Photo Of The Day 01/18/09 - Mia & a 50mm, 1.4

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 800 Aperture f/1.7 Exposure 1/30 Lighting:  Light from 60 bulb on camera right with some added backlighting from window

If you listen to the podcast, This Week In Photography (TWIP), you know they recommend everyone get a fast 50mm lens.  I got mine this past summer.  If you read my original POTD post you know that I chose it to be the only lens I use for my POTD photos.  I thought the fact that it is a prime lens and I can only zoom by moving my feet would make me work a little harder to compose a good photo and hopefully help me improve by adding that restriction.  We shall see at the end of the year.

Continue reading after the break for more details.

I also knew that having an aperture of 1.4 on this lens would be a huge help and offer a lot of flexibility.  This photo of Mia is a great example of that.  This photo was taken indoors, the only light is what you see coming in the window behind Mia and a 60 bulb to the camera right.  Yes, I cranked up the ISO to 800, but that is not out of a typical range and because of the shake reduction built into my Pentax K20D, I am able to hand hold the camera at 1/30 of a second shutter speed.  But being able to have the aperture wide open, letting in bucket fulls of light really adds a ton of possibilities.  And I did not even have the aperture at 1.4, I dropped it down to 1.7.  Probably not a huge difference, but I think it helps with sharpness a tad.

Because I am a visual learner, I added some images to help demonstrate the difference in aperture.  The first lens sports an aperture of 3.5, still somewhat big.  But compare that to my 50mm wide open at 1.4.  I think the difference is apparent.  Just imagine how much more light can pass through the 50mm.

Of course with such a wide open aperture comes other added complexities, such as a smaller depth of field for focusing, but we will get into that on another day.

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr

Thanks for reading my ramblings, and here is another photo of Mia, just because she is so darn cute!

Reverse Engineering an Avocado

Ok, perhaps not exactly reverse engineering anything, but that is what came to me and I found it funny.  Here is the truth. Messing around on Twitter I found @HamToastDotCom and went to look at his website and Flickr page.  I found his macro photos very interesting.  After reading his post, "Reverse the lens, how and why" I decided to give it a try.

Read the story after the jump.

Not having anything very exciting to photograph come to mind I started walking around the house.  Enter the kitchen and I see an aloe plant sitting in the window.  Perfect!  The light coming in from the window will eliminate the need for any flash and an aloe plant looks kinda cool.  So I flip my lens around, yes, that is the whole key to this.  Take the lens off the camera, hold it backwards right up against the camera and make some interesting macro shots.  It is all outlined in the post I linked to above.

Since the post tells how the wider the lens, the greater the magnification I grabbed my Tokina 19-35mm lens and went to work.

The first think I learned was you gotta get close.  Real close.  As in a matter of inches.

Fortunately I figured out before I started that I need to set the aperture manually.  I went for as wide open as the Tokina lens will go.  A not very impressive 3.5.  Then it is just a matter of finding the focus.  This is done by changing the distance between the camera and the subject.  Simple enough.

As I am moving toward and away from the aloe plant trying to find the very small focus point I learn my second lesson.  With such a small field of focus and such a high magnification, any bit of movement changes the photo drastically.  A steady hand is important.

Having a steady hand is much more difficult when it is mid-morning and one has already had a pot of coffee.  Next time I'll have to switch to decaf.

None the less I got a couple photographs.  The first one is at 35mm, the second, closer to 19mm.  Not great focus, but it was my first attempt.

But aloe was beginning to bore me.  What else can I photograph with my new found macro lens?

Avocado! Quite possibly my favorite food.  I love it simply mashed with a little lemon, a touch of salt on a good cracker.  What will I think of it "reverse engineered" in a photograph?

Umm, not too bad in the first photo at 35mm.  It looks like an avocado up close.

But at 19mm, it is looking a little less appetizing.

Later in the day at Cold Stone I got a frozen yogurt with raspberries mixed in.  This photo has my current favorite lens, my Pentax 50mm 1.4.  So, not as close as 19mm, but it lets in a ton of light.

I think it might be time to stop using food as my subject for macro "reversed lens" photography.

I hope to make more photographs with a reversed lens.  If you want to follow along, check out my Reversed Lens set on my Flickr page.

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Photo Of The Day 01/17/09 - Bundled up for ice cream

In October 2008 the Vaughn girls, Olivia and Mia's best friends and neighbors moved to Wenatchee, Washington.  We have been able to keep in touch with Jaeda & Britt through the magic of technology with Skype, email, and such.  However, there is nothing like actual playing together.  Especially for young children.  This weekend their mom had to come in town for work and she brought the girls for a surprise visit.  Well it was not a surprise for Jennifer and me, fortunately.

