As a food photographer there are times when I need to get in close to my subject. Usually this isn’t a problem especially when I’m photographing something that is “normal” in size, like a bowl of pasta or a plate of food. However there are, on occasion, times when I’m photographing something small and my usual lens (the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS) just can’t focus in tight enough. It’s times like these when I need a macro lens.

The thing is, I don’t own a macro lens, and I can’t remember the last time I had ever used one. In my opinion it’s a misconception that you need a macro to shoot food, since there’s usually no need to get in so close to a plate of food to photograph teeny-tiny details (usually at the expense of not being able to tell what is being photographed). But when you have a very small subject, and you want to get in tight on that subject, then a macro lens is the only way to go.

I had a few setups I wanted to shoot in which I needed a macro lens, and BorrowLenses was kind enough to send me a few lenses to try out. There were two I had my eye on: the Zeiss 100mm macro, and the Canon 180mm macro. I wanted to try the Zeiss because, well, it’s a Zeiss … and that it was 100mm. I chose the Canon 180mm because with my 70-200m I’m usually always set at 200mm, so I figured that would be a familiar focal length. I assumed that would be the one I liked best.

When I got the lenses, I set up my shot with the ring (in the photo above), and the first one I tried was the 180mm. I hadn’t heard too many good things about the lens from a few different people, mostly along the lines of “it has too much macro”, but I wanted to see for myself. And … they were right. When I set up the ring in the shot above with the 180mm it was sooooo compressed and way zoomed in to the ring that I couldn’t get very much else in the frame. I wanted to have some of the glass and bubbles in the shot, but there wasn’t much else I could fit without backing up, and I didn’t want to be too far from my set. My initial thought of it being the one I would like best (and more likely to buy over the 100mm) was wrong.

So I switched to the Zeiss 100mm, completed my shoot and was pretty happy with the results. The Zeiss is pretty expensive, so I might not end up with that one down the road and may have to give the Canon 100mm macro a try before I dive into any big purchases. The key is that I now know what works for my photography to get the results I want.

The whole point I’m trying to get across is that if you want to buy new gear, that’s great! Just make sure you need it, first. Consider BorrowLenses, for lens rentals, or just try out gear from a willing friend. When I first started into Photography I bought so much more gear than I ever needed … partly because I didn’t know what I wanted, and also because I didn’t realize what I got wouldn’t be what I wanted. I get emails all the time asking “which lens/camera/etc. should I buy”, and my answer is always to rent first. You can only tell so much from other people’s photos, or even just trying the lens in the store. You need to be in real-world situations with gear to know if it is what will work for your photography.

Camera: iPhone 4

I’m currently in Hoi An, Vietnam and have been in Vietnam for one week. So far I’ve traveled to Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, Nha Trang and I have a few days left in Hoi An before heading up North. I still have about two weeks left, and so far I’ve gotten some great photos and had many unforgettable experiences.

When I told many of my photographer friends I was headed here, they all told me they were jealous … and now I know why. This place is a photographer’s paradise. So much activity, the people are gorgeous and friendly, and the scenery is amazing. I’ve actually been enjoying the “mostly cloudy” weather, with a bit of rain, and a few days of sunshine … my skin doesn’t like the bright sunlight, and it allows me to photograph in the middle of the day in areas that would normally be reserved for the softer morning or evening light.

I photographed the above scene off a street in Hoi An (this shot was with my iPhone). I got up very early, about 5:00 am, to walk down and see the hustle and bustle of the fish market. The nice thing about this time of day is that it wasn’t crowded with tourists (I only saw a few other “westerners”, and they both had cameras like me) and the streets away from the market were fairly empty and free of people in general. I doubt that this scene would have looked the same if I had waited a few hours to head out with my camera.

To follow more of my travels in Vietnam, take a look at my Google+ page. I’ve been updating it daily with the places I’ve traveled to and some of my fun experiences.

