My First Prime Lens

Bought my first prime.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Lens
Review

I needed to buy some portable hard drives (Seagate FreeAgent Go) and ended up throwing in the prime lens with the order.

I put the prime on my XSi and tried it out.
Took a pic of my other two lenses (f2).



The bad purple fringing was a bit of a shock.



I've never seen that level of fringing with my XSi and kit lens or tele--ever.
I took the picture of the prime with my kit lens same scenario--ZERO fringing.

I removed the fringing with Paint Shop Pro 9.



It didn't take me long to put the tele back on my camera, cuz I had to take pictures of the bullsnake.
I'm not used to being so close to my subject for a closeup (prime).
With the tele, the minimum focusing distance (MFD) is about 5 feet (4.9) so it's always stay back, and zoom in, and I can get a much closer pic with my tele than I can with this prime.
Prime MFD is 1.5 (feet).

Okay, so first impressions of this prime weren't great.
I wanted to try a prime and I do plan on using it for low light situations.
I thought long and hard before choosing this particular lens over other ones.
I think I'm just still overly in love with my tele at the moment.

A few outdoor shots with the prime:

Goldflame spirea (f8):


Ivory Halo Dogood leaves (f8):

Walk In The Field Part 12 - Fleabane Flower

Continuing my field study of our land.

Taken with S3 Canon:






Next two taken with the XSi Canon:


These are actually teensy flowers, like white specks in the tall grass.



I think they are in the Aster Family
And probably some kind of Fleabane or Erigeron.

Several are listed as natives of North Dakota:
1. Cutleaf Fleabane (Erigeron compositus)
2. Manyflower Fleabane (Erigeron glabellus)
3. Philadelphia Fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus)
4. Low Fleabane (Erigeron pumilus)
5. Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron strigosus)
6. Leafystem Fleabane (Erigeron subtrinervis)

I tried googling on those, but nothing really nailed it down for sure. But very close, I think.

Strong sun, high contrast (white blossoms) = blow outs and also some Chromatic Aberration (CA) or fringing with the S3 Canon. I shot underexposed on Manual. I did notice some CA with the XSi too, but significantly less. Paint Shop Pro has a CA removal tool that works really well and I used it on these white flower closeups.

Coneflower2

In bloom now.
Here are some favs so far, more to come probably, because blooming is just starting.
There is a lot of variation in the petal color and petal shape of coneflowers. Interesting.

(Field shot)


(These are roadside shots.)



NOTE: Alfalfa, Yellow Sweet Clover, Prairie Wild Rose, Coneflower, Milkweed: all very common roadside plants.

I'm taking my S3 Canon along next time to see if I can get sharper closeups. My XSi Canon seems consistently too soft, although the background bokeh has been wonderful. Creamy backgrounds are a whole lot tougher to do with the S3 Point and Shoot. Not impossible, just more work.

Morning Twilight in June

Thur, 11 Jun 09
Near civil twilight
A little after 5 a.m.

Clear sky.
One very bright prominent star/planet in eastern sky.
Moon (3/4 full?) is in the southern sky and one very bright prominent star/planet to the upper left of it.

Pumped up the ISO to 400 and took some pictures hand-held with my S3 point and shoot.
It was a tad difficult trying to get everything I needed in order to get a perspective on it. (Hilly in background, trees in front, but just the tops, so added a little more ground.)

Southern Sky:



Eastern Sky:


I adore this time of day.
Sky is lighting up on the horizon.
Birds are already singing.
The birth of a new day.

I searched online, but could not figure out what planets those were.

One place says Mars and Venus are together.
Nope, that's not it.

Another place says Jupiter is seen with the moon but at the lower left.
Nope, that's not it.
Nice illustrative pic here, though.
The moon looks like the right shape at least. ;)

Hey, I could do that, just make an illustration of what I saw...





I referred to my photos to get the placements correct. The only thing from the camera in the illustrations is the moon, which I took about an hour later. I wanted to show the shape of the moon more clearly than the original which glowed too much. The rest was created in Paint Shop Pro. I have an evergreen brush I used to paint the trees in. I don't really care for the sunrise gradient, but it's the closest to original I could get.

NOTES:

Dawn vs Dusk vs Twilight

Dawn = morning (before sunrise)
Dusk = evening (after sunset)
when noticeable amount of sunlight in the sky

Twilight = both
Morning twilight starts at dawn and ends with sunrise
Evening twilight starts with sunset and ends with dusk

Twilight - 3 Kinds

1. Civil Twilight
starts (morning) or ends (evening)
when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon.
This is generally considered the limit of useable daylight.

