May 07

No Excuses!!

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Life, Photography, Writing

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Excuses are wonderful things.  They give you a way to avoid personal responsibility for having failed to accomplish something. Didn’t finish your homework?  I’m sure there’s an excuse for that.  Didn’t go on to write that concerto you’ve been wanting to finish?  I’m sure you have some excuse.  Didn’t get that great photograph or finish that novel?  I’m sure there’s an excuse for that too.

Some excuses are very valid ones.  Sometimes there are very real, legitimate reasons for failing to do something.  Other times, the excuses can be downright ridiculous.  Over the years, my kids have managed to come up with quite a few of these.  But here’s the important point — if you’re looking to accomplish a goal, it doesn’t matter if your excuse is 100% valid or 100% bogus.  Either way, the goal remains unmet.

For example, let’s suppose that a person wants to write the next Great American Novel.  He sets up a goal to have a final draft ready in twelve months.  So far, so good.  Now, let’s suppose that our presumptive novelist is then hit by a truck and ends up in a coma for the next year.  Does he have a valid reason for not finishing the novel?  Absolutely.  No reasonable person could possibly fault him for not finishing the novel while he was in a coma.  Yet, at the end of the day, the novel is still not written.  The fact that he had a valid excuse does not cause the novel to be magically written.  Nor does he get “credit” for having written it (or even having tried to write it).  In short, even though he had a perfectly valid excuse, he’s still not the author he wanted to become.

This is the central thing I have to remind myself whenever I am struggling to meet a goal.  I work long hours at my day job and sometimes, I just don’t have the time to write or to take pictures.  When that happens, I have to remind myself that if I don’t make the time, if I don’t find some way to get that page written or make the time to take those pictures, then it just won’t get done — and my writing and photography goals are not going to be met.  It doesn’t matter how valid my excuse is, the fact of the matter is that if I don’t do it, it just won’t get done.  And that, I find, causes me to find a way to work around the excuse (if possible) and get it done.

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May 01

My Canon Macro Lenses (MP-E 65mm and 100mm USM)

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Photography

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Whenever I show people my macro work, they inevitably ask how I did it and what lenses I used when I created the images.  I have two macro lenses that I use — the Canon 100mm macro USM and the MP-E 65mm.  While they are both macro lenses, that’s about where the similarity ends.  The two lenses are very different in terms of how they are used and the images that they produce.

Canon 100mm USM*

The 100mm macro lens can act as both a macro lens and a “conventional” prime lens.  I use this lens for both close-up work and as a multi-purpose lens.  It can focus on objects as close as a few centimeters from the lens or to infinity.   For example, both of the images below were taken with the 100mm macro lens.

Yellow flower closeup

(Canon XSi, 100mm macro lens, f/4, 1/1250, ISO 400)

 

Stream in Harriman State Park

(Canon XSI, 100mm macro lens, f/32, 30 seconds, ISO 100)

As you can see, the lens can be used for different types of photography.  It’s not exclusively a macro lens.

 

Canon MP-E 65mm

This lens is a whole different beast from the 100mm macro lens.  The lens is as different from the 100mm lens as night is different than day.

  • The 100mm lens above can be used for many different types of photography.  The MP-E 65 can only be used for macro photography.  To be able to focus on your subject, it has to be thisclose to the lens.  The lens cannot focus on anything that is more than a few centimeters away.
  • The 100mm lens has automatic focus.  The MP-E, on the other hand, is manual focus only.  Furthermore, there is no focus ring on this lens.  The only way to focus on your subject is to either move the camera or move the subject.  This can sometimes be very frustrating when you’ve set up your shot and look through the viewfinder only to find that the focus is off just a little bit.
  • The 100mm lens goes to f/32, giving you an opportunity for great depth of field (the stream picture above was taken at f/32).  The MP-E 65 only goes to f/16 — and even at f/16, the depth of field can sometimes be wafer-thin.  It’s not uncommon to find a picture produced by the MP-E 65 where the front of the subject is in focus, but the back is out of focus.
  • The 65mm lens eats up light.  While they both open as wide as f/2.8, the 100mm macro lens can do some nice work in low light.  With the MP-E 65, you need to have lots of light, especially as you push it towards it’s maximum capabilities.

So, with all that said, you might wonder why anyone would want to use the MP-E 65mm lens.  What can it do that the 100mm can’t that would justify the additional headaches that you encounter when using this lens?

The answer lies in one word:  magnification.  The maximum magnification you can achieve with the 100mm lens is 1:1.  That is to say, the lens will take the image at life size, but no larger.  The MP-E, on the other hand, can magnify your subject up to five times.  For example, take a look at this shot:

Fly

(Canon XSi, MPE-65mm lens, f/8, 1/20, ISO 800, 3x magnification)

That fly was actually quite small.  I could not have gotten this sort of shot with the 100mm lens — it simply would not magnify the subject as this lens does.  This lens, once you learn to use it properly (something that I am still learning to do), will produce fantastic images that the 100mm lens cannot even dream of producing.

