Day late, buck short.

I had a rough draft put together for yesterday, it was… alright. I had begun talking about my odd miscellaneous photo days last week, and the weekend preceding, and how it hadn’t been an overly great week for photography. I had spent much of the week frustrated with Kansas’s indecisive weather and incompetent weather forecasters. Add that to my lat working schedule, and short period to shoot in, and the frustration was mounting. It was at this point I stumbled on an old article about a new way to use an old tool. The Olympus BCL (Or, body cap lens as it were).

I talked a little bit of my… ill fated attempts with ye olde 500mm oh sweet heavens lens of nope. While I have gotten away from the days of not understanding my camera, it’s components and lenses and how they effect everything, I have not freed myself from… well being cheap, or broke you can take your pick. Small bit of back story, then on to the fun part. I bought my first micro four thirds camera a little over a year ago, and not having a whole lot of cash to throw at it only got two lenses. The 15mm BCL F8 and the 40-15omm F4-5.6 (The latter of these still being one of my favorites, btw, but that’s another story) Both of which combined came in just over $100.00 so as I’m sure you can imagine, or have seen if you have one, they’re not amazing lenses. The 40-150 can do some incredible things when stopped down but the BCL is pretty lack luster all together.

Much has changed in the following year, and the BCL has found it’s place nested in the back of my pack. That is until I stumbled on the idea that it might do something pretty cool strapped onto some extension tubes, and voila a whole new beast was born.

It was cold this morning, and it took quite a bit of talking myself into going out and finding something to shoot. I’ve made it a point in Kansas to never go out with just a macro lens, it can be perfectly still when you leave the house and 60mph winds when you decide to stop and shoot, so a backup plan is always needed. Of course this morning was no different, the wind at my house while cold and crisp was mild and intermittent. The wind out on the trail I decided to visit was anything but, and all but the closest ground dwelling plants were swaying like they had far too much to drink the night before.

My BCL with full extension tubes was tucked into my jacket pocket, and the trusty 40-150 was slapped on the front of the camera to try and capture the hurry and scurry of the morning birds catching their breakfast. I had spent most of the prior week living in the telephoto end of my camera, a new package had come in the mail earlier bearing an Olympus 70-300 and the 4/3 to micro 4/3 adapter needed to make it work with my little cameras. It looks quite comical strapped on the front of either of my cameras, but still functions quite nicely. I decided to keep that general pattern going today, but didn’t want the weight of the big boy so the 40-150 it is!

The flowers I could find along the trail were almost all Dandelions or buds concealing their blooms until this recent blustery brisk weather passes, but that was okay. I got down and close to whatever I could find and snapped away to my hearts content! The BCL with tubes produces what amounts to slightly closer than 1:1 magnification, the only negative being the requirement to nearly be touching the subject. I haven’t found any live little bugs to try this out on yet, but can imagine it won’t be the easiest for anything jumpy. For flowers however it works just right!

I was actually quite surprised how well this little lens worked, considering it’s reputation on it’s own is quite poor. I hadn’t pulled mine out of it’s hiding place in the bottom of my bag since before I got my 17mm and honestly had little intention of doing so any time soon. Now, it gets to live on the end of my extension tubes for quite a great little impromptu macro lens!

I don’t think I’ll ever stop being as frugal of a shopper as I am. I won’t ever own the “Newest” bodies or the true “professional” lenses that cost more than I make in a month. I have no qualms with adapting lenses to fit my needs, or using lenses outside of their “true intended purpose”. I love being able to make great images with what I have available, and don’t plan on stopping any time soon!

I hope you’ve enjoyed!

~Wes

Light…

Light…

Light is… Complicated.

As a photographer it’s considered our art to be able to manipulate, mold, and capture light. Whether it’s film or digital, sunlight of studio it’s all just light in the end. I am a bit different from most photographer’s I’ve personally had the chance to work with in the way that I prefer my light. I like to use studio lights for inanimate objects (flowers, still life, macro etc.) I am a total control freak when we start to work close, and the unreliable sun just doesn’t cut it for me. On the other hand, when it comes to live models there’s nothing better to me than the evening sun peaking over the horizon to cast it’s unique play on lights. Being in Kansas, this poses some unique constraints. Most places I’ve had the pleasure to shoot you have the “Magic hour” about an hour after sunrise, and an hour before sunset. This time provides deep warm and rich colors with which to shoot. In Kansas however there’s about a one in four chance that you’ll get a morning magic hour. The sky seems to somehow jump from darkest of nights to mid day bright with very little sunrise and even less glow to shoot by. The evening is more reliable, providing a suitable shooting light most nights it’s not raining or cloudy. With this in mind, we were also blessed this past weekend with rather unseasonably warm weather (it was 72 today and about the same yesterday) so it proved a good time to get out and put the gear through some more… interesting paces.

