The Beijing Chaoyang Acrobatic Show
If you are in Beijing, go see this show! Just don’t ask me for an explanation for this shot!
They do a lot of crazy amazing and crazy stuff during this show, but the lighting was usually difficult for the little D40 that could except when they came out with costumes. This guy looks happy to be wearing this hat..
Meye
I was able to play around with a Nikon 105/2.8 VR macro lens today. I thought the AF was terrible for normal shots, but the macro performance was really amazing and it also produces some of the nicest bokeh I have seen from a lens. This first shot was shot using the lens and 36mm Kenko macro tube stacked onto it. We set up a flash just to the left of the lens in Commander Mode. It is incredibly difficult to get the iris in focus, you will need many tries! I also recommend shining an LED light into your subjects eye to help aid you when you manually focus the lens, which is a must. It also helps to bring out the iris by using a gel on your flash that is the same color as the iris you are shooting.
PS- If you don’t want your blood vessels to grow out towards the outside of your eye, don’t wear your daily wear contacts for 3 weeks straight before taking them out. Stupid kids!
Here is some of that creamy-dreamy bokeh I was talking about. This shot was without the macro tube.
Kenko
Got away from the lair full of evil homework for a little while on Sunday. Turned out to be very rainy and foggy at the castle we had visited. Wasn’t very conducive for taking good landscape or architectural shots, so I put on 32mm of Kenko macro tubes and took a couple of shots.. I was mostly just happy to get out of the house and away from schoolwork for a while!
Torii Medlii
These Torii can be really difficult to photograph in the middle of the day with the bright sun overhead reflecting off of every odd curve down the entire row. I was trying every angle I could think of and it suddenly became obvious how extremely small changes in your position would completely change the way they lined up. This one was my favorite due to the tight grouping without large gaps that would expose super bright sunlight reflections. I still needed the help of HDR to reign in the dynamic range, but I am finally happy with one of the many shots I had taken this day. I still want to go back and try again with a tripod… Looks like I will be doing that at the end of February.. Another 2 months in Japan and back with my wife for me!
Glaring
-Go to the last shot in my blog/photostream.
-Take about 20 steps backwards.
-Turn 90 degrees to the right.
-Compose.
-Shoot.
-?????
-Profit!
Points of Interest
Every time I jump on any highway in Turkey and get a little ways out from where I live, I am constantly seeing things on the side of the road that are truly interesting from a photographic standpoint. Things like old abandoned buildings, odd animals all alone in the middle of nowhere, vast expanses of crops planted in a perfectly straight row leading towards the horizon, you name it. Usually we are in such a hurry that we just blast on by. We did make one stop for this interesting tree all alone out in a vibrant field with the Taurus mountain range lining the background. This spot is about an hours drive from Cappadocia.
Zümrüt Resort
Mt. Erciyes is a bit of a weird resort compared to what I am use to in the States. Each group of chairlifts and rope tows are owned by different people, so even though you can see 5 or 6 lifts nearby, you have to choose which one or two that you would like to ride and pay for a pass that is only good for a specific lift or two. Doppelmayr! How I have missed you!
I was having a lot of fun skiing for the 2nd time in 7 years. Last year I felt like a disaster, but this year was different for some reason. I think it might be the kebabs and sahlep? Anyways, I didn’t care to get my camera equipment until near the end of the day, so it was getting pretty dark by the time I started to shoot. You can also kind of see the runs that were pretty much 50/50 rock snow, not the pure snow like found on the K-12, but.. If something gets in your way, turn.
For the last run I locked my 50mm on and loaded my SB-600 and tried to get some shots of my friends as they were trying to breakout of beaterdom. It would have been nice to have my 70-200 to get in a bit closer, but I was a little weary of breaking my leg on a rock, smashing my head into the dirt, and having 50 pounds of camera reconstruct my face. Here is Dean showing me the dangers I speak of.
I can’t even see his upper body in this shot!
