Show and Sale Today and Tomorrow

Come see us!

2614 W Menefee Ave, Artesia NM

Friday and Saturday

7:00am to 7:00pm

Come to Our Show and Sale!

Steve's Fine Finish and SweetHark Crafts are having a sale this weekend.

Friday, November 30th and Saturday, December 1st from 7:00am to 7:00pm

Our Artesia, NM location is 2614 W Menefee Ave

Greeting cards, Photo Art, Jewelry, gift items, and more will be available for immediate pick up, or stop by to place a special order.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to our local Artesia business friends for helping promote this event:

Hobo's Meat and Bread

Pure Nutrition

Fenn's Farmers Market

Gregg's Grocery

Heritage Inn 

First American Bank

B&B News Stand

Artesia Chamber of Commerce

 

Reviews of Digital Cameras - Sony NEX-5

Very brief review, as I got to handle it for a short time.

The quality is not an issue, as many other users and reviewers have posted all over the internet. Handling, however, is very different. This is not an SLR, it is what is known as an ILC. There is no eyelevel viewfinder, you use the very bright and clear rear panel display for everything. The settings, the viewing, the adjustments...

And that's where some people might have some issues at first. Or, you could just plug in the optional electronic eyelevel viewfinder. Holding the camera with a large lens does not feel natural to an SLR user. Practice will overcome this issue.  To anyone trading up from a point and shoot, the main thing they will need to remember is to cradle the bigger lens properly.

Menu settings and camera controls are easily accessed via a very nice interface on the back right next to the LCD viewscreen.

Overall, my impression is positive. Switching from an SLR, you might want to purchase the optional ELF. The benefits of this system are extremely high quality, FULL featured, and quite a bit more compact than most competing DSLRs.

My Review of Upload Here Blank Business Cards

Originally submitted at 123print

Upload Here Blank Business Cards

Upload Here Blank Business Cards

Good Deal

By Mooshie Moose from The Wild Wild West on 11/22/2012

 

4out of 5

Pros: Fast, Easy to do, Looks good

Cons: Shipping a little high

Good job on business cards with my own pic. Shipping seems a little high, but they came in a reasonable time. Qulity end product, easy to do online.

(legalese)

Photo Frame Cards For Sale

4x6" photos mounted as a photo frame card.

After card is received, fold out bottom flap and stand card up as a free standing photo!
 

$5.00 per card, shipping included. 

Please be sure to specify which card when ordering.

Aspen Sky

Old Barn

Cattle Drive

Cloud Bridge

Irrigation

Teacher

Theater

Balloon Tree

Two Balloons

Water Tower

White Sands

Canyon Tree

 Only 4x6" size available as photo frame cards.

Playing with Portrait Settings

My pretty wife:

Very minimal enhancement. People usually like to look pretty natural. Still some tweaks we can do. Softening contrast, adjusting highlight exposure, smoothing skin tones, etc...

This is the after. Never show your befores of portraits without explicit permission! Even then, think twice.  ;-)

(Her before looked just fine, btw. But the after is preferred for sharing.)

Leonids Meteor Shower Early Saturday AM

Meteor showers can be an exciting visual and photographic experience. This Saturday morning, amateur astronomers in the South Central and Midwest US will have a good opportunity to see the Leonid Shower.

A meteor shower occurs when the Earth's orbit passes through the orbit of a comet. Over the centuries, debris gets scattered throughout the comet's orbital path. The debris field is thicker the nearer it is to the comet, which is why some years' showers are more intense.

Early morning is the best time to see a meteor shower. The Earth is moving into its orbit from our perspective, so we see the sky as a front windshield more or less. Early morning also has a better chance for still skies, since residual heat has usually dissipated overnight. Clouds can add some drama to photos, but they can also obscure the meteors. A relatively cloudless forecast is preferred, but a few clouds won't hurt. We also need the Moon, Earth's natural satellite, to either be down or in a a very small phase. The Moon is really bright and will obscure most if not all meteors.

Now, how to take the photos. First, we want to be in a dark sky location. For many suburbanites, this means traveling away from city lights. Even country dwellers will need to avoid security lights on their properties. 

For viewing, naked eye is actually the most enjoyable method. Telescopes and very powerful binoculars will narrow ones vision too much to be of any real help. Likewise photographically, we would want to use lenses in the shorter range. From normal to wide angle works well for many astro-photographers. A tripod is a must, the sturdier the better. Do you know your lens' optimum aperture? On most lenses, it is about two or three f-stops down from wide open. Avoid stopping the lens all the way down or using it wide open. With point light sources, those extremes of lens aperture introduce undesirable optical effects that we would never notice with other subjects.

Look East. Frame up a decent view. Manually focus to infinity (but not beyond!). Open up the shutter on BULB for times from several seconds to several minutes. This means you will probably have to use a DSLR, though some P&S from Nikon, Canon, and Fuji have the  BULB setting too.  If you have an equatorial mount set up, you will get crisp views of the night sky objects and hopefully some meteor streaks. If using a regular tripod, you will record curved star trails. Any straight streak going against the direction and curve of the trails is a meteor.

Post production, you will need to color correct white balance to get a realistic looking dark sky color and be sure to lower the noise level as much as possible. Sharpness enhancing may be a good idea, too.

I'll be out facing East from about 3:00am til I see the morning glow of sunrise (which is another fun time for landscape photos with a different feel or look).

Enjoy!

 Thanks to 3.bp.BlogSpot and Science Photo Library for the illustrations.

New Artesia Pics - Around Town

Here are some more photos of the city of Artesia. Some will be available online at stevesfinefinish.com

Others will be available for pick at various retail locations in Artesia, NM.

Watch Solar Eclipse Online Tuesday

You can watch it here! (click here)

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012, 3:35pm EST is when it starts. Coverage on line will begin around 2:30 EST. Besides SLOOH linked to above, you can find numerous other live feeds via a quick web search. Use the terms SOLAR ECLIPSE LIVE FEED in your search engine.

Not the same as being there, but being there in this case would mean being way down under mostly on the ocean.

More Info (click here) 

How Much to Enhance? (More Artesia Balloons)

We talked earlier about image enhancement and it related to using filters in times past. 

In the following pics (of the Artesia Balloon & Bluegrass Festival), I chose to enhance just enough to make the balloons stand out. What did I do? I intensified the warm colors and sky blue. Besides intensifying them, I adjusted exposure values for specific colors. For instance, I darkened blues and greens while brightening reds and yellows.

Keeping the percentages used for each enhancement very low (5 to 8% range), I was able to makes the balloons stand out without making the entire photo look unreal.

Plus, it was fun watching the balloons in Artesia, NM that early Sunday morning.

New Mexico Photos Available

Steve's Fine Finish (click here)

now has New Mexico photos available

Balloons in Artesia, NM!

Woke up this morning to a mini balloon fest. 3 balloons. (Didn't have a good angle on the 3rd one. Stayed low to the ground in an area that wasn't very picturesque.)

Cropped in to a 4x6" size, vertical and horizontal. Can easily crop to other aspect ratios (11x14, 8x10, etc...) from these.

Clear New Mexico skies, stable early morning air, brightly coloured balloons. 

FUN!