Articles in the Category: Equipment Review

Over the past year, the Lensbaby Composer lens and its accessories have become mainstays in my camera bag. I’m very attracted to the quality of the selective focus that the Lensbaby creates and I’m going to share some of the basics of Lensbaby operation with you here.

The Lensbaby is a selective focus lens that has a “sweet spot” of focus that you can control the size and quality of. Focus falls away from the “sweet spot” in a manner that is controlled by you.

Lensbaby makes 3 different lenses that all accomplish the same end. They include the Muse, the Control Freak, and the Composer. For most photographers, the Composer strikes the best blend of control and spontaneity and is the lens that I recommend the most.

Having a “sweet spot” that is in focus, allows us to simplify and drive towards the essence of a subject. It also allows us to deal with a busy composition by throwing the non-essential components out of focus. It allows for new interpretations of a subject that are unconventional. The Lensbaby is also a tool that I reach for when I’m feeling uninspired and looking for an interpretation to get excited about. It will often get my creative, experimental juices flowing when nothing else will.

NUTS AND BOLTS

Aperture rings- aperture and its corresponding depth of field is controlled manually by the placing of a magnetic aperture ring next the optic of the Lensbaby. Each Lensbaby comes with a full set of aperture rings.

Shoot aperture priority- camera metering works normally except on a few older Nikon consumer bodies. Set to aperture priority, drop in the desired aperture ring, and let the camera do the rest.

Focusing- auto focus does not work with the Lensbaby because the Lensbaby is a manual focus lens. The easiest way to focus with the Composer lens is to center the lens in its ball and socket joint, then put the subject that you want in focus in the middle of the frame. Turn the focusing ring to focus on the subject, then without moving the focusing ring further, recompose, and then move the lens in its ball and socket joint until the “sweet spot” is positioned on the subject that you want in focus.

Locking ring- if you have difficulty with the focusing ring turning after you’ve focused, use the locking ring to lock the focus before recomposing.

Optics- The Lensbaby Composer comes with a double glass optic that produces a tack sharp “sweet spot”. If a more diffuse quality of focus is desired, there are three other easily interchanged optics available. The single glass optic produces a softer quality of focus. The plastic optic produces a very diffuse, ethereal sweet spot. The pinhole-zone plate optic produces results that are downright dreamy.

Accessories- Wide, super-wide, and tele lens attachments are available as well as a really fun macro lens kit.

I’m having a blast with my Lensbaby Composer. It encourages me to experiment and to try new things. It’s not for everyone, but most photographers who try it soon fall in love with it. I would recommend that every photographer at least try one to know if it’s for you.

For more info, check out the Lensbaby website at www.lensbaby.com.

Nikon just released a bunch of camera firmware updates.

Interesting highlights are improved white balance and auto-focus! Instructions and full details are on the Nikon website. Here are the links.

• Nikon D700 A/B 1.0.2
• Nikon D300S A/B 1.0.1
• Nikon D300 A/B 1.10
• Nikon D3 A/B: 2.02
• Nikon D3x B:1.01

I am inspired by more traditional, literal interpretations of landscapes and nature; but I’m also very strongly drawn towards abstract, other-worldly renderings of these subjects. Many photographs that stick with me over time suggest a different reality. This explains my current year and a half long love affair with digital infrared (IR). At that time, I had an old Nikon D70 body which I sent off to be converted for digital infrared shooting. A whole new world opened up for me and I haven’t been able to stop exploring it since.

Here’s a little background on the whole IR process: as wavelengths of visible light get longer, they go from violet to red. Infrared begins where red light ends. We can’t see infrared with our eyes, but sometimes we can sense it as heat. Converting a digital body for infrared shooting involves removing the high pass filter, which protects the sensor and actually cuts out infrared, and replacing this with a different piece of glass that cuts out visible light and lets the infrared pass through.

There are two alternatives to the converted digital camera for shooting infrared. Both have serious disadvantages. The first option is to shoot infrared film, which is an expensive proposition, both in film and in the processing. It is also a royal pain because IR film is SO sensitive to light. The second option is shooting with an infrared filter on the end of your lens. This works OK, but results in very long shutter speeds (usually multiple seconds), forcing one to always shoot from a tripod. I love the option of being able to shoot handheld. With infrared filters that’s just not an option.

