficult, and as with the spider, it took me almost 30 minutes to get this shot.

With a bit of patience and practice, I will get better results from this Lensbaby.

Sunday 14 July, 2013 | Nikon D5100 | Composer | 115 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 100