booleansplit.com

photos, tips, tricks, and thoughts from an avid amateur photographer

 
 
 
 

Posts tagged Flickr Friends

Pentax vs Canon AF Performance

dscf3368

I’m a little concerned about the focus performance of my Pentax K10D DSLR. Before I get too far into it, let me  establish a little background first…

More »

Bokeh Wednesday, Las Vegas edition

ghost
Pentax K10D, Pentax SMCP DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL @ 55mm, ISO 320, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Outside the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino.

shaggy
Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 400, f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS off

Shaggy shoe fashion.

repetition
Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 100, f/1.7, 1/250 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV.

Check out more Bokeh Wednesday shots at the Bokeh Wednesday group on Flickr.

It’s the lens that matters most

new toy

I have been thinking a lot lately about lenses and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts. I’m planning on doing a more specific lens comparison but I will save that for a later date. For now I just want to talk about my general thoughts about lenses and their applications. Why is this important? Well, as you begin to expand your collection of lenses you will soon learn that what you have really invested in is a lens system and not a camera system. Quality glass (lenses) will last a lifetime and will likely outlast the latest whiz bang technology of the latest DSLR you just bought. Hopefully by sharing my thoughts and experiences some of you will have an easier time of navigating the confusing quagmire that comes along with upgrading your DSLR’s optics and make the most out of your investment.

For this discussion I am going to primarily refer the standard 35mm film focal lengths of lenses. I will add APS-C (1.6X) focal length or 35mm equivalents in brackets [ ] where appropriate. In general, if I say 50mm I mean 50mm focal length on a 35mm film camera or full frame sensor DSLR. The reason I am doing it this way is that the 35mm equivalent focal length of a lens describes its field of view (FoV) more accurately than APS-C (or DX) format measurement does. If any of this is confusing to you I strongly suggest reading the Wikipedia page on the APS-C format before continuing.

What would I buy?

Let’s imagine for a moment that money is no object and I could fill my camera bag with whatever I wished. What would that be? While we’re in dreamland, let’s assume that the camera I’ll be shooting with all this fictional glass is Canon’s awesome new 5D Mark II. Here are the lenses I’d want to have available and why (I’m sure I could find similar choices for Nikon but I know the Canon stuff better):

  • 17-40mm f/4 L wide angle zoom. Why if money is no object would I choose the 17-40 f/4L over the faster 16-35 f/2.8L? Simple, the extra speed the 2.8 provides is not worth the extra weight.  A super wide lens like this is something I’m most likely to carry around with me while traveling and the lighter it is the more likely I’ll take it with me. Also, the idea of wide angle shots is usually to capture as much detail as possible (think streetscape, landscape or 5-year-old birthday party action) so a larger aperture is just going to work against you. I’m sure there are specific situations where the extra speed of the 16-35 f/2.8 would come in handy but for me I’d most likely choose the slower and lighter option here and just dial up the ISO as needed in low light situations. The only caveat here is if I was shooting an APS-C body. Then the 16-35mm [26-56mm] would make a logical upgrade for the standard 18-55 kit lens. See my comments below for APS-C wide angle lens thoughts.
  • 35mm f/1.4 L wide angle prime. I really like having a fast wide angle lens for available light shots of the kids around the house and for other times when a 50mm lens just doesn’t provide quite enough FoV to capture a scene the way I want to. In fact, while a 50mm lens best reproduces the magnification the human eye sees, a 35mm lens better represents the field of view our eyes can see (in focus). Having never owned a fast 35mm I can only guess but I bet it would end up being my standard lens mounted on my camera 90% of the time. Becomes a medium angle lens [56mm] on an APS-C camera.
  • 24-105 f/4 IS L zoom. This is a close call. The 24-70 f/2.8 L is a very tempting choice. I have rented both lenses and they are both superb. The 24-105 f/4 is the one I’d put in my bag though because money is no object here and I’m going to have all these other lenses to choose from. Huh? Well, if I could only have one lens it would be the 24-70 f/2.8 L. Easy. However, if I’m going to be toting around a bag full of glass the 24-105 f/4 just makes more sense. It is lighter (see argument for 17-40 above), has a wider zoom range (better for “walking around”) and has IS. There are times when a slower shutter speed (1/30-1/4 second) is what you need to capture action and IS is the only way to get get these shots w/o the hassle of a tripod. The 24-105 focal range means I would have a stabilized lens that covers all wide to medium telephoto applications. Also an awesome all-purpose [38-168mm] lens on APS-C bodies (though lacking a bit on the wide end).
  • 50mm f/1.4 USM prime. Here I go again cheaping out even though money is no object. Yes, Canon’s 50mm f/1.2L is the Mother of All fiddies. However, from what I can tell it is not that much better than the non-L 50 1.4 but it is that much bigger and heavier (and somewhat slower to focus). I know this whole weight thing is getting long in the tooth, but for the way I shoot it is important. When I travel I typically head out on foot to explore which means I have to carry my gear on my person. After spending an entire days lugging an overloaded camera bag around Hong Kong and Paris I can tell you that less is definitely more. The main problem is that you get to these wonderful places and you are faced with making the choice of picking one or two lenses and hoping for the best- or lugging your entire kit with you. I’ve done both and can say that whatever the choice the weight of what you carry always remains an issue. Studio, sports and landscape “trunk” photographers are the only ones that don’t have issues with how much stuff weighs. As for me, I carry my camera almost everywhere (including on my bike) so I want to find the best balance between size and performance. Here, the 50 1.2 just doesn’t make sense for me. YMMV. See fast prime suggestions for APS-C cameras below.
  • 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro. You can’t beat a dedicated macro lens. I like the 100 f/2.8 on a full frame body as it provides the right mix of magnification and stand-off distance from the subject. I like to shoot most of my macro shots at arm’s length. Canon’s 50mm f/2.5 Macro is OK but I have found that I often have to get too close with the camera to get the magnification I want (often blocking out the available light). Meanwhile, Canon’s 180mm f/3.5 L Macro is an awesome lens but its longer focal length pretty much requires a tripod to get decent results. APS-C photographers should check out Canon’s EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro.
  • 70-200 f/2.8 IS L zoom. This is one of photography’s greatest lenses. Perfect for portraiture, sports action, school plays, wildlife, the occasional macro shot, and pulling in details in just about any situation. The f/2.8 version gets the nod over the f/4 version even though it is larger and heavier. You’ll need the speed to catch those low light shots and the shorter DoF will make your subjects pop. My bet is that you’ll rarely shoot this lens at anything other than wide open. Works great on both full frame and APS-C bodies.
  • 400mm f/2.8 IS L super telephoto. Here’s where the “money is no object” part really pays off. I have always wanted a fast super telephoto for getting in tight to stuff you can’t get up close to. I’m thinking sports car racing, school plays, African safaris, and the occasional full moon. Not a lens I would carry around in my bag but definitely one I’d like to have if the situation warranted it. I’d skip the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS L in favor of lens speed and ultimate image quality. Have an APS-C camera? Then your 1.6X crop factor makes this monster a 640mm f/2.8 equivalent for no extra charge ;-)

