Sunday, February 26, 2012

Shooting star

This is an image converted to black and white using the D7000's built in image editor and I have to say it turned out exactly like I wanted it to. When taking this photo, I had in mind one of those many Ikea photos that you can buy for your wall. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Purple trumpet

I've known that 1Utama in Petaling Jaya had a "Secret Garden" on the rooftop, but it was only recently that I had time to visit it. Pretty interesting place and it's surprisingly well maintained for a rooftop garden. Just like the two other photos below, taking macro photos of flowers (and bugs) in the field is practically impossible without the help of flash, so all these shots were taken with me holding my camera in one hand while having a wireless flash pointed downwards with my other hand. This shot is exactly as shot with no editing or cropping. In macro work, careful framing and focus is really important -- I'm always acutely aware of the background, the framing and the focus. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Stars and heart

As you've probably noticed by now, I'm a big fan of macro photography. In macro at least this is where a DSLR with a purpose-built macro lens excels over compact cameras. Anyway, this shot is almost a direct conversion to black and white from the original colour image. I shot this with the intention of turning it into a monochrome image. Not much to say about it except that I just liked this composition. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Droplet

 

It's sad that a company that has contributed so much to photography as Kodak has is now in such dire straits. However, technology marches on and we either adapt or die. Here's something which I would not have been able to do in the days of film. Yes it's a regular picture of two droplets of water (the other one just hit the surface of the water) which could have been taken with a film camera. However, in the old days, when I was still using film, I would never have tried such a shot because the trial and error just to get one or two successful shots would have taken many rolls of film which cost a lot of money then. With digital of course, I'm now free to shoot as many as I want AND be able to immediately see whether I got the shot or not. This shot was set up simply on my kitchen table with a flash bounced just off camera. It took maybe 40 or 50 shots before I got maybe three that were properly in focus and was aesthetically pleasing. While this kind of shot has been seen many times before, it's always fun to give a try yourself. Here's the other shot:

 Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8