Recently, I sold my beloved 85/1.8. I find it hard to live without a fast lens, so as a temporary, workhorse prime, I picked up (another) 50/1.8. I forgot how much I love this lens! I’ll cut straight to the pics of my amazing kids…
Pictures: 40D + 50/1.8 – All Natural Light…
And yes, as usual, these are very contrasty and have some “interesting” compositions…
And Lastly, one of my favorites…
I just wanted to share a couple of pics of my new watch. My lovely wife gave this to me for Valentine’s, and I am in love with it. I have used my phone as a watch for more years than I can count, so it is awesome having a REAL watch… one that attaches to my wrist! I love it so much, that I had to take a couple of pics. So, without further delay…
Picture 1: 40D + Pentax Super Takumar 50/1.4…
Picture 2: 40D + 18-55 Kit Lens @ 18mm…
Wow. Somehow it has been almost a month since I have posted on here, or even taken a picture with my 40D. I have used my phone camera a bit, but due to some situations in my personal life, I haven’t been very motivated to go shoot. Well, now I’m back in it…
Last night on the way home from work, I decided I should start shooting again (I say that as if it’s been years lol). There was a cool sunset going on, and even though I was running late, I made the effort to stop and pop of a few rounds. The below pic is the result.
The neighborhood you see off to the right is mine, and my house is just barely out of view. It has been raining quite a bit over the last few days, and all the fields around my house are flooded, which can be seen in the pic. I would have gone out a little further for a different perspective, but I didn’t want to wade through a make shift swamp to do so.
This was shot with my 40D, and 18-55 + Wide Adapter. I gave it a mild HDR process for strength, but kept it just about as I saw it…
I hope you all like it…
On January 30th, 2009, Kevin ‘Kdubb’ Webber passed away in Austin TX.
Kevin was a friend to more people than I can put a number on, and he was an exceptional husband to his wife Nicole. Anyone who knew him will tell you that he was not only a great & fun guy to be around, but he was also an extremely loyal friend who was always there for his people, no matter the circumstance. He lived life like a rockstar, and always made sure his friends came along for the ride. When he passed, he left behind an an amazing wife, a family that loved him dearly, and an enormous amount of friends that were devastated to see him go.
His memorial was Saturday January 9th in Rockwall, TX, and the turnout was amazing, and awing. Everyone came to remember him, and show the great amount of respect they have for him. Some people drove in from Austin (myself included), Houston, and someone even flew in from Nebraska. Most of us knew each other already, and in some cases hadn’t spoken in years. Others were new to some of us, which brought about the opportunity to make new friends. I know that Kevin would have been SO happy and taken aback to know how he brought us all together, reconnected old relationships, and created new friendships. Truly amazing.
The majority of us stayed at the Hilton in Rockwall, which looks over Lake Ray Hubbard, and makes for a great place to hang out with friends. We spent almost the whole time there, at the bar. Kevin loved many things, one of which was Makers Mark Whisky. Since we were there for Kevin, and didn’t have to drive anywhere, there ended up being a lot of drinking in his honor, and more toasts to him than I can count. Both Friday and Saturday, we opened the bar a 3pm, and closed it at 12am. By the end of the weekend, we had gone through 5 large bottles of Makers Mark, a few other types of liquor, and literally all of the Hilton’s Dos Equis (my drink of choice), Miller Lite, and FireFly. Collective tabs came in upwards of $1,000 – $1,400, per night. A great time was had by all, minus the serious parts, and nothing really got out of hand. Just a good weekend with good people, respectfully honoring a fallen friend.
A good friend of mine, Ben Sassani, shot Kevin and Nicole’s wedding in Mexico, and I think it would be great if all of you would go check out those pictures. They are amazing, and really give a good glimpse into not only the relationship that they shared, but also the kind of person Kevin was. Please go HERE.
Below are a few of the pics that I snapped this weekend. In hindsight, I would not have used he kit lens with a wide adapter quite as much, and would have gone with the 85mm. This wide adapter really kills the quality and clarity of the shots, which I didn’t realize would happen ahead of time. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20, and as my lovely wife has taught me, when the pictures are for memories, they don’t have to be perfect.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I did taking them…
So recently, after some trades and whatnot, I found myself with just 2 lenses. One was a killer all manual Pentax Super Takumar 50/1.4 , which I love. The other was the Canon 85/1.8, which by all respects should have a red ring and be labeled as an “L”. It is easily my favorite lens… ever.