2. Nautical Twilight
(aka Military Twilight)
starts or ends
when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon.
Marks limits of unassisted human vision.
"first light"
"nightfall"

3. Astronomical Twilight
starts or ends
when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon.
This marks the point at which there is no longer any detectable sunlight refracted in the atmosphere

REFERENCES/LINKS:

good-stuff UK
Sunrise, Sunset, Twilight and Dusk: FAQ

Twilight Definitions
Astronomical Applications Dept of U.S. Naval Observatory

Sunrise Sunset Table
Sun or Moon Rise/Set Table for One Year
Astronomical Applications Dept of U.S. Naval Observatory

Weather Underground
Weather and Twilight times by zip (search).

Wiki Twilight

IMAGE NOTES:
png file type gave better quality gradients than jpg file type.
Same or lower file size too.
Surprise.
I already knew gif's suck at gradients.

UPDATE: See post above this one for more moon pics.

Blue Jay Alert

Hark! A flash of blue in the trees...



Blue Jay Alert!
Running outside with camera...







These are the best ones I got. The bird was on the move, hopping around a lot.

enature
cornell

A Walk in the Park

On a nature walk with my little point and shoot S3 Canon.
The park was bursting forth with spring...

New life!
New beginnings!
Hope shines anew!
Etc, lol...

Spring is late and it is still peaking around here.

New Leaves




And the lowly dandelion's beauty goes largely unappreciated.



Look at those intricate little curlicue things on the blossom.
Did not notice them when I took the pics.
I've posted the fuzzball things already before so won't post any more of those.
I got a few with very nice blurred background this time, though.

Here's a flowering Choke Cherry Tree--love the composition on this one.



Closeup:


To complete the picture, there was a chorus of birds singing in the background. A beautiful variety of sounds. I wish I would have had something to take a *good* recording of it. I didn't even try with my mp3 player or camera video. Maybe I should have.

Yet another flowering crab. These are all over the place. I loved the composition on this one. It is my gorgeous desktop wallpaper at the moment.



Closup:


I don't think I sharpened any of these. I liked them better as is.
My little point and shoot S3 can perform very well yet, so no way have I abandoned it in favor of my XSi DSLR. The S3 is easier to take along on walks. Less bulky.

Comet Lulin

I found this at Yahoo news.



What struck me was the 300mm lens to take this picture of the comet.
I don't know about the six minute exposure time?

I found the photographer's blog and he has more pics with details, which is interesting. Pics have the EXIF.

I'll have to do some night sky photography this summer with my XSi camera and 300mm lens just to see what I can get.
I'm pretty lazy about setting up the tripod. So much work. And I think I need a sturdier tripod for my XSi setup. The one I have works fine with my S3.

Direct links pertaining to Comet Lulin:

Comet Lulin, Saturn and a satellite tonight…

Says:
"the comet was 38 million miles away."
"300mm lens brings objects about as close as a pair of binoculars."

Comet Lulin closes in…

Comet Lulin in the sky and online

Comet Lulin last night…
Says: "Nikon D300 digital camera and a 300mm telephoto lens for the 3 minute exposure."

Yellow Cone Flowers

I have wonderful yellow cone flowers in my back yard, so we can't mow the lawn now. HA

Coneflowers on the Prairie

From the field:













LINKS:

Native Wildflowers of the North Dakota Grasslands

Prairie Coneflower (Ratibida columnifera)

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia)

Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpureum)
(This was that little purple flower in the vase photo.)

Night Sky Terrier

Walked out the door this morning and there he was as clear as can be.
My night sky terrier pooch.
Grab camera and tripod for a quickie pic.



10" F3.2 ISO 100
Tungsten White Balance
Manual Focus Infinity
2 second timer delay
IS Off (Image Stabilization)

Probably a Scottish Terrier cuz his legs are so short in proportion to his body.
See Scotty outline.

He's part of the orion constellation, but all I ever notice is the terrier outline.



Orion constellation image from here.
(I rotated 30 degrees left.)

Find orion in the night sky
I don't know how accurate this is, but it's fun and interesting to play along.
Try it.

Google orion images
Google terrier images
Orion at Wiki

Best High Contrast Photo

This represents my best exposure on a high contrast scene.

Always Take Your Camera With You

I almost didn't take my camera with me during my morning workout. But I did and then I decided to go a bit further than usual. Came to a little brook or whatever you'd call it and paused considering taking a shot and...

Look who flew in for the photo shoot as I stood there...



That is at full zoom, hand held, no post-processing, early morning.

I think this is a Cooper's Hawk Juvenile.

I was so excited I was shaking. Okay, BREATHE, turn on the camera, hold steady, hold breath, shoot.

Here's a no zoom full size crop:



And just to give you an idea of place, here's the entire scene no crop resized to fit my blog.



I just stood there and kept taking photos for as long as I could.
Got 6 pics of him before he flew away.
3 blurry throw aways and 3 keepers out of the bunch.

That was the ONLY thing that showed up interesting that day.
WOW.

Together Alone

Wild sunflowers.

Alone


Together


Together Alone


Sad But Hopeful


With each ending comes a new beginning.