PhotographyBanzai.com

I had checked the forecast a day or two before and noticed a moderate chance of showers. My decision was to use only the K-5 and DA* 55mm f1.4 lens. We ended up having some light showers once or twice while at the garden, so that decision worked out. I just kept using the camera as normal without any issues while the rain was coming down. The nice thing about meetups like this is that I can just focus on the basics, but I’m also inclined to do a more experimental style of framing my subjects. This leads to images that might receive some critical comments on first view, but when examining them further, they might see the intent involved. For example: Multiple times I noticed scenes where the foreground let in just a bit of something interesting. A visual hint of interest lies in the middle of the frame that you put a little extra time into trying to distinguish. On first glance, it might have an amateurish feel, but I don’t believe that is the case when my true intent realized. As...

In my previous post I showed a few photos I had taken downtown after a photographer meetup. They were a few quick snapshots. A few days after that I went back downtown with a friend in the late night for a walk around the most interesting areas.  A few highlight images:  I was using the Pentax K-5 and DA 14mm f2.8 lens handheld. Setting wise I was in program or aperture priority most of the time around maximum aperture of f2.8 with a negative exposure compensation of around 0.3 to -1.7. 

I finally completed processing my photos of the Rockford Airfest (Airshow) 2011. Any photographer will tell you that airshows require special care to avoid mounds of extra effort in post processing. This is primarily due to sensor dust and variation of exposure depending on the direction you are taking a photo. Even with new camera bodies that have dust removal mechanisms, it still isn’t enough to avoid the issue due to the extreme nature of photographing distant objects on bright skies. I have a few basic tools to remove dust and attempted to clean my sensor as well as possible before the event, but I wasn’t completely successful at keeping the sensor completely dust free. The second issue was that my K-5 was having issues, which lead me to re-seat the lens a few times as I was trying to diagnose the issue. That meant even more dust would get into the camera body.  The final issue was that while putting spray-type sunscreen on my arms, I managed to get speckles on my DA* 300mm’s U...