A whole new world

The front yard, the backyard, the kids, the laptop.. every little thing was looked through fresh eyes.. lens + eyes that is and here are some results.

Rosemary bud..(actual size is about little one's pinkie nail!)

It is very difficult to take pictures of moving subjects where you are taking pictures so close at this magnification. Was trying to follow this bee for a good five minutes and all I got was this! More manuals have to be studied before the bee can be captured up close. There is also the fear of getting stung!

The hibiscus bud was still enough to be captured..

This one is a magnolia. Never knew this bud was this hairy!

Was inches from this rose.. practically touching it and still got a picture!

A red geranium bud from our front yard..

To capture my joy at this you have to realize what scales we are talking about .. this is a photo to show you size reference..

Now for my favorite subjects who posed for me so well.. especially when the camera was inches from their face and they had to stay still.. very very still!

and the earings! Never knew we could do a focus so sharp on an area so small and leave everything blurred. (please note, I have got this effect with the 18-200 set to 200mm when focusing on birds 20 feet away. This though is increrideeblllllllle!

The adventure with the lens will continue after thursday!

For now it is back to work and a busy three days.

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Lights, Camera.. Macro!

A new addition to the camera bag this weekend!!!

The Cannon 50 mm Macro lens. A Metal body lens with .5x Magnification and a very crisp focus and goes down to f 2.5! Was a little out of my price range (~300 bucks) for a long time but recent events with health and mental state have made me realize that sometimes this life is too short for holding off on some little "aasais"..

Have taken only 10 or so shots with it this evening and I am still learning to do a good job on the manual focus and the results are very very nice. All these three photos were only cropped and bordered from the originals.

It also seems to be very nice as a generic prime lens..

Now thinking that I should go for an eye check up tomorrow. Maybe it is time to wear reading glasses?!

Saturday morning, mini idlis, TV, sunlight dancing - photoblog

A looong weekend has started... one breakfast done.. two more to go!

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Lens envy

While we were at the Queen Wilhemia Tulip garden yesterday, there was a big crowd and a photo session happening in front of us.

We did not know if the marriage was happening in front of us or it was just a post wedding photography session, but was amazing to watch the way people took their time to pose, get the group dynamic going and the photographer trying to arrange this group shot!

Having tried to assemble 40+ relatives for a family shoot at my Grandparents anniversary ceremony, the difficulty of orchestrating something like this dawned on me again and was in awe at the way this photographer was "conducting" the group.

While the families (us and the cousins) were mostly looking at the wedding dresses, trying to figure out who the groom was, etc. etc. (the kids constantly kept screaming.. who IS she marrying in there?), yours truly was all focussed on the photographer lady's gear.

She had diffusers on her camera that looked like giant cups, a lens that would make my lens look less endowed and a battery pack that was part of the camera and visible almost 80 feet away!

She would run back and forth to the crowd, simply because here instructions would not carry in the noise of the ocean. Yes, this place is a block from the beach, right next to the SFO zoo entrance. Every now and then she would go on a clicking spree and her flash would be so faithful to her.

My 50mm lens was dropped on the ground (after two bounces) and the lens popped out of the housing during our Sacramento zoo trip, the day after thanksgiving. While trying to exchange lenses to enable zooming on a snow leopard that had suddenly decided to give darshan to its waiting devotees, I dropped the lens because it looked up and growled at me.

Not used to being growled at by snow leopards and having a camera and two lenses in my hand, the 50 mm just jumped up and fell some 8 feet away and was in two pieces. It was pushed back in and held with some crazy glue and found to be still functional, but with some caveats.

a. Manual focusing only
b. The lens had to be held against the body at all times (or it would pop out)

After seeing the photographer do her magic, told myself that the 50 mm would be used as much as possible and still get decent pictures. Well, 20% came out good, but that 20% was still worth sharing...

Here are four more photos...

Sometimes old and damaged equipment can still give you good results.. if you are pissed off enough to take it up as a challenge!

I know this is counter productive to justifying my getting a new lens... but the truth is, as they say, the truth!

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The new find

The long quest for a unscratched lens was ended on Sunday. Realized earlier this month that my chances of getting a lens would increase 4 fold if I bought a used lens. (No three digit purchases were allowed).

Finally got a 50mm f/1.8 Canon II lens.

The hand instinctively tries to zoom and realizes that there is focus.. focus.. and fantastic sharp focus only!

Takes great shots without flash and great macro shots.

Here are the first few shots with this lens...

I am in love.. more so than ever before!

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