Photography - equipment, help hints

[evangilder]

Looking at some of my shots from the sunglasses shoot I did a few weeks back, I found that cropping can give you broader commercial appeal. So if you like the shot, but something is missing, try cropping into a different format, or to bring in more details. Here are a couple of examples, and one close crop in which you can see me in the reflection with the camera over my head.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Shinpachi]

Looks like a hard job but cool shots!

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff Eric!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

 

[ontos]

Great shots and post 8)

 

[evangilder]

Thanks guys.

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's something fun I thought I might share.

Many years ago, I disassembled a couple of Epson flatbed scanners to convert them to "light tables". In the process, I removed the innards and discovered that there was a cool little lens the Epsons use to capture a scanned document's image. It's called a "final Focus" lens and it's not all that large, and from I've been able to learn, about a focal length of 15mm (don't quote me on this). The end result, is that these things are awesome for using as a magnifying lens AND better still, makes an iPhone darn-near a microscope! Trying to hold the lens in place for a photo is almost like cat juggling, but the results are really cool!

I'll post some examples...all of the photos were taken with my iPhone 4S, by the way.

Here's a coule of shots with the lens next to a penny for scale.

Here's a macro of the penny using the iPhone's zoom

And here's the penny seen with the lens held up to the iPhone's lens

Here's a Motorola power transistor (close to an inch wide) using the iPhone's zoom

And here's the transistor seen with the lens held up to the iPhone's lens

And now for a completely random shot:
the tip of an inkpen seen through the lens held up to the iPhone's lens

 

[evangilder]

Cool idea, Dave.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Awesome tips gents!

 

[Shinpachi]

Hats off to your strong intellectual curiosity and inquiring mind, Dave

 

[Gnomey]

Cool idea Dave! Results are nice too.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Agree with all here Dave. Very cool outcome on that!

 

[Gnomey]

So for a while now my 18-55mm has been stuck at only being able to shoot at F3.5 below focal lengths of around 30mm which is quite annoying at times although for portraits etc. it was still OK. So I ended up replacing it with one of these which I was going to get when I upgraded anyway but got it a little early instead.

Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM - EF-S - Canon UK

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Excellent Hugh! I have the EF-S 18-55mm lens. If you ever upgrade to the larger frame EOS Cameras though, the S series lenses will not mount to them, sadly. I found this out the hard way.

 

[GrauGeist]

Excellent Hugh! I have the EF-S 18-55mm lens. If you ever upgrade to the larger frame EOS Cameras though, the S series lenses will not mount to them, sadly. I found this out the hard way.

Had a friend, who shoots Canon, upgrade his body recently, and got an adaptor so he didn't have to replace all of his glass.

If I recall right, he ordered it from B&H Photo.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I just have the one S series. The other two are higher end and are made for the larger frame. But thanks for info Dave, I may look and see if they have a adapter to make that one work. It'll save some mullah until I can save up and get a decent short range telephoto.

 

[Gnomey]

Excellent Hugh! I have the EF-S 18-55mm lens. If you ever upgrade to the larger frame EOS Cameras though, the S series lenses will not mount to them, sadly. I found this out the hard way.

Don't see myself going full frame anytime soon, next camera upgrade will be to the 7D or equivalent. Don't need much more camera than that.

 

[GrauGeist]

The adapter would certainly be cheaper than a new piece of glass...and since it's just a transfer ring with no optics (like a multiplier), you should not lose any f-stops.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Cool.