Since I use a ‘crop’ body (1.6 sensor), the 50mm shoots at about 80mm, and the 85mm shoots at about 136mm. This is WAY too long for a lot of what I like to shoot, so I needed to go wider. My options were a cheap wide angle, or trade the 85/1.8 for something like a Tamron 17-50/2.8. I was very close to the latter, but I just love the 85 too much to let her go, so Monday I picked up and 18-55 Kit Lens. This lens is thought by many to be sub-par, but after have 6-7 of them in the past, I know from experience that they are very underrated. They are very sharp when used properly, and you can get some GREAT images with them.
When I bought it (SUPER cheap, thank you Sarah-the-Seller), I also got a wide angle converter that attaches to the end of the lens to stretch the 18mm out a bit. Between the converter and the lens is a ring that steps up/down in size, and is usually JUST a metal ring. When I took this one off after I got home Monday, I realized that this ring has glass in the middle, and says “macro”. Too my surprise, it actually does make a solid attempt at macro’s.
Let me be very clear in saying, Macro’s are NOT my thing. I think they are fun to play with, and can have great effects, but it isn’t something I will use very often at all…
With the macro ring on the lens, there is absolutely NO focus, auto or otherwise, further than about 6-7 inches from the focus point, and the DOF is EXTREMELY narrow. This makes it VERY hard to use, and if I even sway a 1/2 inch, the focus is lost. However, I really like the effect I get with this, and the result is more than worth the trouble (in my opinion).
I thought I would share a few pics I took last night. I think it’s obvious which ones are with the wide adapter and which are with the macro ring. These were just playing around, and not really prepared at all. I just threw a hot-light on the stand, asked my amazing wife to stand still, and did my thing.
Canon 40D (gripped) – 18-55/non-IS Kit Lens – One Hot-Light set up high and model-left…
While most people went out on the town for New Year’s Eve, my wife and I stayed at home with the kids. I know what you’re thinking, “Like, OMG Becky, how could anyone have fun at HOME with KIDS!?!” Well, I assure you that it was awesome. We had a great time hanging out with them, and even let my 7-yo son stay up to see the ball drop at midnight. Good times were had by all, and multiple toasts were made to a number of different situations. Happy New Year!
Below are a few pics I took that night. I didn’t keep the camera out long, which is not typical of me, but I got a few quality shots (I like them at least). These were all taken with the 40D + 85/1.8, handheld, and natural/ambient lighting (no flash). I hope you all like them… And yes, I realize that the progression of the pics is pretty funny… lol
I love Christmas. What a GREAT time of year! I thought I would share my experience this year with all of you!
We spend Christmas with family in Dallas every year. Usually the weather is cold, and sometimes wet, but almost never white. In fact, in my 30 years of spending Christmas there, I do not remember a single, solid snow fall. Well, things changed this year.
We left Austin Thursday afternoon and set out for Dallas. There were small snow flurries almost the entire drive, sometimes even moderate amounts. By the time we got to Ennis, the snow had started falling quite a bit, and people on the roads were actually driving pretty calmly, which was unexpected.
Finally we got downtown, and were set to take the overpass onto 75N (Central Expressway), but someone took a small slide to the left at the top of the bridge, and decided to just stop, so we were forced onto 75S near MLK. For those that don’t know, this part of 75 is elevated for a few miles, so by the time we got through traffic, it was one huge sheet of ice. Not knowing how to drive on ice, people in the middle & right lanes would stop (horrible idea). This would cause us to stop, and thanks to the incline and bank of the highway, the car would just turn towards one of the embankments, slide to a stop, and be extremely hard to recover. It was a mess. People flipped around or turned sideway all over the place. It took us a LONG time to navigate back to surface streets, but once we did it was all good again.
I took a little video to show what it was like on the highway, and then some of the surface streets. Nothing too exciting, but I thought it was interesting since it is uncommon in Dallas. Here is the video, along with a few still images at the end:
It continued to snow through the evening on Christmas Eve, and as uncommon as it is in TX, the temp was low enough for it to not only stick, but also last through Christmas Day. This was my kid’s very first white Christmas, so of course, the first thing they did after opening presents was to go play in the snow. It was cold, so this only lasted about 10 minutes, but I got some decent shots for memories, and thought I would share a few from the batch:
Christmas night, while our son stayed his grandparents, my Wife, Daughter and I went to my Brother/Sister-in-law’s house for a few hours. As always, it was a LOT of fun, and this time I decided to pop off a few shots while we were there. My wife Sarah is in the purple’ish shirt, my sister-in-law Kristy is in green, and the only guy in the pics is my brother-in-law Craig. A great time was had by all, and I can’t wait to do it again. Here are a few of the pics from that night:
I posted recently about “The Best Camera“, a project created by Chase Jarvis. It’s all about using your phone to take great pics, and that the best camera is the one that’s with you at any given time. Using a phone, it makes the shot more about you personal style and composition than the equipment used, which promotes true creativity. I have been participating, but haven’t posted any of the pics here, so I thought I would share a few.
