Friday, October 22, 2010

Dragon Chalice from Amsterdam

Brian had Doug and I give Dianna the birthday present he got for her in Amersterdam. He couldn't give it to her himself, because he's already gone off to his next internship in San Francisco.

Here are 3 views of the same chalice.



I wish I had gotten a sharper focus, and realized that I was much too close for the f/2.8 aperture to get good detail. I would have been better off cranking up the ISO to more than 320 and going with at least a 4.0 or 5.6 aperture, and backing up a bit. . . maybe adding a touch of flash, even if I used exposure compensation to reduce the flash.





Dianna was totally blissed out by the gift, pronouncing it as the "best birthday present I ever got!" Good job, Brian!

9 comments:

pat said...

Oh my goodness, that is so cool! I have visions of Diana wearing a long dress and pointy-cone hat with wimple. Don't you have to dress the part to use something like that?

Jill said...

Neat gift! How old is she? And nice pictures. Are you saying that if you you had backed up/used the 4.0 or 5.6 aperature the dragon at the top and that red jewel would have both been in focus?

Nicki said...

Very cool gift. Now if Diana dresses up as Pat suggests - you will need to post more pictures. So many fun details to this Chalice - well done Brian.

Angela2932 said...

Jill, yes, if I had backed up a little more, with the 50 mm 1.4 lens I was using (@f/2.8), I would have had a better focus. The 50 mm has a minimum focus distance of 1.5' (0.45 m), and I was at .6 m, but it was still too close! AND I was hand holding the camera, at 1/30 shutter speed, which is way too slow of a speed. I could have used a faster shutter speed, (at least 1/60 but even faster would be better), and a smaller aperture (the 4.0 or 5.6), but I would have needed more light. So I would need a higher ISO. I might have been able to still use the f/2.8, and backed up a bit, as long as I had a faster shutter speed (or tripod). I think the distance from the chalice and the shutter speed were the biggest factors. And Dianna is 22 :)

Tracie said...

How beautiful, love all of the details :)

Reds said...

I can understand why Diana loved this gift - that is one beautiful chalice!

Maria said...

What an awesome gift! Don't you just love it when the kids do nice things for each other? It's so cool that Brian read Dianna so well!

Chell said...

That is a pretty great present!

Jill said...

Oh that's the same age as my stepdaughter! I'm glad I (finally) remembered that I asked this & checked back. Thank you for explaining it all!