Eden Gardens | North Ryde | Sydney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nikon D700 – Low Light, High ISO Macro Photography

Decided that my hand-held macro technique needed some “brushing up” this weekend. It has been awhile since I did any macro photography and as they say practice makes perfect! I never use a tripod for macro as I find it inconvenient and I am too lazy to cart a tripod around anyway.

It was showering all Sunday morning so I just waited in the cafe sipping cappuccino until it stopped. Anyway, the shower was a bonus really with all that water droplets on the flowers makes for great macro photography!

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 320 | f/11@1/320 | No Flash

 

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 400 | f/11@1/250 | No Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1600 | f/8@1/200 | No Flash

Majority of my macros shots are 1:1, it took awhile to get the technique down pat but now I have quite a good hit rate for sharp macro shots. I need to work on my insects macro shots, especially bees. I have not gotten a bee macro that I have been totally happy with.

 

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 400 | f/16@1/500 | Flash

 
Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1600 | f/8@1/400 | No Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 640 | f/11@1/30 | No Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1600 | f/8@1/250 | No Flash

This weekend I decided to shoot at a higher ISO than normal just to see what the results would be like. I also didn’t use any flash for the majority of the shoot. I think that they were okay up until about ISO 640 after that they where a bit furry when viewed at 100%.

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1250 | f/9@1/640 | No Flash


Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro
ISO 400 | f/16@1/500 | Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro
ISO 320 | f/11@1/320 | No flash

Overall, I was happy the results from this weekend. I am interested in getting the Nikon R1 Close-up Speedlight Remote Kit. My current home brewed macro rig consists of 2 x SB-800s which can get pretty heavy after awhile. A lighter load would provide more stability and greatly improve my chances of obtaining sharper and crisper macros shots.

Sculpture by the Sea - 2009

Sculpture by the Sea is largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition in the world. It stretches from Tamarama Beach to Bondi Beach along the 2km Bronte to Bondi Coastal Walk. 

I attended  this year’s Sculpture By The Sea. In hindsight I should have waited a couple of weeks before attending as there way too many people. Next year, I am planning to go early, before sunrise, to capture the magical light with no crowds or other photographers in the way.

This year, I decided to bring along both my Canon G10 and Nikon D700 as I was not keen on carrying around a “heavy” Sigma 70-200mm and I didn’t really want to change lenses all day long. Besides the Canon G10 doesn’t get out much.

Canon G10

This was my favourite sculpture, it was just mesmerising. The strong wind  kept it in constant motion morphing into different shapes. The movement was both fluid and rapid so trying to frame the shot accurately was rather tricky.

 

                            Morpheus #1                                                     Morpheus #2

 

                                                                Morpheus #3

The flags were amazing, thank god the wind was so strong otherwise this display would have been a dud. I enabled ND filter on the Canon G10 to get slower shutter speed so I could get some movement with the flags rather than just freezing them.

 

What is it with storm water drain and kids? I used to do the exact thing when I was a kid many moons ago. The above series of shots were all taken with my Canon G10. I am more than  happy with the results, the colours were just amazing SOOC. By the way, all these were shot as jpeg and not raw.

Nikon D700

 

                                                                                           Dying For A Drink

3 x exposure HDR (-1, 0, +1), hand-held, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro.

Texture added in CS4 and then tweaked in Adobe LR 2.5.

The second photo only had the texture added in CS4 and then tweaked in Adobe LR 2.5.

Both t

extures were supplied by

virtually_supine - Thank you.

 

Morpheus #4 -  mesmerising visitors

 

        Transfiguration "screw" IX'                                       Subterfuge

 
 

                                A couple of hard core Canon shooters

Warped

The Nikon D700 performed flawlessly as usual. Perhaps the Nikon 24-70mm would have been more suitable for this shoot. I will just add that to my wish list.

Flickr Tags: Sculpture By The Sea,2009,Tamarama Beach,Bondi Beach,Nikon D700,Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8,Canon G10,Sculpture,Sydney,Australia