The “Stack of Stuff” has overflowed enough to create an entire post from it, after my last two photography-heavy posts. Therefore I’m dumping it all here! I’m currently off to house-sit for my mom and her husband this next two weeks while they take a relaxing vacation in Colorado. I’m also looking forward to hanging out with two photography / artist friends Richard and Allison while there! The main item here is this picture of the most interesting “sundial” I’ve ever seen. I’ve always liked sundials and used to make them growing up. This was reblogged by a cool, eclectic painter in San Francisco named Charmaine Olivia. You should check out her blog and work!
Way Out Wednesday: Jodie Lyons, “Talkin’ Smokey” by Tony Redman, June 30, 2010. me:OMG, now there’s some ancient ’70s stuff from the dustbin of history that I thought I had managed to completely purge from memory long ago (right along with C.B. Radios, the 55 mph speedlimit, “Dukes of Hazard“, Woodsey the Owl, etc.) until someone posted this on fb and made me just LMAO!
I went up to Denton Saturday Evening to see some other friends and to do some candid “street” photography up on the Square with my new 40mm Pancake lens. I tried several “candid” shots where I simply held the camera at my side preset and in autofocus mode and discretely pressed the shutter while sort of looking away so that I could capture people going about their business without noticing that I was taking pictures! Having never done this before with a dslr, so I wasn’t expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised that nearly all my attempts produced decent captures! Since the lens is 40mm, good aiming was a challenge, but this also allowed for keeping a safe, non-conspicuous distance from my subjects and for cropping to get the desired scenes. I really like this lens, it truly is worth every penny I paid for it because of it’s extremely compact size and it captures stunningly sharp images, even when severely cropped, as these people shots are!
In other personal news, I’m going back to Denton this Saturday for the “First Non-annual Idiots’ Hill Runoff Election Victory Party” hosted by my friend Scott. I’m not much into Denton politics seeing as I haven’t lived there in decades, but I was invited and did grow up on “Idiots’ Hill” (LOL) in Denton. Apparently a bunch of other people I like to hang out with did too because these parties are always well attended! I’m also doing another shoot for Now Magazine, wish me luck!
vvvvvv Looking down E. Hickory St. This gal’s oblivious though looking right at me. <<<<<< Enjoyin’ a sweet treat with a tweeting friend at Beth Marie’s!
Many classic buildings and shops on the South side of the Square. vvvvvv Girl cycling on Hickory St. SW corner of the Square toward Locust St. >>>>>>
This past Saturday morning, I had the privilege of going (photo) shooting with a photographer friend here in town. We had planned to go out to Poolville, but ended up finding interesting scenes here. We went and explored some of the beautiful local countryside near Weatherford. She showed me some places that I’ve never seen up close before as well as some different angles on some I’ve shot before! We both took a bunch of photos and really had a great time. The sky was a perfect dark blue with a few white puffy clouds around. Later, I went up to Denton to shoot some candid street around the Square, but I’ll save that for a future post!
Cool old tractor in abandoned lawn, just North of town off of Hwy 51. Large crypt in Greenwood Cemetery. >>>>>>
Greenwood Cemetery. I really like the old metal fencing. <<<<<< ”Wind, Water &Spirits” – Old windmill and rain barrel at Greenwood Cemetery.
I broke down and ordered myself a Pentax DA 40mm f/2.8 Ultra Compact Limited (“Pancake”) Lens last week used from Amazon for $300. This is one of the tiniest DSLR lens I’ve ever seen and it will come in very handy for candid portraits and street shots where you want to look less “professional photographer-ish” conspicuous, and your camera to be small, light-weight, and easy to use with one hand. I wish it was a little wider angle (than 40mm on APS-C). This just means having to step back a little bit for group portraits, but enables unsuspecting street subjects to be captured quickly from a less conspicuous distance! Pentax offers a similar 21mm, but it’s not affordable (to me at over $500 used). I intend for it to mostly replace my 18-55mm kit zoom for the few “smiling faces at the party” group photos I take. I hope to take more now though, along with more street shooting. (More reviews)
I took it out with me Sunday to do some more street in Downtown Fort Worth and we also ended up in the old unused T & P. train station! A really nice security guard met us in the parking lot and took us inside, unlocked the doors for us, and showed us around! After the long walk to get inside, I ended up regretting not bringing a wide-angle lens in with me from the car, so I had to shoot the beautiful ceilings and huge open rooms with my 40mm, but still managed to get some decent shots! So far, I’m very impressed with the images it produces. Even severely cropped images and fully blown up ones look almost flawless and definitely much better than my kit lenses! (Click on any of the images (gallery) to the right to view full-sized!):
My only wish is that (maybe) this lens was a little wider (for APS-C), like maybe 30mm, then it would be perfect. I kind of like the tiny “dough-nut” / “wheel-cover” lens hood and the little screw-on cap. The hood provides good protection and you can leave the cap off when carrying the camera around (just keep it in your pocket). The only slightly weird thing about it is that the word “Pentax” is lettered in white on the INSIDE of the cap, not the outside?! This is definitely becoming my walk-around “fun lens”! I just absolutely love how it makes my camera so compact and light. If you prefer, you can easily use a traditional 49mm plastic snap-on lens hood instead. I do not have any 49mm filters, but was easily able to hold a larger polarizer or my yellow filter over the front while shooting (since the camera’s so small and light), so no real need to buy more filters.
