Festival of Trees - Bobcaygeon

I attended The Festival of Trees this past weekend held at the Kawartha Settlers Village in Bobcaygeon Ontario. It was a super opportunity to shoot Christmas decorations and lights and support the local community.

They did a super job of decorating the old buildings inside and out. Here are some photos I took there. These are all single exposures, I will describe my settings used under each photo. I am not a big fan of tripods but I had to use my tripod for all these shots because of the extremely long exposure times. All photos are shot with my Nikon D3 and the Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 lens on Manual exposure mode.

ISO 1600 - 6 seconds - F/22

ISO 1600 - 4 seconds - F/22

These next shots are indoors shot on very long exposures to get ghosting effects caused by the people walking by and to eliminate the clutter of all the people walking in front of me. Someone would have to stand still for part of the exposure to appear at all, or as a ghost like figure. For example, in this next shot, there are two people in red jackets that are fairly solid. They were filling out ballots so they didn't move much but the two larger ghost like figures in the foreground of my image were only there for part of the exposure. There were lots of other people walking through the  frame but they didn't register at all because they weren't standing still long enough.

You will notice that I had to drop my ISO to allow for the longer exposure times.

ISO 200 - 15 seconds - F/20

ISO 100 - 30 seconds - F/22

ISO 100 - 30 seconds - F/18


My blog post wouldn't be complete without some slow shutter speed artsy photos.

ISO 200 - 1/2 second - F/5.6

ISO 500 - 1/8 second - F/5.6

ISO 320 - 1/3 second - F/9

ISO 500 - 1/8 second - F/5.6


We have our Manual Exposure and Artistic Interpretations classes starting soon. Join us to gain control of your camera and learn these cool techniques.

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Canon 500D Close-up Lens

While visiting Laura in Virginia recently, she had me try out her Canon close-up lens. This "lens" just screws on to the end of your lens like a filter, not sure why they call it a lens? Anyway, what a cool gadget! I used it on my Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and it acts almost like a macro lens. It is manufactured by Canon but seeing as it screws on to the end of a lens, there is no lens mount to worry about so us Nikon shooters can use it too.

I loved the fact that I could carry the lens (filter) in my pocket and put it on and take it off easily. Much easier than carrying around a Macro lens and changing lenses all the time.

I loved it so much that I immediately ordered one up for myself from B&H Photo Video.



Canon 77mm 500D Close-up Lens

Canon Close-up lenses are for quick and easy close-up photography. The close-up lens is screwed on to the front of a lens like a filter. Close-up lenses 250D and 500D have two achromatic elements to correct chromatic aberrations. They do not degrade the high optical performance of EF lenses. Close-up lens 500 has only one element, making it more affordable.



Shooting with a close-up lens makes you view the world around you in a much different way. You start to notice details and textures that would normally be overlooked because they are normally so small and insignificant. But the beauty of Mother Nature should not be over looked, it is incredible!

Milkweed seeds

Nikon D3 - 70-200mm f/2.8 lens - ISO 800 - 1/400 second - F/22
Manual exposure mode

Sycamore Leaf

Nikon D3 - 70-200mm f/2.8 lens -  ISO 800 - 1/320 second - F/8
Manual exposure mode


Poison Ivy vine

Nikon D3 - 70-200mm f/2.8 lens - ISO 1600 - 1/400 second - F/5
Manual exposure mode

Frozen Hosta leaves

Nikon D3 - 70-200mm f/2.8 lens - ISO 800 - 1/320 second - F/8
Manual exposure mode


Conch shell

Nikon D3 - 70-200mm f/2.8 lens - ISO 1000 - 1/500 second - F/22
Manual exposure mode


Water

Nikon D3 - 70-200mm f/2.8 lens - ISO 1600 - 1/400 second - F/8
Manual exposure mode

A piece of rock from my husband's rock garden

Nikon D3 - 70-200m f/2.8 lens - ISO 1600 - 1/400 second - F/18
Manual exposure mode


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