Broader fov [s]

My 20mm f/2.8 came today, the one with the 62mm diameter. Doctor Daddy wants me to shoot his kid's first birthday party and the 50mm and 105mm won't cut it. The plan is to foreshorten the crap out of them (below) so they all look like bobbleheads. That's cute, right?



The 20 will likely be my default lens, good for shooting renovations, people, and events.



Speaking of renovations, I've started on the fiberglass insert in the master bathroom. Jon and I learned form the first one that you want to detach the edges first since they're the most solid parts. Though you still have to rip it apart, piece by piece.



I've cleared the rocks out of the top terrace, irrigated it, and tossed on some seeds.



The middle terrace is still greenifying. Also I've patched the various holes made from reducing electrical boxes and carelessness.



Monday is the day one at work. There was some casual celebration.



My next vehicle is going to be a truck. But that's only cause the ft86 is a year away. That'll round out the dream stable: Itie sport bike, high power tourer, beater truck, and light rwd with low miles.



This week is my first head to head with Jon. He was apparently so overcome with confidence in seeing the schedule that he drafted two kickers with the same bye week. He's either still optimistic or unwilling to spend $5 on a trade.

Said by R: '... and then let me homestead on your land.'

Normally I outro with a cute puppy photo, but I found something cuter.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit... [s]

Here's the rundown. Last weekend LT and J of And Four joined James and myself for a couple of dives at the cove.





There were lobsters, fish, a large guitar fish (wish I had someone in the frame), and a sea lion.





Later on this week rfq scored us box seats to see the Friars beat up the Cubs. The nacho and hot dog bar was beyond words.



The mouse is getting bigger and bigger. At the spca training class introduction, Jes said she most loves Kaf for his nigh-human expressiveness. I figured she was just being girly, but found a photo where he is showing pure indignation.



I've only had a few opportunities to use it, but I'm loving the d700. I even took it to Connie's event.

My first F [p]

I had always coveted the F100, but until now I've languished in the N series (or, properly 10-99). With many miles on my D70, the time has come to move up to the D700 (image source), derived from the F100. I'm looking forward to the full frame, cmos, and five fps. Perhaps a Saturday morning at Palomar might be in order.



Barely related, I came upon a circular polarizer for my 105mm. It's amazing what eliminating reflections will do for color - I easily maxed out what jpgs can represent (check out the obvious stepping). Of course, the above image is straight off the camera.

This piece will be clutch when I get back out to autocross since it's always quite sunny and reflecty.



The house has gotten plenty of attention too. I swapped out the crusty old exterior fixtures for shiny new ones.



The new valves throw much easier and, naturally, don't leak.

The irrigation is coming along. I ran a half inch line to the front yard with drip inserts in the necessary places. I'll be good to go should I decide to plant anything under the front windows.

I wanted to run a dripper to the fern next to the steps, but there was no easy way to go across or under the path. So I used overhanging branches to go above the path, where just a few inches of dripper can be seen. With the newfound supply of water, I don't imagine the trees will take too long to span the remaining gap.

The poly pipes were not handling the water pressure very well at the fixture, they leaked out the twist-couplings. To remedy this I epoxied some parts together and added a splitter to the faucet so the other branch could relieve some of the pressure. Tomorrow will be the first test.

The pile of trimmings, sauna pieces, and random junk leftover from the previous owner has been divided between the trash and a nicely stacked woodpile in a useless corner of the side yard. That was most of a Saturday, but I now have an empty area in the front yard and a decent stash of firewood.

And on a final programming note, I'm slowly updating all the tags from my previous posts. E.g. "renovation" will give you all of the home improvement material.

Zones [s]

For this assignment we were supposed to apply the zone system to whatever. Ordinarily one might choose a landscape or something, find the zone iii, and expose as prescribed. I thought it'd be fun to try carefully metering something I couldn't look at, namely welding.



