What is it capable of?

I’m not a big fan of swapping lenses. I like to put one on my Nikon and keep using it for as long as possible. I did this with my 50mm 1.8 lens when I bought it. It lived on my Nikon D5100 and I worked within its capabilities until I upgraded to the D750. I then purchased my Tamron 24-70 zoom lens which has been living on the D750 ever since, purely because of the versatility it offers me. I can get good wide-angle/landscape shots and it lets me zoom in that bit closer for portraits.

Then I felt the desire to shoot macro and lashed out on the Nikon 105mm 2.8 macro lens but it only comes out on special occasions. Wednesday and a dragonfly was one such special occasion. I could never have achieved the image I did with a standard zoom lens or even the 50mm prime.

But now I have the bug. I want to play with the 105mm and only the 105mm.

I want to do more macro. I want to see what it can do with portraits. I’m going to challenge myself to see what I can get with this lens. I know that it will mean more work for me because I will be forced to move myself to get the shot I want, but the beauty of a prime lens is the clarity it brings to your images. I love my 50mm for that reason. The images are just………better.

Let’s see how long my dedication to this challenge lasts.

 

I have risen to the challenge

Today I rose to the challenge. I stood tall or lay low on the grass and took photos of flowers.

An excursion to the Royal Botanical Gardens in my marvellous Melbourne with a small group of fellow photographers had my creative juices pumping. I will admit that I was nervous. Despite the encouraging comments from friends and photographers about my photography skills, I still felt that I was perhaps out of my league, however the results from today’s little adventure have lifted my spirits decidedly.

Today I played. My play was deliberate and experimental but it has paid dividends.

My camera bag was fully stocked, but I decided to stick with one lens……….Nikon 50mm f1.8. That lens and a 20mm macro extension tube worked in divine harmony.  On its own the 50mm was so gorgeous. I had forgotten how much I love it. I really don’t think one can go past a prime lens for clarity, but then to add the macro extension tube………..

I am beyond happy with what I achieved today and will be spending the next week editing my favourites.

 

Happy Happy Happy days.

I need the challenge

There is a fellow photographer, actually there are a few fellow photographers, who are making me a tad envious of their photos. The composition, the clarity, the bokeh, the colour, the final edit…………everything to make a person swoon.

This envy could take me one of two ways. I could fold under  their brilliance and kneel down kissing their feet, forever being awed by their skills OR I could stop and look closely at my images and see where I can improve.

Is my lens too ‘soft’ for the images I see in my head? I don’t see that magnificent clarity I adore in close-up.

Am I rushing my shots? Should I be looking more closely at my surroundings and trying a different position or vantage point from which to shoot? My lack of height has shown to be a disadvantage on more than one occasion.

Should I be employing the use of my tripod and using the live view option to ensure a sharper focus? This can be a little problematic when shooting flowers. Hmmmmm.

I know I am excited about the prospect of purchasing a macro lens and there are three lenses I am considering. I wonder at the possibility of taking my Nikon body into the camera store and trying each prospective lens out with a few test shots on the same subject.  Will I be allowed to do this? I want to take the images home and look at them on my computer to check for sharpness and vignette. I want to make sure that quality of the image is worth the price I’m going to pay for the lens.

I’m not going to take this laying down. I’m stepping up to the plate and giving this challenge my A game. I love your photos, my fellow photographers. I thought mine were pretty good, but I can clearly see that I can do better.

And I’m going to.   🙂

 

From exploding hormones to exploding balloons

After the excitement of my near-exploding hormones on Friday, I toned it down a little bit today and played with balloons.

Exploding balloons.

Exploding balloons filled with water.

Exploding balloons filled with coloured water.

Who knew that a group of 15 adults could have so much fun with balloons, water and sharp, pointy implement with which to burst said balloons. And what fun we had. We laughed, we cheered, we screamed with excitement and we cheered each other on.

And why were 15 adults playing with water-filled balloons, I hear you mutter as you read. All in the name of photography, of course! Something different. Something fun. Something that challenged our skills. Something that taught us new skills.

Let me tell you……………. Getting that perfect shot is bloody tricky. It takes a hell of a lot more than luck, but you definitely need a good dose of lady luck  with you when you try something like this.

Lady Luck was smiling on me today.

🙂

Photography challenge: Bokeh

bokehˈ

bəʊkeɪ/

noun

PHOTOGRAPHY

1. the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens.

 

Bokeh.    ‘Bowkay’….. ‘Bowka’ or however you want to say it.

What it is is a wonderful effect in your photos where your focus point is super sharp, but the rest of your image is deliciously blurry.  Getting good bokeh is a kind of holy grail for photographers. It is what makes us decide to spend that extra $1000 dollars on a lens. We know that a f1.8 is good, but the f1.4…………….*sigh* …………or can I justify the money and go the f1.2.

**For my non-photography friends and readers the f relates to the f-stop on the camera lens. The bigger the number, the more that is in focus and the smaller the number, the narrower the area that will be in focus. (The smaller the number, the more expensive the lens!!)

I was just having a wee peek through some old photos as I try to decide what I would like to have printed, when I came across the above gem that I took on a holiday to Wolumla almost a year ago.

I love everything about this shot.

I love the colour, the mood and I especially love the bokeh as it is visible in the foreground as well as the background. It was shot using my 50mm f1.8 but I was only as low as f2.5. Not bad. Not bad at all.

 

Photography challenge: Let there be light

The basic principle of photography is about how much light gets onto the film/sensor and the length of time said light is permitted to make contact with the film/sensor. Without light there is no photo and by the same token, too much light also means that there is no photo.

