Tag: Nikon D7000

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.

Rose Garden a la Brenizer

Rose Garden

This is my first attempt at creating a stitched image using the Brenizer method. Altogether, 37 pictures were taken, using a Nikon D7000, 85mm f1.8G lens, and manual settings at 1/125, f1.8, 100 iso.

This method is also called a “bokeh panorama” – to learn more about the technique, just google it!

Because this is a “bokeh panorama” the DOF is shallow.  I didn’t have a model, so just used a corner of my house to do this first attempt.  The midline area of the roses are what was in focus, and the rest is outside that plane, front and back.  Not a great picture, but the goal was to try it.

Anyway, 37 pictures at 16.xx megapixels is huge, so, using only the jpegs, I reduced all 37 images to 1000 pixels along the long edge before moving all of them, via LR5, to CS6, using the “merge to panorama” in the edit option of LR, and then letting CS6 automatically do its thing. Some post processing and cropping to create a final, usable image.

Textbook

I am not a fan of manuals and how-to books.  My preference would be to just know everything and not have to learn it.  Osmosis.

That, however, is not something to be done.  For some reason, a painting book is more interesting to me, by far, than a textbook on the camera or software.  It is just not interesting.  But, I am forcing myself to read a text on the D7000, and truthfully, the one I am reading is far more readable than I thought it would be.  I actually am enjoying it, much to my surprise!

The author is pretty good, and besides not being an illustrated repeat of the Nikon manual, it also has little forays into subjects like focus stacking or HDR.  And opinions.  That surprised me.

Today I learned – not in any particular order – about:

  • Interval shooting
  • Setting the camera up to bracket
  • Different kinds of bracketing
  • Various buttons (refresher for some, new for others)
  • Ways in which to use the remote exposure – 3 ways!  (Didn’t always work, though – wonder if I need a new battery.)

Oh, and other things, but that is going to get dull.

On the other hand, I did get an Adaptall-2 mount in the mail yesterday, for a Nikon.  I have a Tamron Adaptall-2 lens, specifically the 80-210, model 103A.  It has constant aperture, and does macro at a about 1:2.  I bought it back in the 1980s sometime, and as I had a Canon then, it came with a Canon mount.  Luckily for me, I have a clever husband, and with some instructions, he dismounted the Canon Adaptall, and put on the Nikon.  It works rather nicely.  The colors are good, and it was easy enough to use.

This was shot outdoors, bright light, ISO 100.  The petals below were shot indoors, handheld, at ISO 2000, and using the macro portion of the lens.

I think I will enjoy using this lens – it’s really pristine, which rather surprised me after sitting around in various boxes for the past 30 years.

I also did a bit of photostacking with mixed exposures – bracketed exposures – which produced good results.  This is a bowl filled with yellow grapefruit, lemons, and bananas.

And I also just enjoyed shooting a box of tomatoes as I was putzing with the camera while I was reading the book.

I was just playing with the focal points, seeing how the camera responded to my choices.  I kind of liked this one.

So, not an enthralling weekend for learning things, but productive and useful.  And all because I read a textbook!