Macros, Because You Know You Love Them.

I'll start with admitting this wasn't entirely an original idea, although I can't for the life of me remember who I got this from. I do like the results and I'm putting it on the "to explore" list.

I don't think this needs to much explanation, I included a pullback! Yeah, don't expect it too often. I like a little mystery to my work.

50mm, ƒ/11, 1/250sec and ISO 100. OCF camera right @ 1/8 power.


Pullback with same settings:

Focus on Manual Focus

So in the past few days I've been playing with the thought of exclusively using manual focus for a while. So out come the macros! Yeah, portraiture might be a nudge more difficult using fly-by-wire manual focus. I'll definitely have to practice that. That said, though, I'll have to practice that anyway, seeing as my addition will be fully manual.

Naturally some samples of my plays:


and



That last one was hand held at 1/40sec. Kudos to Olympus for getting it right with in-camera image stabilization!

Backlight

As part of the 365, I took the following photo. I consider the theme to be a real challenge, seeing as I have never in my life shot a successful backlit photo. I just simply never considered playing with fire, really.

Guess what? If you have a decent reflector (such as the front wall of my house), backlight isn't all that hard! In fact, some of the most beautiful portraits are backlit. Well, here it is.



This photo also made me realize, again, that I'm very spoiled by my 50mm ƒ/2.0. That lens is so sharp, it makes most other optics look soft. I shot the above photo with my 14-54mm zoom, and it's really just not that sharp. It's not a focus issue, it just can't compete with what was not too long ago considered the sharpest lens for DSLR cameras ever produced. It's really a non-issue though, you can't see the differences in print, and it doesn't bother me. Plus, because the 50mm is a macro lens, it's really slow at focusing.

This 365 week should be interesting, I hope it stays sunny!

365/181 Objects That Tell Something About You/4

Maybe I should have just combined all these in a "food" photo of sorts. Well anyway, I also love ice cream. More specifically, and yes I know, boring, Vanilla Bean.

Lens and Camera Settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/8.0, 1/250sec and ISO 200. Flash OCF @ 1/2 power, shot through umbrella camera right.

365/180 Objects That Tell Something About You/3

I also love coffee. It practically defines who and what I am.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/4.0, 1/250sec and ISO 100. Flash OCF @ 1/4th power through umbrella camera right.

365/175 Food/5

More OCF play, this time shot through the umbrella. Very nice diffuse light!

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.8, 1/250sec and ISO 100.

365/174 Food/4

Oh yes, I just received my cactus triggers, 4th version, for those who care, and yeah they work. 40 exposures, not a single missed shot yet. These must be much more reliable than it's bast brethren, because I don't see much of the issues the older versions have. That said, I did just receive them and I haven't put them to the test in real life situations.

The light from OCF is in one word: awesome. Expect many many more photos with this setup.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.0, 1/320sec (my new max sync) and IS0 100. Flash @ 1/16th power.

365/173 Food/3

Much better today. So grapes were my victim today!

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.8, 1/80sec and ISO 800.


50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ4.0, 1/60sec and ISO 800.

365/172 Food/2

Yeah, I really did just step it down a notch or two, but I do say I just got through a really bad day, so I'm really just trying to make sure I stick with the project.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.0, 1/100sec and ISO 1600.

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.

365/170 Bugs/7

Much better, so to make up for yesterday, I'm posting a bunch! Settings were variable, but needless to say, i shot at a smaller aperture, between ƒ5.6 and ƒ/8, high shutter speed and a high ISO.

365/169 Bugs/6

Not as good today, but what can I say, I did this on 3 hours of sleep and a rough day.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/4.0, 1/250sec and ISO 800.

365/168 Bugs/5

Bees are really hard to photograph when you're afraid to be stung, so today you'll get a heavily cropped semi-macro. If it's nice out tomorrow, I'll try again, hopefully getting a little closer this time. It's not horrible, but I'd have loved to have captured more detail. Oh yeah, I shouldn't have to mention that when photographing these creatures, high shutter speed is crucial. To capture them mid flight though, you'll need flash to freeze the wings.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/4.0, 1/640sec and ISO 400.

365/167 Bugs/4

I was going to use the story I wrote on ILP, but it's nearly bed time, so I'll share that later.

365/166 Bugs/3

Ants are cannibals, well, they eat other ants. These small ants were eating a much larger specimen of their species, chopping it up into smaller pieces and taking it down into their nest. If you weren't itching before, you will definitely start now.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/4.0, 1/125sec and ISO 1250.

365/165 Bugs/2

This is just too much fun. I'm also amazed how much information I can still extract from the Raw files, because these are pretty small crops of the original picture. I think this is where the sharpness of the lens really helps! And I can't imagine how difficult this has to be on Full Frame cameras where the DOF is so minuscule at wider apertures that you can't even get a leg of the flies in focus, so the only way to counter that is lowering shutter speed and increasing ISO and aperture. I like my shutter speed high for these though, just because even camera shake will throw off focus, not to mention these critters are fast!

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/4.0, 1/200sec and ISO 800.

365/164 Bugs/1

I love this theme already! It's macro on steroids, especially as small as I'm going! I think I want to save for a longer macro lens to photograph these small creatures better.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.8, 1/400sec and ISO 800.

365/163 Light/7

Last light photo! This one has very nice light, but I do admit I underexposed this quite a bit. Somehow I was spared the horrible noise, but it didn't bring life back to the darker parts of Kiddo's skin..

50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/2.0, 1/125sec and ISO 1250.

365/162 Light/6

I'm adding my second shot from yesterday onto today's. No technical details on these, because I think they would just spoil the beauty.

Yesterday:


Today:

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.