It was challenging, as evidenced by the contact sheets. I spot metered a shadow by looking at the lcd as some welding was going on. Then I refocused, set the exposure, and snapped a few with my hand over my eyes. I can't tell if the polarizer helped, of course I was randomly rotating it and hoping for an ideal alignment.




Grinding.


Erik welds in the driver side cage bar, Ian lends his feet to the effort.

I did dedicate a few frames to the generic zone application. The best part of shooting the grain silo (quarry) was when the dead silent Prius almost ran me over. Andy Bernard would be proud.

Portfolio fin [i]

The portfolio class final presentation was yesterday. There were a lot of visitors, much love to the people that came out. I don't have a copy of my artist statement at the moment, but it basically said "I'm shooting street bikes, cheers."

Check out Connie's photos here. A sample:



And here's what I matted...

Portfolio part I [i]

These are all pretty boring, granted unlike 85% of motorbike shots they have motion. Alas, I didn't get out to Paly this weekend and needed something to turn in today. Thanks Erik and Connie for good work. This weekend will be a different story...

Meat loaf versus steak [a]

A follow up to the prior discussion regarding photography equipment:

Connie: This weekend I was cursing myself for not having the point and shoot.
A point and shoot is, of course, necessary equipment. Bringing it depends on the shoot but there are some distinct advantages:

1. Size. They fit in a pocket or purse and are lightweight. They can get places professional equipment cannot.
2. Versatility. They have a full range of exposure settings and focal lengths onboard.
3. Discretion. Their prevalence means people will notice them much less than an slr. Be it concert bouncers or wary subjects, sometimes you need to keep a low profile.
4. Price. They can be purchased and replaced cheaply. Some equipment, such as underwater housings, are a much better deal for these cameras.
5. Video. Sometimes you want to shoot 640x480 video.
   

Of course drawbacks are obvious:

1. Lower quality images. Small ccds, shoddy lenses.
2. Less power. You're limited to the stock focal range, flash, etc. whereas slrs let you use fast lenses, tellies, flash controllers, etc.
3. Discretion. You can't look like a pro shooting with an Elph. Be it nabbing photo passes or needing subjects who take you seriously, sometimes you need to flaunt the big lens.
4. Lack of modularity. Photo equipment, like computers, shouldn't be upgraded in lockstep. Your body might need to be replaced every three years, your flash every five, your lenses never.
   

Capturing the moment is more important than having ultra high quality, and this is what i realized this weekend.
The essence of photography is capturing the moment. The ideal capture involves an h3d with twenty lens choices, fifty strobes, and two weeks to perfect the setup. Reality, however, reminds us that we'll never have the luxury and therefore must assess our constraints:

1. Media. Are you shooting for a magazine? A photo exhibition? A class? A web site? Based on this you have to determine how many frames you need, who the audience is, how much scrutiny the images will be subjected to. Some of these Yosemite photos I want to enter in the fair, others are for the scrapbook. So some need to be set up very carefully, the others can really just snare the moment.
   
2. Time. When is your deadline? For how long will your subjects be available and willing? Will you ever have the opportunity again? Will each frame be unique or can you take many shots with different setups? I go to Yosemite every year, but check out these awesome clouds. How am I going to compose with my friends hiking all the time?
   
3. Equipment/budget. What equipment do you own? What can you bring? This is going to be a long hike. Better go light. Rain? There's no way I'm changing lenses.
   
4. Skill. Photography is difficult to master. Maybe you dropped a few g's on an umbrella setup, that doesn't mean you can use it. I never learned proper fill flash, so I can leave that back at camp for the night shots.
   
5. Style. You only have to shoot what you think looks good until you go pro and have to shoot what makes money. Oy vey not another photo of a squirrel. Yosemite only looks good through a red filter.
   

Bobby, who's always on the next level, only does point and shoot nowadays. Last I checked he did hipster photojournalism.

