On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

Action, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This is an image that had no intent to it. I was photographing my son as he slid down a slide in these cascading pools, working on how to set shutterspeed and pan to capture him sharply amid the rushing water. In this frame he was out of site more or less (that’s him at the far left of the frame) but the image is striking.

The Conversation, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This is an image captured with the Nikon 105mm Micro VR. It’s a beautifully sharp lens. This was handheld at 1/60th sec at f/5.

As I’ve looked through some of these images, I’ve begun to realize why I like the wide lens of the Sigma DP1 and why the 24mm f/2.8 spends so much time on the Nikon DSLR.

This image shows it well. The knothole in the tree on the right is nice and sharp. But the near side of the knot on the left is out of focus enough to bother me. The depth of field of the 105mm is just too shallow for my favored look. When I use the 24mm and move in close to frame at an aperture of f/5 the depth of the two trees would be fully in focus.

It may be that I’m better off without the 24-120mm lens because of typical subject matter and desire for deeper focus. At the very least I need to work toward bracketing apertures to better judge how much I need to stop down to successfully capture this kind of image.

Landscape in Miniature, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’ve finally ranked the images from my New Hampshire vacation now almost 3 weeks later. I really felt kind of blocked and detatched from the image making, largely because I felt that I had a low number of captures and an even lower yield of good images out of the collection. I hope to work through them steadily as I probably have about 30 images worth the effort of post processing.

It’s almost like a loss of faith or confidence that in the end one or two of these images will be standouts. I think that my eye is much more critical of technical flaws, leaving me unimpressed with so many images. Of course that should only lead to better images in the future.

Tuckermans Ravine Trail, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’m back from 2 weeks in New England, mostly staying in our favorite campground, Glen Ellis in Glen New Hampshire.

My single most important goal was to climb Mount Washington with my 15 1/2 year old son. It was a cool day and I took the Sigma DP1 as a light, landscape capable small camera. It performed well.

My photographic output wasn’t very prolific, but there are still about 800 images to sort and rate.

Facing Wall, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

My eyes seem to need a break from these summer colors. So I went back into the archives. This was captured in Georgetown near Washington, DC.

The “micro 4/3rds” news is very exciting. Olympus and Panasonic announced that they are working together on a new specification for a lens mount which uses the same sensor size as the DSLR 4/3rds mount but does away with the mirror box for more compact cameras.

This opens up the possibility of a compact with interchangable lenses and a large sensor. Leica could use it for a rangefinder focusing camera, perhaps even with automated rangefinding. There’s the possibilty of autofocus based on infrared or other optical systems as the film Olympus Stylus Epic or Contax G2 used.

I would probably give up the Sigma DP1 for a new camera with a more responsive operating characteristic as long as the image quality was at least as good as the current crop of the 4/3rds DSLRs. Of course, I’d rather have a similar compact from Nikon that would slot into my current workflow and provide Nikon image quality.

Hay Field Sunset, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’ve been out a few more times capturing these local fields. They are visually interesting to me, but are hard to photograph since the forms and shapes are so organic and random.

When you’re standing in front of a sunset, it takes much more insensitivity than I have to just ignore it. And after all, the view is part of the process of going out to these suburban farms and sunset was the light source after all. Maybe I can think of this image as documentary rather than cliche. Maybe I want to show that I could take conventional images if I wanted to. It’s just that I’m more interested in this view of the field:

Just like Vincent Versace’s DVD, here’s a quick take on how rapidly Capture NX2 can transform an image by a working photographer:

Moose Peterson D3 Instructional Videos: “Take a quick look at what Moose thinks are the cool new features of NX2 that he uses everyday”

Of course, the passion and vision come first:

Functional Path Training: Seth Godin’s Post Today: “Does it matter? Hopefully this will make those of you that are still hung up on tools and exercises think!”

And my nomination for the best app for the iPhone 2.0 software: Pandora. Personalized internet radio in your pocket. It actually works over Edge most of the time. I began to see why some say that satellite radio has no future.

Hand, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

A break from the farms and hay. I grabbed this shot in my car while putting the 105mm f/2.8 VR on my Nikon D300. This image, focusing on the closer hand, not the face was the most interesting image that I captured. It works for me because the focus and light puts the hand at the visual center, but the face and expression creates a strong secondary focus for the eye.

The 105mm is so sharp and with the VR it’s possible to get a shot like this hand held, stopped down a bit to f/4.5 with a shutter speed of 1/30 sec. The specialty lens, put to an usual use here, is for me the primary reason why DSLRs are the most widely capable image makers, limited only by size and noise compared to compacts.