163. Selective Focus - July 24-30, 2016
Kevin-
Now this Selective Focus theme was my idea. And I had a perfect concept in mind for what the photo would be. But when my intended subject had to cancel the night before the scheduled shoot I discovered that I really didn’t have a good back-up idea in mind. Not that I didn’t capture images. For instance some flowers in the garden that I hoped would look interesting.
There was also a butterfly sampling the flowers. Okay to capture I guess, but the photo was not something I would hang on the wall.
There was a rain chain that hangs near the front door of the house. And the forecast called for heavy rain. But the rain never came. I tried using a hose to spray water up on the roof where it would tumble down the drain and the rain chain, but it was just a fraction of the water that I heavy storm brings. So it was boring.
I traveled with Byron and Jerry to Prescott, Wisconsin as Byron wanted to show us a rail line he had photographed for WPOTM - Week 120 - Parallel Lines, but my image was simply a repeat of his shot.
Then a train traveled the opposite direction, and this wasn’t bad, but it was still nothing special.
And the images I captured without a train seemed dull.
So I hauled the dominos to the studio (yes, I know, dominos again) wanting to capture minimum depth of field as well as motion blur. It was necessary to crank up the ISO as to get the motion blur I had to using the constant modeling lights of the studio strobes for the exposure, not a pop of flash.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. One light in a large gridded-softbox and the other in a small gridded reflector with a red gel. ISO 800, f/3 at 1/40th of a second. And it only took about one second for the entire row of dominoes to fall.
So I have lots of images. But it was far from a great week.
Now this Selective Focus theme was my idea. And I had a perfect concept in mind for what the photo would be. But when my intended subject had to cancel the night before the scheduled shoot I discovered that I really didn’t have a good back-up idea in mind. Not that I didn’t capture images. For instance some flowers in the garden that I hoped would look interesting.
There was also a butterfly sampling the flowers. Okay to capture I guess, but the photo was not something I would hang on the wall.
There was a rain chain that hangs near the front door of the house. And the forecast called for heavy rain. But the rain never came. I tried using a hose to spray water up on the roof where it would tumble down the drain and the rain chain, but it was just a fraction of the water that I heavy storm brings. So it was boring.
I traveled with Byron and Jerry to Prescott, Wisconsin as Byron wanted to show us a rail line he had photographed for WPOTM - Week 120 - Parallel Lines, but my image was simply a repeat of his shot.
Then a train traveled the opposite direction, and this wasn’t bad, but it was still nothing special.
And the images I captured without a train seemed dull.
So I hauled the dominos to the studio (yes, I know, dominos again) wanting to capture minimum depth of field as well as motion blur. It was necessary to crank up the ISO as to get the motion blur I had to using the constant modeling lights of the studio strobes for the exposure, not a pop of flash.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. One light in a large gridded-softbox and the other in a small gridded reflector with a red gel. ISO 800, f/3 at 1/40th of a second. And it only took about one second for the entire row of dominoes to fall.
So I have lots of images. But it was far from a great week.
Paul-
You had to know I'd do something with books. Come on…I’m a Librarian.
Kudos to Kevin. This was the kind of theme where, if you knew what you were doing and/or stuck with it long enough, you could get a great shot with just about any subject. (I’m not telling you what camp I was in for this week.) This is a good thing because, as I write this, I’m hopeful I going to see a broad spectrum—if 5 people can be considered a broad spectrum of anything—of techniques, tools, topics, and tinkering.
(I like alliteration. Sue me.)
I remember reading somewhere—and feel free to call me out on this if I am wrong—that using a zoom lens would provide a measurably different depth-of-field result than that of a fixed focus lens (or even another zoom lens with a different focal range) when all three were shot at the same f-stop. “Measurably” is probably the wrong word to apply here, and the point I am try to make is likely murky, too. But my first round of shots with a 55-200mm zoom set at f/5.6 gave me a much more satisfactory (and selective) focal range for what I was try to achieve than the 18-55mm zoom (also set to f/5.6) I used later in the day. So why is f/4.5 listed below? I believe this is an EXIF value based on a confluence of factors such as construction, optical capabilities, and zoom ranges irrespective of same maximum “listed” f-stop I used on each lens.
Likely, all of you would know better than I.
Incidentally, when I set up this shot, the books where already set up in exactly the order you see. So it was really a providential thing to see a book titled “Uh-Oh” sitting pretty much where I wanted the focused area to be. Turning it upside down was just something silly I felt needed to be done.
While everything around him was getting hazy… : 55-200mm lens at 60mm; aperture priority; spot metering; ISO1250; 1/30 sec. at f/4.5. The camera was hand-held, though I later tried some shots (at various settings and locations) with a monopod. In post, I tinkered with the cropping, saturation, contrast, backlight correction, deepening, and “film” selection—al found in either Adobe Lightroom or PhotoScape.
You had to know I'd do something with books. Come on…I’m a Librarian.
Kudos to Kevin. This was the kind of theme where, if you knew what you were doing and/or stuck with it long enough, you could get a great shot with just about any subject. (I’m not telling you what camp I was in for this week.) This is a good thing because, as I write this, I’m hopeful I going to see a broad spectrum—if 5 people can be considered a broad spectrum of anything—of techniques, tools, topics, and tinkering.
(I like alliteration. Sue me.)
