I love interestingly composed pictures and I love fighter jets... so this picture pretty much does it for me. I love how the the sunset (or sunrise) sunlight casts itself over the back of the plane, while the background is a deep navy blue. Although the F-15 may be docking to refuel mid-air (you have to agree this is one of the cooler things in life), it is remarkable how sharp this picture is. Then again, the photo was featured in Boston Globe's "The Big Picture," so the photographer is obviously talented.

Most of these clips were made on or near Hwy395 in the California desert. Some in southern Arizona. I'll post some pics of rigs I used when I get a chance.

Intro music is by me and main track is by Dj Scott Stubbs. Some of these clips are long or hyper lapse which is catching on. Here's a clip of the railroad track dolly I used:

http://vimeo.com/14337541



Daneckertphotography.com

So our tabby cat named Moxie absolutely loves her blue string. We've spent probably a hundred dollars on cat toys, but no, she loves this string more than anything. She pulled it out of one of my blue sweatshirts and has been playing with it ever since. In this case, she burrowed herself under our doormat to hide from her enemy/best friend poised in attack position.

Hardly any processing was needed, but I did use Adobe Lightroom 3 to up the contrast and brighten the shadows. After using Lightroom for a couple weeks now, I'm starting to really like it!

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 35mm AF-S DX
Focal Length: 35mm
F number: 4
Exposure: 1/60

I know, I know. Last "Photo of the Day" was a shot of the city, but I just couldn't resist. We've had a couple monster storms come through Chicago over the past week, and the last one really provided some amazing scenes. As crazy as this photo is, you really had to be there. Imagine hearing a tornado siren (think off-tune nuclear siren - really spooky), watching a full double-rainbow appear, and seeing the sky light up with multiple lightening bolts - all at once!

*UPDATE: Insane HD video of this storm... must see!

Bonus picture and photo description after the break:

The only thing that rivals the beauty of a brilliant sunset is a gorgeous sunrise. It must have been a pretty calm night in the Windy City for Lake Michigan to be as placid as it was. Paying the extra dough for a West-facing apartment is definitely worth it!

Not much was done to this photo - only slight boosts in saturation and sharpness. I'm thinking the photo could benefit from slight vignetting - what do you think?

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-200mm VR
Focal Length: 18mm
F number: 9
Exposure: 1/13
Taken March 24th, 2010

Ok, so maybe not right now, but still... this is incredible! Watch the video and be amazed. For those without flash, or those that don't have time for the video, basically what this shows you is the next generation of photo retouching. Up until now, removing objects from photos has been a painstaking task. In the next generation of Adobe Photoshop, deleting objects, lens flares, even shadows will be easier than ever.

What will come of this? For one, it is going to make my photo editing process a whole lot quicker. It's going to be so easy to create fake iPhone 6G leaks!

So this is my cat Boozer. She's a half tortoise shell half tabby mix and she takes wonderful 35mm photos! No post-processing was applied to this photo - my D90 was set to my custom "Vivid" setting to boost the saturation. As mentioned, I used my Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens with my S600 flash attachment. The funny thing is, Boozer and my other cat, Moxie, pretty much overdosed on catnip like 5 minutes before this photo, so she's totally in a haze in this picture.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 35mm
F number: 3.5
Exposure: 1/60

Not only are the colors awesome, the clarity in this photo is outstanding. One of the most arresting aspects stems from the difference in the color of the sky reflected in the water; the sky radiates a nice, warm glow, whereas the water emits a cooler, teal-to-blue gradient. If you enjoy this type of photography you should definitely check out the artist's collection here.

Facebook is great for easily sharing pictures from last night's debauchery, but it really falls short on quality. If you've ever tried to print out one of your Facebook photos (or someone else's for that matter) you'll immediately notice what I'm talking about. Do you archive your photos on your computer? Do you delete them immediately after uploading to Facebook? If you've ever taken a picture that you may want to print someday, I would recommend using Flickr for the following reasons:

So the photo I took of the Tribune Tower is in "The Loupe" on interfacelift.com - please go vote for it here!

I was downtown yesterday for an event and took some architectural shots of the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower. I took all of them with my Tokina 11-16mm - a great super wide angle lens that really captures straight lines well. The picture above, of Tribune tower, was edited in Photoshop. Here is a simple 5-step process to get this type of photo:

Look familiar? This photo reminded me a lot of the photos I took down at Lake Gaston, NC. The photographer, macindows, captures the setting sun over the silhouetted treeline perfectly - much sharper than my images. He may have had better light, or maybe he didn't take this on a rocking boat like I did, but either way, its a fantastic shot! Head over to interfacelift.com for more.

This past Labor Day weekend, my family and I went to Lake Gaston. On our last day (Labor Day Monday), the sunset was spectacular. The weather was perfect all weekend, but being on the water during a sunset is hard to replicate. A little boost in contrast and saturation is all this photo needed!

I found this photo on Digg, and man did it blow me away. Head over to the photographer's gallery site to see more of his work here.

The colors in this image are outstanding, and I love the reflection on the water. The juxtaposition of the industrial-looking drainage pipes with the vibrant colors of nature is just outstanding. I would imagine this shot was taken with a wide-angle lens and a tripod, but according to the photographer, the most difficult part of getting this shot was avoiding the mosquitos!

Click here to head over to interfacelift.com to download other resolutions.

After installing Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro, I immediately noticed problems with iPhoto '09. What I normally do when backing up my computer is copy the iPhoto package file over to my external hard drive. Once I've reinstalled the OS, I simply drag the iPhoto package file back onto my Macbook Pro. In the past, this worked great, but with Snow Leopard, I definitely had issues. If you encountered this problem, this information will be useful to you…

You have to love Wrigley Field, especially the old style billboard. Not only was it a beautiful day, the Cubs actually won yesterday! Here are a couple more pics from the game with my Tokina 11-16mm lens:

I love pictures of steel bridges and I love long exposure night-shots - this photo has both. According to the photographer, this was taken with a Canon 40D & Tamron 17-50mm at f/32 over a 70 second exposure. To get a crisp night-shot like this, you first need a good tripod. Once you have that setup properly, set your shooting mode to timer to avoid any movement in the camera as the shutter opens and closes.

High Dynamic Range photography, or HDR photography, is something I've always been interested in. Basically, an HDR photo combines a number of photos into one image. The human eye can capture a much larger range of light than any camera sensor, so using several photos can help make up for the loss in range. This is where the Dynamic-Photo HDR software comes in - this program is extremely intuitive and easy to use. The image above was created by shooting 3 images using the bracketing mode on my camera. One image was taken at regular exposure, one was underexposed, and the third was overexposed. These three photos make up the HDR image - this allows the sky to look deep and defined, while the city's details aren't lost.

The annual Chicago Air and Water show was this last weekend here in Chicago, and I wanted to give a few pointers on capturing jets.

1. If you have a DSLR, rotate your dial to "S" and set the shutter speed anywhere from 2000 to 4000. This will allow you to stop down for clarity and still get crisp images of most planes, even jets.

2. Bump up your ISO to 800 if you have good light - if not, set it to 250 or 300. Remember, when you set your ISO too high, your pictures will turn out noisy - adjust to fit your light!

3. Set your advance mode to Continuous High. This way, when you hold down the shutter button, your camera will take picture after picture - very useful for fast planes.