Season of Excitment…
The end of the year can be an exciting time for everyone. Holidays are approaching, some people like snow (seriously, they are out there), looking forward to families, looking forward to taxes, maybe a little time off……..any number of wonderful possibilities. I’m dreading the fact that I’m considering making my blog part of a new years resolution as I’ve sort of fallen off the blogging train the last few months. I’ve said before that I’ve just been busy, and I have been busy; but that like so many other things is an excuse I suppose.
In terms of everything, including the gear that’ll break my back; this has been a rather exciting year for me over all. I’ve grown personally, and photographically more than I ever thought I would. I’ve bought and sold equipment, I’ve learned new types of photography including the use of a Tilt Shift, or Perspective Correcting Lens. I’ve also received phone calls from people and picked up clients that I’d never considered possible this year. All thanks to a little help from friends, and most certainly a lot of luck.
That photo above is two consecutive frames from a recent shoot; straight out of camera. Didn’t expect the shoot to require a PC lens, but I have a 24mm one that I purchased for some commercial real estate a few months ago. I knew absolutely nothing about PC lenses before this year, and had no reason to, but since I bought the lens I’ve found myself using it in all sorts of strange ways. The nice part about tilt shift is that the image on the left that has been corrected is not only much more flat as if I was directly head on with the guitar; but the the guitar is 100% in focus of depth of field at F16. This lens is capable of 36″ of depth of field from front to back from 7″ away from an object when tilt shifted correctly. Absolutely phenomenal for shooting product, real estate as you can flatten out things that you can’t physically center yourself on. That’s not generally what a Tilt shift, or PCE lens is known for, but it’s what it’s original design was intended for. All the way back to the bellows on a view camera. It’s not for everything, in fact I kind of wish I’d bought the 45mm instead of the 24mm, but oh well. Maybe next time.
Bought myself an iPad too, which after a week I have decided is going to be an invaluable tool in my business. After forgetting my card reader for the laptop on a shoot I had to proof a few of the pictures on the iPad. Turns out it can read D3s .NEF files…….Can we say, blown away?