I remember reading somewhere—and feel free to call me out on this if I am wrong—that using a zoom lens would provide a measurably different depth-of-field result than that of a fixed focus lens (or even another zoom lens with a different focal range) when all three were shot at the same f-stop. “Measurably” is probably the wrong word to apply here, and the point I am try to make is likely murky, too. But my first round of shots with a 55-200mm zoom set at f/5.6 gave me a much more satisfactory (and selective) focal range for what I was try to achieve than the 18-55mm zoom (also set to f/5.6) I used later in the day. So why is f/4.5 listed below? I believe this is an EXIF value based on a confluence of factors such as construction, optical capabilities, and zoom ranges irrespective of same maximum “listed” f-stop I used on each lens.
Likely, all of you would know better than I.
Incidentally, when I set up this shot, the books where already set up in exactly the order you see. So it was really a providential thing to see a book titled “Uh-Oh” sitting pretty much where I wanted the focused area to be. Turning it upside down was just something silly I felt needed to be done.
While everything around him was getting hazy… : 55-200mm lens at 60mm; aperture priority; spot metering; ISO1250; 1/30 sec. at f/4.5. The camera was hand-held, though I later tried some shots (at various settings and locations) with a monopod. In post, I tinkered with the cropping, saturation, contrast, backlight correction, deepening, and “film” selection—al found in either Adobe Lightroom or PhotoScape.
Jerry-
I went for a close up with my trusty old 55mm Micro-Nikkor attached to the Sony A6300 with an adapter (Vello, the high end brand from China) and took photos of my wife's day lily. The Sony was set to aperture priority. It's neat with the electronic viewfinder that it brightens up to a useful level even when the lens is set to something like f11. For this shot, the lens was wide open at f3.5 and the ISO set to 200. The camera chose 1/1000 for the shutter speed. I brightened it up a bit in photo shop and cropped a bit off the sides.
This photo was taken last Sunday afternoon. This Friday we had some tree trimmer guys (arborists?) and they took quite a few branches off of my neighbor's silver maples that were getting scarily close to our house. One of the lopped off branches took out the lily and left the flower on the deck to bake in the sun. Oh well, I kind of expect some damage when serious trimming takes place and to only lose one plant was perfectly fine in my mind. Cindy didn't seem to care much either. Nice to keep those big Maple branches from falling on our home. I have attached the phone photo of the detached flower, sort of a sad end to a pretty flower.
I went for a close up with my trusty old 55mm Micro-Nikkor attached to the Sony A6300 with an adapter (Vello, the high end brand from China) and took photos of my wife's day lily. The Sony was set to aperture priority. It's neat with the electronic viewfinder that it brightens up to a useful level even when the lens is set to something like f11. For this shot, the lens was wide open at f3.5 and the ISO set to 200. The camera chose 1/1000 for the shutter speed. I brightened it up a bit in photo shop and cropped a bit off the sides.
This photo was taken last Sunday afternoon. This Friday we had some tree trimmer guys (arborists?) and they took quite a few branches off of my neighbor's silver maples that were getting scarily close to our house. One of the lopped off branches took out the lily and left the flower on the deck to bake in the sun. Oh well, I kind of expect some damage when serious trimming takes place and to only lose one plant was perfectly fine in my mind. Cindy didn't seem to care much either. Nice to keep those big Maple branches from falling on our home. I have attached the phone photo of the detached flower, sort of a sad end to a pretty flower.
Don-
I went back up in the mountains on Thursday for a little fishing.
I caught a few fish and took some flower pictures for the WPOTM
Theme. The wildflowers are blooming up high so it turned out
to be an opportunity for fun photography. I got a lot of pictures
I liked but these two became the ones I like the best with the bee
being my favorite. Size I liked out of the camera an chose not to
crop. As with all my photos these days I put them through camera
raw only. Camera raw seems to do all I need to do.
I went back up in the mountains on Thursday for a little fishing.
I caught a few fish and took some flower pictures for the WPOTM
Theme. The wildflowers are blooming up high so it turned out
to be an opportunity for fun photography. I got a lot of pictures
I liked but these two became the ones I like the best with the bee
being my favorite. Size I liked out of the camera an chose not to
crop. As with all my photos these days I put them through camera
raw only. Camera raw seems to do all I need to do.
Byron-
The most fun part of this weeks submission was when Erl saw the picture and thought it looked really good and she asked if she could have one. She thought the tasty spheroid was the size of a doughnut hole. I told her she could have many of them because they are "Reese's Puffs" Breakfast cereal. For some reason she lost interest at that point. I mounted my camera body on a Nikon bellows and used an enlarging lens. The lighting was one Nikon flash firing through a softbox. It was positioned about 45 degrees behind the bowl of Reese's Puffs.
Lens f11, shutter speed 1/100 sec, flash set at 1/2 power, subject eaten promptly after the shoot.
The most fun part of this weeks submission was when Erl saw the picture and thought it looked really good and she asked if she could have one. She thought the tasty spheroid was the size of a doughnut hole. I told her she could have many of them because they are "Reese's Puffs" Breakfast cereal. For some reason she lost interest at that point. I mounted my camera body on a Nikon bellows and used an enlarging lens. The lighting was one Nikon flash firing through a softbox. It was positioned about 45 degrees behind the bowl of Reese's Puffs.
Lens f11, shutter speed 1/100 sec, flash set at 1/2 power, subject eaten promptly after the shoot.