Lensbaby Photo Hunt

  A couple weeks ago I was listening to an episode of The No Name Photo Show Podcast.  They were talking about specialty lenses such as fish-eye, tilt-shift or macro.  These are lenses that have a specific purpose and are not going to be used for everyday shooting.  One of the hosts described these as "funk-buster" lenses.  Whenever he gets into a rut, he'll put one of these lenses on his camera and force himself to shoot something a little out of the ordinary.  Another lens that fits in this category is the Lensbaby.  Lensbaby lenses are a type of selective focus lens that gives you a small area of sharp focus and very blurred backgrounds. 
  Around the time this podcast was aired, Lensbaby announced a photo scavenger hunt.  They gave a list of 10 subjects and a few weeks to shoot the pictures.  I thought this sounded like a great idea.  When I mentioned it to Kristi and the kids, they all thought it sounded fun as well and started giving me ideas for some of the shots.  It took me right up until the day before the deadline, but I was able to get a picture for all ten subjects.  All of the following pictures were shot on my Canon T1i with a Lensbaby Composer with Dual Glass Optics.

1. Every Morning

The easy answer for this would have been to shoot a sunrise.  But, the whole point of this is to go beyond the easy.  My original thought was to get a picture of cars at the drive thru at Timmy's or Dunkin.  Kristi gave me the idea of toothbrushes.  This is a real good example of the selective focus of the Lensbaby.  I have also found that I tend to like the 1:1 square crop with Lensbaby shots.

2.Round and Round We Go 

This picture was all Hannah's idea.  After I finished shooting Lexi for the #3 picture, Hannah had me come over to the other side of the playground.  This was an interesting picture to shoot, as I had to climb to the top of this part of the playground and lean over the spiral shooting straight down.  We tried a couple different poses but with her sitting criss-cross, framed within the loops worked the best.

3. What Goes Up 

This was a challenging shot to take.  Catching a shot on swings is a feat using a traditional lens with fast autofocus.  The Lensbaby is an all manual lens and can take a little work to get the focus dialed in to where one wants it.  I had to get the focus about where I wanted and hope I caught Alexis when she was at the right spot. 

4. Wide Open Spaces 

This was one of the last pictures I took for the project.  The pictures had to be posted by the Saturday September 30th.  It so happened I was off on Friday the 29th.  After I did my morning errands, I headed up to Niagara Falls.  Crossing into Canada by myself on a weekday is always an adventure.  The Canadian Customs never want to believe that I'm going up by myself to do things like take pictures for fun.  As soon as I cleared customs, it started raining.  I was able to hold out until the rain died down to a light drizzle and get my shot.  I wanted to get something more than the plain shot of the Falls.  Having the viewfinder in the foreground helps convey the scope and openness of the shot.

5. All My Friends 

This is my favorite picture of the shoot.  Early on, we came up with the idea of a group of stuffed animals for the All My Friends shot.  I just hadn't figured out how I wanted to make that work.  I was considering setting them up in chairs around the fire pit or something like that.  Then, I had the idea of having a book bag overfull of animals.  The kids got their book bags and a bunch of animals and we fit in as many in as we could.  After I took some shots of Zach by himself, I had Hannah join him.  Once they were both lined up, I had them hold hands and then I had them look at each other.  Once I got this shot, I knew right away that this was the shot I was going to use.

6. Time 

For this shot, I added an extension tube to the lensbaby so I could get a macro shot of the watch.  Here you can really see the selective focus of the lensbaby. I initially wanted to get a long exposure shot that had a sweep of the second hand, but since the second hand on this watch ticks with each second, I ended up with what looked like multiple second hands instead of a blurred sweep.  Since I couldn't get that effect, I went back to the shorter exposure seen here.

7. A Real Hero 

This is my least favorite picture of the shoot.  I'd like to think I could have done something a little more outside the box for the theme of this picture.

 8. Coming Home

This is the last picture I shot for the photo hunt.  I had no idea what to do for Coming Home.  Ironically, I came up with this idea as I was heading home after shooting at Niagara Falls.  This picture is along the same lines at the picture for Every Morning, with an abstract shot of an item that is essential in the completion of the topic.

