School's Out For Summer!!!

He looks happy that it's over for the year. Now he can get down to the business of stressing out his mother!

Chris.

I'm An Industrial Worker...

As a result of working in the oil field construction industry, I'm exposed to more than my share of industrial back drops. Cranes, back hoes, front end loaders, fork lifts, trucks you name it I'm around it all day. So naturally I'm drawn to industrial scenes.I love construction photos, equipment ad photos and the general every day industrial view.

Every once in a while, I walk around work looking for something different. Rusty crusty high contrast scenes are my favorite. I end up with stuff like these. I hope you enjoy them.











Just a typical view at work.

Chris.

To Smile Or Not To Smile...That Is The Question.

It drives me nuts when I hear people say to their subjects "Smile" or even worse "Say Cheese". Nothing makes for a forced fake looking smile like those two. You can always tell the kids who's parents tell them to say cheese. They have the worst look on their faces! LOL.

I always tell the subjects not to smile. They look at me funny and I just repeat it with a please. That usually gets a nice natural look on their faces.

Like this one.

Then there are the times when that just does not work. They get all contorted trying not to smile.

Same kid, same request, much different look...

Ah well, what do you do. I still don't like telling people to smile. You get this almost every time.

Haha!That's just my son being a 7 year old! So much like me.

Chris.

Leaning Towards Editorial Photography

I like to call myself a Fine Art Photographer just so I can justify my creative choices when it comes to post processing. That's all fine and good but I've noticed that I'm becoming more of an Editorial or Documentary Photographer. I love to document the world around me. Everything from what's going on at work to what my kids are doing.

Not to many people really care about what my kids are doing on a daily basis or even care about what's going on at my work so why do I seem drawn to this type of photography?

Well first of all, I don't take photos for others. I do it for me so it doesn't really matter what people think about them. Secondly, I like to see the progression of things. I like to see how the kids change over time without me noticing it. Documenting their growth is fun and brings us closer as well. When they get married it is my plan to make a book for them that show's their life in photos from the day they were born.

As to the other photos I take documenting life around me, I just find it fun to look back on things years from now and say "I remember when it was like.....
".

I guess, I just like to document things. Must be the logical geek in me.



My son and I went for a bike ride. We stopped at 7-11 for a much needed drink. I can look back on this image years from now and think "when my son wasn't a teenager who knew everything, he liked to go bike riding with me." Haha! Take that grouchy teenager.

Chris.

Thoughts On High ISO Outside When There Is Plenty Of Light

I've been thinking lately about how to best achieve a good exposure and the sharpest image possible while hand holding the camera. On a tripod when everything is locked down I'll use ISO 100 or 200 and take it from there. That's all fine and dandy if everything is static but it things are moving around or you are hand held and you want tack sharp, well you need to increase your shutter speed. A lot. The rule is 1 over the focal length you are using for example if you are using 100 mm then you would keep your shutter speed at 1/100th second or faster. Sometimes though that is just hard to do if you don't have enough light so you either sacrifice your shutter speed and risk motion blur or you open up your aperture and lose the depth of field you wanted. But, you could increase your ISO setting and maintain that shutter speed and aperture setting.

I did some tests outside during lunch today just to see how the ISO effected the image when there is plenty of light and all you are trying to do is keep your shutter speed up there. 


ISO 100 f/8 @ 1/200 sec.


ISO 200 f/8 @ 1/400 sec.


ISO 400 f/8 @ 1/800 sec.


ISO 800 f/8 @ 1/1600 sec.


ISO 1600 f/8 @ 1/3200 sec.


ISO 3200 f/8 @ 1/6400 sec.

Now, you may notice that there is not really much of a difference in these photos. That's the point really. The higher ISO values didn't significantly increase the noise in the images. Not even at ISO 3200! That's because there was plenty of light and no really dark shadows in the scene. Believe me ISO 3200 in my house is a much different look.

So what then is the point of this post? Well, Look at the shutter speeds. For ISO 100 I was at 1/200 sec which for my zoom of 270mm is a bit low. I should be at 1/400 sec at least given that 270mm is like 432mm on a crop sensor camera like my 50D. I didn't get that shutter speed until ISO 200. That's going to give me a pretty good sharp image if everything is still. But it wasn't it was a bit breezy out and this weed was swaying a little in the breeze. Still the ISO 200 image looks pretty good.

What's got me excited is the fact that even at ISO3200 the image is still fairly clean and sharp. With this new information in my head I will be more inclined to up the ISO when shooting the kids playing around jumping off things, water skiing, etc. Sporting events will be sharper and cleaner for me now too. I've heard that you should keep the ISO as low as you can to get the cleanest possible image and I agree but if you need to increase your shutter speed to stop that action or stop that coffee you had from introducing unwanted camera shake don't be afraid to push up the ISO. Most of today's DSLR's are more than capable of producing a clean image at ISO 1600 and up.

One thing I noticed with my 50D is that ISO 400 to ISO 1600 look the best but would not be afraid of ISO 3200 outside if I needed it. Next I'm going to test the expanded ISO settings of 6400 and 12800. I'm not holding my breath on those.

Chris.