For the rest of the story and more photos, continue reading after the break.

When the girls showed up, Mia and I were the only ones home.  Mia is sooo cool.  When Jaeda and Britt came in she was very smooth.  She was happy to see them, but acted like she just saw them last week and would see them next week.  While we waited for Olivia to come home, Mia talked Jaeda & Britt into playing a little Mario Kart - Wii.

Olivia, was much more explosive.  She did the typical scream, jump, hug and yell.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me.

Since Debra came to St. Louis for work, we got the girls for the whole day!  We only hoped it would be enough time.  The day started with typical talking, playing and catching up.  There was a lot of Nintendo DS playing by the older girls, while the younger ones went out to swing.  I only had my BlackBerry and that camera sucks, so I went with my newest fascination, BlackBerry flipping.

After lunch we had to get out of the house.  We looked into bowling and ice skating, but the timing did not workout.  Instead we decided to go to walk to a park and then to the Loop to rent a movie.  It was a little chilly, so we had to bundle up, but nothing could stop the girls from showing their affection for each other.  I was able to grab a photo of Mia and Britt walking together, holding hands.  Olivia and Jaeda were also snuggled close together with their arms locked, singing, talking and laughing.  Unfortunately, they did not want to have their picture taken.  It is really too bad, because it was the sweetest thing I have seen in quite a long time.  Two friends, really enjoying their time together.  Fortunately at the park, they let me get a couple photos.

After about an hour at the park we walked the rest of the way to the Loop to rent a movie.  Somehow the girls talked me into getting ice cream.  Sure, why not?  Ice cream is great when it is 40 degrees.  It was a good thing though, because that is when I got my favorite photo of the day.  Little Britt enjoying her ice cream, all bundled up.  I think the colors are great with the red background, although I think the composition could be a little more interessting if Britt was moved to the right side of the photo.  Probably something I can use cropping to improve.

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 400 Aperture f/2.4 Exposure 1/45

Lighting:  A giant window behind the camera with the store's lighting

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr.  Or see all of my Flickr photos.

Photo Of The Day 01/15/09 - Mia Underwater

I have missed the past three days due to life.  I was not sure about today until I was helping Mia with her bath and she wanted to get her hair wet all by herself, a common theme with Mia.   She wanted to know if it was ok that she kept her eyes closed, because she did not like water in them.

Nothing else fancy about the photo, it pretty much is what it is.  I did a bit of color correction and other minor adjustments in Lightroom.

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 400 Aperture f/2.0 Exposure 1/30

Lighting:  Tungsten light fixture bouncing off yellow walls & white tiles.

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr

Photo Of The Day 01/11/09 - "...all by myself!"

Once again, I skipped having a POTD yesterday simply because I was crabby.  Not a good day for me to be creative.  Today, however, Mia stepped out of her room dressed from head to toe in her pretty pink princess outfit.  Everything from the Cinderella tiara, to her full length gloves, all the way down to her Belle princess heals. 

As she came out of her room, she exclaimed, "I dressed all by myself!"  A very proud young girl. 

This photo is probably not the best photo ever, but again, I am using my POTD as a learning experience.  The trick to this shoot was Mia's patience.  From the first photo to the last, it was less than five minutes.  Mia just does not have the patience to pose for photographs.  As a matter of fact, when I asked if I could photograph her, her first response was, "No."  I talked her into just a couple and then she came out with a classic Mia line:

"Ok, but I am taller because I am wearing high heals."

I guess she did not want me to cut off the top of her head due to her new found height.  I took about a dozen photos in the time with the few I was using a "voice activated light stand" as coined by the Strobist.  Olivia started with my flash on camera right and moved over to camera left.  She was not real focused and not having fun, so by the time I got this photo, I was holding the flash with my left hand. 

The reason I chose this photo is because I was trying to balance the ambient light with the flash and still be able to see the lit candles in the background.  It worked, almost.  The candles are visible in the background, but I don't like the shadows from them and the tv cabinet they are on, so that tells me they are being lit by the flash.  Arrgh!

None the less, a cute girl in an ok photo.  Below are a couple others of Mia in her princess outfit, a little taller than usual.  Including one using the "old photo" preset in Lithgroom.  For the rest look at photos tagged, Mia in Flickr.

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr