They say “into life some rain must fall”. We wholeheartedly agree! It’s also a wonderful opportunity to take the 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens out for a spin to capture the individual water droplets on Patience and Fortitude (the two Japanese Maples in front of the house named for the lions guarding the NY Public Library […]
Photography Tips
“Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
Sir Winston Churchill
You will find in these posts all of the tips and tricks for photography that I’ve learnt over the past few years with a photo gallery to show you some examples to help jump-start your creative juices.
Some of these come from many conversations where someone is looking at a photograph I’m particularly proud of and then they are shocked that it actually turned out to be trivially simple and something they can do without investing a metric tonne of money in kit.
Take getting a lovely shot of a lightning bolt. The simple truth that it’s a matter of sticking the camera on a tripod, adding a manual shutter release with the camera shutter speed set to “BULB” mode, and then opening the shutter waiting for the lightning bolt to appear. When you see the bolt, release the shutter!
Other than a couple of settings for the lens and the camera, it really is that simple. The hard part is getting the storm to cooperate and fling lightning bolts in your general direction!
I love photography! I always have. Part of that is being hopelessly unable to draw recognisable pictures worth a darn and my poetry royally sucks. But there has always been this compulsion to be creative and when I found a camera allowed a monkey like me to find and touch art…I was hooked!
Perhaps when you see the magic behind the smoke and mirrors, you’ll find inspiration as well and be moved to create art that touches your heart. :)
Ocasio Gardens…a macro lens paradise! :)
Here are some more macro shots using the 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens, this time having sun shooting the neighbour’s flower garden which also included a bumblebee doing the pollination thing. What makes macro photography so much fun is just how close you can get to your subject to see really small details like specs on […]
Centipede, pollen, and clouds, oh my!
This gallery started out as an exercise in playing around with the 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens (“micro” in Nikon-speak is actually “macro” for everyone else on the planet!). Between the centipede and the leaves on “Fortitude” (one of the two Japanese Maples out front named for the lions guarding the NY Public Library on 42nd […]
Zeus Really Cuts Loose!
Tonight was the night I caught more awesome shots of lightning bolts than I have in the over four years I’ve been shooting storms from my front porch. Not only was there frequent lightning bolts but the storm ended up regenerating giving another hour of shooting which exhausted the batteries in the D700! The actual […]
And this is why the Nikon F5 went on the trip to Asheville…
There’s a bit of a story with this gallery as I was hoping to shoot some rolls of Velvia 50 I’d just picked up a couple of days earlier. Velvia 50 is color-reversal slide film (so the film aren’t negatives, they’re positives!) with truly obnoxious color saturation. So I’m driving along to Asheville when suddenly […]
