Walking about it’s clear even though I don’t think it’s spring yet the plants do. Cherry blossom is out, many of the streets in the city are bursting with the profound pink that Cherry blossom throws forth. Also the Magnolia in the area are starting to blossom. Magnolia fascinates me because it seems that depending…
Back from the Land of the Long White Cloud…
I have been back a week now, and starting to get some of the stock organised from the New Zealand (South Island) Junket. I had a fantastic time, and managed to improve my skill set immensely as well as come back with some beautiful memories and shots. I’d really love to get back there soon, and possibly move there in the future. It seems to be one of the last paradises left.
I was somewhat disappointed from the wildlife point of view, but I guess that’s because I aimed to see so much that I didn’t allow myself the luxury of the time necessary to just sit and wait for the local fauna to begin to ignore me and get on with normal activities. Somehow I lost sight of that in the euphoria of making the trip happen. Still, I met some great people, managed to generate a bit of free publicity for my business internationally, hopefully it’s generating further interest when each of those I chatted to gets home themselves. Best of all I enjoyed a magnificent country with a population working quite hard to live in an environmentally sustainable manner, with an environmental, economic and social focus. Fantastic to see in action.
Overall, I’d say there was not much I could have done to improve this trip being my first overseas working photography trip. As I said, unintentionally I think I prioritised scenery and flora over wildlife, but then on reflection I’m not sure in this instance I could have done it any other way now. I would need to have that focus purely for the trip I think as so much of the wildlife is birds, which requires quite a bit of waiting at times.
One of the other glaring gaps in my planning for the trip was the lack of a 35mm Lens. I can see that because I wasn’t originally planning to be doing so much landscape when I was organising the trip originally. Certainly I was planning on seeing the landscape, but hadn’t consciously realised I’d be shooting that above everything else. Still lessons learned, and still plenty of stock. And certainly I could do with more landscape stock. Still on landscape, I was very happy with my filter work (see featured shot above). I believe I’ve improved that significantly on the trip, and also found that I can achieve similar results with my AF-S NIKKOR 14-24MM F/2.8G ED (1.7X) without a filter with a bit of patience. Great considering a special adapter is required to use filters on such a lens. And it gives me great results such as this one below.
Although both the images in this post required a tripod, I did do far more handheld over the course of the trip, and also felt that my ability to shoot handheld in difficult circumstances improved significantly as too did my ingenuity for when I didn’t have a tripod but needed some extra stability.
Mystical Moments in the Mountains…
Driving along the Road between Westport & Murchison (South Island of NZ), I was compelled to pull over by the wonderful mist that was beginning to hang in the River Valley beside which wound the road. After enjoying an warm cup of soup & crackers while shooting the initial stop by the river, I drove but a little further and once again was stopped by this opportunity.
I couldn’t help but think of the Barrow Downs out of the first book of the Lord of the Rings.
Juxtaposition of Space…
I’ve reshuffled things about the house to come up with a dedicated studio area for the time being until I can come up with a better solution.
The idea is to separate me from the computer and the editing software, and go back to experimenting with the equipment and up-skilling myself on that which I use less often. Things such as the miops trigger, a couple of my other remote controls for interval shooting etc. It’s annoying sometimes finding you’ve forgotten how to use something or can’t remember how to access that feature quickly. The only thing I know to fix that, is practise with it. It also gives me an area to mess with prints & frames, and have all my equipment in a single location.
At this stage I can fit a reasonable size backdrop in there, albeit only a short shooting distance, which excludes some lenses for portrait work unless it’s just the upper shoulders & head.
There’s also some good light that would allow some studio macro work for some small set shooting. I like to shoot my Flora & Fauna macro work outside in the natural environment, but there are times I want to experiment with something that’s clearly NOT alive, and the “authenticity” is not a factor. Also some of the Focus stacking can be done inside which makes it far easier to control some environmental factors.
Now having some alternative lighting options should give me the ability to make better use of more time!
In the Prime…
Very close to home the last couple of weeks, but did have a chance to experiment with the Nikkor 50mm F1.4 D quite a bit. It’s a wonderful little lens and still does remarkably well on the D810. It’s sharper than the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 D but I wouldn’t say hugely so considering the few hundred dollars difference in price. Value for money, the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 D at just over a $100 (AU) is probably hands down winner of all the Nikkor lenses. It’s a great little lens that will go in your pocket easily and takes great shots. It’s just a simple thing made well. It’s not perfect, but for the price it’s unjustified to complain. If you have the budget the 1.4 gives you better shots, but those hundreds extra could go towards something else if you have the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 D. that said, Mina (featured image) was shot with the Nikkor 50mm F1.4 D. But one of my favourite shots of Tigga was with the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 D as was the little tweeter underneath. Also the self portrait I use for my business cards was shot with the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 D. It’s easy to see why the 50mm prime receives such reverence.
