Uploads from John-Morgan, tagged sigma70300mmdgapo

Gold at golden hour

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:50:03 -0700

Some more shots from the field of daffodils. This one is a close up of a single daffodil.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm, Lomo effect.

Daffodils

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:43:08 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

On a path where I walk, there is a field filled with daffodils. I like to wander in and get down really low to see the world from the perspective of a daffodil. Here is a shot from one of these adventures.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm APO DG, Lomo effect.

Yellow and White

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:18:48 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

A tree in flower for spring backed by yellow and white from nearby bushes and other blossoms. Aperture as wide as it will go to blur the background.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300, small lightness adjustment.

Plum blossoms dressed in yellow

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:00:40 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

Behind some plum blossoms in the neighborhood, there is a bush with yellow leaves. The bush is nothing much to look at, but it occurred to me that if I place it behind the blossoms and maxed the size of the aperture, I might get something special. I was delighted by the result--a lovely yellow wash behind the delicate plum blossoms.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm APO DG, contrast adjustment

dressed in yellow

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:05:24 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

I framd these almond blosoms (?) against the background of a bright yellow bush and then chose my DOF to make the bush into a wash of yellow. I love the colors here.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300 DG APO, lightness and contrast adjustment

Daisies in the Rain

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:30:10 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

We have two rather large bush daisies in the garden. Every evening, we water and, on this particular evening, I decided to take some photos while my little boy made it "rain" on the daisies. It's surprisingly hard to hold focus during the rain since the AF wants to focus on the rain rather than the flowers.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm, contrast, saturation, crop, sharpening (tons of post-processing)

Watering the Garden?

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:13:18 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

My assistant (and little boy), Aidan, helps me to water our garden and take some rain shots of the flowers in the garden. While doing this, he got a bit carried away and ended up spraying himself quite a bit. Rather than continuing to shoot flowers in the "rain" I decided to shoot him instead.

Details: Handheld, 70-300mm, crop, saturation, sharpness

Magnolia

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:04:27 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

In a park near the house there is a small magnolia tree that is blooming. It is in a small depression to the side of a hill which leads to interesting lighting at golden hour. Today's shoot captures it near its peak. Still in love with the Sigma lens in macro mode though a bit frustrated at its tendency to increase the length of the lens while focusing.

Details: Handheld, 70-300mm macro, contrast adj

Two-lips

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:23:09 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

More high key experiments with tulips. I love their translucency in light. Here, I overexposed by 1.67 stops.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300 macro mode, SOOC

American Robin

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:07:21 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

An American Robin (with the unfortunate scientific name Turdus migratorius) stops by a park across from where I live. It's been super rainy these past few days, so I was glad to get out and spot this guy. He climbed on the rocks pictured here and had a drink at a nearby puddle before flying off.

Before doing some more homework on my Sigma 70-300mm lens, I would not have had this shot. I discovered that this lens is only really sharp around f/8 or so and at around 200mm length max. Previously, I would have shot this wide open to try to get some nice bokeh behind the bird. This would likely have led to a blurry picture that i would have tossed. With my new settings, I give up on ISO a bit in exchange for reasonably crisp pictures, even cropped as this one is.

Life lesson: You never stop learning from shooting and reading about photography. Nice to think you can keep becoming better at things with study and practice.

Details: Handheld, cropped, sharpened, saturated

Butterfly in Golden Hour

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:04:32 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

Here is a monarch butterfly shot at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ. The light was fading fast leaving a nice glow in the flowers this guy was enjoying. From the Sigma 70-300 series---I forgot how nice this lens was. It sat in my bag unused for months. Well worth rediscovering.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm DG APO, contrast and saturation adjustments, cropped

Daffodils Portrait

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:02:19 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

The final entry in the daffodil series. This is a portrait of two daffodils.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm APO DG, Lomo effect, cropped

One in many

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:47:00 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

Here is another shot from a field of daffodils. Here I tried to pull out the delicate detail of a single daffodil against the mass of many daffodils.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm APO DG, Lomo effect.

Sharing

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:51:13 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

Two gulls take turns smashing some piece of food against a rock near the shores of Point Pinole, California. It's rare that you see gulls actually working cooperatively. Typically, one or the other takes off with the food to eat alone. But these two formed a partnership. They kept the sharing exercise up for a good 10 minutes while I watched.

Shot at 200mm with my Sigma 70-300mm lens in macro setting.

Pilings

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:58:25 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

At Point Pinole, they have a long concrete pier for fishing. Apparently, they used to have a long wooden pier which died in a storm some time ago. All that are left are an endless line of wooden pilings stretching mournfully out into the bay. They looked particularly haunting on this overcast day.

Tiptoe

nobody@flickr.com (John-Morgan) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:34:15 -0700

John-Morgan posted a photo:

It's tulip season. Unlike most cut flowers like roses, tulips are only available for a few months out of the year. I always make a point of getting a bunch both because they're pretty to have around the house and becuase they're great to shoot.

This shot is a high-key experiment. In manual, I set the shutter to overexpose by 1.67 stops. Aperture f/8 because it's the sweet spot for this lens as well as to hold focus on the petals as well as the inside of the tulip. I laid the tulip on a sheet of white foamboard outside on an overcast day. This gave me the nice, soft effect I was after.

Details: Handheld, Sigma 70-300mm on macro setting, contrast adjustment