I’m still experimenting with the bulb setting, but this time, I’ve gone outside. (I’ve been in the back yard, mostly for security reasons.) I’ve noticed that a lot of the pictures in the back yard on bulb come out yellow, but that has to do with the lighting from what I understand. I don’t want to use the flash, mostly because you can get better results at night with bulb.
I do have an 80B filter, which removes yellow, but it doesn’t fit the 50mm f/1.4 lens I’ve been using and that’s the one I’ve been getting the best results with. (I know I can fix it in Photoshop.) I may try using other lenses just because the 50mm has such a limited range of view. The Sigma 28-90 I have may work. I think it even takes a 55mm filter.
As for the ones that I’ve taken, I have been playing around with them in Photoshop. I even posted one with a diffuse glow, which I think came out pretty well. I think with the bulb setting, it will take a lot of practice to get it down. I’ll probably post some other attempts latter this week.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Bulb setting at night
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
laserpointer 4961
It’s funny what you can accomplish with a small piece of technology. My father got me a laser pointer and I’ve been playing around with it. It helps that I started playing with the bulb setting on my camera. For those that don’t know, the bulb allows you to hold the button down to keep the shutter open for as long as you like. This can be used for several purposes, including showing the path of stars.
This picture was taken by pointing both the camera and the laser at the vertex of my room and moving the laser in a very tight circle around said vertex. For a picture like this, it helps to have the lights out and to take the picture at night. Otherwise, you get a very bright picture.
Had I been looking to show you the color of the wall, I could have used the flash to capture the wall. Since the flash fires for an instant, the room returns to dark and doesn’t add any information or value to the pixels. It’s only if I use the laser pointer that anything changes.
I’ve been playing around with the laser pointer, pointing it at different things. In an adjacent picture, you can see what happens when I make the circle a little bigger. Since I’m not yet capable of creating a perfect circle, you can see distinct lines. (It’s much easier to keep the laser in a more confined space for some reason.) You also get a clearer definition of the vertex.
I may post some of them later. (Note that the number at the end of each title is usually the number that the D50 assigns to the picture. Thus, a lower number indicates something that I took earlier.)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Junebug 5013
Yes, it’s been a while, but I thought I’d start back up. The primary reason for this is that I’ve gotten several new toys, one of which is a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens. For those that don’t know, this is a film lens (which can be used on a digital body) to get great photos. The low f-stop gives the blurry background. I was able to get this picture of my brother’s cat, which my mother loves. I have to admit that I do like it, even though the top of the ears are cut off.
I’m not so sure I’ll be taking more pictures of her in the near future, as I got a bite on the hand from her for my efforts. I’m not sure if it’s that she was upset by the flash or if she just likes biting people. It might be a bit of each. (For the record, I had the flash pointing up towards the ceiling.)
I’ve been able to get a similar photo of my cat, Pepper. The lens is great for portraits, but I have to stand back a lot farther than I’m used to with the 28-90 lens. The part about this lens that I like is that you can get the blurry lens. I’ve also noticed that I don’t have to use a flash a lot of times. (That’s another advantage of a low f-stop.)
I’m hoping to post a photo or two a week. I’ve also got a new memory card that I’m testing out which is supposed to put the location of the photo into the EXIF data, but I haven’t gotten that to work very well yet.
