Tight: A Creepy Little House

Alright, So I cannot tell a lie. I definitely own a 300mm, but it is currently being lent out to someone. I ended up using my next tightest focal length, which is the tight end of my 24-105mm. All of these photos are shot at 105mm.

 These photos were taken on a little excursion that I went on with another class. We went to an extremely old home in Washington City to shoot with a model, and the old decrepit details of this home were so unreal and cool that it was the perfect opportunity to shoot some detail shots. While I know that I said shooting with only a wide lens was difficult, I found challenges with just shooting tight as well. some shots that I wanted to take required a wider focal length. I definitely see the benefit of having multiple lenses, and being able to change them out quickly and efficiently.

I love shooting tight, for multiple reasons. 

• The first, is the fact that I can get in very close without being intrusive of the subject that I am shooting (Fun fact: Shooting long focal lengths at wedding receptions is great, because I don't get the cheesy posed shots, and I feel a little bit like I'm on safari hahah). 
• The second is the fact that I'm obsessed with the compression that is created. Though I only have a couple of photographs of a person here, the compression that is created by a long focal length is very flattering to most people. 
• The third is that i love the added depth of field. Though this lens is an f/4, the bokeh in the back of the images resembles that of my 50mm at around a 2.8, because of the fact that I'm' so far away from the subject. 

One of the biggest benefits that I see for using a tight lens as a photojournalist, is the fact that you are able to capture so much detail, without having to be up in the subject's face. It gives you more of an opportunity to get in close.  

Bracketing Assignment

Each of these photos were taken in a jpeg format, and have not been edited. This was a really interesting exercise for me. I never shoot my photos at what the camera thinks is a "proper" exposure, so it was really interesting for me to see the variation in light and depth of field as I bracketed these. I also think that these photos can be used as a great example of not only depth of field, but the fact that camera settings go hand in hand with each other. When you change one variable, in order to get a similar exposure, another variable must be changed too. I'm learning a lot about my camera's metering settings this semester.

Exposure Bracketing

 f/4 1000 ISO100

f/5.6 1000 ISO100

 f/8.0 1000 ISO100

f/11 1000 ISO100

f/16 1000 ISO100

Equivalent Settings

 f/4 4000 ISO100

 f/5.6 2000 ISO100

 f/8 1000 ISO100

 f/11 500 ISO100

f/16 250 ISO100

Wide: A day in the life of an amateur panoramist.

I shot these photos with my 14mm prime. I primarily use this lens for landscape and astrophotography, because of the mixture of its speed and focal length, but when I get the chance to use it for portraiture, it's always a fun and interesting experience. My sister has begun her journey into the photography world, and received the assignment to make some panoramic photos, so I followed her on her assignment. 

The first thing that i want to take note of is the fact that this lens has to be manually focused, which was definitely a struggle as I was following around a moving subject, so please excuse these if they are not all tack sharp.

I think that one of the most beneficial parts of using this wide angle, is the fact that the audience has the opportunity to see the whole picture. Though 14mm is quite wide, it is just under what the human eye would see at approximately 17mm, it gives the illusion that the photo was actually taken by a human eye. The amount of data captured by this lens is similar to what you would have seen, had you actually been there. 

One of the most difficult things about using solely this lens to shoot these images, is the amount of distortion that this lens creates, and because of that, it makes the images seem surreal, and not necessarily in a good way, when dealing with documentary photographs. 

It was also very difficult for me, as an artistic portraiture photographer, to get the closeup images that I wanted, because this focal length encompasses such a great distance. This, along with the fact that getting close to things distorts them were challenges for me. It was very difficult for me to capture detail in these shots. 

I really appreciated this exercise, because to be quite honest, if I had the time for it I would have whipped out a different lens for just about every shot that I took. It was interesting for me to be confined to one lens, and have to create interesting shots using one focal length.

 *fun fact* good thing she had me with her, because she couldn't figure out why all of her photos were underexposed hahah. The above photo is of her freaking out a little bit.