Flowerholic II

Tags

Macrophotography, Photography, Raynox 250

It’s flowers again!!!

And in fact, The reason I chosen this subject (flowers) to shoot is also to test out the “new” macro range I have. To those that know me, they know that I always wanted to go nearer for the wider perspective at macro range which the 50mm on crop is just a wee wee bit tighter that what I would have preferred.

And to be honest, I really loved this lens on FF even at “macro” range…*This adds to another reason to love the 50mm*

50mm with Raynox 250

50mm with Raynox + 60% Cropped

50mm f1.8 *Abit focusing errors or my part here.. But at the same time, 50mm also starts to shows it’s weakness wide open softness*

50mm f7.1

The 2 shots below are on my tele lens…I didn’t really thought of using a tele lens for flowers shooting, but I saw a couple of people at the garden dome doing it, so, I was thinking, I should also try and see if I can get some fresh perspective.. *I brought my 70-200 for an event which I thought of shooting later in the evening*

 

 

Thoughts on Dedicated Macro lens…

I remember that sometime ago (quite some months back), I was contemplating whether If I should get a dedicated macro lens. I’m now kinda glad that I did not buy it…

One of the reason being that I don’t shoot macro very often… If you realized that my last Flowerholic was almost 3 months ago. So, I don’t think this justifies at all if you think along the line “A new lens just for shooting macro once a quarter”.

One key thing to note about those wanting to shoot macro. You need to know what you can do and cannot do with the equipment. And whether you can live with the limitation or not.

In this case, I’m (still) perfectly fine using 50mm and Raynox 250 Macro adapter. Even thou it doesn’t give me the 1:1 magnification, but it serves my needs pretty well.

Dedicated Macro lens vs Raynox Setup

The only benefit (in my opinion) that a dedicated macro lens have only this raynox setup is that with a real macro lens, you will have more working distance and focus to infinity (from the Min focus distance and further away).

With the raynox setup, I will only have 1 magnification and it will be fixed at aprox 12cm away. If at this distance, you need a slightly wider framing, you are not likely be able to do so. *I’ll give you a max of 1 additional cm to back away. And this is only achieved by playing with the focusing.* Once you have hit the focusing limit, you will have to change your composition or accept it as it is.

Of course there are other real benefits too to a dedicated macro like diffraction limits and sharpness stuffs. But I usually live with it as I know it’s the limit to the equipment that I’m willing to live with.

Maybe years down the road, I may consider getting a macro lens if I got the spare cash. But not at the moment…

Benefits I see that Raynox have over Dedicated Macro lens is that I can easily detach the adapter from my lens and use it as a normal lens 🙂 And not forgetting the cost of this macro adapter. (~SGD$100), a dedicated macro lens cost at least $500 even for used.

 

Had to say it again, I realllllly loved this 50mm…

I will be dropping by on Labor day (1st May) to shoot the tulips.. Hoping for a nice bright sun that day

Regards,
YK

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Lanscape Week

Tags

Changi Beach Park, Marina bay sands

Having not post something of landscape/cityscape for the past few post, I was thinking of shooting some of it this weekend… But the weather isn’t really on my side when I attempted a proper landscape shoot this morning…

I was enjoying my shoot in the Garden Dome on Saturday (with my 50mm on FF + Raynox 250)… And I saw the tulips ready to bloom in 2 days time (which is tomorrow). The tulips will be on display from 29th April to 20th May. Which I will confirm be going down this coming weekend.

But anyway, after my mini-shoot at the Flower Dome, I went for a sunset shoot at the front of Marina Bay Sands.

When I reached the scene, I immediately noticed that the sun won’t be very visible. So instead of the traditional egg yolk and starburst, I went for the colors and hoping with long exposure, I can get some interesting Clouds movements and of course the brilliant colors of the sun.

Hoping for a equally beautiful sunrise, I went to bed hoping to shoot the following day’s sunrise back at Changi Beach Park with my partner.

But, when I reached there, we noticed that the clouds are exceptionally thick and there is also quite a fair bit of mist… *doesn’t sound good*

True enough, the beautiful colors of the sun didn’t even manage to get past the thick clouds.

The shoot results in black and white pictures since the colors are not optimal.

The toughest thing about the sunrise attempt is to find something which I feel is interesting and shoot it… The dull skies turned me off quite a fair bit which kinda clouded my judgement about the framing and compositions and seeking angles.

I’ll return here another day when I’m done with the tulips shoot in the Garden Dome at Garden By The Bay.

For the next couple of days, I shall be posting up my flower shots (this will be part of my ongoing Flowerholic album on my Facebook Page). For the shoot, I was using my 5d3 + 50mm f1.8 + Raynox 250. I’m really starting to love the 50mm even more. Previously on crop, I only loved it when it comes to tight head/shouder shots and macro. Now, I like this 50 for macro and normal street/candid shoot. 70-200 took the crown for my candid portraits and events shoot even at tight spaces!!!

