Well, the tradition continued last Christmas when we got our new lens (18mm-200mm) for ourselves as a gift. It was basically a one-stop-shot lens that can zoom from normal wide angle to pretty close up on the face ... and it hasn't left our camera since (the old lens resides in a box somewhere).
This Christmas we are pretty excited about getting ourselves a new camera addition. We have a lot of friends here who know a lot about photography and basically all recommended the same thing ... a prime lens (fixed focal length so no zoom) and a speed light (a flash that bounces off walls and ceiling to give good light). We just purchased these and they will be waiting in Santa Cruz when we (hopefully) arrive home after receiving Chloe's passport (hopefully) just in the nick of time.
Well, our friend here (also named Brendan) lent me his 50mm f/1.8 lens which is the exact one that we bought ... here is how it turned out ... now the main two things that are new and different are that it opens up wider and lets in more light, like a pupil being much bigger. This means that the colors are richer and more natural, the center of the image is sharper, and you can take great photos in dim light. The second thing that is awesome is that since it is a fixed focal length, everything not at that length is out of focus, so you get a great, soft blur to the background of the photo (called bokeh or pronounced bow-kuh).
In terrible dining hall light, Brendan Shae just took a picture of the two closest objects to him with just auto settings and auto focus, nothing special at all ... literally just pointed and clicked ... and this is what the pictures turned out to look like:
I mean seriously ... that is a boring freaking chair and a bag sitting on a boring table, in terrible light ... and they look amazing!
So I borrowed the lens from him, and took some photos of the girls. Now, of course they refuse to look at the camera and smile now, even though they smile up storms all day ... but they are just choosing not too look at the camera ... anyhow, I took some photos of them ...
Note: I usually spend a decent amount of time editing the lighting in the photos I take using iphoto. I don't do anything special, but I am usually boosting the colors, warming them a bit to get some skin tons, maybe boosting the contrast a little and brightening them ... and a lot of the time i click the blurred edges button to fake the bokeh effect, but it isn't that natural one that you get with a good lens ...
The photos below are unedited at all, this is literally just point and click and this is what came out:
Right? Amazing! This is what the future holds one we arrive home and start using our brand new lens that is already waiting for us in a box at my parents!
... and then our second gift to ourselves is the flash. I have been using it to fake good lighting in our house, because our lighting is very dim and so photos have been hard to come by (we didn't have the good lens yet). So to fake the lighting, I have been turning the flash up to full blast and holding a slanted piece of white paper up to the flash ... this is the poor-man's-speedlight as I was told it is called, and it basically just bounces the flash up to the ceiling and lights the room rather than blasting someones face with light ... anyways, while looking through the camera one time I either forgot to hold up the paper or held it in the wrong place and blasted Lily in the face with the flash (did she get a suntan?) and this is the photo that came out ... pretty interesting
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