Fallen Broadleaf maple leaf at Oyster Bay, Olympia, Washington.
One good thing about being slightly less than sure-footed is that I frequently look down at where I’m walking, and see things that I might otherwise miss. As much as I love breathtaking, expansive landscapes, sometimes it’s the small and quiet moments that really affect me the most–particularly on a journey of self-discovery and renewal.
German Johnson tomato from our garden, Durham, North Carolina. | Canon 5D Mk. II and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens @ 43mm | Exposed 1/80 sec. @ f/4, ISO 400
Knives loom over our ripening tomatoes. | Canon 5D Mk. II and 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens @ 27mm | Exposed 1/60 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 100 | Key: Canon 580EX II Speedlite in 16x16" Softbox on camera right. Fill: Canon 550EX Speedlite in Lumiquest Softbox III on camera left. Triggered wirelessly using ST-E2 transmitter ratio 2:1 key to fill.
Things have been fairly quiet on the blog while I make some final arrangements to be truly “in business” as a photographer in the state of North Carolina. I am contemplating a very large order of roll paper in anticipation of opening up my HP Z3200 to making prints for fellow photographers. Hopefully, that will include some of my dear readers here!
However, most of my new work of late has been around the house, especially Elizabeth’s garden which is now producing lots of tomatoes. This afternoon I made a photo of our harvested tomatoes that are ripening on the kitchen counter…or atop the microwave, to be more accurate. In years past, other creatures have gotten to Elizabeth’s tomatoes before she had a chance to pick them, so this season she’s trying to pick them when they’ve begun to ripen, and allowing them to finish the process indoors. So far, so good!
August Kryger and Amanda Shea's wedding ceremony at Alpine Park on 23 April 2011.
Last week I flew back to Columbia, Missouri to attend my friend August Kryger‘s wedding to Amanda Shea. I flew into Saint Louis on Thursday and the following day, a few hours after consulting with my committee members to figure out the right direction for my master’s project on Asian carp, a tornado touched down at the airport. By the time I flew out on Tuesday, STL was up and running once again, and plywood replaced the glass that had been shattered during the storm.
Driving up to STL in the airport shuttle on Tuesday 26 April 2011 in Saint Louis, Mo.
A few glass windows remain at the main entrance to STL on Tuesday 26 April 2011 in Saint Louis, Mo.
Sugar snap peas overwhelm their trellis in our garden, Durham, N.C. | Canon 5D Mk. II and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens @ 24mm | Exposed 1/50 sec. @ f/3.5, ISO 100 | 580EX II and 550EX Speedlites triggered with ST-E2.
The other day I received my Lumiquest Softbox III that I ordered at the Joe McNally and David Hobby “Flash Bus Tour” in Durham, North Carolina on 4 April. A new light modifier? Well, I simply had to play with it. Trick is finding cooperative subject matter. As I mentioned a few weeks back, Elizabeth and I have been working on a new garden/cooking/home improvement blog, and it was high time for an update on the crop of peas growing along the “whimsical trellises” that she made in the back yard.
Lighting the garden
So I set up the Softbox III on my 580EX II Speedlite, gelled 1/4 CTO on a stand at camera right as my key, and placed my 550EX in the back, zoomed out to 105mm and gelled 1/2 CTO to work as a kicker. While outdoors I tend to use my low-end radio triggers for wireless flash, in cloudy conditions and after sunset I find that I can get away with wireless ETTL with either my ST-E2 or a flash as the commander. This makes setting the light ratio and also the amount of light a lot faster when I don’t have much time (like when the sun is setting and the sky is getting really dark and really fast). In this case, I think the warmer light created by the gels contrasted nicely with the cool sky at dusk.
Katie at the Gardens, Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, N.C. | Canon 5D Mk. II and Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens | Exposed 1/250 sec. @ f/3.2, ISO 100.
While testing the Zeiss 85mm two weeks ago, I ran into Katie at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and made a quick portrait. While I’d really need to have them side-by-side to do a more thorough comparison, it seems that the Canon 85mm f/1.2L Mk. II has far superior bokeh, but that the Zeiss might actually be a sharper lens from f/2.8 and smaller–but the Canon would definitely win at the largest apertures. Either way, the Zeiss has fantastic micro-contrast, good bokeh, and clearly has potential for portraits…so long as your subject understands that it will take a second to (manually) focus!
While I was not able to use the Zeiss 85mm lens I rented nearly as much as I had anticipated during the week that I had it, I will say that it is disappointingly soft wide-open, but sharpens up dramatically by f/2, and is wickedly sharp at f/4. The detail in the fallen cherry blossom petals is amazing!
Also, some big changes are coming as I am in the process of becoming an LLC in the state of North Carolina. More to come…
Last week was far busier than I had anticipated when I scheduled the rental of a Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens. I feel that I wasn’t really able to put the lens through its paces, mostly staying close to home due to a couple of developments that I’ll be announcing here shortly. Since I was working at home I worked with subjects at hand: loaves of bread, the cat, and our garden.
While soft wide-open at f/1.4 (to the point of being almost unusable), by f/2 this lens is razor sharp, and features the oft-fabled Zeiss micro-contrast: in-focus part of the image does seem to defy its two-dimensional nature. However, working in close quarters is where this lens struggles: the minimum focusing distance is three feet.
For this photograph of the daffodils that were in bloom in our front yard until yesterday, I had to resort to a 25mm extension tube, which presented me with the opposite of my problem: suddenly I had no choice but to be closer to my subject than I would have wished! That said, I think it works in this example. I’ll have a couple more to share after I get a spare moment to work them up.
More to follow…
