A modest shoot using the Canon G12

In the three previous posts in this blog, I've told the story about "old" photos and gear I "rediscovered" while finally unpacking several heretofore unattended boxes and containers that were lugged here to Raleigh on the move from Indianapolis in July 2017.

One of the "finds" in those boxes was my Canon PowerShot G12 compact, which I acquired about 10 years ago. I used it a lot early on, just to do photography when I didn't want to lug around my bag containing the Canon 7D I was using at the time and the lenses I could pack into it. The most recent previous post has pictures of that G12, if you want to go back and review them, because I'm using this post to display some of the photos I took with the G12 last week when I did a walk-around on my property.

The G12 enables me to shoot using RAW files, which most shooters know gives the user decent control of critical image features -- such as color and lighting -- when working with the files in post-processing. In 2010, that was an important feature for me when I went shopping for the G12 -- it was a light camera with an articulated LCD screen to do picture-taking, and it allowed me to shoot in RAW format, which in 2010 I had been doing only for about a year or so on a regular basis. (I use RAW exclusively with my current DSLR, a Canon 6D, which I acquired in November 2013).

The G12 also had another important feature for shooters -- built-in stabilization. The top-end DSLR camera bodies produced by Canon and Nikon did not have built-in stabilization then, and I don't think they've done so even today. (Camera-makers Olympic and Sony, however, exploited that flaw by making built-in stabilization a major draw to their DSLR and mirrorless camera bodies, and Canon and Nikon managed to put it in their mirrorless bodies they would soon release to compete with the new "trend".)

So I found that because the G12 was much lighter in heft as well as smaller to hold than my DSLR bodies, I could get relatively sharp images even when the shutter dropped three to four stops slower than 1/60 (which always seemed to be the camera-shake red line shutter speed for me with my DSLRs). I quickly found out that was a big deal when I shot interior images. 

The G12's ISO noise factor, however, was not very good. For example, I saw more noise than I'd like at ISO 800, which quickly became my ISO threshold for that camera when shooting in dark lighting. And it was a reason I eventually pulled away from using the G12 after the honeymoon period. 

But I digress. Last week, I charged the G12 battery and set off on my shoot around the property. These are images from that shoot. I begin (with the lead-off) with the very first picture I took, an interior shot of the wall of framed photos and art work in my office. It was late-afternoon -- between 5 and 6 p.m. You can see solar reflection on the Beatles art drawing. Below it, the reflection totally obscures detail in a blue-tinted monochrome version of a concert photo I took of Darden Smith in an Indy Acoustic Cafe Series concert.

The G12 photo turned out pretty sharp for the few interior shots I made. For the lead-off photo, I was seated in my desk chair and holding the camera. I used the Program mode, and it took the photo at f.2/8 and 1/13 using ISO 400.

So I went outside, and took the shot you see of the deck above. The image settings are f.4, 1/80 and ISO 320. I was able to keep the ISO under 400 for the remainder of the shoot outdoors.

Above: Elsewhere on the deck are remnants of our celebration the previous day of Lee Ann's granddaughter Lizzy's graduation from preschool. 

Above is a look at the most of the transformed area behind the detached garage. The previous owner allowed this area to go attended, so it was a scene of mostly tall, wild Japanese grass. We didn't do anything with this area until the second year we were here, which is when the transformation began. It was completed -- a good dozen or more raised garden beds -- this summer, although we'd cleared the grass by the end of the second year. Lee Ann and her daughter Lea did the yeoman's detail work with the bed development, planting and care; I helped with a lot of the heavy lifting and soil hauling. Below is a gardenia bush (we have five on the property), which is on the other side of (and to the left) of the black fence you see in the foreground of the photo above.  

Above: This view looks over the fence into a neighbor's yard. It's farther down the property line from where the new garden beds are now. This unshorn grassy landscape is what we had behind the detached garage when we moved in.  

Above is a closeup of a bloom on the bush you see below, which is along the driveway to the detached garage.  

