Wide Angles

Well Pat and I bought another lens! This time we bought a wide angle lens to add to the collection. It's a Sigma 8-16mm with an aperture of 4.5-5.6.

Wide angle lenses are awesome for architecture shots. The lens arrived on Friday and that night we took a few test shots around MIT on our way out for the evening. The truth is we were on our way to Whisky Night 3.0 and we missed the MIT shuttle. We had a half hour to kill before the next shuttle came and had our camera with us.

We started our wide angle shoot by taking pictures of a sculpture at MIT.

Inside the sculpture looking up

Just to give you an idea of how wide this lens really is, Pat was literally standing right in front of the sculpture and he was still able to get it all in. He was standing so close that it actually looked like we was trying to take a picture of something inside or beyond the sculpture.

Side view

A wide angle lens is great for indoor shots because it allows you to get everything in the shot (so they are often used for real estate). They can also give interesting perspective distortions (so it's not so great for portraits). For example, this picture was taken inside Lobby 7 at MIT. I was crouching on the ground while pointing the lens at an upward angle, so the building appears to be much taller than it is in reality.

Taken at 8mm

The same effect can be seen here. The lens is pointed at an upward angle, making the pillars look more monstrous than they actually are.

At 8mm

This next picture was taken on the second floor balcony looking into the lobby. Again, the wide angle lens makes the lobby look larger and much longer than it actual is. (Taken at 9mm).

At 9mm

This next picture was taken from the same balcony as the previous picture. However, it was taken at 16mm; therefore, the pillars appear much closer.

Standing below an art sculpture inside MIT, looking up

 AND here is the lens....

Whisky Night 3.0

After our impromptu photo shoot at MIT we made our way over to Whisky Night 3.0. Of course I didn't participate in the tasting, but I served the scotch for the blind tasting portion. We had a great time and our hosts were very accommodating. Great quesadillas boys!

Wide angle lens

Spring has Sprung

Last Saturday was a beautiful spring day so Pat and I went for a nice long hike/walk at the Middlesex Fells near our place. The Fells is a large reservation park just north of where we live; it is intersected by I-93. We've been to this park once before and loved it. The park has a bunch of hiking paths and running trails. Last time we went to the Spot Pond so this visit we decided to explore a different area near the South Reservoir.

After our hike we grabbed some refreshing drinks from Starbucks. MMM....I love their iced passion tea lemonade.

I just have to say that the best part about moving to Beantown (other than living with Patty) is the awesome SHORT winters! Love love love it!

Anyway, here are some pictures from our hike:

 Later this week Pat also took these pictures near Tufts University:

Mystic River

Black and White Boston

I thought I would share some pictures of Boston that Pat recently processed. Pat used a program called Silver Efex Pro, which has some pretty neat black and white settings. These were taken from the Harvard bridge in Cambridge looking at Boston from MIT's point of view.

I think this one is my favorite:

A Walk in the Park

A couple weekends ago we went for a walk at the Arboretum with some of our friends.

The Arnold Arboretum is a large park in Boston which is maintained by Harvard. It is park of the Emerald Necklace of parks in Boston. (We've also checked the Back Bay Fens park off this list back in September). 

We brought our camera along and took some great shots of our friend's cute little kiddies! We've finished processing the pictures so I thought I would share some of the best shots.

I think this is my favorite

We had such a great time. The little ones are so adorable. They were obsessed with sticks and pine cones they found along the way. It was so fun to capture these little moments :)

Man in the (Super)Moon

Last weekend with our camera in tow, we made our way to the Harvard Bridge in Cambridge to watch the Moon rise over Boston. On March 19 the Moon was at the closest point in it's elliptical orbit to Earth and it was also a full moon.  Therefore, because of it's closer position to Earth, the Moon would appear larger and brighter. It's called a supermoon.

Here are a few pics of the Moon rising. Notice how much the Moon moved in only a couple minutes!

Moon at 7:41pm

Moon at 7:42pm

Moon at 7:46pm

Moon rising on Boston skyline (7:56pm)

And then me:

To me the Moon didn't seem that much larger and brighter than a normal full moon, but I don't usually make much of an effort to watch the Moon rise either. So I guess I don't have much to compare it to. Either way it was a good time.

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Last weekend we also went skiing at Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire. It's just over an hour away from our place. It was a nice spring skiing kind of day; the sun was out and it was warm.

We opted to ski instead of snowboard because the warmer weather can make the snow sticky. It was our third time out on skis and I'd say that we're both feeling pretty comfortable. We both even started to do little (and I mean really little) jumps. The resort is not overly big, but we still enjoyed ourselves. It was a wonderful Sunday spent with my hubby!