1. I could not sacrifice water or other things to carry more weight, hence, only had the 10-22mm wide angle lens and 50m prime. So many cute furry critters that I could not capture with my 10-22mm, nor could I swap out the lens for the 50m since by the time I did that the furry critter was gone. I was cursing myself for not having a larger focal length zoom. Then again, I was cursing myself for not having the point and shoot to capture the cuteness moment.
Wow, that first sentence had more clauses than a family of bears. So your constraints are not having the optimal equipment nor the time to use it appropriately. Recognizing these constraints you have to start making concessions on quality.
The next step down would be two cameras, two lenses, two bags.
Budget constraint? Weight constraint?
Okay, one camera, zoom lens. Or crop the final photo.
Weight constraint still?
Resort to a point and shoot.

2. It didn't matter that I carried an extra lens, with the amount of rain falling, I could not switch out the lens. Rain... was horrible. I was too worried with protecting the camera than taking photos since even the camera bag was getting soaked through. When I did take the camera out for photos, there was no way of preventing the rain from getting onto the lens. I thought that darn, I should have bought a lens hood.
Rain makes photography difficult. In this case, a point and shoot would have suffered more for quality because water on the small lens creates much more distortion than on a 50+ mm lens. Of course, you'll care less about your point and shoot getting wet. Equipment such as tarps and housings can solve this, but sometimes you just have to say it's not worth it (or only worth losing a point and shoot).

3. When trekking with a group of people, it expends much energy to take a photo - there was fidgeting with the camera, wipe the water droplets off the lens, find a spot with least amount of water, etc. To compose a shot, taking the camera in and out of the camera bag (needed to protect it from the rain), and then run to catch up with the group. I just physically couldn't keep doing that, especially since time was an important factor on the hike. We needed to do the seventeen mile round trip in daylight.
That is completely true. I can empathize anecdotally. Shasta was pretty rough and it took all my will power to pull out the n80, frame, meter, shoot, and return it to safety. But I took some of my favorite shots up there, and so it was worth it. Also it was worth it because Arthur had to wear sandals for the next three months.
You really have to assess what you can carry and only pack what's reasonable. But don't be fooled, you'll still have to go beyond your limit. One of the best ways to take unique photos is to carry an slr where few people can.
I'll loan you my copy of Beyond Good and Evil. You can play it in on the Wii while you nurse your injuries. That'll learn ya. And I think between the strong female lead, photography, and cute animals you'll like it.

4. Bulkiness of the pack weight - even with prepping and working out an easy access camera carrying system with a backpack, it still weighed down my shoulders instead of my hips and physically it really hurt on the last six miles of the hike. Physically I just cannot carry so much weight and do a strenuous hike to carry extra camera gear.
Select one of the following:
a. You took too much equipment (photo gear or otherwise).
b. You're too girly... or not girly enough, 'Carry my pack for a while, pleeeease.'
Same as 3. It ain't easy. You have to make a guess as to how much equipment will make the trip suck, and how much will make it really suck. Sometimes you'll guess wrong.

5. Positioning, it's really hard to compose a shot while one is already balancing on the side of a slicked surface rock, on the edge of a cliff that could potentially be one's certain death, with the weight of a pack that throws your center of gravity off, and a line of hikers patiently waiting for you to finish taking a photo, and with rain constantly falling down on your lens, even as you quickly wipe away the drops to take a quick shot. Zoom at that moment is a great thing.
Personally I'd crop, but that's because I'd be worried about the rain getting inside the telescoping parts of my zoom lenses. I have a feeling your big ol' zoom wouldn't serve you well here in spite of it's large focal range. But yes, in planning the trip start with the h3d setup and work your way down to a disposable camera. You may decide to play it safe and use the zoom or point and shoot, ultimately you'll know what was the best choice.

[This'll be a great place to compare your identical photos taken on various trips, send me some links].

