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Bierz's 2015 Chicago Rooftop Grow

I haven't had a garden for a few years and decided to start growing some peppers on my roof in Chicago.  I originally planned to have 4 plants, and Dru (SmokenFire) offered to give me a few plants, as we're in the same city.  I met with Dru and not only did he have four healthy plants for me, but also several bottles of his delicious hot sauce, some seeds, powders and even a CD.  Great guy.
 
I decided to go a bit bigger on the garden and went to a local nursery and picked up some more plants.  To add to that, I found a seller on Craigslist who had ghost pepper, trinidad moruga scorpion and ed's carolina reaper seedlings for sale.  I got to his house and he showed me a 3 year old ghost pepper plant that he kept in a greenhouse.  Yes, I'll take that too.  I grew ghost peppers 2 years ago and by the time frost hit I only had one ripe pod.  I'm hoping this head start will change all that. 
 
I now have 14 plants going.  All are in 7 gallon smart pots aside from  the 3 yr old ghost, which I decided not to re-pot. 
 
June 9, 2015
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Top row, starting in the smart pot: Yalova Charleston, Gheong Yang Gochu, Big Jim, Ghost (3yr old), Habanero, Count Dracula, Ghost (weathered badly)
Second row, starting in the smart pot: Sulu Adana, ghost, lemon drop, trinidad moruga scorpion 2x, ed's california reaper 2x
 
 
June 16, 2015
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Same layout as before
 
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Cool little spider on one of my ghost plants
 
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Early pod on the plant the nursery called a Count Dracula.  Any idea on what this may be?  Purple and ripens to red, so they say.
 
 
July 2, 2015
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July 2, 2015
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This and the next two pictures are pods from the 3 year old ghost pepper plant I bought.  Do they look like ghost pods?
 
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This is a pod from the nursery bought ghost pepper plant and looks like the classic bhut jolokia, and I don't think the other really does.  Input is very welcome.
 
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This is a pod from one of the plants Dru gave me,  Offhand I can't recall which.
 
More updates as the garden progresses.  Thanks for reading, and any advice/information is always welcome!
 
grantmichaels said:
Nice use of DOF on the reaper porn shot ...
 
The angle on the grain pattern totally makes it look like a tilt-shift capture. I had to concentrate to verify the focus was a linear band.
 
Really, nice tomfoolery ;) ...
 
Thanks, man.  I wish I could justify a TS lens, but I just can't.  They're quite spendy.
 
bierz said:
 
Thanks, man.  I wish I could justify a TS lens, but I just can't.  They're quite spendy.
 
The 90mm should have a red ring ... it's sharp as hell at 2.8 and easily one of the finest Canon lenses, ever ;)
 
If I lived in a big city, I'd probably love the 17mm too, but alas, I don't ...
 
I'm going to trade out the 17mm for a 70-200 II, I think ...
 
grantmichaels said:
 
The 90mm should have a red ring ... it's sharp as hell at 2.8 and easily one of the finest Canon lenses, ever ;)
 
We're talking $1400, right?  Maybe I should rent a TS and see how I like it.
 
bierz said:
 
We're talking $1400, right?  Maybe I should rent a TS and see how I like it.
 
Well, could be ... but ... perfect candidate for picking one up from the buy-sell at fredmiranda for like $750-775 ...
 
It's the penultimate product/food photography lens in my opinion ...
 
bierz said:
Harvest of the day:
 
Top row: 3x Carolina Reaper, 1x  Ghost?, 1x Count Dracula
Middle row: 3x Lemon Drop, 4x Yalova Charleston, 3x Sulu Adana, 2x Chungyang
Bottom row: 13x mystery maybe scorpion
 
 
 
 
Reaper porn:
 
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How do you do that?  That might be the best picture I have seen on THP.  I have a EOS Rebel T3i.  Is something like that even possible with my camera?
 
tctenten said:
 
 
How do you do that?  That might be the best picture I have seen on THP.  I have a EOS Rebel T3i.  Is something like that even possible with my camera?
 
