Cheyenne River Bridge near Hot Springs, November 26, 2009

Bridge detail over the Cheyenne River in Fall River County, South Dakota, November 2009. (Photo by Daniel Binkard)

This bridge south of Hot Springs has been closed for a number of years now. Every so often I visit and see what I can photograph with and from it. This ultra-wide view is a near-far study, with giant bolts and tiny trusses. I originally did a black and white treatment, but during a recent review session decided to rework it in color. The shadows aren't entirely natural, but I wanted to keep certain details more apparent, especially in the diagonal divide between the bolts on the left and the rest of the bridge on the right. That diagonal would normally be much darker. Here, it allows the two sides to meet, to some degree.

It helps me in the bathroom, too

Wow, these are great pictures! What kind of camera do you have? I'll bet it was really expensive. You probably have one of those professional cameras. Those can take really nice pictures. Is that the one that has the advanced auto focus? You know, those can track a jet at 1000 mph. You don't even need a tripod. That one can go to 102,000 speed. I'll bet you use that speed all the time. Everything can be in focus there! I want to get a good camera, so I can take pictures like that. I'm saving up for it. Right now I have a Sony Mavica that I got on sale. I like that it's easy to use. You just put the disk in the computer and get your pictures. They aren't as nice as your pictures, but when I have enough money saved I'll get one of those really good cameras. Maybe I'll get the one with 24 megapixels. That way I can crop it really close.

Flower, October 24, 2009

Flower closeup near Ponca, Nebraska, October 2009. (Photo by Daniel Binkard)

This small arrangement of flowers stood out to me, so I made one of them stand out. Much of the finished photo is in the post-processing. Although the foreground flower stands out by being in focus, it was necessary to do some local adjustment to selectively darken the background. I like the color contrast on the left, and then the shift in color to pinks on the right. The character of the blurred portions is also pleasing; it feels like a good shift from semi-blurred to fully blurred.

Tree Outline, October 23, 2009

A tree on Binkard Hill, lit by electronic flash from multiple sides, October 2009. (Photo by Daniel Binkard)

This tree in the front yard had an intriguing shape when briefly lit by the car's headlights, so I set up my camera on a tripod, locked open the shutter for about a minute, and ran around popping my flash a few times on the left and right sides. It's fairly symmetrical, with a kink in the trunk to give it some character. I like the remaining leaves. It's not quite spooky, but I'll take it as a bit of Halloween-time fun.

Is this lens soft?

I was reading about this lens and a bunch of people said it was soft. Is it soft? I don't want a soft lens. I think I wasn't looking for the softness when I bought the lens, but now I want to know. I mostly print wallets and 4x6's from the kiosk at the store. You know, you put your digital memory card in and get prints in 10 minutes? I looked at my 4x6's with a magnifying glass to see if I could find the softness, but I'm not sure. I also looked at the photos at 100% and 200% on the screen, but I'm not sure. I just want to make sure this lens is sharp, because soft lenses aren't what good photographers want. Maybe I should sell this lens and wait for them to make a second version with improved anti-softness.

Font management

One of the reasons I like using Macs is their built-in font management. Linux has been less useful since the Gnome font viewing software disappeared, and Windows is just painful. I did use AMP Font Viewer for a while, and it worked pretty well, but not as simply and smoothly as Font Viewer on the Mac.

Oh, and NeoOffice works with OTF fonts. OpenOffice.org on Linux always seemed second-rate without that support. Where is it, guys?

Why f/2.8?

A common question among new photographers concerns high-speed lenses. Why get the f/2.8?

Advantages of f/2.8 zoom lenses (14-24mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 300mm, 400mm for Nikon users):

More depth of field control. A big advantage f/2.8 has over f/4 and f/5.6 is depth of field control. You can throw a background out of focus more easily with larger apertures. Consider the 50mm and 85mm f/1.4: Incredibly thin depth of field.

However, you must be careful in how you exercise that depth of field. In portraiture, it's generally preferable to have the subject's eyes in focus. With a couple centimeters that are in focus, it's easy to misfocus and have the ears in focus. Oops.

Focusing advantage. A larger aperture gives the camera's autofocus sensors more light to work with, generally enabling faster and more accurate autofocus. It's also easier to manually focus a fast lens because you can see what you're focusing on a little bit better.

The thinner depth of field comes back to haunt you, because it's easier to misfocus. If you're just a little off you're back to having ears instead of eyes in focus.

Optical and build quality. Generally, f/2.8 lenses are in the professional ranks of a manufacturer's product lineup. So they are among the top performers optically, especially compared to slower lenses. They are well-built, to take abuse from professionals who are really good at crunching them into rock faces or dropping them off waterfalls.

But, there are many slow lenses that are great performers. There are f/2.8 lenses with all sorts of weaknesses. Consider Nikon's 70-200mm f/2.8. Great on small sensors, but rather lacking on 135 format cameras. Consider Nikon's 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5. Its only real problem is vignetting at large apertures.

And many of Nikon's lower-end lenses can take abuse. I have kicked my 18-70mm around for five years and it's still going.

They're big. If you've got assistants and budget, you can carry five or six f/2.8 zooms. The rest of us have limited bag space and limited transportation space. Slower lenses are lighter and cover fewer cubic centimeters. I'd rather carry five pounds of gear than 10.

So basically, consider your needs and the limitations you'll encounter when planning a lens purchase. Everything in photography is a compromise.