PhotographyBanzai.com

I used the Pentax K-7 with a 14mm f2.8 and 85mm f1.4 lens. You can probably see the stark contrast between shots as field of view and depth of field attributes are so different between the two lenses. I also tried some fast and slow shutter speed control with water features, which was fun. Seeing as tripods are not allowed there, I just put my camera on my camera bag for longer exposures and it worked out nicely.  I also had a polarizing filter that fits my 85mm that I experimented a bit with too. I was able to get a 3 second exposure with the filter on. This is just a small sampling of the 400 or so photos I took, but my site (and bandwidth) are not unlimited, so I am just showing you a few of my favorites. The garden is worth the small admission fee they charge, so I would suggest checking it out if you are in the Northern Illinois area.

More question and answer time! I answered this question before the last one I posted, but didn’t get around to posting this one. 🙂 Question. having worked with a number of nice lenses, how big a difference would you say the difference between a 1.2 and a 2.8 aperture makes? I think it depends on what you are interested in doing. If you are not interested in super smooth background blur or keeping your ISO as low as possible, then f2.8 is a decent fast-enough aperture for a lens. For example, I used a 40mm f2.8 lens most of the time at Otakon 2011. F2.8 isn’t that fast for a prime lens, but it is good enough because I was planning on using an external flash whenever I used the lens. F2.8 with the right settings and composition can produce really nice background blur. As I’m sure you know, some convention settings are dark with yellow colored light (dealers rooms or hotel settings). In those settings, f2.8 is alright if you are willing to crank up your ISO a bit, but there are negatives...

I wanted to go over the techniques I used at this convention partly for a personal log and also for anyone who might find the discussion of techniques interesting. This really is just a selection of techniques, but a good overview nonetheless. Primary Equipment: Pentax K-5 camera body Pentax FA 31mm f1.8 lens Sigma 530 DG Super flash + Stofen diffuser (used in certain situations) Pentax DA 50-200mm WR lens (fashion show and masquerade) K-7 + DA 55mm f1.4 SDM (only used them once for a private shoot) Kata 3N1-22 backpack Camera modes: The K-5 camera body has 5 selectable setting modes allowing the photographer to select and save settings in those 5 slots. I used three slots primarily, which I will go over below. I’ll also include any other factors in how that mode was used. USER Mode 1 (flash photography): – ISO fixed (usually 80, but a range for creative and testing reasons) – Av mode (usually large aperture) – Exposure compensation like -2 inside, only slight reduction like -2/3rds ou...