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Sunday, March 23, 2008

uf(o)untain . cubees . jrmyst . tomatoes

some more photos a day:
uf(o)untaincubees
jrmysttomatoes
the first was taken at night where i work, my friend suggested that it looked a little like a ufo, and i agreed... in my continued effort to document all of the toys/knickknacks in our apartment (and there are many!) i took a photo of my cubee collection. i saw these on flickr and only had 3 had the time but had to have them all after i saw them... the last two were taken with my new 50mm lens that i got on friday and am excited about. it's going to be my primary lens. this morning, i went to the farmer's market and shot some photos, many of them were blurry/not focused on the right thing. i think it will take some practice, but i like it so far. one of these days, i'll try to actually make something but that is maybe not going to happen for another week or two...

5 comments:

sukogirl said...

nice collection of subjects. i like the blurred background of the tomato shot. the greenish color and the white signs, nicely composed.

lanaconqueso said...

wow, love the DOF on the new lens! It'll be especially great for portraits and low light. Is it manual focus? Really nice focus on Jerm's portrait. Great shots!

cignoh said...

thanks yall! yeah, i think the new lens will be great. hopefully, i can get used to the fact that i can't zoom. but like i said, for every photo that i took, there were a few more that i didn't get the focus right, i think i was leaving it too open in most of the cases. it has both auto/manual focus, i was using the auto...

Robin D. said...

i really like the night shot of the fountain, very nice! and where did you get all those cubees? i was also wondering about the benefits of having a non-zoom lens. is it better for low-light situations? why did you choose this particular lens? i'm assuming this focal length can't be used for macro/closeup shots, but maybe you have another lens for that...

cignoh said...

i'm definitely not an expert on lenses and photography, but i chose the 50 mm/f1.4 lens because i heard that it was good for low light situations---the aperture opens pretty wide. there were 2 other 50 mm lens, one was 1.2 and the other 1.8---1.8 a lot cheaper, 1.2 a lot more expensive but i went with this one b/c the quality was higher/could shoot in lower light than the 1.8, and WAY cheaper than the 1.2 and a lot, lot lighter.

prime lenses (non-zoom lenses) are sharper than zoom lenses, and a lot of photographers recommend getting a prime 50 or 55 mm lens as a good starting/learning lens. the only thing is that since my camera isn't full frame, then the 50 mm lens is more like an 80 mm lens---i think you calculate by multiplying 0.6 by the length and adding to the original length: 50 mm + (50mm*0.6=30) = 80 mm

I am considering getting a zoom lens at some point, but the other reason I got the prime lens is because it's much smaller than a zoom lens, and I wanted something smaller/lighter to carry around.

i seem to take photographs in mainly 3 situations:

-- at home, of small objects that i've bought or made; or of myself in clothing that i made/reconstructed. the 50 mm doesn't have zoom, but it seems to work ok for some stuff so far. we also have a 60 mm macro lens that was good for that.
-- portraits of ppl in restaurants or small home gatherings---need something good for low light. the 50 mm seems like it isn't wide enough, so i had to scoot way back to get some pics. we were thinking of getting a 35 mm lens for that purpose
-- travel---want something general purpose that isn't too heavy

check out this article that jrmyst sent to me: http://fotogenetic.dearingfilm.com/how_to_choose_a_lens.html

especially starting at
Step 1: Determine the style(s) of photography you expect to use the lens for

and beyond. i didn't follow it strictly but thought it was helpful....