Fisheye landscapes #3

7 exp HDR

No other lens could have gotten me this shot. I was only a meter away from the trunk. This lens is built for photographing trees =D It can even do IR! (one day i'll mod my d70 for this) Just be sure to keep the horizon in the center to remove the distortion.

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Yet another fishy walkabout

Bear with me... i just love to see the hexagonal light bursts from this fisheye. Best of all, there is no flaring even when pointing at the sun!

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Warp my world

5 exp handheld HDR

In case you haven't notice... the above image is way wilder than usual. What happened? Make a lucky guess =D

Hmm... isn't that hard to guess eh? I gave in and bought myself yet another lens - the Tokina 10-17 FE. It's a fisheye zoom... first of its kind for DX sized sensors, and can be used on FX from 15mm onwards. (talk about future proofing)

INTRO TO FISHEYE

This lens is a SPECIALITY lens. Which means it is only useful in a few situations. Used too often, viewers will develop vertigo, and it might just turn them off. But when used the right way, it is able to get you ASS-KICKING perspectives no other lenses can.

Fisheyes have geometric instead of volumetric distortions. That is to say, objects retain the same area in the picture no matter where it is placed. Rectilinear lenses, say the 12-24, have volumetric distortions, stretching objects placed at the edges, making faces and bodies look wider than they are supposed to be. However, fisheyes curve any lines that doesn't pass through the center, so there are subjects that you shouldn't shoot with a fisheye under normal circumstances (ie buildings/landscapes).

COMPOSING WITH FISHEYES

What i love about this particular lens is the wide-ness. It's sick. You get the full 180 degrees FOV, meaning that EVERYTHING in front of you will be in the picture. That includes part of your feet or maybe your shoulder, but more commonly, your shadow. The widest rectilinear lens at the moment is the sigma 12-24, but that is only about 120 deg FOV. Imagine how much wider this is! The extreme wideness and unique distortion means I have to learn to compose in a very different way.

To get use to this new persective, I stuck the camera to my eye as i walked around the park. With the distortion, I have the ability to "bend" objects, warping them to aid my composition. This also means that how I frame my picture will be more important than before. You can't simply crop the image in post.

HANDLING & BUILT

The 10-17 is a very compact and light lens. Despite its solid metallic body, it only weighs 350g. (the 12-24 weights 750g). It is only slightly larger than a 50mm prime, making it an ideal walkabout UWA, provided you can accept the loss of corner detail when pictures are de-fished.

PERFORMANCE

Wide open, this lens is not very sharp. Purple fringing is evident, even after the Expeed processing. But stopped down to f8 and sharpness is much more acceptable, although still not as sharp as any other lens I own.

Edit: I made a serious mistake on leaving AF Fine Tune ON. (Apparently D300 doesn't allow fine tuning of different 3rd party lenses) With it off, I get much better results. This lens is surprisingly sharp all the way to the edges from f5.6 and above!

It is surprisingly resilient to flare though, and the 6 aperture blades give me very nice sunbursts. This is important as the lens is so wide you almost always get the sun in your picture.

Matrix metering will go wild outdoors, due to the super high contrast of the scene. Use center weighted, manual, or if possible, HDR like what i've did. (it helps if you can rattle off at 8fps hehe)

IN CONCLUSION this is a very unique yet versatile lens. Lightweight and compact, I believe it will be with me for the non-important social gatherings, or walkabouts more often than the 12-24.

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Le Grand Finale

Behold the bringer of light - We stared in awe as the sun blazed through the cool morning air, waving us goodbye with a spectacular lightshow. What a way to end off this beautiful trip!

More details after the break...
With less than 7 hours of sleep in 2 consecutive days, I was severely reluctant to catch the sunrise (especially when yesterday's was a disappointingly wet one). As my alarm rang, I peeked at the still-dark sky to check visibility. Hmm... not bad. Stars still visible. Called out to my friends (hardly expecting any of them to respond), I dragged my waterlogged tripod and gear down to the beach again.

I was first treated to an eerily beautiful moonrise, which I mistook for an eclipsed sun. Wth happened to our sun today? I was really perplexed for a moment. Thanks to Junzhan for clarifying that it's the moon we are seeing. Ok... i'm blur.

Minutes later, the lightshow began. The horizon glowed the "tekong glow", a wonderful gradient of yellow to blue, and i was fully awake now. There was a field of altocumulus clouds in the distance that would really bloom when the sun comes out. I began to panic as i did not have a proper composition in mind yet - I wasn't prepared to shoot with the sea at high tide.

After rattling off a few mediocre "smooth-water" frames, I was frustrated.. something was missing in my pics. There was no action... no movement. Not the best way to present the grand sunrise imminent.

