Been stuck with the 20mm frame of view of my GF1 for the last 7 months and I’ve been meaning to brush up on my skills taking wide angle shots. Here I was outside Her Majesty’s Theatre with a 14mm (28mm full frame equivalent) and just grabbing the shot.

I have been more conscious on how I use the GF1 due to the reduced dynamic range, especially when you bump up the ISO settings.

Heh, I think the less advance your camera, the better it is for learning, as you have to push the limits of the camera to get the exposure you want.

* * *

Did a photo shoot on Sunday for a couple I was introduced to through my good friend when I did his pre wedding shoot. It was an interesting experience and the more I take photos of people, the more I learn on what I need to do instead of just pressing the shutter button.

I used to just rock up and hope for he best, but a little direction from yourself makes a big difference. It allows the couple to look more natural and for me I just find more ways to pose them. Just as how I am learning to light subjects by reverse engineering a photo, I also look at portrait photos of other photographers now and see what works in a photo when I compare their shots with mine. Little details make subtle but noticeable changes.

The more I take photos, the more I’m pushing myself to learn how to make better images.

* * *

Still spending the time reading stuff and my next project is to churn out a proper photobook. Will be testing out the services of Blurb as they offer a pretty cheap printing service, even after factoring in printing costs.

I just need to experiment more. Heh, so I also need to hunt for a softbox for outdoor shoots. I have umbrellas but after trying out the wind at St Kilda beach, something that won’t fly away or break apart would be more settling for me. Direct flash gives dramatic lighting but isn’t appropriate for all scenarios.

* * *

Heh, plenty of stuff to keep me busy even without work.

Grabbed this shot while doing some location scouting and had my Sigma 70-200mm on. It’s a lens that gets action probably twice a year as it’s oversized and has a very specific purpose for when I use it, to shoot portraits.

Heh, I used to think this lens was cool, with the f/2.8 spec across the range, but as I spend more time with equipment, the more I notice how it doesn’t match up to the items that are similar but three times as expensive (still dreaming of the Nikon 70-200mm VRII).

The lens is poor at f/2.8 as it is quite soft, and mine has focusing issues at the 150mm mark (which I suspect and should test, but some shots today at reasonable shutter speeds and steady handling yielded less than desirable shots). It uses some older glass and has the same colour rendering as my 85mm f/1.8, being rather cold and not contrasty enough. I can fix the colours later but it doesn’t quite match up with the other glass I’m using so you lose some consistency.

Rant aside, found a way to get a tilt shift effect with Lightroom, using the graduated filter function and reducing the sharpness by 100. You can tweak it to get a similar effect without spending $2k plus on a lens.

* * *

Some days you really need to be driven to deal with non routine. Heh, sitting here in front of the computer at 2am dealing with self doubt when just a couple of months ago I would barely need extra coaxing to get to sleep. It is easy to wake up and go to your job and be done with it. You put in a good day of work and some days you don’t even worry about it.

I guess the catalyst of this was getting my results on Friday for my taxation paper. It was a fail, which probably means that falling behind in getting the questions done was more detrimental than I realised. I’m okay with resitting the paper, but I like to slap myself down for not doing things right in the first place.

I guess the gear rant above is sort of how I’m looking at myself now and I’m feeling rather mediocre at the moment. Sort of like time squandered previously with the chances to get better, and now it’s a huge learning curve trying to catch up. I used to just get things done as they came along, and if the results weren’t great, I’d be content that this was how it was. These days, I’m pouring more thought into what I do and cannot sit idly by and be content with things as they are when I know I can do much better. Previously I was clueless as to what I needed to do. Now I think I know, and it just looks horribly daunting to do what needs to be done. From carefree to control freak? Hmm…

Heh, now I just need to get over myself and try again.