Erciyes Dağı Yeni Yıl
Took a little New Years break ski trip up north to Mt. Erciyes, a big 3,916 metre stratovolcano that can be seen from Cappadocia. When we arrived at night, it was extremely bright out due to the full moon, which I hear was a blue moon. Me and one of my friends eschewed the New Years festivities at the deluxe hotel that we had booked and decided to enjoy the blisteringly cold night air with our cameras.
I pulled out my handy LED key chain light to graffiti the mountain with a New Years declaration about some girl I know named Amber who should have been there to partake in the lovely wind chill with her husband!
These long exposures were really fun to play around with my flash as well. Me and my friend would hold my SB-600 flash and fire off the test flash a couple of times at each other while strategically hiding the flash unit from view of the camera to create some neat effects. Too bad my retarded ass kept moving around between flashes so that I look like a fragmented apparition!
Combined, neither me or my friend had enough common sense to at least dress up warm enough to stay out in the cold for very long, a damn shame because the views were simply amazing. After about an hour and a half, our tennis shoes became the weakest link and we had to quick pack everything up and head back to a warm car to try and regain feeling in our feet. While packing up we noticed our gear was extremely frosted over.
Modern gear is pretty damn awesome though; it all kept working so well, we had no idea it was all coated with frost until I happened to shine my LED on it. I think we were too preoccupied running in place and hopping around in circles like Indians for warmth! We headed out again the following night since this night was so amazing, but the 2nd time was so windy that we could not steady our tripods enough to take any sharp shots with such long exposures. I guess I’ll just have to go back again!
Macro Attempts
Messing around with my Kenko extension tubes I bought last month. This is the 20mm and 12mm tubes stacked onto my 50/1.8. I have played with these once before in Thailand and realized quickly that you really need to have an external or ring flash. So I setup a cheap tripod with my SB-600 firing down almost straight down on top of the Baklava.
Another macro shot, this time of the rear sprocket of my very neglected mtn. bike. Again, 32mm tubes and the 50/1.8 were used with the off camera flash firing directly above. Gotta love the Manfrotto tripod with articulating arm to get into your subject and still remain steady. Now I just need to go find one of those gigantor centipedes that were setting up shop inside my house over the summer; would be an interesting subject.
Ayutthaya Vertorama
Looks seemingly normal, but what in the hell is going on with those poles on both sides? That is because this is a vertorama, aka 2 shots stitched together like a panorama, except they are stitched vertically. The picture is warped a bit to insure that every pixel in both shots are perfectly lined up. Also, both shots were comprised of 5 exposures each which were then HDR’d in Photomatix before stitching them together.
Byokkehaya
Another one from Ayutthaya. I took multiple shots of this scene with different statues in focus. This happened to be the first one I opened and I just started to work on it. I looked at the other version a day after posting this, really, I like the focus point to be on the statue second from the left side. I think that framing your subject with bokeh on both sides is usually a bit more pleasing than starting your DoF at the beginning of your foreground. That is my theory at least.
Just Chillin
Since our international flights originated in Bangkok, we thought it would be interesting to head up to the city of Ayutthaya, which is about an hour away from the city center, maybe slightly longer if you get caught in the hellish traffic usually found in Bangkok. We flagged a taxi down in the morning and were able to get an all day tour from the most friendly cab driver I have ever met in my life–and only for 1,500 baht. His mother was born in the city, so he knew exactly where to take us. He knew of so many spots that we eventually became so wore out that we had to turn him around back to Bangkok… where he proceeded to take us to more places. So I have a lot of shots from that day since there is so much cool stuff to see. Thank you Mr. Bangkok cab driver.
Heaven & Hell
School has started again for me and it is rudely encroaching on my free time to work on my photos.. Damned dirty school! What did you ever teach me about photography? Nothing!
Well this was the evening that I took about 60% of my shots for the entire trip to Thailand. The majority of shots taken here were mostly unremarkable highlighted by a huge series of vertical panorama multiple exposure shots I took of the entire 360 degrees of Railay Beach– that were unfortunately kind of overexposed since I was too good for my histogram or meter during the series. We’ll see if I can save it in the future.
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