The terror of a midday golden hour

The 'Golden Hour' is that time just around sunrise and sunset where the sun emits a soft warm glow, and almost any photo you shoot looks magic.  However, if you're in an Australian summer and the golden hour comes at mid-day, look out a bushfire isn't far away.  The thick smoke causes the sun to emit a similar type of light to sunset, and things do start to get a bit spooky.  Here you can see the effect of the smoke on the horizon from a large fire about 30 mins west of Mt Gambier.

 

Extra light

One thing that is great about being home is that Dad and I both get to share our passion for photography.  I have sent some Pentax lenses over to him whenever I have come across something interesting, and we spent a couple hours playing with an old Pentax 300mm f4.  

Another was playing with lighting, using this LED flashlight.  The light emitted was very cool, so it gave the rest of the photo a quite unique look when the camera adjusted white balance.  The shallow depth of field of the Nikon 50mm f1.4 allowed the background to fade out smoothly, yet the mesh fence gave a nice recurring pattern.

Australia Trip

On a recent trip to Australia to see family I decided to take what I needed, but not too much camera gear.  I ended up taking the D600 with Tokina 17mm f3.5, Tamron 24-135mm f3.5-5.6 and Nikon 50mm; as well as the Fuji X100.  This package turned out to be pretty close as I ended up getting a reasonable amount of use out of everything I took.  Sometimes I wished for a little more macro, other times a little more tele, but realistically I covered over 95% of what I needed it for, so a good combination.

The $1 photographic essential

One of the most useful pieces of photo equipment for home shots only costs a $1, and that's a largish piece of white card.  What I do is I put it on a dresser we have and curl it up the wall, sitting the object to weigh down the card so it doesn't move.  I then use bounce flash to shoot, with an over exposure by the flash of 1 stop.  Usually I use a macro lens due to the excellent resolution and set it around f11 for maximum across the frame sharpness.  My Micro-Nikkor easily outresolves the D600 sensor, so no issues getting details, and also allows for deep cropping.  Because of this, getting back a little to increase the depth of field, is usually a good idea.

Almost perfect product shots for a $1 outlay.

Rainy flower shooting

Over summer last year we had some relatives come to visit.  We decided to take them to the nearby Edward Gardens, but the inclement weather had different ideas.  We stayed around for a short while, though it wasn't a whole lot of fun.  I took the D90 and the Nikkor 60mm micro and took a few shots where I could.  Drops on flowers always come up well, and this situation was no different.

NOCT is back

Nikon Rumors reports that Nikon has filed a patent for a 58mm f1.2 lens, with an optic elements diagram that is very similar to the famous Nikon NOCT 58mm f1.2 lens.  The NOCT that was released in 1977 and remained in extremely limited production until 1997, with less than 11,500 ever made. By way of comparison, Nikon has produced over 7 million 18-55mm VR lenses!!  It was designed to perform at its best at maximum aperture and to prevent chromatic spherical abberation, commonly showing up as low contrast with 'bat's wings' around points of light. 

I am sure Nikon sees this as a great opportunity to compete against Canon's 50mm f1.2 L series lens, and gain some profit from a higher end lens.  Without a doubt, Nikon will price such a lens in the $1,800 - $2,000 price range, similar to the 35mm f1.4 and the 24mm f1.4.

Edward Gardens - Nikon D90 w/ Nikon 60mm f2.8D Micro