Above and below are shots of leaves I saw in the bush next to the one two photos above. I liked how the dried-up leaf colors contrasted with the thriving green foliage. 

The end of the deck looks over a drop of about 6 feet or so, and above, I'm standing in the drop area for this dramatic angle shot. Just to the left of where I'm standing is the spigot (belot) where Lee Ann has her garden bed irrigation valve hardware connected.   

Above: A closeup of blooms from a weigela bush that we recently transplanted from the back yard to a sunnier spot along the driveway to the main garage. 
 

Above: Another of the gardenia bushes, this one along one side of the sun room. The bush will need trimming once the blooms are spent. Below is a closeup of one bloom, and below that is the bud of a new bloom on the bush. 

Above: Another color-contrast foliage shot. 

Above: A crop of an attempted close-up of a very small bloom on a plant the women of the house are waiting to plant somewhere. I learned with my closeup attempts that the G12 doesn't handle those very well; it's not a macro-friendly camera. This one turned out pretty sharp; others I attempted were not. Below is a closeup of early fruit on a lemon bush (the fruit starts green and later becomes yellow) that we have on the patio next to the deck. We also have a lime bush, but while its foliage is plentiful, no fruit or buds yet. 

Above and below are two more floral closeup attempts. I forget the name of the flower above; the one below are blooms from a pink yarrow. We also have some yellow yarrows, which last year Lee Ann learned are a key ingredient to a home recipe to minimize itch from poison ivy. That was important for her, because being so close to wooded areas on two of our four property lines, we come across a lot of poison ivy.   

In what Lee Ann developed as a "puppy garden" -- memorials to her dogs Bear and Molly, as well as dogs owned by her son here in the Triangle and a dog owned by Lee Ann's sister back in Indiana -- the figure of a Molly-like puppy (Molly was a purebred Yorkshire terrier) sits with an angel (above) that Lee Ann acquired to watch over the dogs. Below is the holding area of a bird path in the puppy garden. The boulder is for the benefit of smaller birds.   

Above: Garden gloves gathered in one spot at the end of a hard day in the yard. 

A varied collection, er, potpourri of photos

Today's post is another that helps explain why I picked the name of this blog. I'm pleased to present a montage, er, a cornucopia, er, a collection ... er, ah ... a potpourri of photographs, this one encompassing a grasshopper, some crepe myrtle trees, tomatoes and a cucumber and crepe myrtle foliage.

My lawnmower is on the fritz (hopefully temporarily; I'm waiting for some replacement parts to arrive that hopefully will get it back to working order soon), so I hired a high school youth to do the mowing yesterday.

While the young man worked, Lee Ann and I were lingering on the backyard deck, and she noticed a grasshopper anchored on one of the ledges of the deck in the back of the house. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. In fact, I had the camera up in the office -- out of the bag and ready to shoot -- because I've been hoping to see a couple of colorful birds -- cardinals and an oriole -- return to the sun room roof.

I dashed into the house, ran up the stairs to the office and grabbed my camera (Canon 6D fixed with my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens and 1.4x adapter) then ran back to the deck. To my surprise, the grasshopper was still there. So ... I began shooting away.

My first several shots were taken using f/4, the widest available on the lens with the 1.4x adapter attached. Hence, I was noticing I wasn't getting much clarity or sharpness beyond the insect's head. The photo leading off the post is one of those pictures. I then moved to a different angle and stopped down to f/7.1, getting deeper sharpness and detail as you can tell in the photo immediately below.

I hadn't shot with the 70-200mm lens for a while, and I didn't want to stop just yet. So after photographing the grasshopper, I strolled over to the raised garden beds and took some shots of the tomatoes and a cucumber (the tomatoes are still thriving; the cucumbers seem to be ebbing). Those photos appear immediately below.

Yeah, nothing really super spectacular there, but ... I hadn't presented any garden shots in the blog lately, so now I have that base covered.

