Hobby & Experimental Photography

This is section of my gallery is dedicated to my personal projects that I’ve taken on to broaden my horizons as both a photographer and also an enjoyer of other hobbies and artforms.

Photospheres

Photospheres are images comprised of many images automatically stitched together with photoshop. The examples I have below are inverses of each other and were made from the same set of images of a trail, my parents’ farm in a big field, and one of my favorite places in the world Eddie’s Trick Shop on the Marietta Square.

These were shot on my Sony a77v & Sony a99ii and Zeiss Distagon 24mm Lens with may handy Velbon Tripod my dad passed down to me.

Birding

Birding or Bird Watching is a citizen science that anyone can study and pick up with relative ease! My grandparents on both sides of my family enjoyed bird watching and passed the hobby down to me at a very young age.

All shots of birds in this section were shot with my Sony G 70-300mm lens and on my Sony a77v & a99ii.

Mushroom Hunting

Mushroom Hunting can be either the act of actually foraging for mushrooms in the wild for eating or just finding, identifying, and documenting mushrooms. I prefer the latter as it is a non destructive form of nature documentation and photography.

All of the shots in the following section where shot on my Sony a77v and Sony a99ii with my 24mm Zeiss Lens.

Sun Spots

When I was in High School, we had to complete a semester long project with the subject of our choice and find a mentor to teach us about it. Obviously I chose Photography, but the one that stuck with me the most was a classmate who chose a mentorship that involved tracking Sun Spots on the surface layer of the Sun’s Photosphere. Ever since he presented the class his findings, I made it a goal to capture photos of Sun Spots myself.

To get a general idea of what Sun Spots are click here.

I used my main camera at the time (Sony a77v) at the smallest aperture the lens (500mm Bower) could manage, and at the fastest shutter speed possible, with an Neutral Density Filter 2,4,&8 stacked on the front, but it should be noted that continual exposure of your camera’s sensor pointed directly at the sun can lead to damage of the sensor.

Panoramic Stitching

Many of us are familiar with Panoramic Images, but for those who don’t know Panoramas are extremely wide angle points of views of scenes that can’t be made from a single image. Panoramas are multiple overlapping images that have been “stitched” together to form one cohesive view.

The photos of my backyard and the trees are about 10 photos stitched together in photoshop. The one of the field is roughly 50. And the one of Eddie’s Trick Shop is about 100.

Panoramas require a wide angle (but not fisheye) lens to be made so I shot on my main two bodies (a77v & a99ii) with my Zeiss 24mm.

Update 11/2/23:

I have since added several photos from a trip out west to the Grand Canyon

Now Also Featured is a view of the rocky sierra in Texas from a pull over scenic stop, a view of Juarez, Mexico, a view from Hilltop Trail in the McDowell Mountain Regional Park in Arizona, and finally my Gigapixel photo view of The South Rim of The Grand Canyon as viewed from Mather Point in the Grand Canyon National Park.

Total Solar Eclipse of 2019

More photos of the Sun, but this time it is my view of the Solar Eclipse of 2019. I used the same settings as the Sun Spots above in fact you can see sun spots in the first photo I have posted to this section.

Once again shot on my Sony a77v with my Bower 500mm lens. Once again I must remind anyone out there attempting to get photos of the sun, you risk damage to your camera’s sensor if you prolong exposures to the sun even during eclipses.