Nice Glass

Since I am now walking the walk and talking the talk of a digital photography instructor, I thought I'd briefly write about owning nice "glass," meaning a good lens. I recently purchased a prime lens (one that does not zoom, but is fixed) for my Nikon D80 - a 35mm AF-S Nikkor f/1.8. This means the lens is pretty fast - the aperture opens wide enough to capture a lot of light, even when little light is available. This wide aperture also means you can get really shallow depth of field.

I've been shooting a little with the lens and immediately I am impressed. While it only cost about $100.00, it is already leveraging more resolution out of my 10.2 megapixel camera than I knew it possessed. The lens I bought with the D80 kit is an 18-135mm zoom lens, and although it takes pics that are above and beyond the everyday point-and-shoot camera, this 35mm lens is really starting to make my Nikon behave like the dSLR that it is. I can understand why photographers salivate over quality lenses. Maybe someday I'll have enough money to buy a really good piece of glass. In the meantime, this lens suits me just fine.

In the pics below, I am finally starting to see tack sharp focus in my shots. I have also started to work with NEF/RAW files and I'm loving it. These are the images as they come directly off the camera's sensor, without compression (unlike jpegs). I open them into Adobe's Camera Raw software, which comes with Adobe CS4 and newer. With a couple minor tweaks, I am getting just the image I hoped and expected to capture.

I purchased a couple other new camera accessories - a wireless shutter release, an Alienbees ABR 800 ring flash and a newer, lightweight tripod with a ball head. I am very excited to experiment with these new toys and will be posting the best images here in coming days. Meanwhile, here are a few that I really like:

 

CAMERA: Nikon D80

LENS: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
APERTURE: 1.8
SHUTTER: 1/90
LIGHTING: On board flash
ISO: 100
RETOUCHING: Pushed the contrast a little in the RAW file.
SELF-CRITIQUE: I love this shot for its composition, color, clarity and mood. I do think I could have closed down the aperture a bit more as the depth of field is a little too shallow.

CAMERA: Nikon D80

LENS: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
APERTURE: 1.8
SHUTTER: 1/90
LIGHTING: Natural light from window, overcast/rainy day
ISO: 100
RETOUCHING: Pushed the contrast a little and corrected color in the RAW file, dodged the subject in Photoshop for a little visual pop.
SELF-CRITIQUE: I love this shot for its composition, color, clarity. The pie in the case behind my son is a little hot (overexposed) and probably should be toned down.

CAMERA: Nikon D80

LENS: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
APERTURE: 1.8
SHUTTER: 1/180
LIGHTING: Natural light and on board flash
ISO: 100
RETOUCHING: Pushed the contrast a little in the RAW file, cropped image slightly in PS.
SELF-CRITIQUE: I like how illuminated the subject is and how he really stands out against the grey, rainy background. I could have done a better job of composing the shot while shooting, as the flowerpot (while colorful and attractive), is a bit of a distraction.

 

CAMERA: Nikon D80

LENS: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
APERTURE: 2.4
SHUTTER: 1/125
LIGHTING: Natural light - Overcast sky
ISO: 100
RETOUCHING: Pushed the contrast a little in the RAW file.
SELF-CRITIQUE: Love the clarity, composition and extremeley limited depth of field (essentially only one leaf is in focus). The white flower (New Guinea Impatien?), while adding a nice visual counterpoint is a bit over exposed and needs to be toned down.