Weekend backyard fun

Although there were storms around on Friday night, the weekend was beautiful in our neck of the woods. The lovely wife is the green-thumb of the household, so she was having fun in the back yard. I took pictures.

It just happened that as the sun went behind the trees, the light got really good. If you don't know already, the hour around sunset is called the 'Golden Hour' or the 'Magic Hour' for a reason.

These shots were all taken with the Canon 5D and a 50mm f1.4.

Watering the plants... looks better with nice light...


Wash out the background with the bright sky? No problemo.


And when she starts to get a bit tired of the paparazzi treatment...


I took the opportunity to play with the Kenko extension tubes that were a birthday present last year. These all use the 20mm 'mid-size' tube, still with the 50mm.

Details, details


Plants


Flowers


Bugs



Using extension tubes is a great way to get some macro shots without breaking the bank for macro lenses. As with anything else, the light really makes it, so even these shots were helped by the nice evening light.


Have a great week everyone... make the time to play with your toys!

Don J.

New Toy Time... Gorillapod, Extension Tubes, Lensbaby

My wife kindly went to a camera store and bought me a lightweight knockoff of a Gorillapod, knowing that I would go pick out the one I really wanted. Very cool... today I made it over to Competitive Camera and walked out with a few new toys. Happy Birthday to me!

The real Gorillapod is very cool, and I think it will allow me to leave the "real" tripod at home on an international trip next month. I will review that later...

Gift #2 is a set of Kenko extension tubes... I enjoy Macro photography, but I do not do enough of it to justify a true macro lens. Extension tubes go between your lens and the camera body, allowing any lens to focus closer and become more macro-capable. You do lose some light, but not any sharpness as with a "close up" filter that screws on the front of the lens.

There are three extensions in the kit, 12mm, 20mm and 32mm... and you can use them in combination.

Quick test (full review after some use) says this is good!

There is very little downside to these. My quick test pics showed a great deal of potential, and this is very user-friendly.

For a quick comparison, here is an un-cropped shot with the Canon 5D, 24-70mm lens, set at 70mm.

Canon 5D, 24-70mm, f2.8, 1/60, iso 1000

(The lack of sharpness is because I was handholding these... yes, I could have used the Gorillapod!)

With all three extension tubes stacked on, (64mm of extension) I could barely fit the "F" into the frame.

Canon 5D, 24-70mm, extension tubes, f2.8, 1/5, iso 1600

Notice the exposure change... even bumping the iso up to 1600, the shutter still dropped to 1/5.

Also, the depth of field is very shallow at f2.8, but at least with this method, you can control the aperture and get some more depth if the light is available.

Present #3... Lensbaby Composer...

I have been wanting to try one of these for a while... a cheaper alternative to the tilt/shift lenses. It is difficult to explain the effect. Essentially, you get to pick a very specific point of focus in the frame, and everything else is wildly out of focus.

My quick take... it is painful for quick shooting. Manually changing aperture with the "aperture disks" and manual focus means you have to be very deliberate. It will take some time to really experiment and get the most out of this thing. If I keep it that long... tbd. I do want to try this at some football games, so who knows.

Here are some shots from Reunion to show the effect. All of these are shot on the 5D at f8.

I like the effect of making large things look like toys or a diorama...

More testing to come, but these are definitely fun gadgets, and very good for making you think creatively.

Happy Shooting,

don j.