In my world, converting a camera to infrared is the way to go, hands down. I got mine converted at www.lifepixel.com. The converted camera operates as it would normally. Auto-focus works, metering works, and you can look through the viewfinder and see the image as you’re capturing it. Compared to the other options for creating infrared images, shooting with a converted digital camera is a wonderfully spontaneous and liberating process.

I am thrilled about infrared for many reasons. Anything that reflects a lot of infrared appears light in tone. Vegetation and people, both very effective infrared reflectors, are rendered in ethereal, light tones. Infrared absorbers like blue sky and water are rendered in dark tones. Most infrared images end up with some color information in them. This color usually does not match the real world, but sometimes it can be very beautiful. I end up converting most of my infrared captures to black and white images, because I love the look. This often results in a fairly high contrast image that has beautifully light toned vegetation.

Another reason that I am so excited about digital IR is because it keeps me more productive and more engaged around mid-day. Infrared shooting is often at its best during the middle of the day when objects are hot and our eyes perceive the scene to be harshly lit. Now that I am shooting digital IR, mid-day is becoming incredibly productive for me and since there is so much infrared being reflected at that time of day, much of this work is shot hand held, which I thoroughly enjoy. These days, I often shoot with my regular color body until around two hours after sunrise and then I switch to my IR body and just keep on shooting. When the light starts getting soft and sweet in the late afternoon, I switch back to my regular body.

Here are 3 shooting tips for digital IR to get you started.

1. Shoot in RAW if possible. This always affords you more options later.
2. When checking your histogram, know that with IR you may have to overexpose by up to a stop to get a good exposure that has lots of information but is still not close to being clipped on the right side.
3. Shoot middle apertures when possible. IR is more prone to flare than visible light is. Shooting at middle apertures, around f 8 for most lenses, helps manage this because smaller apertures are more prone to flare.

And finally, I have yet to meet a photographer who has explored digital IR shooting who hasn’t totally fallen in love it. If you want to add some exciting, creative options to your shooting that allow you to be super productive during the middle of a sunny day, digital IR could be for you. Give it a shot!

More examples are available in the Landscapes portfolio on my website at www.moephotography.com.

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of geotagging images for a while now. It is one of those things that really sounds like fun, but the cost of admission was and still is pretty high. I am however convinced that more and more applications and therefore more and more interesting uses for this capability will make it an essential feature on your next cameras…why not get going today? When Adobe is on board with some new technology, you can be sure it going to be useful. Adobe’s Lightroom will automatically take you to a Google map showing the location where the image was taken. OK, it is a bit more gee whiz than useful, I can still recall where I took all 20,000 images in my portfolio, but my inner geek is giddy!

I looked at quite a few options and read all of the reviews that I could find online. Ultimately, I chose Nikon’s GP-1. Frankly a lot of it was brand name. There are several options that all seem to work, but for ease of use and similar price, I kept the Nikon logo on my camera.

The unit is much smaller than it appears in the ads. It is about 2 inches square and 1 inch tall. It clips on to the hotshoe flash mount or on the camera strap. Obviously, you cannot use an external flash or the internal pop up flash on my D300 for that matter. I rarely use the flash anyway, but I think that I’m going to prefer the camera strap option. The reason to use the strap option is the cable from GP-1 to the 10 pin connector is a a bit unwieldy. It does make the camera look very macho, but I think It will be less obtrusive on the strap.

Initial GPS acquisition takes a few minutes depending on conditions. If you are need to grab a shot from a “cold” start you’ll not get the camera to record the GPS coordinates. Once it has the acquired the signal re-acquisition was no big deal. It flashes a red LED while searching and this turns green once it has locked on a minimum of 3 satellites. Everything is done automatically for you at this point. The GP-1 does draw power from the cameras battery and it does not have a dedicated on/off switch. You must unplug the 10 pin connector to prevent a constant drain on the battery. From what I have read this isn’t a big deal, but if you store your camera for several days between uses you’ll likely want to unplug the GP-1.

I’ve only used it once so far and get a kick out of the technology. I haven’t found my killer app for the data yet, but I know it is coming. I’ll write a follow-up once I’ve played with it for a while longer.

Here is a picture of my friend Katie and a Google map showing exactly where we were…that is very cool!