A Fisheye Lens for Me!

I never went on the photo shoot that I thought I would go to - it was at 6:30 in the morning, and my allergies were acting up. So, it's been a quiet week, honestly.

I came across a new article in Popular Photography. A few months ago, I wrote that fisheye lenses wouldn't work on my camera body. I would have therefore to use Photoshop to create effects such as these:



A fisheye lens could do so much more than this, but this is the best I could do. By the way, all you have to do here is Filter->Distort->Spherize in Photoshop Elements.

Anyway, the latest issue of Popular Photography saved the day. A new Canon lens (the 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM) will work on full-frame cameras AND on my body! Unfortunately, at $1,400 (street price), it's not something I can just go out and buy. However, I will try to rent it in the coming months. And don't worry about me - there are plenty of other things I can see and do in the meantime!

Next time - some research for my upcoming trip.

Adventures with Tripods

Some of you know that I strongly dislike tripods. I have always considered them huge and unwieldy.

Ever since I dipped a toe into the world of stock photography, I've been much more concerned about ensuring my work is suitable for actual licensing and use. The higher the resolution and the larger the file, the better. However, because of motion blur issues, the larger the picture, the less likely that it would be usable in such a context. The slightest blur is totally magnified when blown up to 100%.

So, for the work I like (butterflies), I've decided to break out my tripod and see if I could really see an improvement. I went on a shoot last week, and here are some good examples:





Observations:

1) Get to know the tripod before taking it anywhere. I had to wrestle with it a few times, even after I'd worked with it at home.

2) Butterflies move. A tripod won't solve that problem. However, there's no denying that all of these pictures are far more crisp, clear, and pretty than most that I took as recently as last month. The results do speak for themselves.

3) Tripods are not permitted everywhere. I had to use mine as a monopod, but I still got great results.

Settings and general advice: Auto white balance, ISO 200-400, and lots of experimentation with f-stops, ranging from 3.x to around 6.x. Keep in mind that the higher the f-stop, the more vulnerable you can be to motion blur. It's for this reason that the tripod helped me the most. Play with angles and move around - that's especially important here. Create shapes - the above are good examples. Above all, be patient. Keep trying.

Speaking of which, my next photo shoot will be at a place where I probably won't be able to use my tripod. I'm going back to Hillwood!.

Next time - today's butterfly photo shoot - I had to go back!

Backup and Recovery

I've come across several posts on LinkedIn asking for recommendations on storing images. I went back through my posts, and realized I'd never outlined MY backup and recovery strategy.

I admit, I'm obsessive about this. I never forgave myself after a trip to Hawaii in 2005. It was a free trip that I'd won through work, and I was thrilled to go out there. I took what I thought were gorgeous pictures. I had my laptop with me, and instead of transferring the pictures to my laptop while I was out there, I waited. And my camera was stolen. Bye bye pictures.

These days, going several hours without backing up my work would be enough to give me a stroke, I think! If I lost pictures like these:





Well, I wouldn't know what to do. You see, I love looking at my pictures. I love sharing them with people. Yes, I have them up on Flickr, but they're lower resolution. I have two sets of the originals:

One set is on my hard drive - all originals are stored within Aperture, and I export to various directories on my hard drive. I then export the exports to Flickr. Some pictures end up on my Facebook page, but all are on a backup hard drive. I use Time Machine to perform regular backups.

What happens when I have too many pictures on my hard drive? Simple - I back those up on a different (portable) hard drive. I do this with only my oldest work. I'm at the point where I will need a bigger laptop drive soon, but for now, I'm okay. As long as my pictures are in at least two different locations, I'm okay.

Occasionally, I take inventory. I realized I had not backed up several folders that were on my primary backup, but not my secondary backup. I'm changing that as I type this. :) Also, my blog posts are in three different locations - online, on my hard drive, and on my portable hard drive. It's for peace of mind. And yes, maybe it's a symptom of OCD - but I don't mind. :)

Tomorrow - time to discuss contests. I've been procrastinating, but I'll explain why.