PhotographyBanzai.com

The last time there was a World Pentax Day, I took some macro photos. This time I went with action self portraits. Levitation: Jump split, aka. “Riding the imaginary horse.” “Pushing the imaginary lawn mower.” Handstand splits: Quite a set, eh? I’m thinking action bases photo are one of my favorite styles. I’d like to get more into this style in the future. I was thinking about using flash, but didn’t. In Av mode with a wide aperture around f1.8 – f2.0 and had the ISO fixed to 400 or 800. I pre-focused by putting a twig on the ground and zooming in on that in liveview. I didn’t bother using a wireless remote, so I ended up running around a lot taking various poses with the 12 second timer. I could use the exercise anyway. 🙂

I attended the Chicago Comic Con on Sunday. There really wasn’t much cosplay, but I managed to get a few photos. If I attend this event next year, I plan on going on Saturday because that should have more costumers and such to document. There are various well knows actors and actresses that attend so that they can interface with fans. A few highlight photos: There were not too many photos, so I tried to put a little extra effort into post-processing of each. The main technique I used in the convention center was to aim the flash toward the ground instead of directly at the cosplayer or up into nothingness of the tall celling. The negative with that is when I was too close, there was a noticeable difference in brightness of their lower body compared to their face.  I easily fixed that with the “graduated filter” tool in Adobe Camera Raw. Let’s see… besides that… The camera I was using was the K-7 with 31mm lens and Sigma flash. I did take a limited few photos with a 10-17mm fisheye ...

So according to pentaxforums.com, today is “World Pentax Day” where everyone who has a Pentax camera is asked to participate in uploading photos to the forum gallery. I decided to take some macro photos today with my standard setup. (K-5 is being serviced), so… – K-7 with battery grip. – Custom bracket and adjustable flash cord. – Pentax 100mm f2.8 WR Macro with Kenko 1.5x teleconverter. – Sigma flash with diffuser Here are the best photos of the lot: My technique this time was a little different that previous macro sessions. I used USER mode with the Av setting. My ISO was fixed at either 100 or 400 and while trying various aperture sizes to get the correct amount of in focus area. The lens barrel was completely extended with manual focus set. To take a photo I just moved the whole camera back and forth until I saw the sliver of focus where I wanted it. That way I don’t have to focus on my body movement and lens focus ring at the same time. Flash was set in high speed sync mode and ov...

I’ll be writing an entry for every day of the vacation as I go through each set of photos. We arrived a day early in Florida, so we all decided to take the opportunity to visit Disney World. It’s pretty expensive for a single day (around $87 a person), but worth it. I’d like to take a dedicated trip there in the future. Waiting in line for the haunted house ride. I stabilized the camera on a ledge to take this photo. They must have lighting experts at Disney World because the park is really colorfully lit at night. The image was taken with the 31mm Limited at f1.8 and ISO 800. Cinderella Castle changes colors throughout the night. The day we were there a large amount of fog rolled in causing the mystic feel to this image. They have a parade every night. This dragon was my favorite part. There are small Disney details everywhere throughout the park. Toward the end it was almost impossible to see the castle due to fog.