The fact was that I was burdened with too many factors of physical fatigue, time factor, weather conditions, etc, that I could not take the photos that I wanted to, and, bottom line, I ended up having a few photos and only in spots where taking a photo was a viable option. All the good parts of the trip are now just left to memory.
Too bad memory is so fickle and subjective. So what's important here, quality or quantity? Of course you only do what you can, but after this experience I think Zion will be much easier. Framing, lighting, and perspective are important photography skills, but so is being able to shoot in difficult situations. You always want to push your limits while keeping yourself and your equipment out of harm's way.

It doesn't matter how smart or athletic one is. Nature dominates and reminds one of their humble place; that we are at the mercy of the elements.
Connie: photographer, adventurer, aspiring National Geographic narrator

Prime or zoom [a]

Connie sent me the link to an oped advocating zoom lenses. For the most part, I disagree. But some worthwhile points are made.

The author's two reasons for getting zoom are:
1. Cheaper; "By the way, if you are not under any specific budget restraints, ignore everything I said and buy that 600mm f/4."

Keep in mind that lens technology won't change much. The focus speed and vibration reduction will get better - marginally. The optics leveled off in 1980, now they may fluctuate according to ROHM, weight, and meeting a target price. You'll need a new camera every few years, but your lenses should survive quite a few bodies. Thus it is much more cost effective to buy an expensive lens. Yeah 10g's is a bit much, but when you're talking $1000 for a good lens versus $1500 for a great lens, spend the extra dough.

2. Laziness; "When I'm precariously balanced on a rock in a mountain stream, or at the edge of a cliff overlooking a great canyon (Zion canyon above), not having to change lenses to change focal length, or not having to move forward or backward physically to improve my composition is a real plus (puffins below)."

He's knowledgeable, but I'm not a fan of any of his shots. Yes, it's all aesthetics. But if he's complaining about the price of a 600mm or having to do the work of an assistant (fetch lenses), he isn't the creme de la creme. Indeed most pros don't change lenses, they change cameras (one lens per camera per assistant). You shouldn't let extra weight dictate your lens choice unless it's going to affect your ability to get the job done.

And he goes on to marginalize the prime benefits of speed, clarity, af speed, vr, minimum focus distance, etc. These can be hard to quantify and always depend on the subject/situation. But the bottom line is you always want the best equipment if it's feasible.

I grant there will be rare times that you will want a zoom lens because there's no time/space to change lenses. But think about the other 99% of your photographic life. Will THE ONE SHOT occur in this 1% or will it be in the other 99%? Could it be that in this other 99% you'll miss THE ONE SHOT because your focus was too slow? Because you paused to compose with zoom rather than snap on instinct?



"When you don't have a lot of room, these lenses can be lifesavers. When you are hiking and trying to save weight this a great way to go."
Depends on the lens. Weigh and size your zoom versus your 50mm and 35mm. Toss each against the wall to see which survives (but don't really). There are lots of factors to consider when you're going outdoorsing.

I'll tell you I did Shasta zoom was a good choice because space was at an absolute premium. And there was no way I was going to change lenses up there. The ideal setup would have been a 15-50mm. More important than focal length, however, was aperture. An f/1.4 would have given so much more light in those early morning hours.



Bottom line:
1. You only need one zoom lens, for the 30-120mm application. At sub-40 you generally want to get the smallest focal length available, so a sub-40 zoom will spend most of its time at minimum. At over 120 you generally want the largest focal length available. Seldom will there be a time that 200 is desirable and 300 is not.
2. Maintain a nice quiver and take out the right equipment. If you're shooting studio you can bring the kitchen sink. If you're going on a dayhike you can take three or four lenses. If you're documenting civil unrest 30-80 might be your best bet.

Connie: Weight doesn't matter for something like a planned shoot where the distance of the subject is in a controlled environment. however, weight does matter for most cases with lens choice. In most instances a person can only carry one or two lenses.
Chris: For Shasta it was one lens. For a dayhike all I need is water, so I could carry my weight in lenses. There are lots of in betweens but I would say that in most instances a person can drive with ten lenses and carry three or four. And remember you can whittle down your choices of necessary lenses as you gather more information on the shoot.

