I like turtles - 10/11/18

Apparently I got real busy outside of photography and didn’t touch my camera for a while. Probably switched back to playing video games. I usually only get really invested into a hobby for short time, long enough to dump a good amount of money into it before moving on. Thankfully photography has become a lot more than a regular hobby over the years.

However after a few months, one morning I was heading out to work when I spotted this snapping turtle right outside my apartment. Ran back inside and grabbed the camera and telephoto. However, by the time I got back out, there was a neighbor right across the road from this little guy. Who really wasn’t that little honestly, biggest turtle I’ve ever seen in real life. However when you come rushing out with a camera and long lens and point it generally in their direction while they walk their dog… I didn’t want to take any chances and cause trouble. I took this single image and headed to work. I did see a maintenance worker for the apartment on my drive out and warned him about the snapping turtle. Just because there were kids and the neighbor was walking their small dog. Hoping they would stick around and warn those people to keep their distance.

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @300mm - 1/250 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 400

I should mention there is water on both sides of this road. Little ponds that have a decent amount of wildlife. Seeing geese here every year as they hatch and raise their young. I also have an upcoming image and story about one of my most favorite images that I took quite literally right out my front door. Haven’t seen the snapping turtle in a few years, hopefully it’s still out there. Snapping away.

That's no moon... - 7/27/18

Actually it is a moon. The moon, our only moon. And on the evening of the 27th I grabbed both of my cameras now and went back to the field I found near my apartment a few days before. I must have planned this a bit because looking at a lunar calendar for 2018, the 27th was the night of the full moon. What I did not know to check was the cloud coverage. Now I’ve downloaded an app and know of some national weather websites that show a lot of weather type information.

But what I did learn on that day regarded a few different things. Firstly a better tripod would have been really useful. I was using the only thing I had, a very cheap plastic tripod that was not very stable. I did increase the stability a bit by hanging one of my camera bags off the hook. Giving it a heavier center of gravity. But really the second point would have been a bit more useful. A remote trigger.

I had one for the T3i, as it just takes a little 2.5mm jack. It came in some kind of photo gear bundle I would have picked up at some point. But what I would come to learn is that the 5D does not have that same convenient little port for the trigger. It required a new 3 pin plug I was not familiar with. So what resulted was a lot of blurry long exposure shots on the 5D, and some decent ones from the T3i.

There really wasn’t much I liked about these shots when I got back home and was editing them. This was absolutely a learning experience, which is always good. All it cost me was time and I took away from it some really valuable lessons.

Canon 5D w/28-135mm @80mm - 1/4 Sec - F5 - ISO 400

For example, a faster shutter make get you more detail on the moon. But you lose all the light coming through on the clouds. So it’s just dark.

This was the cloud coverage I was working with. But I actually like this, if it’s clear you don’t have much to work with. At least the clouds around the moon give you something else to constant against.

Canon 5D w/28-135mm @ 30mm - 1/5 Sec - F3.5 - ISO 3200

Now one thing that did come out from this night is one of my favorite moon shots. Just because of the colors. This next shot has most obviously been edited. But I didn’t add color into the image, just tweaked the levels. And definitely the saturation.

Canon T3i w/75-300mm @200mm - 1 Sec - F5 - ISO 100

This does seem like a good point to address something that was my thought process when I started this hobby. But after a lot of research and talking with other photographers. The “debate” about editing photos. I had a similar opinion to what I see online a lot now. Editing photos is cheating, or fake. And coming from the outside perspective I can understand why people think that. You see before and after photos used in like modeling or other mainstream images where it’s been manipulated to change the look. Usually you see it with models where they airbrush skin tone, maybe hide a bit of overweight.

I get it why that would come across as “cheating” or “fake”. As it isn’t being true to the subject material. However that seems to have spilled over into the idea that photoshop of any kind, or image editing is the same. Which is very much not true as I have come to learn. When I started I had the idea that any kind of editing was cheating, and that it would never be accepted in a “professional” world. That’s not at all how it works. Obviously I was editing my photos from the beginning, but always minor minor tweaks. Or the other end of the scale and doing things like the above just for fun.

After talking about it and doing my own research, editing is a crucial part of the process. No camera I have ever touched is perfect and can capture EXACTLY how the human eye sees. Also editing has been around for a lot longer than photoshop. It was done with film in a dark room. Dodging, burning, adjusting levels. Etc. All of these tools in photoshop came from techniques used in a dark room during development. Some of this I ever saw examples of in a fantastic documentary about Ansel Adams. Showing him working in the darkroom to manipulate the image into what he envisioned.

For me personally, I try to edit my photos to portray what I saw with my own eyes. What the camera captured may be close, but not exact. So I do the best that I can to match that. Or if I’m feeling creative, I’ll do whatever I feel like looks the best. Did I look with my own eyes and see all the orange and blue in the clouds in the above image? Fuck no that would have been amazing. But I still love that image.

A new camera body - 7/17/18

July 17th 2018. The day everything changed when the fire nation attacked.

Well not really, since it would be about a week before it arrived. But for $499 and about 6 bucks for shipping, I had made my first big photography purchase in my opinion. The months and weeks leading up to this purchase would find me researching online constantly, reading stats and watching videos. Peppering my photographer brother with questions about what camera he owned, what I should get. etc. Weeks of watching pricing come and go. Finally I pulled the trigger at a hesitant but quickened pace. Because a real cheap one had been listed on Amazon by a seller that had very little feedback.

