Day 7: @20mm

I’m a big fan of prime lenses. Yes, you have to carry a lot more weight to maintain a decent range rather than a zoom, but you get wonderfully crisp pictures with much more affordable lenses (relatively speaking, of course).

So, when my friend Yumi was showing off one of her new lenses, I had to jump at the chance to play with it.

She got a 20mm f/2.8 Nikon. It’s a great lens, very sharp, and super clean. I also got to advise her a bit on which lenses to take on vacation with her: My suggestion was, rather than taking her 50mm f/1.8, 18-55mm zoom, and brand new 55-200mm VR zoom, she should take the 20mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8, and the 55-200mm. I think she’ll take MUCH better pictures with that combination, and I don’t believe for a second she’ll miss the 18-55mm on the trip. most of the range is covered by the 20 and 50mm, and they’re both superior lenses, compared to the little zoom.

As for the picture, I shot it after several drinks, on New Years Eve, at a party, so I was making do with subject matter at hand. But, I shot it with flash (SB-600), from very short range (about twelve inches).

I really like (and covet) this lens.

f/20, 1/60th second, ISO 250
Nikon D70s, Nikon 20mm f/2.8, SB-600

Day 6: King and Queen

Again, not as happy with this one as I’d hoped to be. On the surface it looks good, but when you view it larger, there’s a lot of noise. I don’t know why either, it should be fine at ISO 500. But still, there’s a lot of noise.

The mat for this one and Pepper is a sheet of reflective cardboard that my girl gave me. It’s not perfectly reflective, and I like the water-effect it tends to give the reflection. Again, good experiment that fell down in the execution.

Day 5: Pepper

Definitely not happy with this one. I was side-lighting it with an SB-600 on a tripod, but it still came out a little off.

Still, a good experiment.

Day 4: More From Sandbanks

One of the things I’m going to do this time through, is use more than one picture from a given day’s shooting, if I have a fairly high volume that day. It means I’m not rushing out to take and edit new pictures when I’m still working with a huge heap from a successful day, and I get to show off that successful day a little more.

To that effect, here’s another one from Sandbanks. Again with the ND2 filter, this time tilted to the left, to bring in some of the soft details of the dead tree behind my subject.

As for the tree itself, I should have taken an establishing shot. Have you ever seen the old two-part show, from The Outer Limits called “the Sandkings“? The tree looked like that, like one of the monuments the sandkings built. Very cool, very creepy, and great detail.

F/4.0, 0.003 second exposure
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm F/3.5-5.6, Cokin ND2 filter

Day 3: Sandbanks

I was out at Sandbanks Provincial Park with my folks, and managed to play a bit with my filters. Specifically, I was looking for uses for my ND2 Graduated Neutral Density filter. While I really like the others, and did some shooting with the graduated tobacco filter, I’m pretty sure the ND2 is going to be my ‘money’ filter. It really is perfect in style and density, for the type of shot I take.

This one, for example.

I shot down close and tight on the log and fungus. What I found though, in my baseline, was that the white of the snow in the background was completely blown out, no detail at all. So, I shot the same thing again, but this time with the ND2 covering the snow. and this is what I got:

ISO 500, F/4.5, .006 second shutter
Nikon D70s, Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6, Cokin ND2

Day 2: Quality Street.

Which, despite what Prince will tell you, is NOTHING like Alphabet street. I love these kind of shots of food/candy/product. Makes me want somethin’ sweet!

Day 1: Christmas Pudding

Who doesn’t love Christmas pudding?  And tradition in my house is to douse it in hot brandy, and light it on fire.

Needless to say, this produces excellent photographic opportunities.

F/3.5, 4 seconds
ISO 500, Nikon D70s, 50mm f/1.8

Day 0: Lets Try This Again

So, I’m trying to do this Photo-a-Day thing again.  I managed about four months solid last year, and then another two months of sporadic hits.  Turns out, I may not have burnt out, there may have been some real health issues there.

Which means, here we go again!

And, I’m starting with Christmas Day, rather than January first.  There’s no reason to wait, really.