Friday, February 13, 2009
Nikon and Canon 50mm f1.8 Prime Lens
For around $100, you can buy a great lens for low light situations. It's a 50mm f1.8 prime lens and is available for both Nikon and Canon.
The 1.8 maximum aperture allows a ton of light to get to your digital sensor and makes it possible to get a good exposure for low light sitations such as dawn, dusk, and indoors. The aperture is essentially the hole in your lens. Think of the number like a fraction, so 1.8 is like 1/1.8. The smaller the number on the bottom of the fraction, the larger it is. For example, if you have a 28-70mm f4-5.6 lens, the biggest your aperture can get is f4 at 28mm and f5.6 at 70mm. F1.8 allows in more than double the amount of light than F4.
There is a side effect of having a large aperture, which is the depth of field. The larger the aperture (the lower the number), the more narrow your depth of field is. Depth of field is how much of the picture is blurry from the point where you've focused it. This is great to bring the focus to your subject and is often used for portraits, images of birds, and macros.
Also, keep in mind that your ISO plays a part in how your picture is exposed. Typically in low light, even with your aperture set at f1.8, you'll need to increase your ISO number. On my camera, the maximum ISO is 1600, so I'll set the camera to that, use aperture priority, and manually set the aperture to f1.8. That way, the camera will figure out the best shutter speed to use. You'll need a shutter speed of at least 1/80th of a second to shoot a sharp image with your 50mm lens (since there's a 1.5x modifier when dealing with DX style DSLR cameras.)
Dealing with aperture, shutter speeds, and ISO to get a good exposure is often confusing at first. Once you figure it out though, it really opens up your possibilities. To recap, for low light, make the f-stop or aperture use the smallest number possible, the highest ISO possible, and your shutter speed as slow as you can without compromising sharpness. For this lens on my Nikon D50, the settings then would be f1.8, 1/80th second or faster, ISO 1600. Modify it from there to your particular situation.
For another example of dealing with these three exposure components, see my review on a 500mm Sigma Telephoto lens.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
This image of three deer was taken in Montana with a telephoto lens. We scared them off when we first saw them and were lucky enough to find them over the next ridge. There were several others including a few bucks nearby. They crossed the road 100 yards or so in front of us and bolted up a mountain.
Montana is full of wildlife photographic opportunities. In the same weekend, we saw deer, antelope, moose, elk, and bison.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
This is the stream at the bottom of Big Cottonwood Canyon, which is a canyon near Salt Lake City, Utah. The canyon is home of Brighton and Solitude, two of the best ski resorts in Utah in terms of quantity and quality of snow.
This image was taken using a slow shutter speed to capture the movement of the water, and is part of my gallery at The Lens Flare. Slow motion water photography is among my favorite subjects, perhaps because Utah is largely desert so moving water tends to be in the form of smaller streams and rivers; however the mounainous terraign creates many spectacular waterfalls.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
This image was taken while I was hiking in the Uinta Mountains in North-Eastern Utah. It was taken with a simple 3.1MP Digital Point and Shoot camera several years back, when I first started with digital photography. Even though I've since upgraded my camera equipment several times, I still think that first camera produced great color and clarity, and this is still one of my favorite pictures.
Before buying the camera used for this picture, I used a 35mm film SLR; however, the film and processing costs were expensive and I couldn't afford to experiment too much. Once I made the switch to digital, it no longer mattered if it took hundreds of photographs, which made it possible to experiment and improve my skills. Eventually, I had a few dozen pictures that I really liked, and ultimately programmed The Lens Flare to display them. Fast forward a few years, and now The Lens Flare has a few thousand members and thousands of visitors per month. It was designed to be family-friendly, and is one of the more popular photography communities on the web.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
One of my favorite subjects to photograph is lightning. Sometimes a rather nasty storm will pass over my house like this one so I'll set up the tripod and camera near the front door of my house. The technique to capture lightning is quite easy, especially late at night. What you do is set your camera to manual focus and set the focus to infinity. Then you set it so the aperture will stay open for 1 to 30 seconds depending on how dark it is outside. This photograph was taken with a 2 second shutter speed. From there, all you do is keep taking pictures until the storm passes or your card runs out of room. If you're in an active storm, usually you'll capture several lightning bolts in a few minutes.
Make sure you follow all of the lightning safety rules to avoid getting hit. Don't wear or sit on something that's metal. Don't stand under the tallest object. Don't be the tallest object. Stay low to the ground. Don't stand in water, etc. Wear clothing that will keep you dry, and invest in something that will keep your camera dry as well. Research lightning safety before attempting to photograph it so that you don't end up hurt.
Assuming that you remain safe, shooting lighting is very rewarding. The amount of lightning photographs available are quite small in comparision to other types of photography, and it's a great addition to anybody's portfolio.
For more information about this lightning photograph, please view my gallery on The Lens Flare.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
We were fortunate to see this elk walking near the side of the road in Yellowstone National Park. If you've never been to Yellowstone, I highly recommend taking a trip there. We were able to see several elk, moose, deer, bison, and bald eagles in their natural settings. These are not zoo animals; they roam free, but they are protected from hunters. If you want to photograph them, I highly recommend taking a good telephoto lens with you. This way you can keep your distance, but still get a good shot.
In addition to the wildlife, Yellowstone offers some of the best volcanic formations in the world such as the famous Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and many other geysers, paint pots, and hot springs. A wide angle lens is a good thing to have when photographing these awesome landscapes.
A large image of this bull elk is available in my gallery at The Lens Flare.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
This photograph was taken in Montana in September of 2008. We tracked these deer for a few miles until they were close enough that we could get a decent shot of them. I used a 500mm telephoto lens to capture this image although I almost missed it because they were really fast.
Wildlife photography is my favorite type because it's a challenge to track and find the animals as well as capture their unique moments.
You can view a larger image of this jumping deer in my gallery at The Lens Flare.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
I was able to capture this photograph of a bull elk in Yellowstone National Park. It was taken with a Nikon D50 and a Sigma 50-500 mm lens. I used a monopod for stability. The camera specs are 1/640, f/6.3, 500mm, 1600 ISO. It was taken in the early morning September 7, 2008.
Just inside the West Yellowstone Park entrance, we saw quite a few people parked on the side of the road. We pulled in next to a small pond and on the other side were several elk grazing.
I have a larger image available of the Bull Elk in my gallery at The Lens Flare.
