During my workshops one of my mantras is practice. Always have a camera with you whether it be your phone, a good point and shoot or your regular camera. There is no excuse for not having one of them with you. Practicing looking for compositions should be something you enjoy doing whether you happen to make an image or not.
This week the weather report was awful – rain for the whole week. I was not looking forward to sitting in the house banging on the computer.
So on Monday with the drizzle and fog I headed out for a morning walk to see what I could find. It turns out I found quite a bit of interesting things to photograph.
Practicing hyperfocal distance is an art form. The Fuji system shows you a hperfocal distance scale with a blue bar that shows what’s in focus and what is not at every aperture. Very useful. Everything in this image is tack sharp front to back.
After I walked around the waterfront I managed to find some more great images along the way.
A person waiting in the fog for the bus with blooming jonquils.A shop window filled with Rockport coffee mugs waiting to be sold.An finally left over faux Easter flowers hanging out of a mail slot on a door.
When I got home and let my dog “Kodak” out it was still kind of drizzly and when he came back in he was a little soggy looking. I had the camera with me and I immediately thought I could get a great shot of him looking back out the door with some great background separation. B&W is quite often a great option for this type of photo.
Lousy weather is no excuse to not get out there and shoot. It just might be the opportunity you were looking for to capture a great image.
Lobster boats sitting at their moorings on a chilly windy morning in Rockport, MA.
In my journey switching from Canon to Fuji I have been slowly buying lenses. It’s a long haul selling off gear and purchasing new or used gear. I had been struggling with the fact that I did not have a long lens for the X-T3 yet and it was a struggle at times having to use my Canon 70-200 and 7D Mk ll instead of a Fuji lens.
A friend, John Barclay, who has been using the Fuji system for quite awhile suggested the Fuji 55-200. I was hesitant to even test it out because it is fairly slow and is a variable aperture lens. I’m a part time photojournalist so I was thinking I needed the 50-140 f2.8. Since I am transitioning to teaching workshops and shooting more landscape/travel work this lens was suggested instead of the 50-140. I will still own this lens but not at the moment.
I started looking for the 55-200 used on Fred Miranda’s site. I did find one after missing out on two of them. It was only $445. WHAT! Yes and in mint condition. It sells new for $700. It just so happened that I was on my way to an assignment when I picked it up. So outside the assignment I opened it up and brought it inside with me to shoot some images.
Jim Parks of Wingmasters talks about the Eastern Screech Owl to children at the Plum Cove School Monday morning. KIRK R. WILLIAMSON/ photo. 3/5/19
I was immediately blown away at how sharp this lens at 134mm (202mm equivilent) @f4.4. Incredible performance at ISO 2500 1/125s. So this got me thinking I could pretty much use this lens for more assignments even though it’s kind of slow.
Mike Lattof gives instructions to GHS athletes during the Gloucester High School off-season running and conditioning program Saturday morning. KIRK R. WILLIAMSON/ photo. 3/9/19
I was wondering what it was going to be like inside of a dark gym and I was not disappointed. It performed incredibly well. Now let me say that in the situation above I would probably have used the 50-140 if I had it but I was pleasantly surprised by what this little beauty can do.
Father son hockey game
In this situation I needed to shoot both ends of the rink instead of at ice level which is what I usually do. Again the lens was great. The autofocus was right on the money!
Gloucester High School Senior Robbie Horne hits a forehand during the first day of practice. KIRK R. WILLIAMSON/ photo. 3/18/19
Shooting against the light with my Canon 70-200 is incredible no ghosting no flare perfect. So I had no idea what this lens would do. It matched up really well with the Canon giving me great contrast and shadow detail along with great autofocus performance. This image was made at 1/1250 @ f4.2 so wide open.
Next I needed to see how it would do for landscapes and again I was surprised at the color rendition and sharpness of the lens.
Early morning light can be a challenge. Deep shadows etc.I love the way this file converted to B&W. The original file in color is beautiful and again extremely sharp.
Overall I am really pleased with this lens. The biggest reason I purchased it is because it will be a great lens to travel and hike with when doing my workshops. For a little day hiking etc. and for working with students. My kit will be the Fuji 10-24 f4, 55-200 f3.5-4.8 and possibly the 16 f 1.4 along with the X-T3 and the X-T30 or I may leave the 16 out although it focuses so close it’s almost a macro lens.
Fading afternoon light splashes across the autumn colored Essex marsh lighting up the iconic marsh house.
I have never been a big advocate of iPhoneography. But since some of the new photo apps do such a good job of toning and adjustment I am using my phone more and more. My go to app is the Lightroom Mobile app which I use on my phone and my iPad. I’t just like using Lightroom on my computer and gets better with every update. The image above was made as I was shooting images with a long lens and a friend wanted to know what it looked like. I pulled out my phone and made this image which was immediately synced with Lightroom. So when I got home and opened up Lightroom there was my image.
Rockport’s inner harbor lights up with a beautiful sunset.
The image above is one of those times when I was glad to have my phone with me. I was with friends and my camera was not with me. So out came my phone and inside the Lightroom app I was able to shoot in raw and then sync to Lightroom on my computer.
A Rockport Harbor sunset reflects in a window of the Sandy Bay Yacht Club.
After I made the shot in the harbor I started looking around for another shot of it and this is what I was faced with. Again the phone was ready for the task in raw inside the Lightroom Mobile app.
Rockport’s famous Motif #1 sits underneath a beautiful sunset at the end of August.
The only thing wrecking this image is the two ultra modern motor boats tied up in front of the Motif. This sunset was absolutely stunning with it’s different colors changing constantly. Again my phone was the only thing I had so out it came and I used the camera inside the Lightroom Mobile app to shoot in raw which gave me a great chance to get the tones I wanted from this image.
So if you use Lightroom CC Basic or Lightroom CC cloud you have access to the Lightroom Mobile app in the Apple app store. It costs nothing and it syncs up your phone photos to your Lightroom catalog as long as you turn on syncing. The mobile app hooks up to your phone when you activate it and allows you to shoot raw images. Inside the Lightroom Mobile app, when you set the app to Pro mode you are able to control the camera’s white balance, ISO, shutter speed, and exposure compensation. This is a huge deal! Imagine this, if you click on the little padlock it locks your exposure. Pretty impressive.