My shooting partner and his family own a springy little Rat Terrier, and I’ve always been interested to see if my old D100 could handle action shots or not. So i slapped on the Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro that’s been living in my pack for a while and decided to give it a try. I hadn’t used AF in so long (Most of the shooting I’ve done of late has been macro, and MF is just more accurate there) so it felt a little odd to suddenly be all in on the Continual focus setting. Despite a rough start, and a lot of trial and error, I returned quite happy with what I had captured.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO250 F4.8 1/500s

This is Loki, he was our “subject” for the most part yesterday.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO 250 F4.5 1/640s

One of the first attempts to be properly framed, and almost tack on focus. This little dog could clear three plus feet in a jump so staying with him and keeping him properly in frame were both somewhat ambitious tasks.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO 400 F4.2 1/1250s

Once we had the basic movements down the rest was fine tuning. Getting him to always jump for the ball was a bit of an issue (There’s plenty an image of him staring at the ball just waiting for it to fall to him) but majority were caught mid-air.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO 250 F4.0 1/500s

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO 400 F4.2 1/1250s

By the end of the day he was pretty tuckered out, so we let him rest and took a few shots of his larger and more relaxed companion.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO 400 F4 1/1250s

Chief is a bit more laid back than Loki, so he was willing to pose for the more “Regal” of images.

Today being even brighter and warmer than yesterday, I decided it would be a fun time to try some reverse macro in the mid day sun. I first explored reversing with the rose studio shoot, and it seemed to me that it truly needed to be paired with an incredibly bright fixed light source… The sun seems to fit that fine.

Nikon D100: Reversed Tokina 28mm F1.8
Shot at ISO 400 F5.6 1/500s

It was almost startling how close the reversed lens could get, and yet how fine the focal plane was! This round berry has very little in focus, and was quite a challenge to get a good image of.

Nikon D100: Reversed Tokina 28mm F1.8
Shot at ISO 640 F8 1/250s

On the other hand, this playground sand was much easier to photograph due to it’s flat plane. Again, the image magnification is almost startling.

This mid day light provided a good opportunity to capture some local birds as well, and thankfully there was an interesting duck nearby that was happy to pose.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6DG Macro
Shot at ISO 250 F5.6 1/1600s

All in all, a successful day of shooting. We decided to close it out with my wife and I going out and shooting some modeling pictures in the magic hour right before sunset, but that’s a whole other post for another day. I hope you enjoyed.

~Wes

The past month, in photographs.

I realized this morning that i have not posted nearly as many images as i wanted to. So today, we’re going to have a look at this past month, in photographs. Some of these will have been seen before, some won’t. I’ll include as much information about each as i can, and try to keep them in order of shoot! I hope you enjoy.

Olympus OM-1 with 50mm “Macro” lens. 400iso                                    film.

One of the “nice” things about living in the Midwest this month was a few days of 75 degree weather that allowed for some fun outdoor shoots. This one, in particular, involved a hike to find a “waterfall” that was created when they dammed up a local lake. Unfortunately we made it out during a dry spell, so they weren’t nearly as impressive as they could have been. It did still supply some unique images though.

Nikon D100: Sigma 70-300mm shot at 300mm                            f5.6 and 1/160s.

This is also a product of that hike, even though the larger falls were mostly dry there was still a few smaller trickles and falls that made for some fun shooting.

Olympus OM-1 Zuiko 50mm f1.8 with Fujifilm                                        400iso.

This one should look familiar! It was shot while walking along the man made dam to reach the falls in the wooded area behind and to the left. This was an impromptu shot which is a good argument for why you should always keep a camera handy, and not just tucked in your pack waiting for what you expect to be your “shot”.

Nikon D100: Sigma 50mm shot at f5.6 and 1/160s.