9. Slow Life 

As I was driving to Veteran's Park to shoot #7, I noticed these two sitting down by the river.  Fortunately, they were still there after I shot my other picture and made it back to Niawanda Park.  But then again, it is the slow life and they're not in any hurry to get anywhere.

10. Dig

While I was shooting Hannah's picture for Round and Round We Go, Zach was just minding his own business digging in the wood chips under the playground.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the stories that went behind them.  I had a blast shooting them.  That being said, I am looking forward to putting a lens on the camera that is sharp and easy to focus.  Like it was mentioned in the beginning of the post, this is a special use lens and is not meant to be a daily driver.  If you do have a chance to shoot something like this, by all means put it on your camera and go have fun.

That's about it for now.  I have a couple ideas kicking around for next week.  Happy Shooting everyone.

Back Behind the Shutter

Hello everyone,

I've been away from the blogosphere for quite a while.  Mainly, I've been keeping my postings to Facebook.  However, I've recently been doing a couple of projects in photography that I'd like to share and require a little more room than Facebook gives.

As time went by, life started getting in the way of photography.  Sure, I've still been shooting, but I wasn't as passionate about it as I had been.  I was pretty much just shooting things that came up, I wasn't going out looking at things to shoot.  The problem with that is one does not grow in the art that way.

The thing that first got me back into the photography bug this summer was when I inherited my grandfather's camera.  My Grandfather, along with my Dad were the two people that got me interested in photography when I was growing up.  I got my first camera when I was in Middle School.  The was a big, rubberized, bright yellow point and shoot camera that leaked light and didn't always completely rewind the film.  When I got in high school, my Dad gave me his Canon AE-1.  This was an awesome camera.  It produced great pictures, the controls were easy to use and could do so much more than a new photographer could want.  I used this camera regularly all throughout the 90s until it's age finally got the better of it.  The ISO selector wheel was a little damaged when I got it and through use got worse and wouldn't hold it's position.  If I didn't catch it when it slipped, this would throw off my exposure.  The light seals in it were also starting to wear out.  I took it into a camera store to hopefully get fixed up, but they told me there wasn't anything they could do.  They were happy to sell me a shiny new EOS though.

While my father gave me my first camera and initially got me into photography, my grandfather was the one who taught me photography.  Photography was always a big part of his life.  After every trip he went on, we'd gather in the living room for a slide show of the vacation pictures.  We saw pictures of African Safaris, the Berlin Wall, Moscow behind the Iron Curtain, the Great Wall of China.  Grandpa taught me how to not just take pictures, but photographs.  He taught me how to use the aperture and shutter speed to get the pictures I wanted.  He gave me books on photography.  He critiqued my shots and help me improved.

My Grandfather had a Konica A1000.  It's pretty similar to the AE-1 I was used to.  The shutter priority auto exposure worked pretty much the same as on my old camera.  The shutter speed dial, aperture ring, film advance lever were all in pretty much the same spot.  It felt like an old friend in my hands. The first thing I did once I was given his camera, I went to the store to get some film.  I wanted to get slide film since that's what Grandpa always shot.  Unfortunately, that was a special order item.  So, I picked up a couple rolls of Kodak T-Max 100 since this was always one of my favorite films to shoot.  I loaded it in Grandpa's camera and started shooting.

I immediately noticed a couple things I wasn't used to from shooting digital.  The first was the lens.  Back in the day, SLR cameras shipped with a nifty fifty, 50mm f/1.8 prime lens.  This is a fast sharp lens that, when fully open, can give a paper thin depth of field.  Having the prime lens forces one to think about composition a lot more than a zoom.  Since you can't just turn the barrel to zoom in, you need to re-position yourself.  When you do that, it's easier to move not only front to back, but also side to side and up and down.  The zoom can make you lazy.

The other big thing that one thinks more about with film is exposure.  There's no full automatic, no LCD display in the viewfinder, and the aperture adjustment is a ring on the lens.  In the viewfinder there is a needle that moves up and down to indicate proper exposure.  There's also no preview window so no chimping to see if you got it right.  This was more of an adjustment for the kids than me, when I answered the first "Can I see it?" question with "In a couple weeks once I get the film developed".  Between not being able to look instant results or histogram and only having 24-36 tries to get it right, one tends to slow down and make sure to get it right.

