Friday, June 4, 2010

New lenses

So this is a little backwards, but as I said in the last post, I was excited to process photo from my trip to the suburbs so this took a back-seat.  While still in Egypt I started to grow dissatisfied with my zoom lens due to a number of factors.  I had started to notice the sharpness I wanted wasnt always there, and I realized that whenever I was using my zoom, I was either shooting at 17mm or 50mm, nothing in-between.  Since the project had Nikon lenses I got a chance to try out some primes for the first time in my life and I found what I had been looking for.  I returned home and decided to off-load my flash unit that I never used and my zoom lens (which I still very much liked mind you) for 3 new lenses; a 20mm 1:2.8, a 55mm 1:3.5 micro(macro, Nikon is weird), and a 50mm 1:1.4.  Thus far I have recieved and used my 20mm (see last post), my 55mm, and my 50mm is on its way in the mail as we speak.

The greatest thing hands down about primes I believe is that it makes you a better photographer by limiting you to a certain focal length, which makes you deal with distance to the subject on a whole different level.  If you can't get close/far enough you either have to abandon the shot, or are forced to find a new way to make it work, something that zoom lenses don't really hold you to.

The quality and sharpness is really amazing too.  As long as you are mindful of the effects of diffraction fixed-focal-length name-brand lenses made by the camera companies are the way to go.  while third-party lenses can introduce AF problems, ones produced by Nikon for use on a Nikon body work wonders, and the less glass and distance the light has to travel through really make for a better image IMO.

Here are some images I shot fairly soon (often the very day) upon receiving my 55mm and then my 20mm lenses.

55mm 1:3.5 Micro
My trusted 17-50...you will be missed....

20mm 1:2.8

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Growing up in the burbs

When my Wife and I decided not to have kids we almost by default shut out an aspect of American life that we could never live ourselves, just observe;  life in the suburbs, raising your kids.  While upon moving to WI we did live in a more suburb-type environment, there are things that I know that I missed since my parents were Immigrants and their ideas about how they wanted to raise my sister and I in that environment were more ad-hoc than anything else.  not to mention that intra-neighborhood socialization was not really a thing w/ our family.

My nephew is a different case.  he sees his world through the lenses of his friends and experiences living in that environment.  Like I said, I have hints of the ideas, but it wasn't until I sat down in front of the computer that I realized the way I was shooting was trying to capture the world through his eyes; maybe to get a better idea for myself what it must feel like.

on another level entirely, this is the first post (though not the first photos, I was just excited about this batch) shot entirely using my new 20mm 1:2.8 AFD lens.  the thing is amazingly sharp and the AF is nice and snappy, definitely worth trading in my flash and zoom lens for.  just waiting for the 50mm to arrive in the mail...

This is also the first batch of images after figuring out how to actually integrate Lightroom efficiently into my work-flow.  The program is amazing, offering a light footprint with the ability to seamlessly integrate w/ photoshop when I need more control.  The batch processing options are also great, watermarks are now placed automatically instead of my having to do each one separately, hamdulillah!

enough blather, images!

Oh animals, ever present...
some kids get all the best toys...

The next set are my nephew enjoying his slide.  I know, a departuere from what I was talking about before, but I like em.