Irving

Last night I stayed in Pembroke on business, and before dinner I decided to go exploring and take some shots.  This was the second to last shot of the evening, and I snapped it out of the passenger’s side window of the car after I pulled over.  After this, all I did was crop off the top and the bottom, and done – a great Panorama.

I took this with the NEX3 and the Voigtlander 21mm f4.  This lens is as good as the reviews say, and at f5.6 it amazingly sharp for an ultra wide angle lens.

Sydney Sunset

There’s one phenomenon of nature that I really miss about living in an apartment and that’s seeing sunrises and sunsets.  When we lived in Sydney our apartment faced north, so we saw both. 

Sunrises and Sunsets are hard to photograph.  Generally, setting the exposure for 2 stops slower than what the camera is metering for produces the correct result.  Ie, if the camera is suggesting to use 1/125^th of a second, use 1/500^th of a second; or alternatively, if the suggested aperture is f4, use f8 instead.  What you want to achieve is bringing out the colours in the sky, yet retaining shadow detail to give the picture perspective.  The suggested exposure from the camera will give a washed out result.

This shot had the exposure compensation lowered by 1 stop, but I think it is not enough for the sky.  However, any lower would have take all the shadow detail at the bottom of the picture.

Mt Hope Cemetary

The Mt Hope Catholic Cemetery is quite close to our house, so last summer I took my bike and went for a ride with a couple cameras in hand.  Two things struck me.  The first was the many sculptures on the graves, and second, how all the nuns were all buried in a couple sections of the cemetery.  Here’s some photos in Black and White from the trip.

I can’t exactly remember which camera I used for these shots, but I remember taking two.  I am pretty sure it was the Voigtlander Bessa R2 with the Leica 50mm Summitar.....or was it the Nikon FE2 and the Nikkor 45mm f2.8 pancake lens.   I had both, but the photos have been well and truly mixed up now.  Film needs EXIF data!

New York MOMA #11 –Patterns

Patterns and shapes are fun to shoot and there’s no shortage of them at MOMA.  Here’s a couple interesting ones that stood out.

A couple interesting photographic industry happenings occurred this week.  One was the announcement of the Sony NEX 7.  It looks amazing – 24 megapixels (will it have low light noise issues I wonder), Electronic viewfinder, in built flash and easily accessible menus.  Basically every thing I don’t like about the NEX3 is fixed.  

The other interesting happening actually was what DIDN’T happen.  Nikon had a major product announcement this week, and everyone was expecting a D700 replacement.  But it was not to be – just an update of some point and shoot Coolpix models.  Given I sold my D700 a while back so I could update to a newer one, I was surprised not to see it.

New York MOMA #10- Paintings

At MOMA, some things you love, some you hate, and some are just damn cool to photograph.   All these paintings I thought were pretty cool.

New York MOMA #9 – Architecture

One thing about MOMA is that the architecture is almost as interesting as the art.  Having the Sigma 10-20mm Ultra wide angle lens with me enabled me to capture some of the interior design.  Though barrel distortion is very significant with this lens, when shooting at most angles it isn’t really noticeable, except when a straight line is parallel and close to an edge in the photograph.

New York MOMA #8 – Eerie Spatial Awareness

With both these photos the wide angle lens gives a slightly strange perspective where you question whether you are actually standing up straight or not.  The Man in Hat walking photo already gives this illusion, and it is compounded by the way I shot it.