January Can Be Rather Weird

While in the good old US the weather was hitting new #freezing records, on the other side of the ocean in Europe things were going rather optimistic and we were having the mildest winter in ages. I was loving it until a couple of days ago, when all of a sudden the temperatures dropped, the port got closed and there wasn't even that much snow. It was all ice!
So, what a great opportunity to take some photos in a weather that was as cold as it was beautiful. When there's a lot of #ice and wind you can't really change lenses too much outside and I decided to mount my trustworthy prime 50mm 1.8. It seemed like the right choice and it surely turned out to be so at the end of the day.

Here was my preparation:

• A warm meal
• A hot cup of tea
• Warm clothes
• Dry shoes
• 2 full batteries for my #camera. It was a cold day so I had charged 2 batteries. Cold drains them faster
• Wipe for the #lens
• ND filter would have been nice if I hadn't forgotten it at home

I did not want to overdo it because it was too icy and slippery. Carrying too much stuff could be dangerous and get you out of balance. You'll see what I mean when you see the photos below.
And here they are:

OK, so here's my advice:

• Travel light
• Don't change lenses when the weather is bad
• Watch your step
• Get some friends along to make the walk outside in the cold a little funnier
• Don't spend too long outside with the camera hanging from your neck - bad for the camera and bad for you

Enjoy the winter or at least what's left of it this year and don't forget to share, comment and ask!

Warm regards,

Kamen Kunchev

Easter Close-up!

Well, it's Easter time this year! Enjoy! I decided to go out and take some photos of nicely painted eggs to share with my friends and this is what turned out.

Contrast is always a good idea. 

Contrasting colors also works great.

Placing objects in a line is not always the best thing.

A classic "family" portrait.

And here's my advice:

• Use various backgrounds for your shoot.
• Get colorful props
• If the eggs are too pale mind the light because you might if it's too strong you'll get harsh shadows and burnt areas.
• Work for the bokeh by getting close to the object, open the aperture wider (f4-f5.6 should do in most cases if you're close enough).
• You can shoot with your favourite portrait lens (I did not need a macro lens or a vario for any of these).
• Get a friend to take photos with you so you can have more fun.

Well, I guess this about covers it. For more questions and advice send me a message via the comment box below.

All the best and a happy Easter,

Kamen Kunchev

Macro and Getting Kinda Close

I decided to go back to details and shoot some macro these days. It's been a while since my last post and quite some time since I had the chance to go out and have some fun while shooting, so why not macro.

Getting really close and taking worthy photos could be quite a challenge especially if you don't own a good close-up lens (or none at all like me). I guess I must have become rather rusty with this as it took some time to take several nice images.

When you go shooting close-up photography it is essential that you have more than enough light and all the patience in the world. Don't expect to go home with tons of good images and be prepared to scrap lots of the photos especially when shooting at a wider aperture.

And talking about aperture, I wouldn't recommend going for those values that usually give you a swell bokeh in portraiture (f1.8-f4). At these you will be losing focus constantly and gaining blur. It all works on different scales when you get this close to objects so experiment a lot and take several shots of an a object while refocusing.

I do not own a macro lens but there are 2 ways you can get away without having to buy one:

1. Get one of those magnifying glass type lenses you can mount in front of your lens. These glasses will give you lots of distortion around the edges when mounted on wider lenses but will deliver nice results on a prime lens.
2. Or you can simply buy a reverse ring adapter for you 50mm prime lens and use it as a macro lens (if it has an aperture control ring)

Both of these methods are rather cheap you will have to focus manually to get where you want but it's a good start if you don't want to spend too much on casual macro shots.

You can also check out my tips on flower photography.

Have fun,

Kamen Kunchev

Flower Photography (Yes, It's a Different Type)

We've all been astonished by the beauty of flowers and it's truly hard explaining how amazing a flower garden is. That's why it's better to take a cool picture and just show it to everyone.

We don't really need much to take great flower photographs out in the open. I like to travel light so most of the time I carry only 2 lenses for my camera - 18-55 kit lens and my love the 50mm prime.

Here are a few examples from this spring. Please follow my comments and advice right below.

Let's start with what's really easy to spot.

• Choose a good angle so you'll get only flowers in the shot. Meaning, there will not be dirt, buildings, people or too much sky in the background. Get on your knees or belly if you have to.
• Watch the focus. This is very important because clearly we are not just shooting without looking. We want whoever we are showing the picture to, to know what we were actually shooting. So, if there is a certain tulip we want to emphasize on, let's keep the focus on it.
• Use a shallow depth of field meaning staying in the range between F2.8 and F4 for sharpness and a nice bokeh.
• Get close to the flowers. They do not bite. Keep in mind that the prime lens will give you a great sharpness and amazing bokeh. The kit lens (or a vario, I'd suggest using, starting around 18mm) will get you closer to the flowers because of the smaller minimum focus distance. It's really up to you to decide. Try both and see what suits you better. I like shooting with the prime lens.
• Be careful with the exposure. Switch to manual settings and do not trust the built-in light meter too much as it will give you odd values. Note that the many colourful surfaces might confuse the camera. My advice here is to trust the light meter initially and then make the corrections manually and check for burns (unwanted overexposed areas) after almost every shot.
• Use higher shutter speeds (1/500 or higher)
• Take more than one shot at a certain angle. Sometimes you might be losing focus because of the many objects in the camera's way.

Final words of wisdom:

You can shoot flowers all day. There's really no rule for what time is the best for taking this type of photos. Do not be worried about the sun being to high. All the samples here were taken around noon.
Check out the article on autumn leaves too by clicking here!

All the best,

Kamen Kunchev