I went to the Pride Parade yesterday here in Washington DC. It was a photo exercise as much as documentary outing because I limited myself to shooting the entire thing with my Canon 5D and 135mm F2 L lens. I was aiming for portraits of the people populating the event. I’m going to batch them in sets of ten give or take so I don’t overload anyone visually, or completely choke their bandwidth. And as always, the appearance of anyone in these photos is not to be taken as indicative of their sexuality or gender identity, one way or another. Gosh, I can’t wait for the day that disclaimer is absolutely unnecessary.
I went to the Pride Parade yesterday here in Washington DC. It was a photo exercise as much as documentary outing because I limited myself to shooting the entire thing with my Canon 5D and 135mm F2 L lens. I was aiming for portraits of the people populating the event. I’m going to batch them in sets of ten give or take so I don’t overload anyone visually, or completely choke their bandwidth. And as always, the appearance of anyone in these photos is not to be taken as indicative of their sexuality or gender identity, one way or another. Gosh, I can’t wait for the day that disclaimer is absolutely unnecessary.
I went out on Sunday evening with a friend of mine to do some shooting over at the old mill ruins at Rileys Lock along the C&O Canal. The ruins are buried in the woods, and a popular hangout for teenagers looking to paint some graffiti or smoke or sit silently next to each other playing on their cellphones. You know, usual teenager stuff. Climb Me
I loved the accidental humor of the vine following the instructions on the graffiti here.
I was still playing around with my new-to-me Canon 135 F2 L lens, and here are some examples of what it can do. The first shot is the canal house at the Riley’s Lock viaduct. I was intrigued by the play of shadows from the nearby tree on the stone wall. After getting home and downloading the shot onto my Mac, I looked at it and thought, “there’s some better, more interesting shots within this” so I made a couple crops, which I’ll show below. Comments and thoughts greatly appreciated. Canal House Windows
Here’s the full-frame original shot. Canal House Window, Left Canal House Window, Right
And last but not least, the brownstone rail end with a dedication chiseled into it.
Here are some shots from my new toy, the Canon 135 L f2 lens. I put it to use in my studio last night, doing some portraits of a friend of mine. As you can see, it’s wickedly sharp, but even at f10, it still has pretty shallow depth-of-field. In examining the original camera-RAW file in Photoshop, I swear I could count every hair on his back, and every pore on his face, until the depth-of-field dropped off and then it blends away to creamy-smooth very quickly. You can see in the shot of my cat Chub-Chub (long story behind the name, but when I first got him, he ate like a pig, started gaining weight and would waddle down the steps, belly a-swinging) that at f2, the depth-of-field is whisker-thin. I’m going to love this lens.
I was a very naughty boy yesterday – I gave in to gear-itis and snapped up a like-new-in-box Canon L-series 135mm F2 lens for on my Canon 5D. As you can tell from reading this blog, I’ve been an absolute junkie for all things big, old, and film-based. That doesn’t mean I reject the 21st century, however; I have been jonesing for this lens for my Canon though for a while as its quality as a portrait lens is super-famous (I’d say infamous but that would imply something negative about the reputation, which could not be further from the truth). So I’m now the proud owner of a 135 L f2. I was playing around last night photographing the cats last night for lack of a better moving subject. I did use it to record the new acquisitions in the antique image collection – it worked wonderfully for that. I’ll be using the 5D as an ersatz Polaroid tonight in the studio as I have a portrait commission to do tonight. It will make a handy lighting check, and it will be useful to have some portraits of something other than Frosty and Chub-Chub (my furry little pudd’ns).
Some underwater shots with the Olympus Stylus Tough 6020. Rated to 16 feet. It was remarkably capable – I think 90% of the shortcomings I experienced were attributable to operator error. The biggest hassle/complaint about the camera that I can point to the camera as the source of the shortcoming is shutter lag. While not such a big deal on dry land where you can stand still, but when your own natural buoyancy combines with the motion of the waves and current, it’s hard to hold still and compose a shot. With too much shutter lag, you end up losing a lot of shots. Something I’m neutral about is the built-in owners manual. The camera does not come with a printed owners manual, but instead has a built-in help system for all the features and functions. The upside is you don’t have to carry the owners manual with you and possibly lose it. The downside is it takes battery power to read it, and the camera is not the most efficient at conserving battery power. According to the camera specifications, you get about 200 shots per charge of the battery. I don’t think I got that many, but I did a fair bit of chimping. I’d say I got between 80-100 shots. I’ve got another gripe with the camera I’ll address in another post.
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