Blitherings – Page 161 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Lens

As a birthday present – a bit early – I got the Nikon 32mm f1.2 for the Nikon 1 cameras. I have the V1. This lens, equivalent roughly to an 85mm lens, has a separate manual focus element on it, unlike the others in the Nikon 1 series.

Yesterday, I went to a local garden, and took a series of pictures. Some I used the automatic focusing, on others I used the manual focusing. I need to figure out how to use it. The main, point, though, of the excursion was to simply evaluate the lens at f1.2, to check the bokeh, to check the accuracy, and to simply see how it worked.

Follows are some of the shots, with some post-processing, just because that is what I do, but I did very little sharpening because that was the main focal point – observe the depth of field of the lens.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the lens, but there is definitely a time and place for such a wide open f/stop. Click on the composite picture below, then click again to enlarge it, if you want to see more of the details.

Regroup, Refresh, Review – and the First Stop

Mojave Sky

Back home after nearly a month on the road. We travelled 6500 miles, drove through ten states, visited friends and family, drank beer and smoked cigars, ate wonderful meals, viewed three national parks on a very limited basis. Countryside ranged from desert to high mountains, with rain, hail, and sandstorms to accompany the sun and pleasures of the summer. Even better, we go along! One of Josh’s friends said, “It must be love if you can spend weeks in a car with your wife.” We had a great time – and time not to just travel, but time to get reacquainted with each other.

In the Mojave

The first leg of the trip was to Flagstaff, Arizona. We spent one night here on the way out, and another two nights on the way back, in a different section of town. It was about a 7-hour drive from home, which is just north of Los Angeles. The first part was a few hours simply getting out of the sprawl of L.A., but once out, we moved into the sprawling Mojave desert as we travelled east. The Mojave is an amazing area – very large, very diverse, ranging from flat and barren, odd mountainous formations, to a sparse lushness with oddities such as the Joshua Tree, which, interestingly, is related to the lily!

Of course, geology changes as one travels, and moving into Arizona, the land certainly did change, especially as we began the ascent into the city of Flagstaff. The first night of the trip was spent in downtown, in an old hotel called the Hotel Monte Vista. We were up on the fourth floor, but on a Saturday night, we could hear the noise from the street below, and the chiming of a local church bell, tolling the hours in the wee hours of the morning (which was off by about 35 minutes, I think). The noise was not distracting, though, and the hotel is centrally located, so walking everywhere was fun. We visited 3 breweries that evening, and found out that trains travel through the middle of downtown with alarming frequency. The view from our window – we stayed in the Walter Brennan Room – was pretty cool. And, better, the windows opened!

The initial impressions of Flagstaff were very favorable. For a small town, it is rather cosmopolitan, and this is, in part, because of the fact Northern Arizona State University is there. There were also some shocks – Arizona’s gun laws and politics are vastly different than what I am used to in California. For instance, signs in restaurant windows telling customers to leave their guns at home, was a significant reminder of the differences.

Certainly food for thought . . . so, for now, I will leave you with Josh pondering a menu on the patio of Beaver Street Brewery.

At Beaver Street Brewery

The Eyes Have It

Every now and again we set out for several weeks, driving all the way, and stopping at various places to visit family, friends, and see the sights. This year is a tour of scenic places, and places with character. Because I want to take some good pictures, I have been going through my lenses and checking them for accuracy in focus. Of course, some lenses are better than others, and some systems work better than others.

The Nikon D7000 has the ability to adjust the autofocus in different lenses, and store those manual adjustments in the menu, for up to twelve different lenses. I have been going through all my autofocus lenses, rather painstakingly, to sort them out. Only one is really out of kilter, and it could be that I just need to send it in to be refurbished by the manufacturer to factory specifications. Needless to say, it will not be traveling with me!

There are a lot of ways to check the focus of a lens, so I won’t get into it here. The final test, though, is on the eyes of my victim. His left eye is the one I use – don’t ask why, I don’t know! Once I like what I see in the lens, I record it by naming the picture with the adjustment in the camera, the f/stop, and file it in a calibrations directory. I’ve heard that lenses should be checked every 6 months or so, and certainly be checked out with any new camera.

Lies

There is the purist in me that says a photograph should never be changed from what the camera took. To change it means I cannot take a picture in the first place.

Another part of me that realizes there is such creative potential in photography – especially digital photography. And, in some situations, it is the only thing that makes a dismal photo worth looking at. For me, color and contrast are always attractive. Together, both change mood, season, emotion, focal points.

Today, I went out to the local botanical garden around noon. There was not the least bit of interesting light, only shadows. I wanted to see what a new lens could do, and was too lazy to get out when the light is particularly nice (meaning get dressed and out the door before 7 a.m.!). The intention was to see how well the V1 does creating panoramic pictures on manual focus – important to learn as the camera is highly automated. A couple came out okay, but they were truly boring to the eye. So, color manipulation and such – the art of post processing.

Creativity or lying?

Off the Limb

Sade Reid

The meetup photo shoot went really well. The models were lovely, and the site, even though it was along a busy street, proved to be a perfect backdrop for the models.

The building has tall columns, long windows, and is completely white. It recalls a Southern plantation house on the front – but it is far from that – it’s an office building!

The building and the models’ clothing complemented one another quite nicely. The models were really fun to work with, and most of us got some pretty good pictures I think.

And, both cameras and all the lenses used worked out very nicely. No need to feel anxious. I do, think, it would have been good to bring the 70-300mm lens, for use with the D7000. The V1 handled itself quite well.