fuzzy1
f8 and be there...
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•7•5 Member Since: June 11, 06 |
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off camera lighting experiments
I have been trying to learn how to light. We all pretty much know that the little pop-up flash on your camera is pretty awful under most circumstances. So I've been trying to figure out how to take the flash off camera and use it remotely. One of my recent efforts is this cala lily. It's still not where I want it to be - the light is still too harsh, but at least I'm getting better at judging manual exposure...hopefully, I will continue to improve.... :)
ps. if there's anyone else who's interested in learning about off-camera flash, I can recommend this website: http://www.strobist.com - lots of good info there......
Challenge: Bi-Weekly Challenge: Composition Basics - Fill The Frame
Someone famous once said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough!"
I've given a lot of thought to this statement over the years and I don't think he was telling us all to go out and buy a macro lens. What I do think he was talking about was making sure that when you compose your image you make sure that your subject is the largest and most prominent thing in the frame. By doing this, you make it abundantly clear to your viewers what your photo is supposed to be about. The closer you get to your subject, the more interesting it becomes and the more impact is has, because you are able to reveal more details (texture, facial expressions, emotions, etc). The more detail your image has, the more time people will want to spend looking at it.
So this week's challenge is about filling the frame; composing your photo so that your subject is clearly identified and the main focus of your photo.
To do this, you need to identify what your subject is, and then compose your shot so that your subject takes up most of the frame and most of the other trivial things in the shot are eliminated or made less noticeable. The best way to do this is to get as close to your subject as possible. You don't need to go out and buy a macro lens, just zoom; either with your lens, or your feet.
For example, these cupcakes look edible, but these tasty_cupcakes look a lot better.....
This is all 18 lbs of Fuzzy my cat, but you can tell a lot more about his personality here: the_Fuzzy_One .......
This is laundry . The photo looks as boring as the chore, plus all of the other stuff in the shot is distracting and makes your eye wander. Getting closer, maybe like this: better_laundry - is a better way of illustrating laundry.
The first shot in all three of these pairs of images is deliberately a boring snapshot. The second image in each pair clearly illustrates the concept of filling the frame. Your job this week is to go out and fill the frame! Here are a few more examples: clothespins and Serena_sleeping and apple .
New photos only, please. Don't post stuff that you shot 6 months ago...I deliberately made this a challenge that you can participate in indoors or out.
ALSO: This challenge isn't about macro shots of flower petals, so don't submit those. This is about composing your shot so that your subject looms large in the frame and the easiest way to do that is to either use the zoom feature of your lens or zoom with your feet. The images I've included here were shot with a D200 and a couple of point and shoots. You can do this no matter what type of camera gear you own. The only shot in the group where a macro lens was used is the apple. ... this IS supposed to be a challenge, after all, so go put your camera thru its paces and come back with some eye-catching images!
Finally, many thanks to Enigmaticfaerie for the excellent challenge on rule of thirds. It's an important concept to be familiar with. Try to use some of what you learned in that challenge in this challenge, too. Next up is tomnorth....have fun shooting!
2009 San Francisco Lunar New Near Parade
The Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco is an annual event that draws about 100,000 people to downtown SF every year. Sort of unique among parades, it is one of the very few night parades in the country and it is the largest Lunar New Year parade and celebration outside of Asia. From start to finish, the entire parade is about 4 hours long, so it's big. It's also a challenge to photograph, because there are just so many people and the sidewalks are packed.
Because it's at night, lighting is a challenge....so this year, I decided to hang out in the staging area, which is about a 4 square city block area where the floats line up and everybody gets ready to march. Lots of action happens there before it gets really dark, so I noticed that this year my lighting was much better (I also put a big diffuser on my speedlight, which greatly improved my fill flash effects) plus, you can just sort of wander aimlessly and there are no cops telling you to get back on the sidewalk with the thousands of other people.
Here are some pre-parade photos:
little_drummer_girl
dragons_in_a_line
almost_twins
little_ox
dragon_on_the_move
ants_marching
dragon_chases_pearl
There are more on my flickr page, if anyone is interested. ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzy_one/sets/72157613512090622/ )
more kitchen stuff
I'm still playing around with the new-to-me Nikkor 55mm f2.8 AIS micro manual focus lens. I figured out how to get my D300 body to recognize the correct aperture (there is a setting where you can input the specs for a non-CPU lens that I'd never had to use before). I also figured out that the little green in-focus light will (mostly) work with this lens and you don't have to just eyeball it. And my hands are not as steady as I thought they were, so I think a little table-top tripod might be in my future.....
Off to spend the day in Chinatown and the Chinese New Year parade this evening...
Kitchen Experiments
I recently managed to acquire an old Nikon 55mm f2.8 AIS macro lens. It's manual focus only and only meters properly in Manual or Aperture priority mode. Since it's an old lens, you still need to set the aperture by twisting the aperture ring on the lens, not a dial on the camera body. It is supposed to be a very sharp lens and I had been looking around for one for a used one for a couple of years. They don't seem to be very easy to find on the used market.
My lens arrived yesterday and I spent the evening playing with it. It's surprisingly quick and easy to focus (I'm not so good at manual focus anymore, so I expected this to be more of a challenge than it turned out to be.) I think I will be using this lens a lot! Here are a couple of quick and dirty shots from the kitchen last night:
Happy Holidays
and merry christmas to all....
Happy Thanksgiving!
My household eagerly awaits the appearance of the promised turkey. They do not understand why it's not here yet. 375 F for 2 hours means nothing to a furball.