I appreciate the feedback. 
 
This picture was taken with a 24-105 lens at the full 105.  1/160, f5, ISO 400.  
 
You can pull this off with your camera.  I was on the ground for this shot for the perspective, and when you're really messing with depth of field you need to consider what's closest to you.  You'll get that and a sliver behind that.   Dial the aperture as low as you can and experiment.  Lock the focus on your subject and adjust composition if necessary.
 
What lens do you have?  That's really the largest component to photography (well, aside from light).  And you're probably aware, but it's best to shoot raw and do a small bit of processing to your favorite captures. 
 
i'll add something to what bierz has written ...

you want to be in a M(anual) shooting mode, and specifically, I like Av (aperture priority) for inanimate objects.

go outside around sunset w/ your camera in Av mode, your lens one click shy of wide-open (2nd to smallest number), the flash turned off, and shoot a pod that's dangling low in a line of sight that's got the next nearest thing as far as possible (fence etc) ... not towards the garden, but from the inside of the garden out towards to property/fence line ...

while composing the shot, imagine putting the pod on the four criss-cross locations if you had a # symbol over the rectangular view ...

take like twenty five pictures, keeping the pod on the criss-cross, but twerking the camera while concentrating on what's going on in as many of the extreme corners of the view as are relevant (likely the top corner or two shooting dangling things, the bottom one's for things laying on a surface) ...

then post your favorite one of those pics here and let's see where your at!
 
grantmichaels said:
then post your favorite one of those pics here and let's see where your at!
 
Definitely post them here.  Grant touched on the rule of thirds and that's pretty legitimate.  Leading lines are also important.  When you look at a picture, think about where you first look, and then where you're drawn to.  Take pictures to take advantage of that. 
 
Av mode on your Canon is a great start.  As Grant said, 1 up from minimum should give you ideal sharpness, but go ahead and try as low as you can.  Take loads of photos and learn from what you like. 
 
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Gave it a shot tonight, probably waited a little too late in the night.  
 
Overall I think somewhat successful.  I could not move the reaper plant and it was hard to get an outward facing shot.  The aji pineapple was easier to move and I also fooled around with the AEB…whatever that is.  It  did lighten it up a bit.
 
it is a work in process, but thanks for the tips and any criticisms are welcome.  
 
it's well along the way ...

aeb is probably exposure bracketing ...

lays down multiple pics +/- a half a stop or whatever ...

a few mins earlier would have been very different in appearance, and inherently more sharp for it ...

"the problem" to solve is that the exposure is set to draw attention to the fence, instead of the pods ...

do you know how to move the little red rectangle for focusing around the outer circle? ...

don't miss the opportunity to shoot a pod, check the exposure on the back lcd to adjust, then take more ...

you want to verify while shooting, i think, as opposed to taking hundreds inside to pluck from ...

looking forward to more ...
 
very nice shots, I need to send my T2i in for a good cleaning. Picture quality has gone downhill over the years. 
 
I only own the stock lens and a 100mm macro. I'm not ashamed to admit that i've used the macro for some distance shots and portriats. Not as effective as a telescoping lens but in a pinch it beats the stock
 

 

 

 

 
of course still good for macros as well.
 

 
Sorry i've gone and hijacked.... 
 
Nice pictures guys - no problem at all if you guys want to keep posting pictures.
 
tctenten, what lens are you using?  And do you use Lightroom?  I like to pull the shadows and drop the highlights on pods to bring out the full amount of detail in your capture.  
 
bierz said:
Nice pictures guys - no problem at all if you guys want to keep posting pictures.
 
tctenten, what lens are you using?  And do you use Lightroom?  I like to pull the shadows and drop the highlights on pods to bring out the full amount of detail in your capture.  
 
That was with the regular lens.  I think 18-55.  I also have a longer zoom lens. that goes up to 300 I think.  There was no editing or touch-up on the pics. 
 
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