Out with the old, In with the new.
Over the past few months I have fallen into a creative rut with my photography. I decided that the lenses I have been using were a huge barrier. The lenses I have been using since taking up the photography hobby are the 18-55 IS f/3.5-5.6 kit lens and a 75-300 f/3.5-5.6 telephoto. With these two lenses I have an enourmous amount of reach. Between the ranges of 18-300 I can capture just about anything I need to. However, both are very mediocre in quality and at 300mm the telephoto is a bitch to get a photo that isn't blurred or intensely distorted. So, that being said I made a leap of faith. I sold them both and bought a single 50mm prime f/1.4.
First reactions from friends and family include "Soo, you can't zoom?" and "That wasn't really a good idea." No, I can't zoom in or out now because I only have the single lens, but was it a good idea? Yes... I am officially in love with primes. It is obvious to me now that it is more important to capture a GREAT photo instead of TONS of mediocre ones. Not to say that I didn't grab some great shots with my other lenses, but none of the clarity that I am getting now.
Yesterday, my fiance and I went to a classic car show at the Wiregrass mall in Wesley Chapel, FL. There were hundreds of people walking around all of the cars so it was difficult to get any shots, especially at the 50mm range, but I did manage a couple without people walking in front of me.
Enjoy!
50mm @ f/2.8 ISO 100 1/800
50mm @ f/2.8 ISO 100 1/8000
The photo of the Porsche shows that I am still learning which aperture is best for certain situations. Before, when my only options were 3.5+ it wasn't as big of a deal to choose the correct aperture, but you can plainly see in this photo that 2.8 was too wide. The right side of the car is sharp and in focus, while the left side is slightly out of focus. Had I used f/3.5 or f/4 I would have achieved sharp focus on the entire front end while still throwing the background out of focus. However, the photo of the old (Ford?) above is sharply in focus using f/2.8, and that is because the car is sitting square in the frame.
Puerto Rico!
This photo was taken with my Canon 50D. The photo inside the photo was taken at the fort in Old San Juan by our tour guide. The picture was just... meh... but the photo of the photo is something we'll put on the wall.
Photo of a Photo, Old San Juan
I dropped down this ledge to get a good shot of Suzette, I thought it was a great composure. That photo is further down, but the one you see here is a photo Suzette took looking down the ledge at me as I was composing the shot of her. It was taken with a Point and Shoot Canon SD750.
Here is the photo I was composing in the above shot. I love how the shadow on the wall almost gives you a second perspective on the image.
Up the Ledge
I love this next shot because the silhouette of the palms really grasps the emotion of the scene. This was overlooking a beach from a cliff a couple hundred feet up.
Dark Palms
Downtown Old San Juan. At first I dismissed this shot and it ended up in my discard pile, but the more I looked at it the more I really felt like this was a candid shot of a local and less of a shot of downtown.
Candid Local
These dogs were growling and playing with eachother in this back alley while tourists such as myself were walking by not too far away.
They pay no mind to the tourists until one of them stops with a camera and tripod to take a picture.
Dogs in the Alley
This is where it gets scary. The dogs started running toward me in the middle of my second photo. I waited around for as long as I could until I was in fear for my life and had to snatch up my camera and haul ass.
Turns out they probably just wanted some food, but that doesn't make it less scary.
You can see the blur of the dogs on the left side of the frame.
Dogs in the Face
Mustangs and Tampa’s Sunset Cinema
My girlfriend, Suzette and I recently went to the Tampa Theatres Sunset Cinema to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid under the night sky. What an amazing venue first off, second, if you're going to bring your camera anywhere make sure the battery is charged. I don't have any photos of the cinema setup itself because somehow I brought the wrong (nearly dead) battery pack.
On our way into Downtown Tampa we passed a small classic car show and decided to stop in and snap a few photos. The red 65 Mustang below gave me a little inspiration for my 68 restoration project.
When we got to the Sunset Cinema Theatre in Downtown Tampa, Bank of America was passing out red balloons to the kids. Which for a theatrical situation seems like a really poorly thought out idea, seeing as the organizers of the event told everyone to all but get rid of them before the film started. We probably single handedly killed a thousand sea turtles that day. But, it made for some pretty cool photos. For the following shots I was fully zoomed to 300mm at about f/4.
99 Red Balloons Fly By
98 Red Balloons Fly By
For this next one I was sitting in the middle of the grassy park area in Downtown Tampa with skyscrapers all around. This photo was taken at 18mm f/3.5 ISO 400ish shooting into the front element of my 70-300mm.
Downtown Tampa in the Lens