OK, so back to reality for a second. Most of us are amateurs and can not justify dropping $15K on our camera gear. Therefore, what should you take away from all of this?

  • Buy the best lenses you can afford. It will outlast your camera and you’ll never find yourself second guessing a lens purchase. If you find you don’t use a lens enough to justify keeping it, you’ll also find that pro-quality glass earns top-dollar on the used market. If you are thinking of dropping $180 on a Canon 28mm f/2.8 to get a wide angle prime do yourself a favor and save your pennies until you can step up at least to the $420 28mm f/1.8 USM. What you will gain in ultimate image quality and versatility will pay off many times over in your photographs. That 28 2.8 will end up in a drawer somewhere collecting dust as soon as you realize that its useless below f/4 anyway. Trust me. I know.
  • Do your research. This may directly contradict what I just said as you will find bargains out there. The non-L 50 1.4 I mentioned above is one example. In fact, at only $90 brand new Canon’s 50mm f/1.8 II is probably the best value in lenses anywhere. (Check out dpreview.com’s new review of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.) That being said, do your research so you know what you are getting. Personally, I would wait and save up for the 50 1.4 just to get the speed and silence of the USM focus motor. Also, the 50 1.4’s 8 bladed diaphragm produces far superior bokeh and starbursts when stopped down than the 50 1.8’s 5 bladed diaphragm. Buy the 50 1.8 II and you’ll be perfectly happy with it until you shoot one of the USM lenses. Then you’ll start beating yourself up. The best places to research are websites that actually test equipment. I prefer the-digital-picture.com, photozone.de, and dpreview.com because they use standardized testing procedures. There are blogger/photographers (like me) who “test” lenses and write their opinions about them. Take those with a grain of salt but they are usually pretty useful. Be wary of discussion forums and Amazon.com review ratings and the like. These are typically very unreliable sources for quality information.
  • Pick up a fast prime lens. My recommendation is a 50mm equivalent focal length at f/1.8 or faster. If you are shooting an APS-C sensor camera this is going to be tough. Technically you’ll need a 31mm lens to get an equivalent 50mm focal length. Sigma is one of the only lens manufacturers making a lens like this. Their 30mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM looks like it fits the bill perfectly. However, it’s relatively pricey ($500) and tests say it is very soft off center. Pentax’s SMCP-FA 31mm f/1.8 AL Limited is an ideal choice for Pentax shooters but at $800 you’ve got to be mighty deep into Pentax. 35mm focal length lenses are probably your best bet. Unfortunately, truly fast versions are usually pricey and hard to come by (see the $1,200 35mm f/1.4 L above). If you can’t find a 30-35mm f/1.8 or faster lens do what most everyone else does and put your money into a fast 50mm. It’ll end up being a bit long on an APS-C sensor camera [80mm] but at least you can start exploring the Wonderful World of Bokeh and available light photography.
  • Consider an ultra wide angle zoom. I’m not talking fisheye. I am talking at least 15-17mm on the wide end, though. A super wide angle lens opens a whole new world of photography for less money than most lens investments. I’ve already shared my feelings above about Canon’s 17-40 f/4L and 16-35 f/2.8L lenses for full-frame applications. However, neither of these fit the bill for an APS-C body. Look for something around 10mm [16mm] on the wide end. There are a number of choices depending on your camera so do your homework. I hear Canon’s EF-S 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USM is superb. I’ve owned Sigma’s 10-20 f/4-5.6 EX DC lens and thought it was great.
  • Avoid super zooms. These are the 18-200mm+ do-it-all lenses that are so popular at camera stores and on-line discounters. Sure, the idea of one lens for every situation seems like a good idea, but the reality of making such a lens results in some pretty significant compromises in lens speed, image quality and usability. While prime lenses will always give you the best ultimate image quality they may not be the right choice for every situation. However, you will be much better off if you limit the range of your zooms and follow suggestion number one above. In my experience you can get very decent results from mid-level primes but anything other than top-of-the-line zooms are likely to suffer in more than one area (speed, sharpness, vignetting, chromatic aberrations, etc).