Another “nice” thing about the midwest, macro work outside is almost impossible! The wind is outrageous, and the few times it’s not the heat/cold (dependent on time of month) is outrageous. So, my shooting mate and it, decided to go for some indoor studio macro work. Him and i had both just ordered reverse rings and we decided why not give them a try! The image above is one of the non reversed images i took during the day using my Sigma 1:1 macro, which is great for flowers.

Nikon D100: Shot with reversed 28mm f2.8 at                                    1/160s.

We very quickly discovered a few things with the reverse ring; firstly hand holding did NOT provide sharp images,  secondly the focal plane was (as we had read) razor thin. You can read all about how fine the plane is to work with, but until you try it the extreme of it just doesn’t really compute. We also discovered, however, that the soft focused images that came out of it were definitely not failures as a composition, just something different. I love the abstract, almost ethereal feel of these images, and am happy to post and share them.

Nikon D100 with reversed 28mm shot at f2.8 and                              1/160s.

This one should look familiar as well, it was a product of the same shoot.

Nikon D5000: Shot with Sigma 50mm f5.6 at                                       1/200s.

In setting up the lights and subject i decided to snap a few test shots with my partners D5000, one of my favorite images came from this. It had been a very long time since i’d gone through the hassle of setting up my studio lights for something, this afternoon of shooting reminded me why sometimes it’s worth the trouble.

Nikon D100 Shot with Sigma 50mm at F5.6 and                                   1/160s.

This is the last image for this post, again an image shown earlier but now with some back story. The thing that still never fails to amaze me is the final product you see is a culmination of many many hours of work, both with the camera and getting to the locations. I’ve shot well over 500 images this past month, many of which were very good, but only a handful are good enough to make it out for people to see. I hope you’ve enjoyed.

~Wes

Let’s talk about being hateful.

I’ve shot almost every type of camera you can shoot, film SLR, point and shoot film, point and shoot digital, crummy Vivitar video camera’s you name it. Currently i’m shooting using a Nikon D100 with battery grip and (generally) a Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro lens (i have a few other lenses but this is by far my favorite, and also the most crisp). Given a few minutes and google you can quickly surmise that my D100 was released in 2002, and has been largely “out of date” since about 2004. It uses an old APS Sensor size that by many is considered for inferior to a full frame sensor that has the same physical size of a 35mm film frame. Now, i certainly concede the point that there is a lot a modern DSLR can do that my D100 can’t do. Taking a good image is NOT on that list though. The same principles apply to my 6mp camera as apply to a 24mp camera, if you can’t frame and expose a proper image then your image is not going to be good.

Nikon D100 Shot at F5.6 and 1/160s.

I used a pair of studio lights with diffusers and reflectors to light this in an indoor studio. This rant and thought was brought about as a direct correlation to my current hunt for some new gear. I love my D100, and i especially love my OM-1, but what i don’t love is packing that massive D100 out for nature and wildlife shoots. Unfortunately for me these are some of my favorite shooting situations. Fortunately, i’ve found a solution for all of these quarks. The Nikon 1 V1. Again, not the newest of it’s generation by far, but certainly a great system none the less. My problem is that, among all of my attempts at research i ran into a problem. Every “review” i could find, and every person talking about this new syste of system, had nothing but disdain and hateful remarks to make about it… I’m sure right now most people would say “Well why would you get it then? if everything you read was negative?” the answer is easy for me. Every hateful post, almost every negative remark, was in no way geared at the image quality, nor any specific flaw. No, in fact 90% of what i read can be summed up in “it’s such a small sensor, why wouldn’t you get the m4/3 system? it’s sensor is so much bigger it must obviously take better images.”  . . .

To that, I say again.

Nikon D100 with reversed 28mm shot at f2.8 and                                  1/160s

So, if you don’t understand yet, the things that don’t make a good image; sensor size, megapixel count, special lenses. Things that do make a good image; an artistic eye, composition, exposure, focus. So why did i decide that the Nikon 1 V1 was right for me? Honestly, it’s sensor size is a big reason. The CX sensor provides an effective 2.7x focal length boost, which to me means that my 70-300mm lens just became an 810mm super telephoto. So, while my pack weight and general gear load go down, my wildlife photography capability goes up. On top of that the frame rate, auto focus, and lens selection (including the F-mount lenses, which very easily mount to the V1) are incredible! oh, also, the image quality is incredible. So, before you spend a ridiculous amount of time asking if it has enough megapixels for you, instead ask does it fit all of your needs?

~Wes