I’ve been told that the lens is wide enough to use with my full-frame (Pentax) ME-Super film camera, but I have not shot any film with it yet to confirm. I can use my ol’ “shim trick” to open it up (since there’s no aperture ring) if I ever do!
Pros: Superb image quality you’d expect in a (pro. grade) “limited” Pentax lens. Solid all metal and glass build, including the hood and cap. Fastest focusing Pentax screw-drive lens I own. Very compact and lightweight (especially being metal). Tops the scale on the “cool” factor in both looks, carrying and ease of use! You can carry a second lens with you without your bag and stick this one in your pocket while switching to the other one, so it’s like having two lenses while feeling like you’re only carrying one!
Cons: 40mm. This is actually a pro for street work, only a slight con for full-body group portraits (unless you can step back a few feet) and hey, I knew that going in and am still very happy to have it as is! Wish it would go another stop open, say to f2, but the image quality is excellent wide open at 2.8 whereas many lenses that go below that have to be stopped down to be as good. With Pentax high-noise reduction and in-camera image stabilization, f2.8 will serve me fine for everything but the most extreme conditions.
Other: Price – I paid $300 for it used. It’s just as good as new. Being all metal and glass, this thing should last a lifetime (unless dropped on concrete, in water or thrown against a wall, or in the case of this small thing, lost)! Overall, well worth the money to me. A couple of my Canikon photographer friends were ribbing me about paying an arm and a leg for it and how that Canon is introducing (compare) a (plastic) 40mm pancake for only $200 (someday soon). I just pointed out that it “only cost me an arm since it’s used, but w/this baby, shooting with one arm is easy-peasy!”. Up through now, AFAIK, only Pentax offers pro-grade compact “pancake” primes like this!
Verdict: Every Pentaxian should own one of these! If you can only afford a single “pancake” / prime lens, get this one! I looked at the 21mm, but it was way more and wouldn’t do street as well.
This week’s big story for me was the Transit of Venus. I took advantage of this once in a lifetime photo opportunity to capture it in reasonable detail. I like challenging photo opportunities and this one proved a very worthy one! I had been discussing it with a more knowledgeable veteran photographer and friend who had warned me of the potential of burning my sensor. This is much like the trick we did growing up of taking a magnifying glass and a piece of paper outside and burning a hole in it by focusing a concentrated beam of sunlight into an extremely powerful laser beam. I decided to avoid that risk by doing some practice shots with the camera on a tripod pointed at the sun. With the camera turned off I then held an index card behind the viewfinder while adjusting the camera until the sun shone clearly through onto the paper. I tried different exposures until I ultimately ended up with a “minimum” by setting the camera to the lowest possible ISO (100) and fastest shutter speed (1/6000″) and the lens fully stopped down (f32). The sun was still too bright and flaring, so I added one, then two polarizers, then my red filter until I finally got a nice solid solar disc surrounded by pitch black space with no flaring.
The big moment came shortly after five pm Tuesday evening. I set everything up just as I had for the practice shots and snapped away with the focus ring fully focused to infinity, then repeated several times moving the ring back a “hair” each time. I also tried backing the F-stop down a click or too until I had numerous captures to examine and compare. I did end up with one that stood out from the rest and you are looking at it here now.
I repeated the process shortly before sunset, but experimented with both opening up the lens and reducing the shutter speed, as the sun’s brightness rapidly decreased. Some high clouds also made an unwelcome appearance just as the sun was reaching the horizon, which reduced the light even more rapidly. At this point I was using the LCD screen without much fear of frying it, as the sun was now setting. I ended up being a bit disappointed with the sunset shots because the clouds prevented me from getting the sun as it set and, for reasons not fully known, I managed not to get any that were really well-focused and sharp. The best one (shown here) was just before sunset as the clouds began rapidly ascending above the horizon obscuring the bottom part of the sun (the effect I was seeking from the horizon though).
I want to be your swell internet blogger who does all the really neat stuff you want a swell internet blogger to do. In fact this is probably the most swollen blog you’ll find!
Way Out Wednesday: Jodie Lyons, “Talkin’ Smokey”
