Try Something New!

Lately, I have been working extensively with bokeh, or blur shooting. So, tonight I took to the streets of downtown Akron to shoot more but this time capturing a slice of life in the rain. All of these shots were fired with my 50mm fixed focal length lens. Therefore, you will not see zoom in and zoom out shots. 


These are shot with a wide open aperture or opening. When the aperture is wide open, a photo has a lot of background blur because the Depth of Field is limited. However, when an object's distance is farther away from the lens, less blur occurs. One advantage of shooting wide open is the amount of light that is allowed to enter through the lens and hit the camera sensor increases, thus allowing you to shoot in lower light. DoF shooting is a whole different subject which I will not even try to cover here. 

Walkin and Shootin

Just more casual shooting

Hatton Gradeschool

Went to a local grade school this morning when it was 22 degrees and no one was around! It amazes me how much photography is right at the tip of our fingers as I walk around. 

Tiny Icicles

I love photography because it allows me to just walk, observe, and record nature's beauty around me. On Saturday, I walked the shores of a local lake looking for photo opportunities. It was pretty cold, but not bitter cold. As in any typical day, I just started firing shots to wake my mind up to see what is around me. 


I started out going right to the shore. Nothing popped out at me. I looked at these trees hanging out over the water, and thought they looked sort of boring. But as my eyes probed the shore, I caught a glimpse of these tiny icicles that formed on the bottom of this very small twig and the photography alarm went! I just had to record that and I found what I was looking for! Since I was using my 50mm fixed focal length lens, I had to get close to the twig because these lenses do not zoom. I had to lay on my stomach, elbows in the lake where there was just a little water, and finally shoot.  


As I continued walking the shore I found another branch that had icicles on it too. Never in my life had I seen wee little icicles near the ground on a twig. Glad I got to record it. Let me know what you think!

First Snow Practice Session

This was an interesting shoot. I faced several challenges that really forced me to manipulate my manual settings on my camera. My challenges were to produce shots with the lowest amount of "noise" or graininess, set a shutter speed fast enough in low light to eliminate people-blur, and shoot without flash, but still be slow enough to allow light to hit my subjects. Flash will totally ruin studio shooting because it totally lights up the room and overrides the strobes that are being used. Moreover, it flattens faces, etc; so I had to shoot without it. 


So, I employed my low-light zoom lens, tripod, and corded remote. The corded remote prevents even the most subtle movement of the camera when you press the shutter button. Once all these components were in place, I started firing. I continuously pushed the camera settings to try to shoot with an ISO of 400, however, I ended up using 800 for most of the shots. That really doesn't matter if you are only producing small prints because the grain is not as noticeable; however, if you are planning on producing poster shots, a low ISO is required. 

I love 50mm black and white photography!

Black and white photography is one of my favorite types of photography. It is so much easier to capture good value range with lights and darks and it shows details details details. Since these shots are fired with a 50mm lens, there is no zooming in and out, and the output is actually just as you see it. It is a different type of photography, however it is very rewarding! The quality of the glass in the lens delivers the crispest of images, and the blur (bokeh) is outstanding in throwing unwanted areas out of focus. I hope you enjoy these!

One of the great features of the Canon 50mm lens is its ability to blur parts of the photo not in focus, thus creating a unique photograph with slices of focus that lead the imagination on!

Oreo Cookies...My Favorite!

I used a shop light to light up these cookies, then I got my macro lens and shot 1:1 ratio, which means the cookies will take as much of the print as they do the viewfinder. I fired these shots at an aperture of 22 which slowed my shutter speed down enough to require a tripod. They look yummy!

Antique Lear Bass Guitar

These were fired off my tripod at at ISO 100, shutter speed 1/10, and aperture value of 9. Some of you may ask me what all that means...well, to successfully shoot at these settings, your hand will not be still enough and you need a tripod. 1/10 is one-tenth of a second shutter speed time and aperture of 9 means the cameras aperture opening which allows light in was somewhat narrowed to allow some blur to occur. This combination of settings will produce a very nice print. 

Overcoming photography "Writers Block."

Writers block is frustrating when you want to take photos. Sometimes I will just take my subject and start shooting that subject from a bunch of different angles without stopping to consider what it will look like. Most of the pics will not be kept, but there will no doubt be a good keeper! You will be surprised by the pics you come up with!

What goes through my brain when I am shooting?

I wish I could see the way you do. That is one comment I hear fairly regularly. You can! I know that everyone is not a pro photographer and it takes time and a great deal of practice to become one, but there are a few fundamental ways you can improve your photos. 


1. Determine your subject and reduce clutter. In the example below, There is no clear idea of what the main subject is in the photo on the left. We assume it is me, but there is a dog house, the blade of a windmill, a swing, a back wall, and other distractions. Our goal should be to simplify our photos, so we need to ask ourselves what is important to the photograph and what should be left out. In the example below, the swing is necessary. However, we cannot say the same for the dog house, that back wall, the blade of the windmill creeping in. Look at the cropped "after" image. By eliminating all that clutter, the photo improved dramatically! Practice eliminating clutter when you are shooting!. That said, when you have no choice in the matter and you must include clutter to get any shot at all...always take the shot!

Coming up: Rule of thirds.

Cereals

Just some cheerios :-). I shot these with a mid aperture opening to cast some of the photo out of focus. The clear focused shot was fired with a narrow aperture to capture all the details. All of these shots were fired at ISO 100, thus requiring a tripod because the shutter speed is too slow to shoot in your hand.

Coinage

Thanks for the ideas everyone! This is a coin shot. The bottom coin is an Eisenhower dollar coin, four quarters, and one dime on top. This was tripod shot and I fired with a narrow aperture to capture all the details.

Hershey's Kisses

This is a series I shot with my dedicated macro lens. This type of photography should ideally be shot with a tripod and slow shutter speed, a low ISO of 100, and a mid-sized aperture opening. The benefits of mid to upper range cameras is they allow you to have this type of flexibility to get the shot you want. 


This shot is a Hershey's Kiss peanut butter cookie. Yummy. 

This is obvious! you may notice I did not center the Hershey's Kiss in either of these photos. Perfectly centered objects can be boring. Placing them off center suddenly adds interest. On the bottom photo, I even ran the candy out of the pic a little. That can add interest too because you don't need to see the entire piece of candy to know what it is, thus causing your viewer to use their imagination. Try these pointers out! You will start bringing your pics to life.