365/159 Light/3

Much better than yesterday, and it happened totally by accident. I looked up in the direction of a window and I saw this wonderful light that was just screaming "photograph me!" and of course I had my camera within reach so it was just a shutter click away.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 800.


I have also decided that my 50mm is my favorite portrait lens. The sharpness edge to egde combined with the beautiful bokeh at ƒ2.0 is just irresistible.

365/150 Negative Space/1

This week's theme is negative space, and here is what I just randomly saw.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 800.


And the color version:

365/149 Black and White/7

Final black and white! I miss the theme already, I think I really have a secret love for B&W photography. I may just have to do more in B&W now that I got hooked! It's ironic: after all that technology, going back to the basic of basics. I have to say though, B&W is really how photography is done. It makes drama more dramatic, and something it even makes you wonder how a certain scene would have looked in color, and your imagination is the only way to take you there.

So anyways, here the 2 for today, one of them horribly out of focus, but I liked the moment, so it's going up anyway.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 800.


50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 800, and I let the camera figure out what to focus on (awesome job, not).


I will say this: normally in a situation where it's not clear what the camera should be doing when I point a focus point as something, I usually let it focus and then I adjust manually when I shoot f/2.0, just because the thin DOF may not give the desired result. Laziness or haste don't work well, so that's a big lesson learned. I think the photo moment would have stuck around for the extra 0.1 second it would have taken me to actually pay attention. As far as AF is concerned, it did its job perfectly, it focused exactly where I pointed the selected AF point.

365/145 Black and White/3

The kiddo and her grandma!

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 800.

365/128 Affection/7

This is how my little girl shows her affection. Lots and lots of drawings! Well these are connect-the-dots, but she'll do the same with drawings or paintings.

Lens and camera settings:

14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 20mm, f/2.9, 1/40sec and ISO 1600.

I think I went for the "color cast" look here. The photo was white balanced for the light coming through the window and the lamp light turned this glow-in-the-dark yellow. Sure, I could have just used flash and controlled light color, but it's really not that spectacular of a capture to begin with, I didn't find it worth the time and effort.

365/127 Affection/6

To all people with a dislike of photos taken in full sun: it's not evil. In fact, full sun can be your friend! Just remember that full sun will create very dark shadows, kind of like using a flash in a dark room.

A small moment of "affection" between my cats, because they both wanted the one tiny patch of sun coming from a window.

Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 @ 40mm, f/4.5, 1/500sec and ISO 100.

365/126 Affection/5

Helen taught me this trick (HRP on ILP). Before PP, there used to be a flash dead smack in the middle of the heart, the heart was also upside down (arms just simply don't bend that way). I set my camera to f/22 and 1/250 (highest sync speed) and ISO 100 to remove all ambient light, and I set the flash to 1/8th power to shoot just enough light into the picture toward the camera to work as a back light but not illuminate the top of the hands (camera side). This resulted in just the inside rim of the heart being illuminated. In PS I used a levels layer to set the black point to exclude everything but the brightest part of the photo. And now we arrive here:

Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 @ 35mm, f/22, 1/250sec and ISO 100. Flash @ 1/8th power, firing toward the camera.

365/125 Affection/4

I thank Azure for the idea, although I'm thinking she doesn't read this blog. I wanted a no-person photo today, so went with my wedding band. I wanted deep blacks and just a tiny bit of light. There's a distracting reflection on the ring, I know, but right now it's going to have to do.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/60sec and ISO 1600.

365/124 Affection/3

It's only right to make my favorite subjects, closest to my heart, part of this theme! Today I experimented with Lightroom, to see if I can get away with not using Photoshop at all for processing. Close, but no cigar. Fair is fair, all of the actual post processing was done in Lightroom, but then I still needed my 20 pixel frame with 2 pixel white border and my logo to be included, which ironically I needed Photoshop for. If anyone wants to enlighten me to the path of freedom by showing me how to do those simple things in Lightroom, I'd forever appreciate it!

Lens and camera settings:

14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 27mm, f/3.0, 1/100sec and ISO 100.

Not bad at all, especially not with the colors! A little oversharpened, I must admit, probably because in PS I ended up resizing the photo after adding the frame, and then I accidentally resharpened, and I was too lazy to reprocess.

365/123 Affection/2

I was going to do a kiddo-hugs-cat photo, or something to that effect, but then I remembered how some people made DIY modifiers so they can turn the bokeh of their lens into different shapes. Here is how:

Take a piece of black cardboard, posterboard, scrap booking card stock, what have you, as long as it's sturdy and black, and measure out a circle the size of the outside diameter of your lens. Cut out the circle and cut out a heart shape (or other shape, whatever you want your lights in your bokeh to look like) in the exact middle of the circle.keep it about half the size of the whole circle, because you want it to be slightly smaller than your actual aperture, or it won't work right. Tape the circle shaped cardboard to the front of your lens with a little painter's tape, or some other tape that won't leave residue.

Now when you're ready to start shooting, set your aperture wide open. Your actual aperture will be smaller, because your shape will take up some lens real estate and it will block some light, so you'll meter a little darker than usual. Also, your DOF will be a little bigger, so make sure to leave lots of distance between your subject and the background. Make sure to include some lights in your background, or some nice light reflections, whatever works for you. Start shooting! All of this works better if you have a lens hood to attach your "bokeh modifier" to, it's less intrusive and you can easily remove the hood for normal shooting.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/50sec and ISO 1600.

365/122 Affection/1

Scary new theme today, maybe because kiddo photos are outside my comfort zone. Still, this is a semi-successful attempt, so it made it past my personal CC, be it barely.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 400.