Cloves 4x

(Canon XSi, MP-E 65mm, f/16, 30 seconds, ISO 400, 4x magnification)

 

I took this shot of a clove on the first day that I owned the 65mm lens, just to see what the MP-E 65 was capable of.  Needless to say, I was amazed at how I could magnify the images.  A grain of rice could fill up the entire sensor.  You simply cannot do that with the 100mm lens.

So, which should you buy?  Well, as always, it depends.  Consider the following differences when making your choice:

 

Feature Canon 100mm USM Canon MP-E 65mm
Uses Many Dedicated macro lens
Focus Auto Manual
Difficulty Easy to use Steep learning curve
Lighting Easy to use in various lighting situations Needs lots of light, especially at higher magnifications
Maximum Magnification 1:1 5:1

 

I will add one minor point:  I’ve been interested in macro photography for quite a while.  The 100mm macro lens was the first lens that I bought for my camera (after the kit lens which came with the camera).  Using the 100mm lens gave me a great opportunity to learn to do macro work with a lens that was relatively easy to use.  Had I first started with the 65mm lens, I might have become so frustrated with the difficulty of the lens that I might have given up on macro work altogether.

Zev

 

* Please note that there is now a newer version of this lens that is now classified as an L (luxury) lens.  My lens is the older non-L lens, but it performs quite well.

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Apr 26

Getting Back Into Writing

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Writing

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When I was younger, I used to write quite a bit.  All throughout high school I wrote.  When i enrolled in college, I continued to engage in my love of writing.  I took quite a few creative writing (and other writing) classes.  Most of the teachers said I had potential.  Nonetheless, I never really followed up on it.  Instead, I went out, got a job, followed an IT career path and turned my back on my creative side.

And so it went for ten years, until my interest in creativity was reignited.  Oddly enough, it wasn’t in the area of writing that my creative juices began flowing again, but in photography.  I bought my first digital camera and, almost at once, fell in love with the craft.  Ten years ago, I could barely take a decent picture.  Today, I have a nice portfolio of shots that I am proud of.  You can see them here.

Once I really began being creative in photography, I found myself once again wanting to write again.  I found myself using my idle spare time to think of stories and characters and scenarios that might make for interesting reading.  Characters began to have conversations in my head, and I began jotting down character bits and ideas.  I started subscribing to creative writing podcasts, such as I Should Be Writing and Writing Excuses. At first, I thought it was just a phase I was going through, but now, more than a year after my interest has been rekindled, I’m still finding the urge to get back into creative writing.

The question is, can I get back into it after a twenty year layoff?  I think I can.  I have some pieces that are in various stages of completion (but none actually complete).  I know it’s going to take some hard work and perseverance to get back into it, but, at this point, I’m far more committed to writing than at any time in the last two decades. Now, I just have to put my nose to the grindstone and keep working on those stories.

Zev Steinhardt

 

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Apr 25

Colorful Water Drops Refracted — How I Took This Picture

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Photography

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On my desk at work are 12×18 frames.  In those frames, I often display pictures that I took.  I have several prints of my pictures that I keep at work and rotate the pictures in and out of the frames about once a month. Recently, I began displaying the picture seen here:

 

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(Canon XSi, 100mm macro lens, f/2.8, 1/320 second, ISO 200)

 

People often stop by my desk and comment on how unusual this picture is.  They don’t often see pictures like this and are sometimes amazed by the results.

The truth, however, is that this type of shot is very easy to take.

Ingredients:

  • Camera (of course)
  • Tripod (probably not absolutely required, but it’ll make your life so much easier)
  • Four identical cans, several inches high (baked bean cans work well)
  • A CD jewel case (find the one with the fewest scratches you can find — fewer scratches and imperfections on the case means less time removing them in Photoshop)
  • A can of deodorant
  • A water dropper
  • Pony tail holders of various colors

 

Once you have everything you need, follow these steps:

  • Separate the cover of the jewel case from the part that holds the CD.
  • Put the cans on the table.  The cans will support the corners of the jewel case cover.
  • Wrap the pony tail holders around the deodorant can and lay it on the table between the cans.
  • Put the jewel case cover on the cans.
  • Using the water dropper, place drops on the jewel case in whatever pattern you like.

You can see the setup I used here.

Note that in this picture, I had already removed the deodorant can (it’s off to the side) and was using a flower as my subject.

Once you have your setup, simply position your camera above the lens case and focus on the water drops (not on the colorful bands).  Keep the aperture open as wide as possible (in other words, put your camera in aperture priority mode and use the smallest f-stop number).

That’s really all there is to it!  I chose the hair bands because they are colorful, but you can really use any subject.  Vary your subjects and the pattern of your water drops.  Experiment — and have fun.

Zev Steinhardt

 

 

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