The type of image you are trying to create is all tied to the light. We crazy photographers will wake up early to get the perfect dewy light of dawn. We crazy photographers will wait for hours for the sun to set. We completely insane photographers will travel for hours into the pitch black of the countryside to shoot astrophotography that is not compromised by the light pollution of the big cities and suburbs. A beginner photographer is quickly informed by the more experienced photographers about the magical ‘blue hour’ and the ‘golden hour’. Terms that mean absolutely nothing until you stand in the same place for a few hours watching as the world around you is transformed by blue and golden tones as the sun sets.

**If you are still unclear as to these changes in the light take yourself into an open city-scape with your camera, stand in the one area and take a photo of the buildings in front of you every fifteen minutes for two or three hours in the late afternoon/early evening. Upload your photos at home on your computer and look at the changes in colour and tone. Impossible to miss and, once you become aware of it, impossible not to notice.

Photographers purchase flashes to compensate for the times when there is not enough light and we have a collection of neutral density filters to help when there is too much. We make adjustments to our camera’s ISO settings to allow more or less light onto the sensor and/or we adjust the f-stop for exactly the same reason.

It is all about the light.

The photo above was taken from on-board a boat in Docklands in my marvellous Melbourne. I could see the shot before I took it. I knew that I just had to wait patiently for us to sail to where the sun would be peeking out from behind the apartment building. I was hoping for a nice starburst effect……the double halo was a very pleasant bonus.

Photography challenge: Negative space

 

Put simply, negative space is the area which surrounds the main subject in your photo (the main subject is known as the “positive space“).

www.photographymad.com/…/understanding-and-using-negative–space-in-photography

I love using negative space in my photos. It allows the eye to focus on the important thing in your image. When used well, generally when the rule of thirds is involved in the composition, it can create incredible images.

The idea of negative space works best when there is a much greater proportion of the negative in relation to the focal point.

I have just discovered that negative space has a completely different meaning when applied to its use in art, which just goes to show that one must check things out before waffling on in a blog.

Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the “real” subject of an image.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space

It has also given me a whole new piece of knowledge that I will tuck away for future reference as I wander an art gallery somewhere.

But back to negative space in the photography world………

The point of negative space in a photo is that it is there but not there. It could be anything, sky, water, dirt, flowers, darkness, light…….. anything, but the essence of it is to not take your focus from the ‘thing’ that has been photographed.  Generally it is a complete contrast to the focal point. A red buoy on a vast blue ocean for example.  But there cannot be anything that encroaches upon that negative space. There cannot be another object, person or pattern that distracts the mind from the chosen course.

What I like about negative space is that it can give my image breathing room. I like my close-up shots and I like filling the frame but I also like being able to give my photography subject space to make its mark.

Making dreams come true

A fellow photographer has a dream. He wants to photograph as many photographers as possible. Portrait shoot basically, but he wanted us to wear something that represented us as photographers.

No problem ol’ chap. Whatever I can do to help your dream come to fruition.

For me, it was a no-brainer……. My Superman/Superwoman t-shirt. Purely because I tend to find myself wearing it whenever I go out shooting and now everyone seems to associate me with it and they’re almost disappointed if I’m wearing something else. It has become so much a part of my photography wardrobe I bought a long-sleeved version for the colder months.

Anyway, today was my turn to be in the group being photographed. I was a wee bit excited. I have begun to enjoy being photographed because I get to have a bit of fun and I learn about how I can get people to pose for me in the process.

As you can probably figure out, I couldn’t shoot myself (Well I could have if I’d been more organised and packed my tripod), but I did get the chance to photograph the photographer whose project this is.

Love the whole concept Mark and I also love how the total seriousness has evolved into a bit of a dress-up party.

Mystery Challenge: Perspective

I thought long and hard about how I was going to achieve the mystery challenge that had been set. We had to pick one object to photograph and one lens and focal length. We could take up to 25 photos and submit out favourite five or so. We had a week.

So the first thing I did was think of what perspective meant to me.

perspective

noun

1. 1.

   the art of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other.

   “the theory and practice of perspective”
2. 2.

   a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.

   “most guidebook history is written from the editor’s perspective”

   synonyms:

   outlook, view, viewpoint, point of view, standpoint, position, stand, stance, angle, slant, attitude, frame of mind, frame of reference, approach, way of looking/thinking, vantage point, interpretation “her perspective on everything had been changing”

    

I didn’t look up the exact meaning of perspective until just this moment and I realise that right from the beginning I had been drawn to the second meaning of the word. Perspective in relation to a point of view.

I had thought about playing with perspective and using tricks to give my particular object different perspective in regards to its size relative to other objects that I would have included, but I couldn’t get my head around it properly. (And blow me down if the most obvious way to show perspective didn’t just come rushing to my thoughts and it would have required NO tricks at all. Duh!!! *scream in frustration at my dumbness*)

I simply chose to photograph my chosen object, a gorgeous gerbera, in different ways to show that ones perspective on something can change by the way you look at it. I shot it with a black background, a light background, from the side, front on, from the back, out of focus, reflected in a mirror, with a torchlight on it, through material, through my reading glasses, in silhouette and through my crystal ball…………..just to name a few.

I am very happy with what I have achieved, but I think I’m going to have to go out again this week with something else to demonstrate the concept/idea that is now at the forefront of my brain.

Challenge: Aperture

A photography challenge for last week was APERTURE. I don’t think that I quite mastered it as well as I mastered ‘Five minutes’. I had an idea and I’m happy with the shot I took, but I didn’t really explore the meaning of the word aperture or the concept of aperture.

I just took a photo, really. Any photo taken uses aperture. So I could have submitted a picture of my big toe and it would have counted as ‘aperture’.

This week’s challenges will have much better photos because I’m really thinking about the concepts as well as the process. And a mystery challenge was sprung on we unsuspecting photographers in one Facebook group. Trust me…..this one is a doozy. Definitely have my thinking cap on for this.