Out for a Spin

Frustrated that I could not go out for a spin with the camera in town, I decided to take some pictures around the house, dusting off the lens and making sure that the batteries were charged for tomorrow - where I would be taking photos for my nieces and nephew's birthday party.

I decided to do away with taking snaps in RAW. These were all jpg files. Yes, the latitude in terms of flexibility during post-processing was reduced somewhat, but at least I wanted to test if the skin tones were accurate. It turned out OK on most of the snaps. So, I was all set for tomorrow!

All snaps were taken using my EOS 7D and EF-S 60mm Macro lens.

Project for The Week

It looks like I may have just get on with some project I have been scratching my head on. I have always wanted to dabble on a bit of still life at home, using either natural light or a simple strobe setup. While I was out earlier, I picked up a couple a few A1 papers as background, dust off a couple of my camera tripods and went to work.

After the rig was set, I picked up some of my boys colorful toys, my pen and other gadgets, and started photographing them. May be I need to work a bit more on the lights and subject matter as the actual photographs seemed to come out OK from the camera. The editing part appeared to be more time-consuming than I realised, but I got somewhere in the end.

The background being folded backI may need to invest on another light source but for time being, this would do. Better make sure that my boys were occupied as they love to "help".

Quick Tryout

Usually I only go out for a shoot on Saturday afternoons. Mainly either at the bird, butterfly or orchid park - all very near each other. I was not able to go out yesterday afternoon, so I went today - Sunday - instead, right after the aqiqah event.

I decided to head to the butterfly park to test out the shutter speed and how rapid the focusing respond was. I don’t think my 70-200mm was really cut out for butterfly work. To get a reasonable depth of field, I needed the close the aperture somewhat to f8.0. Therefore, I had to increase the ISO and even then, with the rather dimmed lighting inside the park, the shutter speed was shorter than I expected, leaving some of the pics rather blurred. The one that I was able to use were amazingly clear and sharp.

The high ISO performance was better than I expected. Yes, there were grains, but I was sure it was manageable with a bit of Photoshop ninja work. The 8 fps shutter speed worked as expected. I was snapping away, in RAW quite happily. The balance with the long lens was perfect. The focusing was how ever found wanting at times. The autofocus searched for more than a few moments, sometimes causing me to miss my shot. On a few occasion, it settled on a point which was out of focus. Maybe this were due to wrong point selection or, a wrong mode was used - I used single shot focus rather than servo.

Looking back, I may need to change my strategy somewhat for butterfly work. I may need a flash to allow me to use smaller aperture and lower ISO. That may be in a couple of weeks time then, after some research work of course!

The slideshow for the outing can be seen here.

Weekend Coming

You guys probably have guessed how much I dread the Friday morning clinic with tons of patients to see, and then the rush in the afternoon to prepare the ward for the weekend. It will be my turn as well doing the weekend round tomorrow, so a bit of catching up needed with the patients in the ward.

For the weekend, I seriously need to take the 7D for a spin! It was due. Maybe a quick trip to the butterfly or orchid garden tomorrow, weather permitting of course. Failing that, maybe an evening stroll at KLCC park.

Evening Out

This was where they shot the DiGi commercial on TVPuan Anita wanted to order her ‘baju Raya’ for the year, even though Aidilfitri is about 3 months away. She had it all planned and after work, we went over to The Curve for her to have a look at one of the shops there. There were a few baju kurung which caught her eye during previous visit. Since Irfan is now much better from his fever, we decided to have some dinner outside and some fresh air.

Idlan waiting for his pizzaPuan Anita's kerang rebusThe Curve in the eveningThis was a chance to take the 7D out. Decided to take the zoom instead of my customary 50mm f1.4, and try out the higher ISO setting. The output was actually just as expected although I would still prefer the f1.4. All the photos were taken at ISO 3200. Not bad!