But, enough talking about photography.  People don't go to a photo blog to read about photography, they come for the photos.  Here's some of the pictures I shot:

Portrait of Hannah

Alexis and Kristi with Henry

Playing some yard games

These were all from my first roll of film.  I've always been a fan of back and white.  There's a simple elegance with the interaction of light and dark, without color getting in the way.  For my second roll of film, I went with Rollei 200 color reversal (slide) film.  This film is know for warm, subdued colors.  In a lot of the pictures, this ended up being a yellow color cast.  I don't know if I would end up getting this film again.

Washing the car 

Hannah at Niagara Falls KOA

This one is my favorite of the batch. The subdued colors give this a vintage look.

So, that is my reintroduction into the film world.  After these two rolls of film, I dove a little deeper into film photography.  I dug out one of my old camera bags and found my EOS Rebel 2000 with a partially exposed roll of film from about 7 years ago and a Canon AE-1 Program that I picked up from ebay at around the same time.  I also found a 1950s era rangefinder camera for $4 at a thrift store.  Right now, I have the roll of Tri-X 400 from the EOS, a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 slide film from the AE1 and  Tmax 100 from the rangefinder en route to the lab for developing.  I'd like to eventually get into developing black and white film at home.  

If you are still with me, thank you for reading.  I'll hopefully have another post coming in a week or two.  I'll be stepping back into the digital world and telling you about the photo scavenger hunt I have been doing.  

Be happy, shoot often,

Rik

Memorial Day at Forest Lawn Cemetery

Here are some pictures from the flag placing on veterans' graves at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY.  There were people from local VFW, American Legions, JROTC's, local military, boy and girl scouts and people from the community.  The Airman in the first picture is a member of the 914th Airlift Wing in Niagara Falls, NY.

f/3.5@1/1000 sec 28mm iso 400

f/4.5@1/640 sec 50 mm iso 400

f/4.5@1/320 sec 50 mm iso 400

f/2.8@1/2000 sec 50 mm iso 400

I'm back

Hello friends,

I know it has been a while since I have posted on here.  Sometimes we can't help it when life gets in the way of things. For those of you who are still reading, thank you for sticking with you.  Even though I haven't been as active as I would have liked, I haven't completely let photography go by the wayside. 

In the time I have been away I have finished my NYIP unit three photo assignment.  I will let those pictures be a bridge back to sharing pictures with you.  I welcome your critiques on opinions on these as I do all my pictures.

Photo 1: Using sidelighting to emphasize surface texture.

1/1600 sec at f/3.2 ISO 100 30mm

Even though this is one of the first pictures I took for this unit, this one gave me most trouble.  Whenever I made time to shoot this, I was reminded of the fact that the sun does not shine in Buffalo between the months of December and April.  I had picked this fire hydrant as a potential subject for this shot.  I was lucky enough to catch a brief break in the clouds one late afternoon.  The street behind the hydrant had the potential of being a cluttered and distracting background.  I used a shallow depth of field and framed the hydrant tight in the frame to minimize the distractions in the background.

Photo 2: Using backlighting to enhance the subject.

1/160 sec at f/5.6 ISO 100 50mm

This photo of my daughter was taken at the playground at Four Mile Creek State Park.  The swing set was situated in front of the setting sun and the sun was just at the top of the trees.  I set my exposure based on a meter reading I took away from the sun.  I used the sunlight behind her to give a halo effect to her hair.  Even though her eyes are closed, the expression on her face captures her personality while playing.  If there was one thing I would have done differently, I would have used a slightly faster shutter to reduce the blur from the swinging and get a sharper picture.

Photo 3: Using “open shade” to photograph a person outdoors.

1/100 sec at f/3.5 50mm

This picture was taken this past December at Glen Park in Williamsville, NY.  This park, and the small waterfall in it, is a popular location for wedding photography.  This is the one picture in the unit that I used Aperture Priority instead of manual exposure.  With the trees, snow and water in the park, there was one to two stops difference in lighting throughout the park, and my daughter was moving too quickly for me to keep up in manual.  In this shot she is standing on a cut off branch a couple feet off the ground.   I had some other pictures from this shoot that I had considered using, but my wife liked this one the best.  Since part of being a photographer entails taking pictures other people will like, I chose this one.