Friday, September 12, 2014

Playing with my new 50mm/f1.8

Wow. I really underestimated how much fun portraits can be with this small lens.
And I underestimated how precise you have to focus to not total ruin the shot.

Here are some of the better shots I made yesterday and today.

My Son. See the blur, starting right behind his eyes.

I really like this one. I looooove the narrow focused area: Only the boys face are focused. The rest lives in a soft blur.


Some pseudo-macro.

Playing. It's kinda hard to shoot moving targets. But when it works, it works greatly.

One more try on macros.

Got a moving target.

Combination of movement and macro
Here, one more marco. What I really like about this lens, is it's great high aperture. Just take a look at this image.

These photos are not retouched in any way. Now compare these photos to the one below, shot last year with my normal 3.5 - 5.6f.

This is from an 3.5-5.6f lens

I just wanted to show how great the difference a low-aperture lens can make in every day.

Monday, September 1, 2014

A month with (almost) no video

So, I did not watch video and did not play games on the computer all of August. Almost.
I did watch four movies (I allowed myself two cheat days that month), several tutorials, clips of my children, maybe two or three less-than-interesting clips on YouTube, and countless animated GIFs.
I also played about 10 Minutes of 2048, before realizing, that I must not play computer games that month.

All in all, i was pretty relaxed about that challenge this month. But nonetheless, it was a challenge to force myself not to play boring and silly game on my smartphone while sitting bored in the train.

I realized, how much time I do spend with video entertainment every day. I realized how ubiquitous video has become in my life. I realized how silly it sounds to others confessing, that you are avoiding video this month. I realized, that I did not read more books than other months. It watch a lot more images and read more articles in various blogs.

It was a challenge not to just dive into watching some videos all by myself, but to waiting for something meaningful. And by meaningful, I mean making it either educational or making it an experience shared with others.

And so I removed games from my smartphone. And so I do not really have the desire to watch movies (although I would like to watch some episodes of Stargate, fully intentional, just enjoying it with my wife or some friends). I have the desire to spend my day in a more meaningful way.

And hey, isn't that, what life is about? Making it meaningful?

And thus, I am thrilled about this month's challenge: To spend at least one hour of quality time with at least one of my kids.
Yeah, I know, originally, it was scheduled for October, but I know, I won't be able to do it in October, so I'll do it now.

Things will be great.