Category: Canon 50mm Lens

Christmas Eve – A Kitchen in Readiness for Celebrating Christmas

December 26th, 2011

Wine Bottles – Reflection 1

Wine Bottles – Cluster 2

Wine Bottles – Cluster 3

Wine Bottles – Cluster 4

Wine Bottles – Cluster 5

Roaster in Readiness 1

Roaster in Readiness 2

Roaster in Readiness 3

Wine Bottles – Cluster 1

Quail’s Gate 1

Quail’s Gate 2

Quail’s Gate 3

24 December 2011 – On the afternoon preceding Christmas eve, in scrubbing our kitchen floor, my wife and I moved several wine bottles from the floor to our kitchen counter. Later, a ham cooked in an old, well-used roasting pot (in my wife’s family through generations), became the mainstay of our Christmas eve meal (part of the tradition coming through her family). After singing hymns at a Church service and coming home from time with friends in fellowship, I found myself with an abundance of time and the opportunity to photograph our kitchen in readiness for Christmas. I worked with reflection, light reflected in glass, shallow depth of field and adding accuracy to focal points through the use of the Canon 60D’s live-view mode (I put my glasses on for this). The wine bottles remained in a cluster on the kitchen counter top where the ham roaster was set out in readiness for cooking the Christmas turkey. Both became subjects in tonight’s photographs and a variety of colours and moods were explored.

On my mind this Christmas, the words – “Be still, and know that I am God … (Psalm 46:10);” these words confront you at the High Level Christian Fellowship Church from the wall surrounding the pulpit. For me, so long away from Church, practice and walk, it surfaces the idea that it’s alright to rest, to ease up on the reigns of one’s life that can be held so tightly and remove my focus from the doing and busy-ness of Life; amazingly, so much has been provided for in the lives of my family and me … and I am thankful.

My hope for each of you is that you are able to find the rest that this Christmas time affords.

Merry Christmas, all!
Christmas Lights – Grande Prairie, Alberta

December 19th, 2011

A House Well Lit – On Backroads Between Fairview and Grimshaw

Exploring Bokeh – Blurring a Truck

GPRC – Merry Christmas Message

Christmas Lights down Grande Prairie’s Main Street

Christmas Decor within Reflection 2

It has been a whirlwind weekend traveling to Grande Prairie and back, all in pursuit of Christmas.

Of the landscape travelled through, weather’s interaction at the Dunvegan Bridge over the Mighty Peace was shifting mist and cloud against a backdrop of conifers laced with snow – beautiful picture taking weather, mountain weather. I stopped for a few shots, then was presented with excellent colours of the Dunvegan bridge in the two kilometre descent before crossing the Peace River – a snowy, wet world from which the yellows and browns of the suspension bridge stand above the metal grey of the river. With my SUV I trekked down and up a couple of times searching for a safe and easy place to park; no safe place suggested itself. With an abundance of time (one of these times) I will park at the Dunvegan landing and hike back up the North embankment for about a kilometre with camera bag and tripod and get a few good shots … one day.

At Christmas, Grande Prairie adorns itself well with seasonal lighting as does Grande Prairie Regional College and the Automobile Dealerships – I like the shallow depth of field in working with the Christmas lights on the Dodge truck image and the bokeh that was found. The final shot is taken of a farm, well lit, within a dark, dark landscape last night – colourful schtuff.

Canon Lock-up Issue – I did have lock-up issues with my Canon 60D on Saturday night … it probably had to do with using live view and inexact button pushing with gloved fingers; I was sorting things through yesterday morning and by supper time the camera seemed to have good integrity with the shots I took of the farm house. If the problem persists I will most likely re-install the firmware as a means to conquer the issue. If any of you have experienced a similar issue I would appreciate hearing from you.
Against a Reflective Surface – Christmas Lights

December 15th, 2011

Aspen Willow – Parking Lot Silhouette

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 1

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 2

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 3

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 4

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 5

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 6

15 December 2011 – Bokeh 7

Leaving school, against the blackness of night, I encountered beautiful hoarfrost on an Aspen Willow tree – a reverse silhouette (white against black). I started my pickup truck and used the engine’s warm-up time to explore the silhouetted Willow. Again, the camera is atop the tripod and again I’m using the 60D’s live view to ensure that I find crisp detail in manual focus. I took three shots of the tree – one I include here; the composition needs work but I’m happy to have captured this image. Consideration – my shots are better and more well-composed when I’m warm and taking time to look seriously around the frame to see what’s there and to capture the image; in winter photography I’ll have winter outwear on … something I didn’t have leaving school tonight.

Later, at home, in front of our Christmas tree the recommendation of photographing Christmas lights against a reflective surface came to mind. Our Christmas tree, like most others, stands in front of our window as Christmas beacon to others in our neighbourhood; this evening, I just needed to recognize its beauty and its potential. I put my Canon 50mm prime f-1.4 lens on my Canon 60D and attached the 60D to my tripod; I worked with live view to find focus detail and to establish bokeh (blurring of lights). I turned out lights in our living room and kitchen making all dark except for our Christmas tree and its lights. I began exploring bokeh, using a small depth of field (lens aperture f-1.4) and blurred Christmas lights against the reflective surface of the window. The images I include appeal to me in terms of shape, colour, texture and mood.

Tonight (15 December 2011) – listening to Martyn Joseph’s ‘Have an Angel Walk with Her,’ from his ‘Evolved’ album http://www.martynjoseph.net/ .
Bokeh (Blurred lights) & Shallow Depth of Field

December 14th, 2011

Bokeh 1

Bokeh 2

Bokeh 3

The shots taken last night explore bokeh; I’ve used a shallow depth of field for the subject and worked to blur the background light. Bokeh refers to the aesthetic quality of the blur, the out-of-focus areas of an image, or, the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light (Bokeh – Wikipedia).
Highway & Town

December 8th, 2011

Highway 35 … Going North

This evening I was working with a prime lens, a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. I’m getting a sense for the distance to subject it accommodates. With my 60D’s sensor having a correction factor of 1.6, the 50mm lens behaves more like an 80mm lens; so, this evening I’ve been putting distance between me and my subjects. In this shot, I’ve created some blur (light trail) with a 10 second exposure and the tail lights of a vehicle moving through the photo from left to right. Working with live view is helping focus manually to different parts of the landscape; this is f-10 for five seconds … I’ve probably focused on the second lamp post to the right.

I also listened to episode 6 of Sid & Mac’s Shutter Time podcast, a discussion with Randy Pond regarding social media and its uses – good discussion of flickr, google +, facebook, tumblr, wordpress and how an upcoming photographer would use them.