Fuji x100, 1/75 sec at f/2.8, ISO 800

This is my little two-year-old niece, Ashlyn. After doing some shopping with my sister and sister-in-law she fell asleep in the car so I was able to get some in-focus photos with my Fuji x100 (kids have a difficult time holding still, which is tough to capture even with a fast SLR!).

BTW, if you’re curious about the x100, Zack Arias has a great blog post about it (here’s a link). I have to say that I agree with nearly every assessment he makes about this camera, except for the part about shooting in JPEG  (I keep mine in RAW 100% of the time … you can fit a LOT on a 16GB card and I doubt I’ll ever fill it up). I plan on adding another review about it on my blog once I’ve had a bit more time with it … if you want to see some of my initial thoughts on it when I first got it a few months back then click here to read that post.

Fuji x100, 1/4 sec at f/2.0, ISO 1600

Last night I was driving home from my friend Pamela’s house, it was around 1:00 am, and I saw these construction barriers set up with their blinking lights and the sprinklers watering the grass all around them. It was such a mundane scene, yet for some reason I just had to pull over and photograph it (I’m kind-of a sucker when it comes to back-lit sprays of water). So I parked my car lot, grabbed my camera and tried out a few angles before settling on this one.

The spot I was standing for this photo (which I probably stood in for at least a minute) had a stream of water jetting right at my leg. My entire left leg of my jeans was completely soaked when I was finished, and the ironic thing was that as I walked away I previewed my shot and knew I didn’t quite have it. So I went back, stood in the “line of fire” of the sprinkler for another minute (getting soaked) to get a better angle. I even waited for cars to drive by so I could get some more lights to show up in the background.

Yeah, I’m definitely a photographer … not that I needed a random experience like this one, along with standing in in a stream of water while photographing, to solidify that fact, but it definitely made me chuckle at myself. I half expected a police car to drive by and ask me what the heck I was doing (I doubt they would have believed my “beautiful construction lights and sprinklers” story). It’s no work of art, but it shows the beauty of the lights and water that I saw when I drove past, and I’m glad I stopped.

I’ve been without a decent point-and-shoot camera for quite a while. Since I have an iPhone it’s been my “go-to” for getting quick photos, mostly to share online or just use as documenting things or taking notes. I don’t really enjoy hauling an SLR around with me, and when I do I often will trim it down to my small Canon 60D with one lens (oftentimes a 28mm) so I don’t have a huge camera over my shoulder. But that small setup still wouldn’t really fit into my purse/bag easily, and I didn’t want to spend money on a tiny P&S that I knew I wouldn’t use when I already had an iPhone.

So, I decided to jump in and get the Fujifilm FinePix x100. In theory it seems perfect: larger sensor (a HUGE reason I wanted it in the first place), simple dial placement and a quiet shutter … along with other neat things like a digital viewfinder and a retro look. It’s pricey, but I knew I would use it. In fact, on a recent trip to Moab I went an entire morning without an SLR in an absolutely gorgeous part of Arches National Park. My goal was to relax and enjoy the view, and not haul a large tripod with SLR around to get photos I probably wouldn’t even like. I didn’t have the x100 at the time, but oh boy … it would have been perfect. It’s for moments like those that I wanted this camera.

So, I picked up the camera from Pictureline and have now had it for just a few days. I’ve taken a few hundred photos with it and here is my overall assessment: I’m in LOVE! Here are some of my thoughts on the camera thus far:

Viewfinder & LCD: The viewfinder on the x100 is really, really cool. It has optical and electronic, and also a pretty normal LCD monitor. I like using the viewfinder in “optical” mode … there’s a border inside the viewfinder to show you where the lens will actually photograph (to avoid parallax error) and it also has a read-out of the exposure settings. In “electronic” mode it is pretty much just like looking at the LCD monitor, or through an SLR camera, except that it’s electronic. It’s also very easy to switch between the two with a dedicated switch on the front of the camera.

In-camera ND filter: How cool is this? And … why don’t more SLR cameras have this in them? It’s nice to be able to set the ND filter and keep the aperture pretty wide open when outdoors … I love shallow DOF and this is a nice feature.

