Macro photography with a Nifty Fifty and Extension tubes

50mm prime lens close up shot

 

 

Various shots with extension tubes added to to 50mm prime lens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 days of Black and White Photography from my life. No people. No explanations. Day 5 /7.

 

 

 

 

7 days of Black and White Photography from my life. No people. No explanations. Day 4/7.

 

 

 

 

 

7 days of Black and White Photography from my life. No people. No explanations. Day 3/7.

 

 

7 days of Black and White Photography from my life. No people. No explanations. Day 2/7.

 

 

 

7 days of Black and White Photography from my life. No people. No explanations. Day 1/7.

 

 

Shedding wood fungus

This one had some interesting color too. But it was shedding it best color. This was taken several weeks ago. I wonder what it looks like now. I suspect it looks more the monochrome photo by now. I will try to watch for it this weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Three photo's of interest

 

I had not intended to shoot this in monochrome. I was taking pictures of other things earlier in monochrome and forgot to change back to color before taking this photo. It looks OK in monochrome.

 

 

 

 

 

Monochrome

Here are a few monochrome photo's I have taken over the past few weeks.

 

 

 

 

Articles on monochrome photography

Cup of Tea in monochrome

 

 

Here are a few links to articles on monochrome photography that explain the concepts much better than I did.

Enjoy.

How to see in black and white

A collection of powerful black and white photo's

Key ingredients for black and white images

Black and White Photography, Part 3

 

Its time to wrap up this multipart article. What better way to that than to end it with some monochrome photo's from my last trip to Turkey Run State Park. But first the tea of the day.

 

 

These first two photo's show another example of what did not work well in monochrome. The bule sky behind the birds in the color photo looks very beautiful. But in monochrome it looks very dull.

 

 

 

This set of photo's I like both in monochrome and color, There is enough variance in light, shade and texture to make the monochrome photo look nice. The lose of the bright green from the color does not harm the monochrome photo.

 

 

These next two photo's are equally uninteresting. I was trying to capture the imposing nature of these rock formations. As always when I have tried this I have I failed. I have read somewhere that zoom lens's will "flatten" an image. I have never been sure what this meant. Maybe that is what they were talking about. The depth of the photo has been flattened out making the rocks seem smaller and less imposing than they were in real life. Next time I will try shooting with my 50mm prime lens. That might keep the image from being flattened. Also I recently purchased an adaprer that makes regular len's into Wide Angle lens's. Since it only cost $12.00 I am sure it won't make a big diference but maybe it will help. That adapter and a couple of macro adapters will the subject of a future article.

 

 

 

I will end this article with my two favorite photo's from this trip. I think the monochrome and color photo worked well. The lines of the wooden bridge and the curves of the suspension wires lead the eye down the path. It would have been better if the shadow had not been cast on the wooden part of the bridge and the background foliage is a little too dark. But I still enjoy the photos

 

 

Well what I have learned about monochrome photography is that I need to avoid broad area's of a single color like a blue sky or brown river water. What seems to make a beter monochrome photo is area's of contrasting light levels and textures. These things draw more attention in monochrome photo.

I now have another tool I need to keep in mind during my photograpgy sessions.

Black and White Photography, Part 2 (And as little less talk about about Tea)

(I have had a soar throat for almost a week now, so I have been drinking some Iced Tea made from Ceylon Sonata tea. The ice cold tea helps.)

 

 

In these two photo's of a close up of some deadwood I think the monochrome photo is almost as interesting as the color photo. My original interest in this subject was the redish color in the interior wood and the texture of the bark and interior. The broken and cracked heartwood created multiple levels allowing light and shadow spaces to form.

The interesting color is lost, but the monochrome style highlights the textures.

 

In this next set of photo's the monochrome photo is better than the color photo.In my opinion. The buried tire's color is a sort of a odd bluish black. The plastic water bottle is a uninteresting frosty white, and the sand is an unusual brown color. None of these colors look good together to me.

The monochrome style changed the tire back to black. The water bottle's color and brightness is toned down, the sand's color looks better and it's grainy texture is more prominent.

 

 

This next site was interesting in ways not shown in the photo. As I paused on the trail to decide if there was a shot here to be taken. I noticed a small bird flying around the stump in small circles. There was also another bird sitting on a branch near by. The bird kept circling and circling. I have a few shots with the bird flying in them but it was mostly a blur. It seemed unhappy with either my presents or the other bird presents.

Then a few minutes later two ducks flew past, going up river. They then swam down river towards the stump but changed coarse when they saw me.

On my return trip past this site a large bumble bee was flying around.

I have walked past this site many times and have not noticed any other wildlife. It seemed today that this site was protected. I took only a few pictures and left.

This time I prefer the color photo. Mainly because of the look of the river water. I have noticed that photo's of the river water look very bland in monochrome. And when there is lots of water in the photo, it dulls the whole photo. I do like how the bark looks but it is not enough to save the photo.

The blue reflected sky on the river in the color photo improves this picture greatly.

 

 

I think I will stop here and write a shorter Part Three this weekend. If this topic is getting boring, let me know in the comments, or email me if you know my address.

