Just woke up today from oversleeping but I feel refreshed and eager to exercise. Yesterday's work at the office was in very normal mode, not really hectic even it's my first day for 2011. What is great about yesterday is I bought a lens before going to the office! I have a Nikon 50 1.8 lens before end up selling it so this is the second. I was choosing between F1.4 and F1.8 with the later being 3 times more expensive. I tested both lenses, 1.4 has really creamy bokeh while the 1.8 has the octagon like bokeh or not perfect circle bokeh. The shutter speed advantage of the 1.4 over the 1.8 is just half a stop, lets say 1.8 meters 1/100 of a second then 1.4 will result to 1/160. Not that much of difference in shutter speed that is why I opted to have 1.8 instead. Depends on what you are shooting, the 1.4 will have it's maximum advantage if you are at the nearest point on your subject and the background is far from your subject, lets just say 1 meter away from a brick wall. But if you are far from your subject, your depth-of-field will increase also and that will minimize the bokeh or creamy background effect.
I got the 50 F1.8 for the following reasons. I want to do street photography and do post-processing to make it look cinematic. This kind of photography is not always about isolating the subject from the background so bokeh is just a plus. I will need some distance from the subjects for me not be caught taking photos of them. I need a fast shutter speed to capture the moment with minimum blur even at night. I need a light lens not my Nikon 24-70mm 2.8 which weighs more than a kilo. Of course I can't use flash. I want to do this everyday during break time or before going to work in the afternoon. I work night-shift so minimal gear will be an advantage. I'm paring this lens with D90 which was been replaced by D7000.
I bought the lens yesterday and I started taking pictures yesterday also to test it. Shutter speed is my biggest problem when using a 2.8 lens because it forces me to use 3200 ISO at night. 2.8 is not for night time street shooting, it is slow and the noise is unbearable. I started shooting in manual and my shutter speed was 1/80, my ISO was 1600 and of course F1.8 as the opening. I did not use AV mode because it will adjust the exposure on different environment depending on the available light. Making it manual makes the camera behave like those expensive hollywood film cameras. Exposure should be consistent in my case, anyway if it is dark the photo should be dark mimicking the exact perception on what we see. SLR Auto exposure is not really honest about the available light so to avoid that I must use manual. My exposure setting last night was just a guess but I was happy with the setting but not happy when I was shooting.
Here in the city almost everybody is sensitive when there is a camera pointing at them. So to avoid that I placed the camera on my chest while holding the shutter button. The result was I got blurred shots most of the time because of my movement. I have tried the proper way of shooting and that did result in a good picture. It seems I won't be successful with the camera on my chest approach. Now I'm thinking, I planned this a long time ago and now it is not feasible. But since this is my first time I would like to give it some practice until I get the hang of it and maybe learn how to know what people are thinking when they see a dslr and maybe adjust to that scenario to have a better picture.
Ok here are my shots, you may not like it :)
The Forgotten. 1/365
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| From 20110104 |
Itch. 2/365
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| From 20110104 |
The Chaperone. 3/365
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| From 20110104 |
Just the two of us. 4/365
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| From 20110104 |
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| From 20110104 |
Photos
The photos is about night life in Makati where people are having their break from work, going to work, going home or just jogging for those living near by. You will notice the skin tone is a bit dark but given that I'm still happy with the result. Giving a proper exposure on the people on the picture will also blown out the highlights coming from the street lights which is more problematic on my opinion. Blown out highlights tend the viewer eyes to squint and that is not good for photography. The more the viewer opens their eyes the more they are interested on the photo. You can also notice the amount of noise, well it's a D90 and ISO 1600 I don't know what to do with that. If I will continue this and have acceptable results I might buy the D7000 this year but I'm still waiting for some funds, good luck to me.
I hope some of you enjoyed my post. Thanks!
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