Christmas Greetings to All

I wish everyone has a safe and happy holiday season.

rb

Having a Baby will Always be Fun

I remember last year when my wife and I were expecting, and remembered how that was the most exciting times in both our lives.  That is why I love maternity shoots because it reminds me of that feeling and to be able to share that to first time parents to be is priceless.

Like the previous shoot, she had some experience modelling before, which made it easy for me to do my job.

Phen is a friend and former co-worker.  She's due in a couple of months and it was just the right time to take her photos.  Her baby was even moving during the shoot, like he's posing for me. :)  Here are some more photos from the day.

Actors make the Best Models

Pretty faces don't necessarily mean they are good models.  There are some people who just has that "it" factor that makes the camera fall in love with them.  There is a little bit of acting involved when ever you're in front of the camera, be it for stills or motion films.  It is seldom that you get both.

Angelyn is one of those people.  She currently is involved in a theater group.  It has been the most fun I have had shooting since the Mythology themed shoot I had last year.  She was able to maximize our studio time, and was a lot of fun.  All the frames I took were useable, even the shots where her hair was being fixed.

She could give you multiple looks in succeeding frames without too much direction from the photographer, which save a lot of time and makes my job waaaay easier.

She was a lot of fun to work with and was a really refreshing experience.  I hope every shoot is like this.  Here are some more shots for the day.

 

rb

Bend it like Beckham

Sorry about the Copyright, just had to put that in

I guess most of the game he was the center of attention, and he even scored the first goal.  It was a really exciting game, even when you look at the scoreboard and see that the Philippine Azkals have lost the game early in the second half.  I guess just seeing Beckham play (in probably his first and last game in Manila) was a treat in itself.  I can't show you all the photos but here were a few:

rb

David Beckham in Manila - LA Galxy Clinic and practice

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at blueweedphoto hq, and I have a few things I need to blog about.  I'll start of with the recently concluded Manila tour of David Beckham's MLS Champion LA Galaxy.  They were here for a few days and played Saturday night with our very own Philippine Azkals.  I was fortunate enough to shoot for the soon to be official Azkals website and was given press pass for both the LA Galaxy kids clinic, practice and the Azkals vs. Galaxy match.  The photos below are from the clinic and their practice Friday afternoon.  I can't show you all as the photos are involving kids who participated in the clinic.

David seemed like a friendly lad and the kids who trained with him seemed to enjoy his company.  I have some 1500 photos of the actual game and will try to post some of the shots as soon as I could.

more to come....
rb

M CaNikon Part 2 - The Shots

I guess the ultimate way to know if the adapter was worth the $30 or so that I paid it for was to see the actual shots.  I'll go thorugh the lenses I have and shot a few frames with it to test.  Most of them are dirty from the inside due to lack of use over the decades. Just in case you would like to know more about each lens, you can click on each lens title and that will direct you to the specific lens page of the best resource for these lenses which is mir.com.

Just as a full disclaimer, all the photos in this post were unedited, straight out of the camera shots (unless specified).  The shot above was with the Canon 24mm f/2.8 FD lens.  I tried my best to replicate the field of view for each shot below.

The 50mm f/1.4 FD

I was really excited to try out this lens, as I love my Nikon 50mm 1.8 and was looking forward to using this Canon extensively. This lens focuses as close as 8inch from my test, which is a few inches better than my Nikon. My copy of this lens had a lot of fungus inside it, and I didn't really know how that will affect the image.

50mm @ f/1.4 - not good

I guess all that dirt did show up on the image.  This was shot wide open at 1.4, and it really was very soft at that opening.  The softness went away by the time I got to f/2.8 and f/4, but still had some of the ghosting effect, but fortunately that was easy to remove by just adding some contrast and increasing the exposure by just a bit.

50mm 1.4 wide open at 1.4 edited  - still soft but looks better

Same lens at f4 and edited - a lot better

The 70-210mm f/4 

I think this one is the daddy of those popular white tele-zooms of today.  It's a pull-push lens with the same barrel used for focusing.  So this means you really have to push and twist it out to zoom out and pull and twist to zoom in.  This had some dirt inside as well and  I guess affected the photo below.  I only shot at the 20mm end which was the reason for the different perspective.  Like the 50mm, the fogginess went away at the next f/stop or with a little contrast adjustment.  Unlike the 50mm, this lens is not soft wide open or in any aperture setting.   This has a "Macro"setting, which is not really much of a macro, but it does let you focus at around 8inches from the subject when you're at the 70mm focal length.

