The Non CPU Story

I took this image yesterday with a Non CPU lens. "Modern" digital cameras are basically computers that can detect light. "Modern" lenses, those designed for digital cameras have electric contacts on the flange part of the lens that when coupled to your camera allows the lens to talk back to the camera's computer and record lens (light) information to your files. Aperture settings, focal lengths all are recorded in the EXIF file.
Because most manufacturers (Nikon, Canon) have made the lens mounts on the newer cameras backwards compatible, you can use older non computer type lenses on your digital. These older lenses do not have the contacts and therefore do not "talk" to your on-board computer. If you used one of the older lenses on the first two generations of digital cameras the camera didn't even know there was a lens on the camera and recorded a big fat 0 in the file and you had to set everything manually.
This new generation of digitals (basically the past 2 or 3 years) have an actual function in the set up menu where you can tell the camera you're putting on an older lens.
The image above was shot with a Nikkor 50mm f1.4, probably made in the early 70's. I just punched in the focal length and maximum aperture setting into my camera and now I can use the command dials to change f stop. Plus f stop and lens type will be recorded to the files.
The only drawback is that it only works in the A or M mode. That's a very easy work around.

Why the fuss? If you're really fussy about lenses you look at them as brushes and each one has a particular look. The above lens paints a very delicate picture pattern so I use it for "soft" images and it also works extremely well for close ups on faces.  Several of my portraits on my other web page,
andydebruyn.com were shot with this lens.

You can always click images for bigger.

 

Image taken with the same Nikkor 50 f1.4 on a D70. A nice profile maybe even a little soft on the  focus but none the less a beautiful painterly look.

 

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Strange Colors in Thorndale

"I'm going down to Thorndale. Take my rider by my side." Actually, in the real song it was "Rosedale" so I took a little license. That real song is Crossroads by Cream/Eric Clapton.

Spent this afternoon trippin' through Thorndale. Love these old towns - always strange colors I never see anywhere else. Plus we had some very weird weather - strange kind of light coming through the clouds.

It was pretty muggy out there -  temps in the nineties with a heavy dose of humidity...

These selects are from my first run-through...may post some more 'morrow.

UPDATE: I've posted a couple of new ones as of 9:30pm.

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Knives Set Up

Here is the setup from yesterday's post honoring two of my tools that have served me well.

The window is providing back light - there is a piece of frosty shower curtain hanging on the window that produces a very soft light. The flash is mounted with a Lumiquest III soft box - hanging at an angle over the set. Because each of the blades on the tools was beveled differently, I had to tweak the softbox back and forth to eliminate the reflections.
In the top photo you can see me pouring small amount of water on the tile - this provided a nice sheen and added another dimension to the shot. There is a light blue rolled up blanket (old/discarded one) on the bottom absorbing the water.  There is black duvetyne under the tile to give me black edges.
I don't know if you can see it but there's also a sheet of visqueen on the table to protect from the water.
I set the timer to 10 seconds to give me enough time to place the cup in the right spot and out of frame.

On the Nikon D7000 is mounted a 50mm which is giving me the 75mm equivalent, a kind of portrait lens. The other specs can be found on yesterday's post.

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Pretty Sharp Portraits

The other day I was looking at some knives on line...now that I think back I can't remember why exactly...must have been purely to catalyze these images. Muh?

After finding out that both of my favorite knives were still pretty popular and available used through dealers (and collectable it seems) I decided to shoot some portraits of my favorite well used tools. Hence the scratches. 

I've had both these knives (actually the top is a multi tool) for probably 20 years plus so they've earned their keep. Both have been at the right place at the right time for the right job. mmm sounds like a tag line...anywho -

The multi tool is a Gerber 600 Blunt Head and the knive is a Remington Delrin 40 R-4. Good stuff made in the U.S.A.

I'm not a collector - perhaps the Remington is still desirable seeing that it was going for 50 dollars used. The Gerber 600 is still made in a variety of configurations.

The treatment - I wanted to do something a little nifty so I took a 12"x12" tile that I had laying in the garden (decorative enhancement) and after washing off dirt and mud I placed it on prop table. The window light is coming from behind and is diffused with a frosty shower curtain and hanging above the knives is a Lumiquest III softbox mounted with the Nikon SB600.

Camera set to ISO 100, manual mode, flash power set to 1/8th +.07, shutter tripped with timer,
1/20th of a sec. Multi tool was at f8, knive was at f6.3.

And then to make it look trippy and cool and worthy of the cover of Field and  Stream, I had a cup of water that I poured slowly over the tile while the timer clicked off.

Tomorrow behind the scene shot on how it was done - ooooh exciting.

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It's Just a Walk 'n the Park

I go for long walks for several reasons, one - for my health, two - I find it meditative, and three - I'm usually equipped with a camera ready to capture something of interest.
The bottom two in today's post were shot on a tripod, the  top one hand held, basically just looking straight down...and I did everything to make sure I was trampling on other flowers 

All shot with a Nikon D7000, 18-135mm lens, ISO set to AUTO.

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Four from the Files

Spring cleaning. I've been spring cleaning my files since the beginning of the year. Swapping out folders, deleting ones that I once thought were decent, renaming some so the files make sense, etc.

I trolled up four shots to revisit. The top two are from a walk around Austin in January and the bottom two (from the same folder BTW) were taken last August.

If it's a sunny day, every morning the window is the kitchen produces a lovely light - the fruits and veggies always look good on the cart. The bottom is fungus on a fallen branch. I find the cycles that the colors go through when an organic object is dying fascinating.  Colors that have no words to describe.

Back to the top - variation of the Austin skyline and geometry under the bridge.

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POST MOTHER'S DAY

Came down this morning and the morning sun was streaming in. I was more hungry for breakfast than I was to take a lot of time snapping a pic. So I just grab the camera and took this shot of the Mother's Day flowers sitting on the shelf. On the soft side but I still love the light.

 

So big belated Happy Mother's Day to all.

 

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