More Great Results From the Kit Lens

I spent the better part of the weekend and early this week with my 18-55 kit lens on my 50D. I just wanted to make sure that my new found excitement over this old cheap lens was not due to my having GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). :)

I've been thinking about getting the Canon 24-70mm f/4 L series lens for a while now and I plan to in the not too distant future. I just wanted to make sure that I'm not disappointed in my Tamron 18-270mm because of it.

So, I took many, many photos with my cheap kit lens to make sure. What I did notice is that the white balance is off a bit on the Tamron, which I was already aware of. Not a big deal as I shoot raw and usually tweak things a bit anyway. The 18-55mm has a better bokeh for sure but I think that is due to the closer minimum focusing distance. It allows you to get much closer to the subject which makes the background seem that much farther from the subject than the camera. But that's about it for the obvious difference in the two lenses. The 18-55 is much shorter and lighter than my Tamron 18-270 so that may account for some sharper images if I'm holding more still.

Anyway, I took some great photos over the weekend with it.





I'm quite happy with the lens and will continue to use it on a regular basis. However, that being said my Tamron 18-270mm will still be my go to lens. The zoom range make it a perfect walk around lens though it is a bit slow being a f/3.5-6.3. The ISO capabilities of the 50D and the fantastic noise reduction in lightroom will help me to get great shots most of the time. Shots such as this one.

Nothing wrong with that one at all!

Chris.

Don't Write Off That Kit Lens

I'll admit, I've been a bit of a lens snob the last few years. I don't own any of Canon's L series lenses but I picked up a Tamron 18-270mm a couple of years ago and I love the lens. When I bought my 50D it came with the 17-85mm witch in my opinion is just not a very good lens. It was never a very sharp lens. But the Tamron 18-270mm performed well for me across the board when I tested it out.

Yesterday I was going through my little collection of lenses that I've gathered over the last 4 or 5 years and noticed the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens that came with my Rebel XTI. Now back then I was happy with the lens but all the reading and podcast listening had turned me into a bit of a lens snob and I discounted it as a bad lens when I got my 50D.

Just for kicks I put the lens on my 50D and I must say, I'm very happy with the results. I was going to use it just for long exposures of moving objects like water and grass blowing in the wind because of the ND4 and ND8 neutral density filters I have for it but after taking some test shots I'm going to be using it a lot more. I was very surprised at how sharp the images were with my 50D.

Here is a portrait of my daughter that I took just to test out the lens. Granted how can you take a bad shot of such a cute model but this cheap little lens really came through for me.




I'm not going to write off this lens anymore and I do believe my Tamron is going to suffer for it!


Chris.

Telehandler On A Stormy Day

Heavy equipment and storm clouds make for a great HDR image!

Chris.

Test Post Linking To 500PX

I'm just testing how to link to photos on my 500PX account here on Blogger.
Crane - HDR by Chris Lemmen

Did it work? Looks like it did.

Chris.

Moved My Blog

Well, I just had to do it. I moved from Wordpress to Blogger today. It wasn't easy but I think it will be worth the work it took. I move the whole thing. I wanted better integration with Google+ and I hope this will do it.

Check back often as I'm going to try to be more regular here than I have been lately.

Chris.

Stormy Day At The Lake

I love storm clouds. Especially in HDR.



Chris.

Artistic Vs. Creative Photos

I was listening to the latest episode of Camera Dojo on my way to work today and one of the topics that Kerry and Chris kept touching on was the difference between being artistic and being creative when taking photographs. It prompted me to try to set up a definition that works for myself.

Artistic Photo -

I'm thinking, at this time anyway, that making an artistic image is when you use what is in the scene already and set your camera up in an artistic way. Settings such as adjusting your shutter speed to get motion blur or to blur a waterfall. Settings such as adjusting your aperture to set your depth of field deeper or shallower than what we see normally. To me these things and post processing to enhance them would be an artistic interpretation of the scene.

This image of a duck is artistic. I used the light and subject that was there but I selected a wide aperture to give me a shallow depth of field and I played around with it quite a bit in post to get the weeds in the background just right. I gave it my artistic spin.

Creative Photo -

For a creative photo, I think anytime you add or remove any element from the scene you are creating that scene. Things like adding light or removing light. Adding people, removing people when  they are in the way. To me these are creating the scene.

Now this image is creative in my books. I used the window blinds to create the shadows on her face. Sure, I used a shallow depth of field on it but that was not the main technique I used on this image. It was the creation of the shadows on her face.

For sure you can be artistic and creative at the same time by the way you add light to get your subject lit better and adjust your shutter speed to blur a water fall behind them for example but that to me would be more creative than artistic because you added the light on the subject.

Some may agree with me and some may disagree but there is the fun in this art of photography. You are never really right and you are never really wrong. It's all up to you.

Chris.

Reverse Mount Your Lens For Macro Photography.

After listening to a podcast interview on This Week In Photo today where Frederick Van Johnson interviewed Canadian photographer Don Komarechka. They talked about macro photography and a tip at then end was about turning you lens around and holding it against your camera. I've tried that with my 50mm before but didn't like the results. I tried it again today and loved the results so much that I tried it with my Tamron 18-270mm. This is the result. Look at that shallow DOF! I think I will need to buy an adapter and play around with this some more.

Chris.

Shooting Ducks.

Every so often I go for a walk at lunch time. It's a nice break from work. Just down the road is a duck pond. There are always a couple of ducks there to entertain me.

Chris.