A sneak preview of 50mm Raynox 250 on 5d3…

More will be coming…

Regards,
YK

Water Skiing @ Bedok Reservoir

Following the ice skating competition at JCube, I did a shoot at Bedok Reservoir the following day. Not without any preparation, I read my camera user manual..(In the computer world, we call it: RTFM…) I really need to know how the AF works if I want to get those fast action shots.

But I’ve only read the part on the AF :p

It was raining on the day of this water skiing shoot… But it was already just drizzling when I reached the venue. It was a thunderstorm like just 2 hours before the event starts.

But still, It just means you will get uninteresting skies (grey overcast skies and potentially low light)

Here are some shots I got from the event… *After filtering out another 90% of all I got that day* The rest of the photos can be found in my Facebook album here

 

 

As mentioned, I’m not exactly pleased with the results I got in this series… I believe it’s probably the weather that day that made me feel like that. Usually, I would have preferred a big hot sun with blue skies lighting up the surroundings and giving things their contrasts and vibrant colors… but the overcast skies just “kills” the “color” and “feeling” (That’s in my opinion…)

Well, I still do see some great shots from those people who were shooting with me that day… I guess, It’s just a matter of changing mentality and focusing on the sports instead..

I think I really got alot to work on this area (forget the weather, just shoot!)

I’m not sure when will be the next time I will have the chance to actually shoot sports again. But I will definitely be attempt shooting sports again when the opportunity comes.

Regards,
YK

ISU World Development Trophy 2013 (Pt 2)

Tags

5d3, Ice skating, ISU, ISU World Development Trophy 2013, JCube

Sorry for the late updates for the photos.. Been busy during the week.. And at the same time busy with shooting with my 5d3.. *It’s really a joy to shoot with*

Below are just a couple of shots from the same event I shot last week (Ice Skating competition @ JCube)

This shot above is a direct 100% crop from the original raw file

 

As previously mentioned, I had quite abit of hits and misses. I’ve filled my 16gb of CF card + a few gigs in my 16gb SD just for this event. But only to return home filtering away at least 90%. Quite a fair bit due to OOF due to incorrect usage of the AF modes and settings and the remaining came from extra shots when I shot in high speed continuous (6 shots.)

Processing these photos can be quite tough.. Partially due to the lighting. This place is lighted up by florescent lights. That means you will encounter funny lighting situations where some parts of the ice is white while the other is yellowish or even brown. But because the lights are pretty high up, the effects are not so visible as compared to shooting in a low ceiling place. *As in my last post, most of my shots are at least 1/500s or faster.*

The rest of the shots from this event can be viewed from my Facebook album: here

Now to work on my follow up post… on the water skiing. I must say that I’m not exactly pleased with my works for the water skiing.. But nevertheless, I wll upload some parts to this blog.

Regards,
YK

ISU World Development Trophy 2013

Tags

Ice skating, International Skating Union

I was testing out my newly acquired 5d3 at the Ice Skating competition at JCube (Jurong East). 70-200 IS II was paired up with this camera for the whole shoot..

Gears isn’t the problem… The problem is how to use the gear…

I spent more time fiddling with the controls and getting the “right” controls to find out that it’s wrong :p *I was referring to the AI Servo mode of the 5d3*

There are many AF setting to choose from and to fine tune if required… From sensitivity, Accel. decel. tracking and AF pt auto switching. I was like “what the heck” are all these settings… So I was spending quite some time reading the info in the camera and trying to understand it better.

Besides this, other stuffs to try included multiple exposure shots (which end up with a big fail, no shots produced :p )

But anyway, the main focus of the shoot was familiarize with the AI Servo AF system of 5d3 which I never used on my 500D (as it doesn’t work, I get more hits on one-shot mode than AI Servo mode).

I got a couple of hits and lots of misses… partially because of the wrong settings set for the AF module..

Used a shutter speed too slow….1/400s… After this shot, the rest are shot at 1/640s at least. And eventually I’m using 1/800s

When the track focus works, it works marvelously. I doubt I can go back using my 500D to shoot these kind of stuffs… *not that I shoot these events often*

I’m still trying to processing the rest of the shots from this series.. (blasted a full 16gb CF card + 1gb of 16gb on my SD card backup). *The high speed continuous burst mode is addictive…CAN’T STOP FIRING!!!*

It’s also thanks to this test shoot that I know what settings to used exactly for the other test shoot (water skiing, not wakeboarding) I shot this morning.

 

The above shot is a 100% crop from the original size…AF is spot on

More shots will be coming up for the 2 shoots in the next couple of days..

 

I’m still thinking of my 5d3 in my dreams… It’s a wonderful piece of equipment….

Regards,
YK