Vacation splash

This photo was taken at a beach in Mexico using my Lumix DMC-FX01 point-and-shoot camera (I'd feel very nervous holding my Nikon D70 this close to moving[and flying] salt water). Another great reason to have your point-and-shoot around...you can stick in places you couldn't (or wouldn't) stick your DSLR. I took this photo for this month's photo assignment for a photo club: "vacation". I think the beach setting and the care-free feel to this photo meets that assignment's theme.

Party's over

This was taken at my mom and brother's birthday party after the pinata was broken, and all the candy was collected by the only child at the party...JCO. I like the mood of the picture. His expression kind of looks like he is thinking something like "..is that it? Is it over?"

Like father like son

Here's a couple of shots of JCO enjoying a couple of his father's pastimes; photography and fishing. The first one was originally a grainy (due to high ISO) underexposed picture, but I liked the way the soft light (big window with blinds partially shut) wraps around his hair and face as well as highlights the camera. I also liked the pose; as if he was taking a moment away from his shooting to acknowledge that I'm there. I tried the black and white conversion and a little softness around the edges to give it that timeless look. What do you think?



The second shot was taken in the backyard where he likes to sit in his play boat and pretend to go fishing. I wanted to take advantage of the late afternoon sun and try out some strobist techniques. I placed my SB-600 flash on a tripod camera left put it into CLS mode. I shot in manual mode at the highest sync shutterspeed (1/500s on my D70s) and set the aperture to underexpose about 1 to 1.7 ev. I then set the on-camera flash to commander mode manual where I could dial in the flash output from the camera's menu. This is the first time I used the commander mode in manual mode...pretty cool. I was pleased to be able to dial in some fill from the left to balance out the sun to the right. I'm still trying to learn some of the off-camera flash techniques and, after this shoot, I feel like I have a long way to go.

Never-the-less, I'm glad to have captured these shots of my son doing (or pretending to do) the things I enjoy.

More Lavender

The family went up to Valley Center, CA this weekend to see the Lavender Fields . My wife loves lavender. We've got several plants spread around our yard. I thought it would be a good opportunity to shoot some more macro-style shots. I also wanted to travel light since we had JCO in tow. All I used was my 50mm and +3 close up filter.

I was a little disappointed with the shoot but here's one of the shots I took of a bee "working" the fields. Apparently they produce lavender honey that the gift shop sells. I think I could of used some more depth of field. I tend to shoot in the extreme apertures when I use this lens (f/1.8 or f/22). I need to learn to spend some more time in between. I think an f/5.6, perhaps, might have brought more of the long flower into focus. Alternatively, I could have aligned the camera's plane of focus to be parallel to the flower.

Perhaps in a few more weeks the flowers will be in more full bloom that would make for more colorfull photography. As of this past weekend they were only partially blooming.

Fun with Adrian

This weekend I was having fun with my 50mm f1.8's shallow depth-of-field, soft diffuse overcast light, and my 1yr. old nephew who has recently learned to walk. This a great age to photograph, where they are interested in you and in the camera so they look at you and make interesting and cute expressions. They are also not quite too mobile yet and therefore easier to focus on without heading for you and grabbing the camera or zipping in and out of the frame like my 2 year old does.
I'm also enjoying the simplicity of the editing tools in Google's free photo editor, Picasa. After learning some of the complex tools and enduring the long start up time of Photoshop CS, Its refreshing to have a light and easy program like Picasa to process family photos. I've been thinking about trying Adobe's Lightroom to help me with workflow, but for now, I'm going to see how far Picasa takes me.

Juan and Sandy

I had the great opportunity to shoot some pre-wedding pictures for my wife's cousin, Juan, and his fiance, Sandy. This was probably my second "official" assignment. What I mean by official is that someone asked me to be a photographer and produce material that they will use. The first assignment I had was to photograph an open house event for my company. (Perhaps I'll post some examples of that assigment in another blog entry.)

Juan and Sandy's assignment was pretty fun. It helped that I knew them well, and they trusted my ability to get decent shots. Right at the start of the shoot, realized that I had no clue on how to pose people or couples. Luckily, they had some ideas of poses they wanted. Throughout the shoot, we tried different things, some that worked and others that didn't.

Since we started mid-afternoon with the sun peeking out of the clouds in the western sky, I used flash throughout the shoot and shot into the sun. I originally wanted to shoot everything with my 50mm lens, but quickly decided to switch to my 18-200mm zoom for maximum flexibility. I also intended to shoot using manual exposure, but the light kept changing with the sun peeking in and out of the clouds. What I found quite effective was to underexpose using exposure compensation of -1 to -1.7 to darken the sky and ocean in the background and illuminate the main subject with off-camera flash triggered by Nikon CLS. I tried practicing this technique with my son at the same beach at sunset with some good results. However, I think I need to understand it and work at it some more.

I hope they like the pictures.

Lavender

I tried out some close-up photography of the flowers that were blooming in our yard this weekend. For this I put a closeup filter (+3, Hoya) onto my 50mm f/1.8 and shot around the yard. I am pleased with the calming semi-abstract images that resulted.

I'll try this screw-on alternative for a while before spending the $$$ on a macro lens (like the 105mm Micro-Nikkor f/2.8G VR).

Perhaps a trip out to the Anza Borrego Desert is in order...The wildflowers are in bloom...or they were a couple of weeks ago...I think the peak is over...perhaps next year.