The phone that I use for the project is an HTG G1 w/ Android, and as it was developed in part by Google, it is known as the “Google Phone”. I could go on for hours about it’s abilities, but I won’t, this is about the camera only. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera, which sports a mechanical auto-focus (wow), and will close focus for semi/faux-macro type shots. Considering it’s home inside a phone, that’s pretty impressive. The rest is up to me though; composition, etc…
Here are 3 shots I have taken with this phone. I hope you like them…
This first one is my favorite, and I took it yesterday. It’s a shot of my Canon 40D + Pentax Super Takumar 50/1.4. I stopped the aperture all the way down to about F/16 so that the blades could be the focal point. This might be my favorite picture ever with this phone, and there have been thousands since I bought it, so that is saying a lot. lol
This is a pic I took a while back of our dog, Roxy. I uploaded it to “The Best Camera”, and of all my phone shots, this seems to be the favorite among the members there (not in a competitive way). I won’t mention how many votes it has, but it does have over 310 views in the last week or two.
And lastly, why not post a recent shot of myself. I took this about an hour after getting a hair cut, which I wasn’t sure I liked at the time, and applied a filter to it. I like the way it came out, and it’s one of the few pictures of myself that I will share…
So, I came walking one of HEB Friday evening, and I saw the most crazy thing. The sky was black with an almost solid blanket of birds. Seriously, it was crazy. I wanted to take a quick video with my phone, but my hands were full with bags. Once I got them in the car, I managed a few clips and pics. Two downsides: First, it never got back to even CLOSE to what it was like when I walked out, which was nothing short of super creepy. Second, the vids are with my phone, and it was getting dark, so they suck. I REALLY need to invest in a Flip Video when I can!
I threw the clips together with a little music, and they were taken with my Android G1. The still pics are just a few quick snaps with the 40D and 85/1.8. I know they aren’t all that, but I thought I would share anyway, kind of on a “hey, this was cool” level, rather than sound photography… lol
And a few pics…..
“The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You”
I want to tell everyone about this project that Chase Jarvis has put together. First, let me say, I am a huge fan of Chase and his work. One thing that really sets him apart from the pack, is the effort he puts into the photography community. He has put countless hours into giving siminars, making behind the scene’s video’s for us to see how he does his magic, and biggest of all (in my humble opinion), he has worked VERY hard to inspire both amatuer AND professional photographers to get out there and shoot. That is the most important thing we can all do, because if we don’t, where will all the great images of the world around us come from? No one can see this planet the same way *you* do, so without your shooting/sharing, we are all missing out…
As part of his philosophy, and effort to inspire, he has created a LARGE community of photographers, dubbed The Best Camera. Chase has based this whole project around the concept, “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You“. This is to say, what ever you have with you that will capture an image, is the best thing you can use, and you should make the best pictures you can with it. Stop focusing on the gear you wish you had, and use what’s right in front of you. Personally, I think this is an awesome concept, and really embodies the whole reason we (most of us) got into photography in the first place. Who cares what you shoot with, as long as the images tell the story you intended them too.
This community is based around an iPhone app, but is not limited to it. The app will let you shoot photo’s using the built in camera, edit them with multiple filters/options, then upload them to The Best Camera website for sharing. It will also let you upload to Twitter, Facebook, and email to any address you like, all at the same time as uploading to the site. There is even a community function built in, where you can view and vote for other people’s photos. The app is very, very thorough. Now, while the app is for the iPhone and iTouch, you can take the pics with any phone. For instance, I have an iTouch, which does not have a camera built in. How do I participate? I use my phone to take pics (a G1 w/ Android), email them to my ipod, edit (if needed) and upload. It’s well worth the tiny amount of extra effort.
I suggest that everyone go check out the website, the app, and all the possibilities!
Links:
Chase Jarvis – Website / Blog
The Best Camera Website
The iPhone/iTouch App
Direct To iTunes