And even if the person carries more, the time it takes to change out the lens for the right one result in missed opportunities.
Depends on the scenario. If you're doing landscapes or macro in the field you have plenty of time. If you're doing photojournalism of people you can use the 35 all day. You're stuck on this lens changing time. It shouldn't be more than twenty seconds (or two seconds to switch cameras).

For example, surfing in MB, even with the 300mm prime, I was limited in what I could shoot. I could not get the entire wave, only the surfer at the particular spot on the wave.
Not true, you could have switched out the 300mm at any point. But you didn't because waves are very wide and not very tall. Anything zoomed less than 300mm would have been boring. I'll grant people might be interested in one zoomed-out shot so they get an idea of what the day looked like. But that's it.



Also you're thinking like a zoomer. That's your new name, zoomer. The solution to getting a whole wave is not to zoom out. That means you end up with a very small subject and a lot of empty space outside the line. A primer would get down lower (yes it's dangerous) and shoot up the barrel (up the shoulder). That way you get the whole wave, don't waste space, have a clear, big shot of the surfer, and have the sweet depth of field effect down the line.

See what I mean when I say prime shooting encourages creativity?

Yes, I could have walked further south of the jetty, but in doing that I would miss out on a portion of shooting.
True, had you walked south into the water you would have missed out on a lot of shooting.

If I changed out my lens, I would miss out on the time to change lenses.
You missed plenty of shots gabbing with my mom. And that's fine, because there were a lot of waves and a lot of rides. You must realize that even if you have the right lens you still need to be aimed, timed (you had a lot that were just a moment too soon or late), and focused (some of these too).

As soon as you're holding the camera at the ready all the time, quick on the trigger, and perfect with the focus you can complain about how long it takes to change lenses. At that point I'll lend you my d70 to use as a secondary.

And what if there was an instantaneous shot that would be good to have both a far-view and a close-up view. I could not do that in one sitting.
Multiple bodies. And like I said, short of Mavs in winter, anything zoomed out is booooooooring.

THE ONE SHOT seems to be easier captured with a zoom.
Let's assume THE ONE SHOT is something photojournalistic, a once-in-a-lifetime scene that never occurs again (if it's in the studio or whatever, you have all the time and equipment you want). What's the most important thing? Timing. When you're snapping at a thousanth of a second, timing is everything. Composing with zoom will take you a second or two. At five frames/second that's five or ten shots that you just missed. For a once-in-a-lifetime occurance, your opportunity could be gone because you wanted to compose.

Sure cropping is a faux pas, but when you have a ten megapixel image, you can probably adjust your framing after the fact.

Let's say you're Solana shark shooting and you suddenly see him breach. Good example, you could sell it to Reuters for bank and it'll never happen again. It's virtually impossible to pan to him in time. But say you do. You don't have time to zoom, so you're better off without the temptation. Every millisecond spent not focusing means more frames - so here focus speed is key. Yes if you had a 1200mm lens there's a chance the frame would miss some important part of the scene. Doubtful. More likely, the less blue water around your frame, the more you'll see jagged teeth and piercing eyes.

Minor factors that could have impact would be lens speed and vibration reduction. For all of these factors prime lenses are superior to some extent.

Now back to the possibility that THE ONE SHOT is in a studio with all the time and equipment you want. What are your concerns? Sharpness? Low dof? Better vr? Focus speed? All these are characteristics of prime lenses. And keep in mind these factors stand out much more in a well-prepared studio shot.

I guess prime and zoom both have their purposes.
Yes, and you are all set on zoom with that fifteen pound monstrosity. You don't need twelve zoom lenses. You need one zoom lens and eleven prime lenses. And carry the ones that are appropriate.