Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/25 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Another shot from the Centrifuge Bar at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas while I was enjoying a beer and winding down from 3 days at the PMA show. In this shot I simply opened the aperture all the way up and with the camera on my lap played around with the manual focus (using the distance markings of the focus ring on my manual 50mm f/1.7 lens while estimating the distance) and let my Pentax K10D do the rest. It took 3 or 4 tries to get the framing right but using this technique saved me from getting down on my knees in the bar- something I try to avoid these days. This picture is essentially straight out of the camera with nothing more than my Lightroom default import processing of the RAW file. White balance was set to auto and has not been adjusted. Doesn’t get much easier than this!

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/50 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Speak to me…as in little green men from outer space ;-) This image makes me think of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Taken in the bar at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas. The Centrifuge bar (as it is known) is designed around a central cylinderical tower covered in tiny color changing LED or fiber optic lights. I was sitting about 12-15′ away from the bar when I took this relaxing from 3 days of walking the show floor at PMA. I simply manually set the focus on my 50mm lens (at f/1.7) to around 3′ and let the camera do the rest. Shooting bokeh is really one of the easiest things to do once you understand the technique. The hard part becomes making an actual composition out of the bokeh. In this case the arrangeent of the lights themselves was all I needed. Tomorrow I’ll have another example shot in the same place.