  • Save up for that super telephoto. Don’t waste your money on bargain brand telephoto lenses. There are a lot out there (Phoenix) but most of them aren’t worth the plastic they are made of. If dropping $5K on a lens doesn’t seem like it will ever fit into your plan then…
  • Rent before you buy. So, if you’re following my advice and buying the high dollar glass maybe you should take it for a test drive before you take the plunge. There are a number of camera equipment rental services out there. I have only rented locally while I am traveling so I can’t recommend any of the on-line services, but I hear good things about many of them. Also, renting is a great way to get those awesome once-a-year close-up Christmas school program photos of Jr. from the back row of the gymnasium. No sense putting that $5K lens in the closet until next year, right?

I hope this helps clear up the mystery of lens selection a bit for those of you who are just starting to wade into the hobby. Feel free to post specific questions in the comments or drop me an email. Those of you who are more experienced please take a moment to share your thoughts on the subject as well.

Take better sunset pictures

Alabama sunset

There are few things more beautiful than a good sunset or sunrise photograph. However, if you’ve ever tried to do it you know it can be frustrating. How many times have you seen a beautiful sunset like the one above only to have your photo turn out something like this?

overexposed sunset

There are a couple of easy things you can do to get great sunset photos. First, turn off your flash. The only thing the flash is good for during a sunset is to add fill to illuminate a foreground subject. Unfortunately, getting the right mix of fill flash and background exposure can be very tricky:

Nevis sunset flash

Not a very inspiring photo (though after the number of rum punches I had I didn’t care). For now, let’s just turn the flash off and focus on capturing a brilliant sunset photo.

Next, set your white balance to auto. You can also try daylight but I have always found the auto setting gives the best mix of deep blues, pinks, reds and oranges.

I like to shoot sunsets with a wide angle lens to get as much of the sky in the picture as possible. This ensures a full mix of colors from the darkest indigo blues overhead to the brightest pinks and oranges at the horizon. Usually I leave only a strip of ground/foreground across the bottom to anchor the photo- letting the sky dominate the scene for maximum impact.

The main challenge with sunset photos is getting around the camera’s matrix metering’s natural tendency to balance exposure across the frame. The camera doesn’t know what’s going on and tries to balance the dark foreground with the bright background. The washed out example at the top is what you get when you just point-n-click. To get a decent sunset exposure you either need to dial in some negative exposure compensation (usually -2/3EV to -1EV). An easier method is to just aim the camera at an unobstructed portion of the sky, focus, lock exposure, recompose, and shoot. I typically use a little of both.

For the best sunset photos I typically like to wait for the sun to be fully below the horizon. That beautiful glowing orange ball of the sun absolutely wrecks exposure on a camera and typically results in pretty disappointing shots. Also, some cloud texture in the sky helps provide a good mix of colors. Be sure to look behind you as many times clouds away from the setting sun pick up some awesome colors. Finally, some good foreground silhouettes can help add additional visual interest (especially helpful if the sky itself is not as dramatic as it could be).

foreground texture sunset

A medium aperture like f/8-f/10 is best to ensure the best detail and sharpness across the frame and eliminate vignetting typical at larger apertures when shooting at a wide zoom setting. Since I generally like to wait for the sun to drop fully, there’s typically not very much ambient light. This means I either need to be shooting on a tripod at a low ISO and slow shutter speed or bump the ISO up to prevent camera shake. These samples were all shot hand-held at ISO 200-400 and f/8 and f/10 at around 1/4 second. The combination of the K10D’s in-body IS and the wide focal length meant it only took a few tries to get sharp shots (wider zoom angles can be hand held at slower shutter speeds than longer ones).