 

Black and White Photography, Part 1 (And some rambling talk about about Tea)

OK, I need to get these photo's processed and uploaded to my Flickr page. I am running out of space on my iPad. After each photo session. I upload all my photos to my ipad from the SD card, look through them all quickly, then go back through them again and delete the obvious bad ones. Then I try to decide which ones to post to my blog and/or which ones I want to keep on the iPad. All the other will be removed. Oh, don't worry all the originals are still on the SD card and I will back them up on my computer, eventually.

(I hold one a few minutes. I need to go make some more tea. Ceylon Sonata)

It has been really hard to decide what to keep and what to remove for the last few weeks. And now I just retuned from a trip to Turkey Run State Park (TRSP). I do not have enough free space on my iPad to upload the new pictures. I did take a few in b&w. If they are good enough I will post them in Part 2 or maybe a Part 3.

(Mmmm, good tea. Ice Tea can be made from Ceylon Sonata. I made a batch a couple of days ago. Last night after getting back form TRSP I made some Ice Tea from Raisberry Tea . It needed more sugar than I normally use to make the Raisberry flavor stand out.)

(Oops, i just poured my last cup of Ceylon tea. Since I made a pot of Irish Breakfast tea before I started this morning, I should not have three pots of tea in a row. I should to switch to water or I could make some Defcaf Vanilla tea. I have only tried it once. I am not sure I like it yet. And the winner is .... Decaf Vanilia tea. After that I promise to drink water. And yes, it took me almost a whole pot of tea write and edit the previous paragraphs.)

 

Black and White Photography Project

A short while ago I was talking with a couple of co-worker's in the parking lot after work. One co-worker brought up my interest in photography. The other co-worker has an interest in photography as well. I mentioned this blog and told her I would sent her a link to it if she was interested. We talked a brief while and it seemed like we shared a common interest in subject matter. Nature, abstract and non-people.

I sent her the link and she sent me a black and white (I prefer the term monochrome. It is more technically correct and the & character is more trouble to type on my iPad) photo of a heavily vained tree bark that she had taken as an example of our simular interests. I have taken pictures like that a few times but never in monochrome. Like this one for example.

We emailed back and forth a few times. I mention that most of the photos I have converted to monochome did not look very good. The quality was poor. She said in her experience most software conversion not do come out well. She suggested using the cameras Black and White setting. You will get much better quality results. And she was right.

So recently on my weekly hike, I decided every picture I took I would try to take in monochrome and color. While looking for the monochrome setting I found a setting for Vivid and More Vivid. I ended up taking most of the color pictures with the Vivid setting out of curiosity. I should have used the Normal setting for a better comparison. In Part 2 I will try to use the Normal, Vivid and Black and White setting for each photo.

I am struggling with when to take a photo in monochrome as opposed to color. I am guessing it helps if there are strong contrasts between light and dark. Like the contrast between shadowy spaces ridges of the bark and the lighter spaces of the peaks or the ridges in the above link

As you will see from most of my photo's monochrome was not always the best option. Or I maybe I am not setting the exposure settings the best way for monochrome? Anyway here are the first batch.

 

I have included this oner again because it is one of my favorites despite the bad comosition. I have no color version for comparion.

 

Here are three versions of the same photo, Monochrome, Normal, and Vivid. Or maybe, Monochrome, Vivid and More Vivid. I am not sure. I will have to check the original photo and see if that data is saved with the photo. I know exposure settings are saved but I am not sure if this kind of data is saved.

First of all I am not happy with any of these three. But I prefer the last color photo. With the monochrome I don't like how the foliage on the trees look. You can not tell that it is spring without the color, The blue in the sky and its reflection in the water is lost.

 

 

 

(Looking in the freezer. Mmm, Double Chocolate Klondike bar. My throat feels a little sore. Maybe something cold will help.)

(It helpd for a while. That was good, but I think I like the regular Klondike bar better.)

 

I like this monochrome photo better than the last one. But I still think the color photo is better. The tree branch is too bright in the monochrome photo. It is OKish in the color photo. I miss the blue sky and the green foliage.

 

 

I am going to end Part 1 with one of my favorite photos from this session. What initally attracted me to this scene is not readily apparent in the pictures. The sun was shining on the river and was bouncing back up lighting up the left end of the broken tree. The ripples in the water were creating ripples of light on the tree. The ripple effect is not noticeable but that fact that some golden light is being projected on the tree is.

It does not show was well in these first two photo's. In the second two it is more noticeable.

I still like the color photo better. But the monochrome version is a close second this time.

 

 

The composition of these next two are different. The monochrome version was taken at a higher angle than the color one. But I like the monochrome version enough that I choose a color version that was close enough to it to use as a comparison. In both of these you can see the rippling reflection better. You may have to click on the photo to see it at full size to be able to notice the ripple.

The golden color in the interior of the wood really pops in the color picture. I also like the texture of the wood grain and the curves of the tree in both photo's. The lose of color in the monochrome photo allows the textures, curves and shading to become the main feature of the photo. Hmm, maybe this is my first clue as to what makes the monochrome technique important.

 

 

 

There will have to be a Part 2. My work is not done.