365/171 Food/1

I haven't decided whether or not I like the theme I chose. It's looking good so far though!

Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm ƒ/2.8-3.5 II @ ƒ/3.1, 1/125sec and ISO 400.

365/161 Light/5

Two shots today. One of Kiddo, of course, and the other one I found by accident. Nothing extra technical was done here, except the kid is a B&W conversion and the other shot shows my weakness: macro.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0, 1/160sec and ISO 800.


50mm ƒ/4.0, 1/250sec and ISO 800.

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.

365/158 Light/2

A little uninspired, but I think my daytime job has a lot to do with that. I find it extremely hard to focus on portraits when I'm tired and just back home from a 10 hour day rushing to get that last little bit of light in. This is what I have instead:

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.0, 1/160sec and ISO 400.

365/155 Negative Space/6

Nothing special today, it was simply too late to "snap" one of Kiddo, so the closest flower is  next on the list. This was al that was in the yard, so it's what you'll be looking at for the next few seconds.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.0, 1/200sec and ISO 400.

365/142 Accidental Letters/7

Next week is Black & White freestyle, but I'm not sure if I know how to handle this without a theme to force me to find a subject, maybe I should just do a week of B&W portraits! As for today, here's the last 3 letters of the week:

Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.8, 1/125sec and ISO 400.


50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.8, 1/100sec and ISO 400.


50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.8, 1/250sec and ISO 400.

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.

365/123 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.

365/104 Framing/4

A trip to the rose garden today! I discovered something new, something a little more on the bad news side of things. The 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 does not like backlit subjects. More precisely, it creates a lot of haze and flare when you're photographing backlit or partially backlit subjects. A lot could be fixed in post processing, but I'm a little disappointed. I guess that's what I get though, for trying to save money by getting the cheaper lens! Next time I'll just have to use the 50mm for backlit portraits.


Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 @ 27mm, f/3.0, 1/125sec and ISO 100.