Experimenting

     Lately I’ve read some articles about different methods to attempt with your dSLR besides the standard lenses. Things like free lensing and pinhole photography. I tried free lensing the other day, but was generally unsuccessful. That method will take more practice. Last night I made myself a pinhole lens – nothing high-tech, rather primitive in fact, but I simply wanted to try it out. Maybe I’ll try to make a more permanent type of one – I have some ideas on how to do it as well. Anyway, the above photo was one of my more successful images from the few I shot this afternoon in my backyard. I wanted to do more, but it was a bit windy, and I worried that I would end up with dust particles on my exposed sensors. That would be bad.

     While the image isn’t amazing, I am amazed that it worked at all. Especially with my pinhole lens made of art paper, masking tape, and painted black with cheap acrylics. I’m looking forward to doing some more experimenting in the future. In the meantime, if you haven’t noticed, I’m still rather in the general experimenting stage of photography – you know, the kind where I really only take shots of my dogs, the flowers in the backyard, and such. I haven’t reached the point of broadening my subject matter quite yet, though I would like to eventually. I don’t know that I’ll ever reach pro-ish like photo-shoots, but I certainly would be happy to work my way towards something to tat effect.

 

Yay! A Photog Blog!

     I was talking to a friend about some of my adventures in photography this evening, and she suggested I start up a photo blog and try taking/posting at least one photo per day. So I’m going to give it a go! I currently am using a Pentax K20D dSLR, with an 18-55mm lens. I took this picture of my mom’s pup Chessie this afternoon (well, techniquely, yesterday afternoon) with the ISO at 560, f/4.5, and shutter speed at 1/90. I did a little post work in iPhoto. Mostly just sharpening the image a bit, a little lightening of shadows, and a touch more saturation to the colors. I’m currently shooting just in RAW, though this is a recent switch.

     In our backyard we have a huge blob of bushes that the dogs have managed to find holes in and wander through. Chessie in particular loves to dash in and out of it. It took a little coaxing to get her to go in and then come out at the spot I wanted. She kept finding different exits! I’m still fairly new to dSLR photography. I had a Kodak point and shoot for ages, but now that I’ve upgraded I could never, never go back to point and shoot. My bulky dSLR may not be as nice to carry around, but my god, I even love my amateur photography it produces.

     I currently have my camera set with the aperture and shutter speed as a priority – so I set it manually, whereas the ISO is set automatically by the sensors in the camera. When I was in middle school I took a photography class and even did photography for the yearbook. Once upon a time I knew how to do all this stuff, but my memory of it all is lost. So i’m starting over, pretty much from scratch. I don’t mind. I quite enjoy it. One thing I do miss about film photography is the developing process – the black room where we did the film developing, the dark room with that reddish glow and strong smell of chemicals. I liked that tangy chemical smell; I miss it. Anyway, I’m trying to expand my repertoire: I am going to try my hand at free lensing, and I’ve already made myself a pinhole lens. I think I’ll take it out tomorrow during the day and see how it works.