Category: Lensbaby

Day 12 – Sweet Pea

SweetPea

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather today so decided to share another image from the trip to the rose garden yesterday. Again shot with the Velvet85 on the Canon 7D Mark II (aka, the big girl camera). I managed to get the focus right were I wanted it on this one, which is sometimes a challenge with Lensbaby lenses. In post processing I added a high pass filter to bring out the detail in the blossoms, then I used a Lightroom preset which served to lighten the background a little. And finally, I added ont texture to just give a touch more interest to the background.

Day 11 – Rose

VelvetRose

This morning I decided to ditch church in favor of the Harry and David Rose Garden. Most of the roses had seen better days but there  were still a few in prime condition. I grabbed the Velvet 85, the 7D Mark II and a set of extension tubes, along with my tripod, of course. What I learned today is that the difference between f2.8 and f1.8 is huge on the Velvet 85. This image was captured at f1.8 using one medium extension tube. I added a high pass filter in photoshop to just bring out those edges a little more. 

Day 10 – Another Sunflower

Sunflower_081019

Different day, different camera, different lens. I had some business at the Talent Library this morning so I slung the M100 with Trio28 over my shoulder for the wolk over there. Just for fun I threw the new extension tubes I just bought for the M cameras into the bag. This was shot on the velvet setting at my favorite sunflower patch. I wasn’t too happy with the grey area in the lower right corner so I started throwing on textures. I got through about half my texture files before I found a combination I liked. But I am happy with what I can do with the Trio 28 and a small extension tube.

Day 9 – Sunflower

1_Sunflower

I decided to go for a camera walk this morning around downtown Talent. I know, not a long walk. I but the Burnside on the EOS R. Mostly I felt frustrated by how wide the lens is. But in this image I think I finally captured the spirit of the Burnside. You can see the soft and slightly swirly background but the flower is very very sharp. With a 6″ minimum focusing distance the Burnside definitely qualifies as a macro lens in my book. I also learned an important lesson today. the EOS R has a very sharp Electronic View Finder which is a much better choice for focusing than the screen on the back of the camera. This is why I do these projects. Not only do I keep my skills sharp, I get better acquainted with my gear.

In post processing I bumped up the exposure a little, added clarity and vibrance and a High Pass filter for even sharper detail in the flower. I did not have the built in vignette selected on the Burnside so I added a light one in Nik Color Efex Pro.

And for you critics out there, yes, I know, the tip of the leaf should not be so close to the edge of the frame.

Chess Anyone?

Chess

It was a busy day and while I did stop by North Mountain Park on my way home I never got around to downloading the images. So, I decided it was time to turn to the archives. I found this chess set at the barnstormer’s vintage fair. I knew as soon as I saw the raw image that it wanted to be black and white. I added a light vignette and a border. This was shot with the Sweet 50 by the way.

Day 7 – Give me a ring

Telephone2

So, how fun is this? I went to breakfast this morning at a restaurant in Newport called La Maison, which I highly recommend by the way. It is a little off the beaten path a block from 101 in a neighborhood they are now calling the Deco District after about three Art Deco style buildings in the area. I decided to take a walk with the sweet 50 and stumbled upon an antique store that specializes in old telephones.

I learned a lot about the telephone industry and snapped away with the Sweet 50. The out of camera image was pretty dull so I kept heaping textures on it to try and get some color into the background. I wasn’t completely happy with it so I took it in to Nik Color Efex Pro for a border. Well I had been experimenting with maximum detail on an early image so Nik offered that up to start me off and I went “that’s what I’m talking about.” I added my signature because this is more of a digital art piece than a photograph.

Day 6 – Yaquina Head Light

YaquinaHeadLight

I seem to be on a vertical kick lately. Well, a lot of images were made today and I even got a few good ones. My efforts with lensbaby lenses fell a little short however. The light was awfully flat today with typical summer overcast skies at the coast. And the animals I was trying to photograph at the aquarium were moving around a little too much for the manual focus requirements of lensbaby.

This image of Yaquina Head Lighthouse was captured with the Burnside lens mounted on the Canon EOS R. Burnside is designed for street photography at 35 mm but the wide angle is also suitable for lighthouses. In the right conditions Burnside will give a swirly effect in the bokah. It also has a switch on the side that allows you to add more or less vignetting. Burnside is my newest lensbaby and I still need to work with it to master it’s full range of possibilities.

For some reason they have painted the top of the lighthouse black. I remember when it was red like other Oregon lighthouses. But with the flat light there wasn’t much color in the image so I opted to go full on monochrome in Nik Silver Efex Pro. I selected the Yellowed preset but added some structure and contrast.  I also touched up some 20th century features like wires running down the side of the lighthouse using the spot healing brush. I also took out a few tourists who did not add to the story I wanted to tell.

Day 5 – Love

Love

I was able to kill two birds with one stone today as I set out to work on the Oregon Coast Project I had only to pull a lensbaby out of the bag to complete the 100 days entry. While I was headed to Newport this trip I had learned that the Circles in the Sands folks would be doing a labyrinth in Bandon today so I made a detour to arrive a little after the crowds had died down. Today they had a heart theme going on. Since I already had the Sol 45 out I went ahead and continued using it on the M3. This image was pretty monotone to begin with so I took it into Nik Silver Efex Pro and chose the Film Noir preset. I see a potential Note card here but I think I might go with a sepia tone when I get around to printing it.

Day 4 – Morning Glory

MorningGlory

Today’s image was captured at North Mountain Park in Ashland using the Lensbaby Sol45 on the M3. I had to use an adaptor as the lens is designed to mount on EOS cameras such as my 7D.  The Sol 45 has much in common with the Sweet 50. It has a sweet spot of focus that fades off into blur.  Where it differs is in that it is a fixed aperture lens at f3.5. It does not have the optic swap out system of the Composer Pro which the Sweet 50 uses but it does have the ability to swivel so that the point of focus can be changed. The other thing it has is some little plastic blades that can be moved in front of the lens to create a texture in the background. In this case it feels almost like the flower is growing out of a stained glass window.

In post processing I added some clarity, vibrance, and saturation and took it into Nik CEP for some sharpening and a border.

Day 3 – Typewriter

Typewriter1

I’ve been a little annoyed with Facebook lately for insisting on telling me what activities my friends were interested in attending. However, this weekend was the Barnstormers Vintage Fair at the Expo and I would not even have known about it if  my Facebook friends had not expressed interest. So score one point for Facebook’s invasion of my friends privacy.

I decided to take the little walk around camera with the Sweet 50 Lensbaby attached. Sweet 50 is arguably my favorite Lensbaby. It gives sweet spot of very sharp focus and then fades off into blur. But just to make things interesting you can swivel the lens to determine where the focus will be so it doesn’t have to be right in the center.

I cannot ever walk by an old typewriter without taking its picture. So I have images of at least 5 or 6 typewriters along with many other interesting things from the fair. The Sweet 50 gave them all an interesting twist. I also scored some fun props for still life photography so stay tuned for those to show up somewhere along the line. I had to limit myself to what I could carry back to the car in one trip. Otherwise, I might have gone bankrupt! (I know I’ll be kicking myself for not grabbing one of those vintage windows when I had the chance! But they were heavy and it was a long way back to the car.)

Anyway, this typewriter (which by the way was sold right after I photographed it so I’m glad I pulled the camera out of the bag when I did) took a trip through Topaz Studio 2 to enhance the vintage look. Then I used Nik Color Efex Pro to add a grungy border.