Typically a properly shot sunset photo doesn’t require much post-processing. Since I shoot everything in RAW I have to tweak sharpness and saturation on all my photos in Lightroom. I can also play around with the white balance a bit to get the best pop from my images- though the as-shot (Auto) setting worked best for these images. Often I find the fluorescent WB preset works well for sunsets for some reason.

While a DSLR gives the most control over all of these settings, I have gotten wonderful sunset photos with a pocket camera by simply turning off the flash and using the focus, recompose and shoot method. Here is a collection of some of my other sunset photos on Flickr.

The most difficult part about getting good sunset shots is being at the right place at the right time with your camera. I hope this helps you get that great shot the next time that happens!

DIY super macro DSLR lens

Christmas light super close-up

I got this idea from my Flickr friend Jim. I’ve played with this idea in the past but didn’t have the right combination of lenses to really make it work. Seems the kit lens on my Pentax K10D and my 20 year old Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7 make a pretty super duper super macro lens.

The trick is to shoot through a second lens, thus dramatically shortening the minimum focus distance of the combined lenses. This works best with a medium focal length primary lens (attached to the camera) and a fast secondary lens held (typically backwards) in front of the primary lens.

super macro lens assembly

Pentax 18-55mm kit lens with 50mm f/1.7 on front

business end

In this case, the 49mm diameter front element on the 50mm fits perfectly inside the 52mm diameter of the 18-55mm Pentax kit lens. I found that I had to zoom the kit lens all the way out to 55mm to eliminate vignetting. I tried reversing the set-up but the 18-55’s  smaller maximum aperture resulted in vignetting at all focal lengths (hence the need for a fast secondary lens). For the shot above I simply switched the camera into manual focus, dialed in a handful of positive exposure compensation and got up close on a bulb on our Christmas tree:

taking the shot

Depth of field is essentially non-existent- as is typically the case with all macro lenses. Changing the focus of ether lens had very little effect on the focal distance to the subject. To achieve focus you have to simply move the camera back and forth while composing through the viewfinder. The problem is that with such a micro thin slice of DOF any movement will throw off your composition. I ended up dialing up the ISO to 800 so that I could get a decently fast shutter speed (around 1/100 sec) and taking a bunch of hand held shots to get a couple of winners. Use of a tripod would have certainly helped, though holding the secondary lens in position while composing the shot on a tripod might be tricky.

A couple of additional shots taken with this set-up:

imgp6272

ISO 800, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/250sec

My understanding is that you can get similar results by simply reverse mounting certain types of lenses. There are accessories available to do this. Also, I think you may be able to use a threaded step-up adapter ring to attach the two lenses like in my set-up. The $20 screw-on close-up lens adapters (the kind that look like filters) IMO are pretty worthless unless you buy very nice quality ones but you might as well put that cash towards a dedicated macro lens.

The most popular macro accessories (besides a dedicated macro lens, of course) are extension tubes. Again, the price of entry here comes close to a decent dedicated macro lens (or zoom lens with macro capibility). There are cheaper alternatives and quality is less important if you are OK with losing auto focus and communication with your lens. I got some very nice results with my old Canon 5D and 85mm f/1.8 + 12mm Canon extension tube:

Keep in mind that all of these options will limit your focus distance to macro applications. A dedicated macro lens typically will be able to focus to infinity, making it usable as a regular lens in addition to a macro. However, if you have a couple of the right kind of lenses laying around and you want to take some close-up shots, now you know how. Thanks, Jim!

UPDATE:

Playing around a bit more with this set-up and I got these shots:

MacBook Pro power button

granny smith apple stem

It also occurred to me that one of the reasons my set-up works so well is that my old manual focus 50mm lens has an aperture ring. This means I can crank it open to f/1.7 to get a clear shot through. More modern lenses often lack an aperture ring and default to the smallest aperture when removed from the camera body. If this happens to you, look for the aperture lever on the inside face of the lens and try sliding the aperture open to get a clear view through your secondary lens.

About

I'm an industrial designer and an avid hobbyist photographer. People are always asking me "how'd you do that?" So, I decided to create this site as a place to share my experiences and insights about photography, the gear and what it all means to me. I'm not sure if this site will make anyone besides myself a better photographer but I figure it's worth a try. Take a look around and let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by!

Subscribe

Recent Posts

Categories

Pages

Flickr Friends

Links

My Sites

Archives