Photographing an event

 My stock photos @ Alamy.com

So, yesterday 10.05.2013, I decided to try and photograph a students running event for the first time.

 The weather looked like it was going to rain in the morning and I thought that I would have to pass this event because my gear can't take too much water. Luckily the weather cleared over the day and by the time of the start, it was really nice.

 I decided to take my Nikkor 50mm 1.8G and just in case my Tamron 18-200mm lens. I pretty much only used my 50mm because, it has the fastest auto focus of my lenses and it gives a great DOF. I think that I made a great choice in using this lens because, with this lens, I didn't have to mess with the focal length and focusing. I could concentrate on all the other settings. And photographing people with this lens is just superb.

 Half an hour before the event began, I headed out from my house. Since the place was near my home and I knew the area, I took a bike, so I could follow the runners through the course. It was pretty hard to keep up with the first place. I had only about 24 minutes to take pictures in different locations over the course and ride to the finish area to get the photos of the winner. The course was kinda sandy and muddy in some places and I also rode through the forest where there were no paths. I somehow managed to get to the finish just few seconds before the first place came in and I got some shots of him. It was really good workout for me and really good experience.

 I recommend anyone to try and photograph some local events if allowed. It can give you a lot of confidence in your work and you can also compare your photos to some of the professional photographers covering the event.(the photos are more than likely uploaded to some news site or some other sites)

Here are some images I took of the event:

 My stock photos @ Alamy.com

Macro photography

  My stock photos @ Alamy.com

Yesterday I was working in my greenhouse, digging old dirt out to replace it. Suddenly I saw these big spiders(big for Estonia) running around and thought I should try take some photos. 

  I have a Tamron 18-200mm (macro) lens. I got this lens while I was traveling around in Japan. I wanted to get something cheap that I could use in most of situations and this is what the customer service guy recommended.

  For the money I paid for this lens, it's pretty good. The image quality can't be compared to some of the  more expensive lenses, but it's usable in most cases. Stock photography site Alamy.com has some strict requirements for the images you can upload. With this lens I could pass all the requirements easily. 
  The autofocus is a tad slow and not the most quiet one, but I mostly use manual with this lens anyway. This lens doesn't have the VC(vibration compensation), so shooting at the longer focal lengths will be shaky and it's better to use a tripod.
  You can lock the focal length at 18mm. This way you can prevent unwanted zoom or damaging the lens. The front of this lens is kinda heavy and if not locked down, it will extend when carrying it around attached to your camera.
  It does have color fringing  and vignetting, but it's not that bad. I don't know the most extreme cases, but mostly, I can use some software to remove it.

  Overall, this lens is alright for what you pay. If you can, save for some more expensive and advanced lenses(possibly with VC to shoot in longer focal lengths). Always think what you want to use a lens for before you buy, because if you know what you want to photograph, you can choose the best lens for the money you can spend.

  This turned pretty much into a review I guess :) Anyway here are some photos I took yesterday:

My stock photos @ Alamy.com

The weather 2

 My stock photos!


I said before that the weather was clearing. It did clear for couple of hours, so I went out to shoot. Was a bit windy but it was ok. It went cloudy again at some point so I thought it would rain and came home. Now it's sunny again..

Anyway here are some shot I took(more in http://www.digitalrev.com/makimaki):

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Motivation

 My Stock photos on alamy.com

 I'm not going to make a long post today, just saying how important motivation is.

 Motivation is one of the most important things in life. Same applies in photography, if you're not motivated, you can go long time without making any photos, or just not getting the images you want.
  Recently, I got really unmotivated and was just lying around not doing anything. I took few photos, but they weren't anything special. Then, just yesterday, I went to help out my coworker in her country house. I drove there. It was a great trip. Seeing the countryside, forests and getting further from the city. Today I took some photos in my garden and they came out so much better than before. I was motivated, and focused on what I was doing. I would say that motivation is one of the most important things.

If you are unmotivated, I suggest you travel away from your house or even city. Go camping or fishing, travel to another country, or even go sightseeing in your own country. Do something different from your everyday life. You'll see the change.