While visiting Andrew the other weekend I happened to be graced with Mina modelling herself on the kitchen table when I arrived. I was allowed a few shots before she decided that she’d done enough work, and wandered off to sleep on the window sill. Along with practising with the Nikkor 50mm F1.4 D I’ve begun to experiment with Lens Filters. I’m really appreciating the benefits such accessories bring to my photography. Of course these aren’t the only experiments going on at the moment, but more on that in a later post.
Making Use of Unproductive Downtime…
So further on this 365 Day plan. Having thought about it a bit more, I’ve decided that the Goal should be to spend no more than an hour on the shot each day. That doesn’t include any post production afterwards. Normally that is 5 to 10 minutes maximum. However on Friday (which is the day of the work week scheduled for work on Shards of Arcadia business I will then spruce up the previous week’s collection of shots and post up on Alamy.
This is both an exercise in skill development as well as discipline. I hope, as time goes on that this practice will develop my ability to pull up stock art shots quickly and provide a quality shot in a minimum amount of time in comparison to my more “art focussed” work. Additionally during that period where I’m working on the stock in the Post Production Session, after uploading I shall spend a bit of time researching forums & blogs for what seems to be in demand (or lacking) at the moment. If I can develop some work around those themes, it’s likely something will be in a better position to sell.
Additionally I’m starting another exercise, building a collection of oddities that will serve as inspiration for shots when I’m struggling for an idea. So as I find interesting things that I think that could make an interesting shot, if it’s small enough it will go in the “Rainy Day Shot Box” for inspiration. If it’s too big to go in the box obviously I need to make a note about it in my “Inspiration Journal”. So if I don’t have a project on, or it’s not feasible to be working on one of the Projects, I can reach into either the “RD Shot Box” or the “IJ” for something to work on. Not sure my life can afford many more wasted moments.
Using the Camranger
I have to say that I looked at this device a while ago when I realised that Nikon just wasn’t going to put wireless on a lot of it’s cameras for a while yet. It also offered way more possibilities than the Eye-Fi devices did, even though they were handy. I still use them on occasion, for a quick transmission of photos to show someone. The Nikon Wifi units such as the WU-1B or WU-1A themselves seem of little use to me in their current incarnations, and better units cost significantly more but with no better functionality until you reach the $1000 price range.
The best feature for me is of course the iPad application. It allows me to stop cramping myself into some ridiculously tight spots.
Using the Stackshot
This has been a boon to my Macro Shooting. It allows for absolutely startling Focus Stacking. Given that manual focus is the best option for macro shooting most of the time and even if it wasn’t necessarily the best way to go, I’d rather not use the auto focus with my Nikon 200mm F4 Micro. My one criticism of the lens is that the toggle for the manual / autofocus is fragile and the only real plastic on the lens. Others have commented that over time this is a potential failure point. I’d prefer to not use this particular component of the lens at all. I like to leave it set on Manual and not change it at all. There’s really no need given that the Lens was bought specifically because it’s the best Macro Lens Nikon offer at this stage short of Microscopic Technology.
Photography Online Shop going up Soon…
Well this evening I’ve upgraded my Paypal to a business account, and purchased a WordPress theme that I can host for my own online store complete with e-commerce integration. Obviously this is for the Photography not I.T. Should get it up and running this week. This saves me the hassle of having to code and fit’s within my existing System Architecture. I can host it myself or host it anywhere.
This is a demo: Darkroom 2 theme for Photocrati. These are obviously not my photographs. But you can click through to get an idea how the site will function.
When it’s up, http://shardsofarcadia.com/ will no longer redirect to Idyllic Moments in Time: Shards of Arcadia | How I’d like it to be… but be it’s own entity and allow e-business via Paypal & Credit Card.
Beautiful But Deadly If You’re an Insect…
Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours shooting Sundew that I have growing (natively) up the back of the yard. I’ve always been fascinated by Carnivorous Plants, and although Sundew aren’t as “notorious” as Venus Flytraps, or Pitcher Plants, they’re just as interesting. I think I’m very lucky to have these fascinating plants growing in my backyard “as is” mostly all year around. Not sure I’ve noticed them flowering every year though, but I guess they must.
These ones seem to have only a single flower at a time or possibly one only each time they flower (currently not sure). I believe this one to be Drosera Rosulata “giant” ( white flowers ), and I’m fairly certain the critters around the Stamen are Mites.
These were a good opportunity for the “Stacking” technique I’m using at times, as they are extremely low to the ground, so tend not to move even in a mild breeze. Of course there’s always the chance that the lighting levels can change drastically and quickly at this time of years, but I hoped to get around that by a higher number of shots with more overlap of DoF. That allowed me to drop several if I needed to because the light wasn’t consistent.
Although this shot had preliminary work in Lightroom (Ver. 6) it was then exported and worked on in Helicon Focus before being finally finished off in DXO (just to make you happy Stefan) which I’ve not used much yet. I think it’s come up quite well.