Yeah that order got cancelled after a few hours, it was like a hundred bucks cheaper than even the next lowest price. The seller had a lot of “e-mail before ordering” types of messages on their profile. Definitely a scam to get you to buy it from another less secure platform. But after buying and even selling both from my own personal experience and through professional E-Commerce jobs, Amazon is the place where I trust to make purchases. I’ve been on both sides of needing to make claims, and knowing how a seller can deal with a bogus one. Very familiar with how Amazon handles their A-Z guarantee. So as I think I’ve mentioned on here before, to this day all of my photography gear purchases have been through Amazon.

So after attempting what I figured would get bounced back, as it did, I kept my eye out for another good deal from a better seller. And eventually I must have come across one that I felt more confident about. On July 17th. It was shipped on July 19th. And judging by the next folder of images I have, I’m sure it was delivered on the 25th.
Between that purchase and the delivery date, I also placed an order on the 20th. The contents for that included a cleaning kit. A 16gb CF card, as I would need this for the new camera. Some new LP-E6 batteries and a duel battery grip. I was very excited for this new camera.

However I also knew that my 18-55mm kit lens was an EF-S, and would not work on the new camera body. While I had the 75-300mm, I needed a new wide angle. And obviously since I spent all that money on the body, I cheaped out and bought the least expensive wide angle I could get.

On July 21st I shelled out $119 for a used Canon 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS USM.

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Try a google image search for “Canon 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS USM”

Not taking a risk by using someone else’s photo

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Honestly not a bad lens. Can’t say I recommend it too much, but as a beginner it was fine. It did creep pretty bad, and only got worse over the years. If you pointed the camera even slightly downward, that lens was fully extended immediately. I also picked up a cheap UV filter just to help protect the glass. And it looks like I picked up a Neweer speedlite to play around with and learn how a flash works.

But for the main purchase. As I mentioned I snagged it for $499 for a used Canon 5D Mark II.

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Again, if you want to see the camera body, google image search for “Canon 5D Mark II” will likely get you what you want

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This thing is a beast. Still a main camera body I carry with me when I shoot, although I do have a different lens on it now. But more on that later.

Full frame, pro body, a huge step up from the T3i. A heavy camera for sure. Just the weight of it feels more substantial, and since I have decently large hands the larger size with a battery grip really fits even better in my hand. Never gotten comfortable to having my pinky just hanging off the bottom of the body, or uncomfortably squishing all my fingers together to keep them on the body.

New camera, new lens. New idea for an image. I have a ton of Lego figures, maybe I can pose them in interesting places and take pictures of them. Plus I definitely wanted to put the new body through the paces. It was a Wednesday night and this would have been after work, before dinner and knowing I’m heading to bed to get up for work the next morning. I did go for a short walk with my new gear.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm - 1/30 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 3200 @ 105mm

Canon 5D Mark II w/ 28-135mm - 1/60 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 400 @135mm

After playing around with the Lego mountain climber for a bit, I kept walking and just tried out the full frame wide angle-ness of my new setup.

Canon 5D Mark II W/28-135mm - 1/30 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 400 @ 28mm

I also found the roof access. But I didn’t trespass and try to go up there. Although that would have been really cool.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm - 1/40 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 400 @28mm

I came across a broken tree that I found really interesting. I wondered how long it had been there, how many years had it been around before it got to that point. I also tried a few different compositions to match the angles of the curb and the fallen tree. But they didn’t really come out looking how I had envisioned.

Canon 5D Mark II w28-135mm - 1/30 Sec - F4 - ISO 400 @41mm

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm - 1/320 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 400 @135mm

And then as I was out there the moon rose. Which I have always especially been interested in. Now this was a handheld shot and as it turns out, both my lens and my new camera needed a serious deep clean. I do like the detail and color on the moon. Although I think I tweaked it just a bit too far in my edit those years ago, as the lights around the trees seem real off to me. Plus for comparison, this next shot was taken right after this one. And it is a lot more honest when it comes to what the situation was for that time of day. I didn’t do any editing to have the moon appear more yellow and make it seem like it was night when really it was 7:30 during the summer. Plenty of light left.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm - 1/250 Sec - F3.5 - ISO 400 @28mm

Now although this one is a bit more true to the actual look of that night. Those clouds are definitely touched up a bit too much by an inexperienced photographer who was still learning. It may have been a fairly orange clouded sunset, but that’s a bit far. Especially when I look at the raw file.

But that was the first night with a truly amazing camera. I do believe that photography isn’t all about the gear, to a point. As I would continue my hobby and find my specialty being wildlife, that does require a certain level. Otherwise I think you need a lot more luck, plain and simple. Sure you may be able to get an amazing shot with an off the shelf cheap camera or smartphone, but to consistently get quality shots really takes a lot of skill, a lot of luck and a good bit of higher quality camera/lens combo. Again, to an extent. A more expensive camera body is going to be capable of a lot of things, like like shooting faster. Which for wildlife is really important, you may only have a second to try and get the shot. Being able to rattle off 5 or 10 shots in that time gives you a much better success rate to nailing the shot. Same for lenses, more expensive typically gets you a better quality. Faster and sharper focus, more open aperture. Etc.

Long story short, do not regret this purchase. Or any purchases I’ve made for that matter. I spend the time researching to know exactly what I want, what it’ll take to overcome that need, and which product is going to best suit that need. As I mentioned before I still shoot with this body, and as much as I would love to get a newer full frame body. I just don’t feel like I need it at this time. I’ll probably use this one into the ground before I feel like I should start looking at anything new(used).