Macro focusing: The regular minimum focusing distance is a few feet, but you can switch it to “macro” mode pretty easily and focus in as close as a few inches. The focusing is much slower at this setting, so I really like the fact that it’s a separate setting. I wouldn’t keep it in this setting because it is pretty slow to focus in “macro” mode (and the camera seems to switch it off on its own, or after previewing a photo … I haven’t quite figured it out yet).

Knobs & Dials: Both the aperture and shutter speed settings are clunky knobs on the top of the camera (shutter speed) and on the lens ring (aperture). I love this … it feels nice to have this kind of control over a camera again. I have a feeling I’ll keep the shutter speed set to “auto” and just work in aperture priority, which is what I normally do with my SLR when not photographing in-studio.

ISO: The ISO range is pretty good, and there’s also an “auto ISO” setting, something I like in my camera when doing “casual” photography. The “auto ISO” setting is in the menu, and not easy-access like the ISO is (it’s pre-set in the “Fn” button on the top of the camera). I posted some full-res examples of the different ISO settings below.

Silent Mode: This is so, so great for when you want to be a wallflower and photograph things without calling attention to yourself. It’s also really easy to jump back-and-forth between silent and non-silent mode. A great fit for this camera … the only time I ever see myself taking it out of silent mode is on the rare occasion I want to use the on-camera flash, or when I want to plug in a PocketWizard to do some off-camera strobe lighting. I do wish I could disable the alert that pops up whenever I accidentally push the “flash” button … since you can’t use the flash in silent mode then it tells you “disable silent mode!” if you bump the button, and freezes on the screen for a few seconds.

Panorama & HDR mode: One thing that is kinda fun is an auto-stitching panorama shooting mode. In the few tries I’ve done it does an okay job … it had some trouble stitching a fence (in one of the photos below) but probably does a much better job with farther off “landscape” type scenes. It also seems to have an HDR mode that auto-creates an HDR. Examples for both of these are in the photos below.

Focus Points: There are quite a few focus points on the camera, and they seem to go really close to the edges of the frame (top/bottom and sides). It’s nice to see a camera finally start putting focus points that aren’t grouped up just in the middel of the viewfinder for a change.

Here are some example photos. All images are straight out-of-camera with no editing … click on them to view full-res versions:

Last week I took a photography trip to Moab with my friend Dave (seen throughout this video … he’s the guy with the mohawk). My main goal (other than to have a relaxing time away from “the office”) was to get enough video and timelapse to put together a fancy video of my trip. I ended up with a ton of car-mounted footage with my new GoPro, along with some timelapse videos and a few nighttime star photographs. We had an awesome time, got lots of great photos/video, and I think that from now on whenever Dave hears John Mayer he’ll think of Moab (I had control of the music, hehe).

I’ve done my share of timelapse photography, but wanted to kick it up a notch and asked my friend Harley (our local MacGyver) if he knew of a way to create a “Timelapse Turntable” rig so that the timelapse footage would move as it was doing the intervals. He worked his magic, created something (that looked akin to a bomb) and showed me how it worked … and I got to test it out in Moab. The results are awesome!

Here’s the gear used to create the above video:

• GoPro Hero (car-mounted footage)
• Canon 60D with Canon 14mm f/2.8L IS II lens (Timelapse footage)
• LCD Timer Remote for the 60D (https://www.linkdelight.com)
• Canon 7D with Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens (Additional footage)
• Harley’s Timelapse Turntable rig
• Premiere Pro CS4 (editing)
• Music © Tomasz Gierygowski, licensed from iStockphoto.com (link)

For more information on the timelapse turntable, take a look at Harley’s blog to see how it works and how he put it all together:
- Timelapse Turntable: Project Overview
- Timelapse Turntable: The Making Of

On Chase Jarvis’ blog yesterday they issued a challenge to do a “60 second landscape“—pretty much just 60 seconds of a landscape recorded in video format. Since I was in Moab photographing at Arches National Park this week, and just happened to be doing the trek out to Delicate Arch shortly after viewing the blog post, I thought it would be a perfect setting to take on the challenge.