I clambered over hard and slippery rocks in search for nice waveforms, and spotted this cool rockpool where the water would swirl around before retreating. Setup my stuff just in time to catch the first rays of light clipping at the clouds.

Here's a snapshot taken by my newly made friend Simin, shooting conveniently from the balcony of the resort bar. That's me in the back swapping lenses.

The sun made its entrance as a pink round blob, rising rapidly from the horizon. There was simply no time to wait for a big wave. The scene's contrast is very high as well. Switching to CH i bracketed multiple series hoping to get a few right. No time to think now.

The best pictures were shot with 2 GND8 filters stacked (6 stops total difference). The bigger waves came in soon enough, and they were useful in portraying the life and energy in the scene. As the camera continued filling up a whole 2 GB card, I stood to take in the breathtaking send-off vista.

Adios Redang!

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银河梦

Yet another "night star" pic from Redang. No, I don't have as many variations as Mozart did for his "twinkle twinkle little star" melody. This is probably the last of the series.

I blew some condensation onto the front element 40 seconds into the exposure. Not very obvious here, but it did create a soft glow around the bright stars, perfectly reflecting the dreamy mood i was in as the picture was taken.

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别有洞天

62sec exposure, f/4 at iso1600

Hmm... probably a different composition than the usual star skies?

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The world is a miraculous place

122s exposure, f/4, iso800

Stars above, darkess all round. At the edge of the cliff I sat, alone, feeling as one with mother nature. Holding the shutter open, I let my camera do its magic, the magic of describing this beautiful experience with a thousand words, or in this case, with one solid picture.

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Accidental Beauty

No PP done. Just resized and posted as taken.

All thanks to the cool morning shower we were forced to sleep a little more. We gave the marine-park snorkel a miss too, which is probably a good thing since we've not have enough sleep ever since the trip began.

The air was damp when as we strolled towards the "More more tea inn", and condensation graced my lens elements, creating perfect tonality depicting the morning blues... it's an accidental yet wonderful effect. Picture taken with the AIS nikkor 80-200 f/4

Oh fyi, snapshots from Redang have been uploaded on my multiply site. More to come =)

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How many more times can I feel so happy?

Group photo shot with off camera flash to the left at 1/2 power

This is one hell of a trip. Well planned, well executed, great company. Coupled with crystal clear water, white sands and beautiful weather, this is the poor man's Maldives. I'll have quite a few more pictures from Redang to be posted in the days to come. Stay tuned.

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Nikon's latest releases - d700 & sb900

I'm back from my Redang trip, and have quite a lot of NEFs to convert (including those from last week's portrait shoot. But the first post since returning will not have a single picture. Being gear headed as I am, the first thing i did when i returned was to visit dpreview for any latest Nikon releases... and lo and behold, here's the D700 and SB900 - as rumoured. More after the break.

D700 - This is Nikon's cheaper FX camera, with hardly any compromises. For those dreaming of FX on a d80 or lesser body... dream on. You can't meter with legacy lenses with those bodies, and only with legacy lenses will Nikon users have a chance at Canon's wide range of primes.

NO, you won't see a D700 in my hands anytime soon

People debating between D700 and D300 is basically choosing between FX and DX. Both have the same speed, almost same body, sharing same accessories. For me, I have 2 DX lenses at the moment, and if they were to be upgraded to their FX equivalents, I have to fork out another 5k (lens alone) I'm going to be a uni student soon, and that means no income + high expense. Nope, i don't have 5k to burn at the moment. But I will definitely think thrice before anymore DX lens purchases.

FX tempts me for it's much better bokeh and high ISO performance, as well as UWA lenses. My next DSLR might be an FX one, but I'll definitely want to keep a DX body for its reach. I don't see myself owning the 300mm f2.8 anytime soon.

SB900 - This is a tempting product. Very. From specs alone, there isn't any difference compared to SB800. SB800 is as good as a flash can get, specs wise. What really got me is the ergonomics. This is exactly what is wrong with the SB800.

1. I have to hold down the on/off button for a sec before i can turn it off. SLOW. And sometimes it doesn't respond, as the buttons are hard to press with fat fingers, or when u are wearing gloves.
2. I need an average of 4 secs to switch between CLS and normal modes, and that includes mashing the buttons like siao. I will hesitate even when i know a scene will look better with off hand light, because i don't know if i can get it back on fast enough should something else happens.
3. I cannot turn the head right for more than 90 deg. Which means i can't bounce over my shoulder if i hold my cam in the vertical position. This is a severe limitation for indoor shooters.

The SB900 solves all these! It's a major ergonomic improvement. So YES, I will get an SB900, but not so soon. I will get it the moment the price drops to about 600 new. The SB800 will be slaved when that moment arrives.

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