S.R. Martinez

My photo blog.

On the Bank…

May 13

Posted by Steve in People | No Comments

Every year for Mother’s Day, I take the kids out and we take some pictures for Becky.  It started very innocently when Isa was just three years old and Becky’s appreciated it so much since then we’ve done it every year.  I admit that it gets to be somewhat of a struggle to try and find new ways to pose ourselves but that mainly stems from the fact that I don’t consider myself to be a people photographer.  I can pose my family – I know how to make them look good at being themselves and I know how I like to see them.  But for me to try and pose strangers I tend to struggle with.

My goal was to go down to Munsinger Gardens and play with the new camera and the 50mm 1.4 lens.  I forgot about prom and there was no way I was going to take pictures down there.  Way too many people and way too far away to park.  I opted, instead, for Quarry Park.  We got there right at the sun’s harshest moments and I was just not finding many places that I wanted to shoot from, plus the fact that the kids were getting kind of tired of walking.  We got two standard “look-at-the-camera-and-smile” type shots but the final one was my favorite.  Just a shot of us sitting on the bank of one of the water holes relaxing.

The image right out of the camera made me want to cry – just at the sheer sharpness of it all.  I was really glad for the new camera and the lens once I saw this picture.  I applied some vintage type of effects through Photoshop and I think I like it a lot – it’s one of my favorites of me and the kids.

 

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Spring Storm

May 1

Posted by Steve in Nature | No Comments

Tonight we were treated to our official start to the stormy summer season, and it’s not even summer yet!  There was a strong line of storms that moved in and I think we have another wave coming through tonight, as well.  The storms produced tornadoes somewhere, according to the news and the radio and I hope that no one has been hurt or suffered any property loss.  I’ve said it before, Mother Nature can be very beautiful and deadly at the same time.

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Return to the Farm

Apr 11

Posted by Steve in Interiors, Landscape | No Comments

Ever since I bought the new camera I’ve had a desire to go back and revisit some of the places that I went to before.  First on the list was the abandoned farm that Jacob and I visited a couple of years ago (see posts http://www.srmartinez.net/?p=79 & http://www.srmartinez.net/?p=75).  I wanted to see if my technique had changed over the years, whether I’d learned anything or not.  I also wanted to see if it was possible to improve upon the pictures at all, something I didn’t think would be too hard considering the better camera and the much better lens.

 Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X AF Pro DX II @24mm, f/6.3, ISO 100

 Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X AF Pro DX II @13mm, f/6.3, ISO 100

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Quarry Park Pit

Apr 8

Posted by Steve in Landscape | No Comments

Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X AF Pro DX II @13mm, f/6.3, ISO 100

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Quarry Park Entrance

Apr 7

Posted by Steve in Landscape | No Comments

I had the fortune of one of my Quarry Park photos being used on the cover of the current MidBook (see post : http://www.srmartinez.net/?p=39 ).  I was very flattered that they would want to use one and I was amazed that all they did was Google “Quarry Park” and the photo popped up, pretty much on the first page, I think.  I remember going back and trying it myself and although I couldn’t get the particular photo that they found I did manage to find others.  I soon discovered that my photos were showing up under other searches, too.  I don’t know why I found that amazing at the time but I did.

I have to admit, though, that it’s not one of my favorite photos.  I’m not even sure why I put it on the blog.  When I first got started in this I was discouraged from manually bracketing the photos on my D40 and so most of the first HDR pictures I took were one shot RAW pics that were converted to HDR in Photomatix.  When I did start to manually bracket my shots I soon discovered that I was doing it wrong and I noticed that parts of my pictures were turning out rather, well, horrible.  The MidBook photo was one of them.  I ended up cutting the sky off and just sticking to the rocks and the water.

Later, after the phone book came out, I really wanted to go back to that spot and re-take the picture and see if I could get one that I liked.  Now that I’ve got the new camera I really want to go back and do it again, too.  I can’t seem to make it off work, though, with enough time to get there while the lighting is good enough so it’s going to have to wait, I think.  The picture was originally taken during the summer after a storm had blown through so we had the sun setting behind us hitting the clouds in front of the camera along with the rocks and the water in the pit mirroring it all.  It was really a gorgeous view at the time.

I was at the park trying to take pictures there before the sun went down and after giving up and walking out of the park I noticed the wonderful orange glow of the sun hitting the trees by the sign as you walk in so I managed to snap a couple of pictures.  The orange glow is exactly what I was trying to capture further in the park and that orange glow is exactly what I’ve tried to capture at other times in the year in various other places.  I think it’s absolutely gorgeous.

 Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X AF Pro DX II @ 14mm, f/6.3, ISO 100

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I Like 1.4

Apr 3

Posted by Steve in People | 1 Comment

I’ve come to a realization:  kit lenses really suck.  They really do.  I mean, they’re OK for family snapshots and the like but they just don’t make really good lenses for anything else.  I had read a lot of reviews about the Nikkor 18-105mm lens that comes with the D90 and the D7000 and they all said that it was a decent lens but really, I don’t think I like it much.  I think I should have bought the D7000 body alone and not the kit.

The Nikon 50mm 1.4D lens, on the other hand?  I.  Like.  A.  Lot.  Really.  This is an amazing lens and every review that I read that said that this (or the G lens) should be in your bag was absolutely correct.  It’s fast.  It’s sharp.  And it offers great depth of field.  It actually offers some pretty unforgiving depth of field but that’s OK – I still like it.  I am also very glad that I stuck with my desire to get the D7000 and not the D5100.  I really want the freedom to try any lens that I want – even if I don’t purchase it.  I still don’t want to be trapped with only G lenses.