After I attempted to explain the concept of 'cooking', they lost interest and went back to sleep... where_is_turkey ...
(this is just a snapshot, but I seldom get all three of them to hold still in the same spot for very long...Happy Thanksgiving everyone!)
not quite black and white
I didn't shoot these specifically for this challenge, but they are very recent. Both were taken with a little point and shoot, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, which turned out to be a completely unexpected surprise. It's a great take-everywhere camera with very good image quality. I took it and my D300 out over the weekend and the D300 never made it out of the camera bag.
And one from a Ricoh GX-200:
Variations on a Theme
I took a drive down Highway 1 from San Francisco south to Santa Cruz on Labor Day. First time I have been down that road with a camera in almost 2 years. The weather was picture perfect (usually it's foggy at the coast, but not this week). I discovered Pigeon Point Lighthouse sort of by accident.
The actual lighthouse is closed to the public, but the grounds are open and it's a very scenic spot. I think I'll be going back....
lighthouse two (my personal favorite)
lighthouse five (fun with photoshop)
Leaving for Hong Kong and Taiwan in a few days. Hopefully the weather will be better there than it was in Japan.
I remembered my camera...but....
So I've been in Asia for the last two weeks on a business trip. First week in Singapore and now I'm in Japan. I remembered my camera (the E-520)and a couple of lenses. I even splurged and bought a new one on Friday (an E-3, because the Japanese price was just too good to pass up and I am not so happy with the E-520 after using it for a while). I have a free weekend and a brand new camera....
My business associate and I booked a trip to Mt Fuji yesterday. I'm sure you have seen photos of beautiful Mt Fuji, the tallest peak in Japan....the tour took us up to the highest observation point that you can get to by car or bus (approx 5500 meters above sea level) and we got this... The summit is up there somewhere... (climbers/walkers going for the summit in the rain and fog). I go all the way to Japan to take photos of fog (which I see entirely too much of in my own backyard!)
The next stop was Lake Hakone, a Japanese National Park and a popular vacation spot for the Japanese. By now, it's really pouring, but we did go out on the lake for a short time anyhow. scenic Lake Hakone and more scenic Lake Hakone.
Sometimes it really doesn't pay to take the camera out of the bag....The trip did have a nice ending though - we took the Shinaksen (the Japanese 'bullet' train) back to Tokyo. They really do go fast...it took us 2+ hours by bus to get to Mt Fuji, but it took us only 30 minutes on the train to return home.
Olympus E-520
Since I've had a couple of people PM met and ask what I thought of my new E-520, I thought I would post some photos that I shot with it recently (actually I've only had it out once for a serious shoot, as I've been swamped at work...). I think this is a great little DSLR and it's a nice upgrade from the E500, as the 520 now has 'live view' and in-body image stabilization. For me, the IS was the upgrade that made me go out and upgrade. I'm just guessing, but I'm thinking that the IS is giving me at least 2, possibly 3 more f-stops of being able to handhold the camera before I have to dig out the tripod. IS comes in 3 modes; 'normal' and two that were designed specially for people who want to do panning. It's 10mp and about the same size and weight as the E500. If you are using the viewfinder, it still only has 3 selectable focus points; if you use live-view, there are eleven. The lcd on the back is a little bit larger than the E500 (2.7" instead of 2.5") and some of the buttons have moved a bit. It's also got some user-selectable noise reduction options, but I'm not so sure that this is a benefit, as it's always been my experience that the more noise reduction you apply, the less sharp your images end up being, so I don't imagine I'll make a lot of use of this feature.
Here are some examples:
Oddly enough, if you are thinking of upgrading, it seems to be cheaper to buy as a kit, with the 14-42mm zoom lens, than it is if you buy body only....not sure why that is, but check around, because the prices seem to be all over the map on this camera - you might be able to get a deal if you look enough.
The 14-42 kit lens was a nice little surprise. It's plastic-y, but it's lightweight and pretty sharp and gives those nice Oly colors. It's not an f2.8 'fast' lens, but it's a decent lens for a beginner. It a vast improvement over the 14-45mm zoom that came with the E500 kit (I was so disappointed with that one that I threw it in a drawer and promptly went out and got the much better 14-54mm zoom). The photos above were all shot with the Oly 18-180 zoom, and as always, the 520 body is compatible with all other four-thirds standard lenses, flash attachments and other accessories. ( see http://www.four-thirds.org )
For me, coupled with the Oly 18-180 zoom, this will make a great little travel camera (I've dragged my E500 all over the world on business trips) and I'm looking forward to really giving it a workout in the coming weeks. For those of you that asked, I hope this was helpful....
One last snapshot for the Rails challenge
I've never seen this before, so it caught me off-guard....kinda funny, actually.....
Urban Rails
Some Rails from San Francisco....rails and more rails .
(shot with a Nikon D300 and a Lensbaby 3G selective-focus lens))
Black and White and Not Blue (sorry!)
Long time no see...I don't have anything for the challenge, but I'm hoping this story works and gets posted....new system takes a little bit of getting used to.....
Anyhow, these are from a street fair that took place in San Francisco over the weekend. It's an annual event called the "How Weird Street Faire". People attending are encouraged to come in costume and, this being San Francisco, you see all sorts of costumes. I have plenty of color images, but some of them worked best in black and white. My intent was to make them gritty and contrasty and 'street'.
It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to do any street shooting. This was actually kinda fun.
ps. where is the preview button in this new format?
I can do amazing things with a hula-hoop
Okay, I see how this works now....I was just dragging and dropping the images.