Video was created with a Canon 60D, Canon 14mm f/2.8L IS II lens at Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Moab, Utah on May 6, 2011.

Canon 7D, Canon 14mm ƒ/2.8 L II lens, ISO 100
Top Photo: 1/800 sec at ƒ/8 … Bottom Photo: 1/500 sec at ƒ/8

I recently bought a Singh-Ray 4×6″ Graduated Neutral Density (3-stop) Filter for a trip to Moab I’m taking soon. I’ve never been a huge landscape photographer, and don’t really use a lot of filters on my lens for my commercial photographs. However, after briefly using a cheapo Cokin ND-grad filter I decided to upgrade to a nicer, larger version.

I took a few photographs from my balcony to compare the difference between not using a filter, and using a filter. I stuck the camera on aperture priority (on ƒ/8), and took one without the filter, then placed the filter directly in front of the lens, lined up the horizon and took another photo. They were both edited exactly the same … just minor adjustments in Lightroom. I really like the results and am looking forward to using it on my Moab adventure later this week. :)

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II lens, 1/6 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Saturday night I went out with a small group to do some Strobist-type photography at Utah Lake. When I go to these events I often just like to hang out and get some behind-the-scenes photos, so I brought along my “new to me” 24mm TS lens to get some practice with it before I take it on my trip to Moab in a few weeks. I’ve had the lens for a few months now but since I’ve been pretty obsessed with photographing food lately so I haven’t made the time to take it for a spin.

Another thing that I brought along was a cheapo graduated ND filter I picked up from Pictureline last week. I’ve always been curious about using them, but since I don’t do a lot of landscape photography I never had much use for one. Well, after using the cheapo version for a little bit, I was hooked and went online that night and bought a Singh-Ray 4×6″ 3-stop ND filter. I’m excited to use it and I expect that I’ll be getting some more of these in the future … maybe some with a little color added to them, perhaps? :)

Click on the photo to see the full-res version

I had the opportunity to rent the Canon TS-E 90mm ƒ/2.8 from BorrowLenses for about two weeks, and wanted to do some quick, “non-scientific actual working conditions” focus testing with it. It’s a manual focus lens so the issue isn’t about auto-focus—it was strictly an issue of if I’m satisfied with the focus quality. And (spoiler alert!) it does a good job for how I use my camera and lenses.

I’m pretty picky about my focus when it comes to photographing food, and I’m also considering buying this lens so I wanted to make sure that if I do buy it then I get something I’ll be happy with. So, just before doing a food setup in my living room I set up the camera on a sturdy tripod and photographed this lens cap at ƒ/2.8, ƒ/4 and ƒ/5.6. I like to have shallow DOF in my food photos, and I’ll often set the aperture to ƒ/4 or ƒ/5.6 when using my 70-200mm lens.

At ƒ/2.8 the focus is really soft, but I find that this is pretty common in any non “L” Canon lens (and, in my experience, L-glass tends to be a bit softer at its widest aperture). It gets better at ƒ/4, and I really like it at ƒ/5.6. If (when) I purchase this lens I’ll probably be photographing at ƒ/5.6 anyways, since that’s what I do a lot of my food photography at when using my Canon 70-200 ƒ/4L IS lens.

Another thing is that at the wider aperture (ƒ/2.8) the CA (chromatic aberration) is pretty significant. It’s still visible at ƒ/5.6, but not nearly as bad. Either way it’s an easy fix in Photoshop, but it’s always nice when there’s not much editing involved.

In a nutshell I really like this lens, not only because of the focus quality. I’ll be posting again soon on the blog about some of the other cool features of a tilt-shift with food and portrait work.

A big thanks to BorrowLenses for the complimentary lens rental. If you’re considering renting gear, or buying gear and want to check it out first (like I did) then I highly recommend checking out their website. :)