I was playing around last night while we read scriptures and putzing with the lens and it’s low-light capabilities.  Overall, I’m really impressed.  I put my speedlight on it and was able to take the pics on ISO 100 and the f/stop down to 1.4.  This is going to make an awesome portrait lens and I can’t wait to practice a bit more.  This lens will easily replace my kit lens as my non-hdr/landscape lens.

Nikon 50mm 1.4D @ ISO 100, f/1.4

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Quarry Park Sunset

Mar 21

Posted by Steve in Landscape | No Comments

When I got the D7000 I knew that the first lens I got would be an ultra-wide.  I also knew that the first thing I wanted to photograph would be either a sunset or a sunrise.  Not having the most confidence in my ability to pull myself out of bed early enough to get a sunrise I figured I’d try the sunset instead.  I don’t get off work until about 6:30 at night and even at this time, with the added hour in our day, the sun still sets kind of early.  It doesn’t afford me a lot of time to find somewhere ideal to shoot from.

I do tend to hit Quarry Park a lot.  I have to admit, it’s the ideal place to shoot in the city.  It doesn’t require me to drive out of town.  I’m sure that I could head down to the river and shoot, too, and I will probably hit there sooner or later.

One drawback of an ultra-wide lens is that they let in a lot of light and it doesn’t take a very bright source to blow out your highlights.  I suspect that this will be an issue for me until I learn how to best shoot the sun.  I will have to experiment with stopping down to maybe f/16 or so.

Tokina 12-24 F4 (if) DX II @ 12mm, f/10, ISO 100

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A Few Things…

Mar 20

Posted by Steve in Landscape | No Comments

 

As luck would have it, the weather hasn’t been the best and so I’ve not really been able to go out and do much photography.  I had wanted to go out Sunday to Quarry Park but that didn’t happen.  So, the plan was to maybe get out today and play the new camera but it’s been cloudy and breezy and overcast all day so I’m not going to get any real time with it again.  I have, however, been able to formulate a couple of opinions about the new camera:

1.  It’s freaking awesome.  Really.  I’m not even using it to its full potential and I like it so much I want to cry.

2. It’s freaking heavy.  I haven’t weighed it yet but when you carry it around for quite a bit or use it for quite a bit it gets really, really heavy.  I carried it around in my new bag (which I love, by the way) and I couldn’t believe how heavy everything was.  And the scary thing is, I don’t even have the bag filled with other stuff that I would take to go hiking (ie…snacks, bottle of water, etc..).   I’m trying to imagine carrying this around a museum or something and it’s kind of scary.  But, I wanted a camera with the motor built into the body and a decently built body.  That’s why I went with the D7000 and not the D5100.

It’s nice to have my own camera that I can carry around wherever I go.  It’s nice taking it with me and not having to compete with Becky or share the camera because I want to photograph sunsets and she wants to take pictures of the kids at home.  I’m looking forward to getting some decent glass on it, although the kit lens is good for snapshots, too.

I was determined to do something with it, especially since my new Tokina 12-24mm lens was delivered today, so I went to Quarry Park (my fall back, go-to, location.  I love it) and just snapped away.  I wasn’t concerned with composition, lighting, nothing.  I just wanted to see the camera in action with the lens.  So far, I’m not disappointed.

Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X AF Pro DX II @ 18mm, f/11, ISO 500.

 

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New Camera

Mar 17

Posted by Steve in Landscape | 2 Comments

Earlier this past week I finally did what I’d been wanting to.  I bought a new camera.  I’d been looking at the D7000 ever since it came out and I’ve been looking at photos that people have been posting with it – especially the HDR’s.   I was so impressed by what I saw.  I knew that I had to have this camera and I’m so glad that I got it.

The next step will be to get a new lens.  The kit lens is ok but they can only go so far.  After renting the ultrawide lens from Borrow Lenses in 2010 I knew that that was the route I wanted to go, especially since I want to get more into HDR and the landscapes.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have many opportunities for photography this week with the new camera.  For starters, my new bag hadn’t come in and there’s no way I’m going to take this camera without one.  Also, I work so late so getting out while there’s decent light wasn’t happening.  I ran out on Wednesday after work to Quarry Park but the sun had gone down too far by the time I made it there.

My son is in basketball for a couple of weeks and this morning we took him to school to watch him play.  The sun was rising and since it had rained last night there was some fog present and the opportunity presented itself for me.  I didn’t have my tripod with me but I managed to hold my hands still and get off three photos (I ABSOLUTELY LOVE AUTOBRACKETING!  I’M SO GLAD THAT MANUALLY BRACKETING FROM MY D40 IS GONE!) in the parking lot.  It’s not the best composed shot and you can see the flaw in the shot, most noticeably with the flare from the sun and the sun itself.  But overall, it’s an ok shot for my first official one and I look forward to the next chapter in this great hobby and hopefully taking it to another level.

Nikon 18-105mm @25mm, f/11, ISO 100.

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Alanzo at the Beach

Feb 14

Posted by Steve in People | No Comments

I haven’t taken any pictures for awhile.  I’m not much of a winter photography guy.  I think it’s beautiful and the sunsets and sunrises are absolutely beautiful but venturing out into the cold really doesn’t appeal to me.  I’m also finding that my longing for a new camera is bumming me out about taking pictures with my current one, especially with some of the new Photoshop actions and textures that I’ve been playing with.

I was looking at all of my HDR photos on my computer and just watching the progression from beginning to end.  It’s amazing just how little I knew then and how bad those pictures are :) .  Almost all of the ones in the beginning were one-shot HDR’s.  It was probably a few months before I just started to bracket my photos.

I found this one while looking.  It was a day at the beach at Sibley State Park that was taken in 2009.  It’s a single shot HDR with some vintage-type actions applied to it.  I had forgotten about this and the photos that were taken that day.

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