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Pictures From A Great Long Weekend

What better way to celebrate Family day weekend with renting a little more photo gear (I thought to myself). Well things didn't exactly turn out as planned. I ended up spending much more time with my family than I did peering through my viewfinder which I am glad of in the end. That being the case, I didn't get the opportunity to try all the rental gear out in all of the different situations I wanted to but I did use it enough to realize that I need to practice much more if I'm going to take any decent pictures with it. The stuff I rented was a lens (Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR) and a flash (a Nikon SB900 speedlight). The lens is supposed to be really sharp and great for low light situations (hence the f2.8). I didn't get the chance to test it out in an arena as planned but I did try it out inside without a flash with varying degrees of success. It is a very sharp lens for the most part but I did have a recurring problem of the auto focus not working. It seemed to happen whenever I changed TTL setting in my camera. I would then have to then remove and replace the lens and the autofocus would resume working. I'm not sure if this was due to the lens being older and my camera newer or if it was a rental lens issue or if it was a firmware issue. I would like to try the newer version of this lens but they only have one for rent and it is hard to get reserved as it is very popular.

I rented the flash because I wanted to try to get a decent portrait of someone (anyone!) with some cool, dramatic, directional light. The flash I have won't work off the camera hot shoe so the only way to go was to rent a Nikon pro flash. It was fun to play with but my photographic record consists largely of my subjects being blasted with light. I guess I had the flash output set a little (read WAY) too high. Lesson learned though and I will do better on my next attempt I'm sure. That is if my subjects have regained their vision by then.

I'm not sure what I will try next. Having the rental shop at my fingertips is a very inexpensive way of trying out some very expensive gear. Maybe I'll play with a fisheye lens next... Any ideas out there would be appreciated.

Carly Inside (f2.8, 135mm, 1/80 iso 200) Not bad exposure but pretty blah overall. Luckily I had a beautiful subject.

 

Max (f11, 175mm, 1/500 iso 400) Pretty sharp image. Could have gone to iso 200 and f13 for a little better depth of field through his face.

 

Carly and Andrew (f6.3, 135, 1/200, iso 400) Again, lucky I had good subjects. Better flash power here.

 

Andrew (f5.6, 160mm, 1/60 iso 400) His eyes are out of focus. The camera pulled focus on the end of his nose which at this shallow depth of field made the rest of the picture out of focus. Looked great in the viewfinder but slightly out of focus in the final full screen image. Way too much flash. Turn that thing down.

 

Carly (f5.6, 200mm, 1/60 iso 400) The focus is better but not perfect. Still way too much flash.

 

Sad News

We got some sad news tonight that 3 of our friends, other patients from the clinic in Germany, passed away recently. George had the same cancer as I do and passed away in November. He and Penny got along really well while we were there. Anita from Australia was a great resource of information for all things anti-cancer and was a great help to new patients at the clinic. Carolyn from Langley and her husband George were there both times we visited the clinic. She was quiet and pleasant to be around and we ate many meals with them. They all made our experience there great. Though we haven't kept in touch much we will miss them.

Landscape Walkabout February 12

I finally took advantage of the rental counter at The Camera Store this weekend. I picked up a Tokina 11-16mm landscape lens for $25 for the weekend, a steal given that the lens retails for about $750. I had never used one of these before and it shows in my pictures. I had the lens in manual focus mode the whole time but I thought it was in auto focus. Luckily I was using a high f-stop most of the time (large depth of field) so the focus wasn't that important. Here are the best shots of my morning. I'm pretty bad at photoshop so my editing consisted merely of moving random sliders until things looked ok. I can't wait to rent another one and do some more.

Rocks and Mountains and the Moon

 

Cretaceous Belly River outcrop

 

Highway 1

 

Sunny Fence