Some pictures I took today

 

Take a look at my stock photography site

The photo studio

Stock photography by Ville Eek

First of all, sorry for not posting anything in a while! Have been busy and lazy and busy again for some time now :)

Anyway, I promised to blog again when I had all the parts that I ordered for my studio.
Now they are all here and I tested them out.

As I said in my previous post, the items I ordered were pretty cheap. I didn't expect too much, but I have to say that the radio triggering system is really great. It seems to be made from a cheap plastic, but its really well put together and works nicely. On Amazon it said that it should trigger the flash from about 30m. Haven't tried it from that far yet but did try from about 15m and it worked every time. I ordered the version called PT-16GY with 2 recievers, in case one breaks or something. It was 14.23£ and sold by ukprostore.

About the flash and umbrella holder. It really doesn't seem much. When I first took it in my hands I thought it would break easily. When I tried it out, it held everything firmly in place and worked just fine. Haven't used any other flash holders so I wouldn't know to compare. It's sold on Amazon by BV-Electronics for 7.99£

I can't compare the lightstand with anything either, haven't used any other lightstands. It's fairly light, up to 2m in height, and nice and stable. If you scroll down you'll see a studio light that I built. I mounted it on top of the lightstand at maximum height and it was stable. It cost 10.77£ on amazon and is sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L.

Then the Umbrella. Well, it's an umbrella. 6.97£ by BV-Electronics on amazon.

This is just a picture of the smaller things I have.

The Reflector was bought earlier in Estonia and I mentioned it in older post.

Lightstand, reflector, flash & umbrella holder, 

radio flash triggering system(2x recievers & 1x transmitter)

and umbrella.

I built a studio light also, but I think it still needs some work. I used 6x 50W halogen lights as seen below on the pictures. It works fine but, I need something to mount it better, so I could change the angle of the light. Right now its just hanging from a tripod on a wire.

I think the color temperature is somewhere around 2700K.

It gives a warm yellowish light.

 

50W 230V halogen light. 

 Stock photography by Ville Eek

 Also made a softbox. I'm not going to talk much about it because, I already talked about it on another post some time ago. Only thing I'll say is that I really love how it softens the light. It works really well if I use it correctly.

Well that's it for today, I'll leave you few photos to enjoy that I took with this equipment. If you like what you see and are interested more in the equipment, you can leave a comment or just message me anywhere(facebook, G+...). You can find my details in my g+ account on the right side of my blog.

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Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro vc usd and sp 70-200mm f2.8 di vc usd

 My stock photography site on Alamy.com

 Yesterday I went to see Tamron lens presentation. They showed the "90mm f2.8 macro VC USD" and "SP 70-200mm f2.8 DI VC USD" lenses.
 Both of the lenses make great quality images. They are very sharp in the middle and go softer around the edges. The build quality of both seemed very good and both have the vibration compensation(which is very nice).

 I took few shots with both of them and I have to say that I really liked the 70-200mm lens. The 90mm wasn't for me. Don't know why, but it just didn't feel right in my hands. They both have really great quality, but the 70-200mm is heavy and fits nicely into my hand. I think that the weight gives better balance when shooting, although I have small Nikon D3100. It just felt so much better than the 90mm. I really recommend you try out these lenses if you have a chance.

 The prices for these lenses are pretty crispy(for ordinary user like me), but what other to expect from lenses of that quality. The 90mm starts from about $750 and 70-200mm $1500 in amazon. Here in Estonia I can get the lenses for about 800€ for 90mm and 1650€ for the 70-200mm...

 Again, if you have a chance, try out these lenses. You'll love them!

Here are few photos I took(these are straight from camera):

 SP 70-200mm f2.8 DI VC USD

70mm
F2.8
1/50
800 ISO

 SP 70-200mm f2.8 DI VC USD

160mm
F2.8
1/50
800 ISO

90mm f2.8 macro VC USD

90mm
F3.5
1/60
800 ISO










If you are interested in stock photos, visit my stock photography site on Alamy.com