After a few minutes taking those pictures, I noticed the bright red blooms on a red crepe myrtle tree -- not the pink-petaled one that I see from my my office window -- and captured some frames of it as well as the lilac-colored blooms on another bush nearby. I don't know the species of the bush, but I will note that 15 or so years ago, one of the original owners of this property made a point to landscape his yard with a very diverse amount and number of plants, bushes and trees ... to the point that there's almost something in bloom every season of the year. The pictures of the crepe myrtle and lilac-colored bloom appear immediately below.

I conclude this post below with a solitary shot I took three days ago from my office window, looking at the foliage on the aforementioned pink-petaled crepe myrtle tree. I wasn't focusing on the petals here, although you can see some of the dropped ones sprinkled amid the dappled sunlight on the rooftop. I simply was admiring the foliage.

Deck project begged for photo creativity

In the previous post, I alluded to how there would be pictures coming in this post exploiting leading lines and patterns.

That's true, but I also approached the content of this post as trying to be creative to illustrate the stages of construction on a deck built by Lee Ann's son-in-law and grandson last week. When we bought the house outside Raleigh a year ago, there was a deck there already. But it had not been well-maintained; it was in need of replacement because the flooring center point was soft and sagging, and the underside was caked in mold.

We tried to persuade the owners to take care of it because it deteriorated on their watch, but all they did was agree to have flashing installed around the floor base (there had been none, which is how water so easily compromised the underside).

We tore apart the deck within a few weeks after moving in, but the money we hoped to use to rebuild it ended up needing to go elsewhere, so we had this big hole behind the house that finally got to both of us this spring.

Matt, Lee Ann's son-in-law, worked in construction for some time and recently added a very nice deck on his own home in Fishers, Ind. If you are a regular visitor here, you might remember Matt from images I took of his wedding four years ago at Indiana Dunes. We talked him into coming to North Carolina and doing the deck -- with the help of Lee Ann's 20-year-old grandson Justin -- and knocked it out in just about a week, working long days in mostly hot weather. Matt even worked a full morning and early afternoon in a light rain during that span; he said he was glad to be able to work when it wasn't so hot and humid.

I spent the week documenting the build progress in pictures, many of which zeroed in on lines and patterns presented by the wood framework of the deck and stairs and from the pergola beams ... and of their shadows. One example is in the image leading off the post -- you get patterns, shadows and reflections (in the window), as well as the non-deck lines from the chairs and ladder and house siding panels.

Other examples appear below, but not all the images about lines and patterns. Some are simply attempts at creativity. They represent a mix of shots taken with my iPhone X and my Canon 6D equipped with a Canon 24-70mm f/2.0L lens.

(Above) On the day it rained lightly, Matt worked through it to enjoy the brief respite from heat and  humidity. I lingered in the house ... and came across this reflection composition.

The shots above and below were taken from a living room window looking out at the deck. The window is clouded with remnants of condensation (it needs to be sealed better), but I felt the image below -- taken from a much blurrier spot in the window than the one above -- offers a perspective you won't see many photographers show you. Maybe this photographer shouldn't have, either.

Above and next three below: Various perspectives of a patterns and shadows composition from the deck frame's underside. In the above photo, that's Matt (right) and Justin on the left tending to other matters of the deck.

Above and next two below: Variations of perspectives of the stairs framework.

An overhead of Matt (above) and a floor-level shot of him (below) sweeping debris off the deck at the end of a work a day.

Until the deck work started, we had an awning above the door leading from the deck to the house. When Matt and Justin went to take down the awning to make way for a pergola beam, they discovered a wasp's nest up the inside of the awning. Above, Justin bravely sprays the nest with Raid's hornet killer solution. 

(Above) Matt applyies a trim to a board. If you look close, you can see the sawdust flying off the saw.

Above: This shot wasn't set up. These were exactly how the wood screws appeared when I came across them on the paver, and I thought it was worth a patterns composition (of sorts). 

Variations of a similar pergola beams shot under shade conditions (above) and mostly sun (below).

Another stab at a lines, patterns and shadows composition (above), and a side view below, loaded with lines (wood, ladders and lower door facade).

Above: Matt relaxing at the end of his last day of work on the deck.