70-210mm @ f/4 - very foggy

same lens @ f/4 with edit - much much better

The 35-70mm 3.5-4.5 Macro

This lens was the lightest of the group, and I am guessing that back in the day, was the equivalent of a kit lens.  Like the previous lens this has a Macro setting all throughout the zoom range, but it isn't really Macro, as it only focuses as close as 15 inches from the subject.  It was also dirty from the inside, and that also affected the image below.  As with the other 2 lenses, the fogginess went away after applying some contrast adjustments, and it was not soft in any aperture zoom combination,

35-70mm @ 70mm f4.5 - smeared with fungus

same lens and aperture/zoom combination wit hedit - useable, but not the best

The 24mm f/2.8

This is the best lens amongst the 4 I have. It was sharp at all aperture stops and has better color rendition too.  It had dirt inside like the others, but for some reason, it wasn't affecting the photo.  It focuses up to about 12 inches, which was great .  The photo at the top of the post  was an unedited 24mm shot and it was sharp all throughout the frame up to the corners, even when wide open.

24mm @ 2.8 wide open - very useable

Maybe the other lenses will do better when they get some cleaning, but for now I'm happy.  I think  I could really find some good use for these focal lengths and the flexibility they offer me.  Hey, that's four lenses added to my bag, can't say no to that.


rb

My CaNikon Part 1 - How I did it

Trying out a new system is often times exciting and challenging.  But I've got to tell yah', mixing them up is waaaay more fun.  As I blogged a couple of weeks ago, I recently started trying out using Canon lenses with my Nikon camera.  It's been really fun, and I'll be sharing the experience with you on the next few posts.  But first things first, how do you do it?

The Lens

As you might have noticed, I am using a differently looking Canon lens than the ones you Canon users have been using/seeing.  These are Canon F - mount lenses (or FD, great resource link here), the legacy lens mount that Canon dumped back in the early 80's (I think).  All their lenses after that have been EF/EFS mounts, which is what is being used on their digital cameras. Canon FDs are fully manual, aperture ring mount lenses.  They are made of metal and is as heavy as a they come.  They didn't have white versions before and all where shiny black.

Now, Nikon didn't shift lens mounts since the early 50's, why not just use those lenses since you'll be manually focusing anyway? Well I happened to have 4 of these FD lenses and a Canon film camera, so I thought why not use them right?  And from the looks of it, I really like the look and feel of these legacy lenses. I have a 24mm f/2.8, a 50mm f/1.4, a 70-210mm Macro f/4 and a 35-70mm Macro  f/3.5-4.5. I'm a cheapskate, so I basically got 4 "new" lenses for free.  Well not exactly......

The Adapter

So since these are 2 different brands and systems, how did I manage to attach them?  The answer is through the help of a Canon FD to Nikon Body adapter.  Now this is not a common adapter, mind you.  You normally see people using old Nikon lenses on their Canon, Olympus, Panasonic etc. cameras, but seldom do you see it the other way around.  As a matter of fact, the product list here (scroll way down) shows that they only have a few adapters for Nikon bodies.  I first saw this adapter 2 years ago on a site that sells them in the US.  So when I saw this available here locally, I ordered at once.

The adapter is all metal and looks like is durable enough to take some abuse from yours truly.  It comes with a box and nothing else. Don't expect for a manual with this one.  Basically one side (black) is the Nikon side (attach that to your camera) and the other (silver) is the Canon FD side.  No electronics on this baby.  It does have a piece of glass in the middle to compensate for the separation from the sensor, the adapter and the lens.  If you weren't familiar with how the lens attaches to the front, you'll have a really hard time attaching them. You should here a click when you attach them correctly.

 The adapter also has a locking mechanism which when placed on "lock"  the lens will go to its widest aperture available.  So when you want to adjust the aperture, you'll have to make sure it's in the "open" setting.  I don't have a photo of that,  unfortunately.  The glass in the middle adds about .2x to your focal length, which made my 24mm to a 28mm from my very unscientific observations.

So before we talk about how the output photos are, I could say that to me, this is already a very good investment since I could use some paper weights on a digital camera.  There's about 20-30 years of "age-gap" between lens and camera, which I find really interesting.

On our next post, we'll talk about how to use the lenses on the camera.



rb