Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

Playing with lenses today.

Elliot with the 35-105 zoom, post-B&W (because I can’t resist LightRoom and its presets):

Elliot with the Portrait (85mm)

Elliot with the Wide Angle (28mm)

I don’t know what the differences in quality might be, but they do work differently!  I obviously need to play more…

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

Yeah, it’s Friday.  It’s dark.  Do you know how hard it is to try out camera settings and lenses in the dark?  But luckily I have 3 days (it’s a long weekend here) to try things in the daylight, so come back tomorrow for more lens experimentation excitement!

In the meantime, here is a picture of the flowers Kevin got me for my birthday last week.  Until tomorrow!

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

So, here are some pictures I took this evening with what Kevin calls his Portrait lens.  It’s an old non-digital lens: a Zeiss Sonnar 2.8/85.  I don’t really know what that means. I mean, I know the 2.8 refers to the aperture, or F-stop (the largest the aperture can get), and the 85 refers to the focal length in millimeters (mm).  This is a prime or fixed lens.  I really wanted to call it a static lens, but I looked it up. What does that mean?  Well, it means it doesn’t zoom.  It is set at 85mm focal length. But I don’t know why it’s called a “portrait” lens.  Guess I will need to look that up to sometime!

As I said: This is a non-digital lens.  This means I needed to buy a converter to allow it to attach to my digital big-girl camera.  And it also means that the automatic settings on the camera won’t work (or won’t work right), and the aperture is controlled by the lens, NOT the camera.  But, I have three of these non-digital lenses now (Kevin’s old lenses) and I actually really like them.  That being said, there is a Tamron digital macro lens on my “to buy soon” list and it will be interesting to compare how it works with how these older lenses work.

Anyway, here is a picture of  my lens (taken with the emPhone):

And here are my first portraits taken with the Sonnar lens:

Elliot was across the room a bit, so this worked nicely for a full-body portrait.  It was low light, and I didn’t try flash, but it didn’t turn out too bad once I bumped the ISO up.

Jasper was right next to me, so focus was a bit of an issue, but I am seeing the potential here!

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

I did not take this picture.  You can tell, because this is me.  Why am I posting a picture I did not take?  Because I have been coughing non-stop today and I am tired.  Too tired to take more pictures.  All I want to do is have chicken soup and go to bed.  Nothing like not feeling sick, but having a cough that hasn’t realized yet that it’s outstayed its welcome.  Enough already!

Maybe tomorrow there will be new pictures…

Oh, by the way, this picture was taken by my friend Susan – the one whose birthday we were celebrating with the photography workshop!

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

One more day of showcasing Sask trip photos.  Why?  Because I am recharging the big girl camera battery.  Therefore no new pictures can be taken this evening.  Also, probably I am feeling tired and lazy having been coughing all day.  Stupid cold that doesn’t want to end…  Anyway, enjoy the random photo album!

I’m not sure how stable this bridge was as I didn’t try walking across it.  I was too busy taking pictures of it.

The obligatory foreground-focused rock.

Who doesn’t like a cool pinecone?

I was enjoying the macro setting on my lens.  A real macro lens is on my shopping list!

I always love a cemetery with a view.

You just need to take pictures of the gnarly dead tree!

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

And a final group of photos from my trip to Saskatchewan/Alberta.  This means that tomorrow I will be pulling out the big-girl camera and taking brand new pictures to present here!

This final group of photos represent my attempts to take pictures of water.  Do you know how hard it is to take pictures of water??  Especially when it’s too sunny.  Or too cloudy.  Or too windy.  Or raining.  Well, here are some of my attempts in all of these conditions!

And finally, a picture of water with a quintessential Regina sunset over the legislature.

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

And for today’s post, I present Quintessential Saskatchewan as seen through the big-girl camera.

Most people think of Saskatchewan (if they think of it at all) of flat land and amazing sunsets.  Well, that part is true – and you’ll see that further down.  But there is a lot more to my old home province than flatness.  Up north there are huge lakes and trees, and heading west from Regina, there are the rolling hills and long highways and worn trails of the Cypress Hills area.  I didn’t head north for this last trip, but I did spend time in Cypress Hills:

And for those of you who crave the more traditional view:

Go NaNoPoblano (National Blog Posting Month) (https://anitashree.com/2017/10/12/its-approaching-that-time-again/ !

For today’s post, as I slowly recover and begin to find energy to do something other than rest, I present: Other things that I think are fun to photograph, or really, other ways to photograph things that I have discovered are fun (for me).

So, I discovered depth of field a while back, but on my trip I tried to work with it more (sometimes desperately) to focus on one point of an object and blur out the rest.   I took a lot of pictures before I got ones I liked! I am still working on getting the right point focused, but I am starting to understand how to think about it a bit better as I am setting up to shoot.

This was a dark, rainy day and I was failing miserably at getting pictures of the forest as a whole, so…

It was dark inside this museum (Medalta Pottery in Medicine Hat) but I was determined to get some good wabi sabi with focus play.

And this was outdoors with (finally) sunlight in a park in Medicine Hat.  I love taking pictures of benches, and while this bench was not particularly interesting itself (to me), the path and focus gave me something to play with.

Here is an example with what I like to call reverse focusing…I kind of started to enjoy this game!  I think other people might get sick of all my examples of this though…here is one I really liked.

Nothing like a birdhouse on a fence post along a highway.

Back to the Medalta Pottery museum again…I kind of liked this one!

And one of my favourites – the obligatory abandoned barn (a red one even) with a fence, field, and everything!