Are you looking at me?

This is one of the successful shot I had before the revelation.
What revelation? funny, just thinking about it makes me feel ashamed.
You know that I 'grew up' with digital cameras that have deep or large field of view (DOF) like Fuji S7000 and Kodak Z740. 
All these years, my frame of mind is to keep the aperture as large as possible 
to attain shallow DOF, you know, like those pros. :-P 
When I go out to take photos I usually has three sessions (sounds like a pro photographers :-P)
First is Tele, where I usually use Olympus TCON 1.7 or just Leica from my FZ50. 
I took pictures of birds and sometimes BIF, if the lighting condition is friendly enough for my TCON light-eater ~_~
which most of the time lock my f-stop at a small aperture on high speed exposure. 

After I got a sprained neck for looking upward with a relatively heavy camera plus Tcon, pressed at my eye for about an hour, I sit down, take off the Tcon and start on Macro. Looking for butterflies, large to medium size bugs or anything that interest me. 
After I scared them all away, then I put on my Micro explorer to ......... ants and small bugs. 
This is the part where it gets really frustrating for me. 
With the micro lens on, the DOF is really really shallow. Paper-thin DOF, that even if I breathe a little, the object falls out of focus, not to mention the wind, breeze, moving objects, sigh. 
Let me tell you a secret, I have hundreds of out of focus micro pictures which just a few milimeters away from becoming a good photo. 
It always looked good and perfect on the camera LCD, 
but once I transferred them to my laptop and view it on screen, 
the results was always disappointing. 
It's not until few weeks ago that I just realize that I always set the aperture as large as photographically possible. I start at 2.8, which of course that was the culprit behind the paper-thin DOF. 
Now, I always try to set the aperture as small as possible. The result is getting better. I got more hits than misses. But then again, small aperture, less light, dark picture pfh..
What I need is macro ring flash or light..ha ha...a never ending quest..

 

File size: 773863 bytes
File date: 2007:10:08 13:19:10
Camera make: Panasonic
Camera model: DMC-FZ50
Date/Time: 2007:10:08 11:03:50
Resolution: 2048 x 1536
Flash used: Yes (manual)
Focal length: 25.8mm (35mm equivalent: 217mm)
Exposure time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)
Aperture: f/4.0
ISO equiv.: 100
Whitebalance: Auto
Light Source: Flash
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

a trip to Mitchell park last week

File size: 583188 bytes
File date: 2007:09:17 19:39:23
Camera make: Panasonic
Camera model: DMC-FZ50
Date/Time: 2007:09:17 13:47:52
Resolution: 2048 x 1536
Flash used: No
Focal length: 88.8mm (35mm equivalent: 748mm)
Exposure time: 0.0025 s (1/400)
Aperture: f/3.7
ISO equiv.: 100
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

another try at panorama shots

I'm back, but only for a moment..:-)

After 25 days, finally I have the chance to post. I've been quite busy this past few weeks. Well, I've sold my soul to the devil..:-)..long story guys. maybe next week I'll tell you about it.
Earlier today I took a slow ride to Tempe Town Lake., wanna catch the sunset and doing some birds viewing. This is some of my shot. I didn't get lucky for the bird but I do have some beautiful sunset pics.
As soon as the sun starting to set, I begin to complain (to myself) about my camera. I took about 80 shots, but mostly blurred, even shots that I thought good turned out to be out of focus when I transfer them to my laptop. In the tele-end around 300-380mm, my camera really struggles to find the focus, and when it finally did, it focused on the wrong object or false focus. Yeah, I kept saying to myself, "It's the person who takes the picture not the camera". So I guess I have yet to learn to use it.

Macro shot

Camera make: EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Camera model: KODAK Z740 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Date/Time: 2007:04:22 13:37:17
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Flash used: No
Focal length: 6.3mm (35mm equivalent: 38mm)
Exposure time: 0.033 s (1/30)
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO equiv.: 140
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: program (auto)

This afternoon, while I was browsing, looking for information about the release of Canon 1D Mark III, I came upon an interesting site owned by a photographer. One thing that interests me the most is Panoramic Photograph but not Panoramix the druid from Asterix series :-). Panoramic photography is about joining (stitching) multiple images that cannot be covered only by one shot. In his site he displayed many great panoramic photographs that even cannot be covered by the wide angle of human eyes. So, interested, intrigued,inspired, I jumped off the couch, grabbed my camera and tripod, off I go to make my own panoramic shot.

My apartment's living room was my first object. I located the tripod in a point that I think is the center of my apartment. Locked the tilt handle and start taking picture. After about 10 shots, I transferred to my laptop and start stitching. To my surprise, all shots have different exposure, different focus and at different angle. I couldn't possibly stitch them perfectly. I guess Panoramic Photography is not as simple as I thought,

Then I began to look for some answers in Internet. It turn out that even the professionals are using special software for stitching, for joining the pictures together. So they can join those pictures seamlessly. Still one question though, how do they locked the exposure, the angle and focus distance. I'm afraid the problem lies in my camera. My camera is auto focus only, no manual focusing, no custom white balance, all are set automatically. Well, so much for my new career in Panoramic Photography, I'll just settle with macro and ultra zoom for now..:-)

Mmmm, can anybody give me Canon 1D Mark III please.. I won't be able to use it to its fullest, but I think I can learn..he he he...

Froggie

Camera make: EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Camera model: KODAK Z740 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Date/Time: 2006:01:10 16:32:31
Resolution: 800 x 615
Flash used: Yes (auto)
Focal length: 13.7mm (35mm equivalent: 82mm)
Exposure time: 0.011 s (1/90)
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO equiv.: 80
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: program (auto)

Bee and Lotus

Camera make: EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Camera model: KODAK Z740 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Date/Time: 2005:12:17 11:24:59
Resolution: 800 x 625
Flash used: No (auto)
Focal length: 6.3mm (35mm equivalent: 38mm)
Exposure time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO equiv.: 80
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: program (auto)