Photos: The Wonderful Land of Macro

Here are some photos I took when it was a really misty day outside and I really like how all these turned out so please check out the others on my Website and see for yourself.

The D600 and the 105mm VR Micro is a beautiful marriage.

Petal and Droplets - 105mm VR Micro - D600

Allium - 105mm VR Micro - D600

I thought I would post these as I edit my shoots I have done recently.  Trying to keep a good flow of photos coming if I can!  

Photos: Macro

Hey folks,

I have just uploaded some more photos to my new arrivals gallery.  They are some some very nice macro shots and with the D600 they are even better than before.  Hope you like them and I have a lot of shoots setup so stay posted for those after I do them!

Tulip - D600

http://www.tomhoustonphotography.ca/#/personal/70c1454423b96e9e80c8e51dfc104b6b

Video: What's In My Bag

He folks,

Just made a "what's in my bag" video recently because of the shift in gear I have done recently so this will be the most up to date gear.  It is all the same as my last gear review video however this is all of the gear I use.

Hope you like it,

Tom

Video: Gear Review

Hey Folks,

Currently I am selling two of my lenses and I have acquired two new big things for my kit.  So right now I have the most gear I will have in a while probably.  Because of this I decided to make a video of all my gear going over quickly some pro's/con's of them.  I hope you enjoy the video and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!

Video: http://youtu.be/sMzt-XTFA9A

Tom

Video: 105mm f/2.8 Micro (Macro) VR Review

Video: 105mm f/2.8 Micro (Macro) VR Review

Here is my video review of the 105mm f/2.8 Macro VR lens on my Youtube channel.  I know I already have a blog post reviewing this lens so check it out here and I will put the video link on that blog post as well.

Here is the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfbknCpkio0

Hope that helps!

My Lens Ratings

Hey,

I decided it would be useful to create a rating system for my lenses.  I will add these to the bottom of all of my Lens Reviews as well as have the links for them in this post.  I kept it a little basic and out of 5.  So 1 being an awful lens you should never buy and 5 being perfect, and I would change nothing about it.  I broke the rating into an overall rating and other categories best suited to what I have used the lenses for.  I thought this made the most sense since I won't rate it for doing something I don't use the lens for.  The overall rating I take into account everything about the lens beyond just the focus of what I use the lens for.  For example how well built it is etc.  Without further adieu, here are the ratings of the seven lenses I have owned:

#1: 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 ED VR DX

Rating: Overall 3/5

For a beginner kit zoom lens: 4/5                                                                      

Overall lens: 3/5

#2: Tokina AT-X 11-16mm f/2.8 Pro DX

Rating: Overall 4/5

Landscape Lens: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

#3: AF 50mm f/1.8 D

Rating: Overall: 4/5

Portrait Lens: 4/5

Low Light Ability: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

#4: 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor

Rating: Overall 4.5/5

Macro Photography: 4.9/5

Portrait: 4.5/5

Overall: 4.5/5

#5: 50mm f/1.4 D AF

Rating: Overall 4.5/5

Portrait: 4.5/5

Low Light: 4.9/5

Overall: 4.5/5

#6: 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Nikkor

Overall: 4/5

Full Body Portraits: 4/5

Low Light: 4/5Overall: 4/5

#7: 17-55mm f/2.8 IF ED AF-S DX 

Rating: Overall: 4/5

Landscape: 4/5

Portrait: 3.5/5

Events: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

Best lenses I own in my opinion is the 50mm f/1.4D and the 105mm Macro VR.  Could have called that one haha.  I love the 17-55mm however being a zoom, it is versatile however it doesn't compare to the 50mm or 105mm.  However I would only sell it if I went FX/FF for the 17-35mm.  I am headed to Arizona soon and it might be the only lens I bring and I know it won't disappoint me.  Anywho, those are my ratings of the lenses.  Hope that helps!

If you want an in-depth review of the above lenses please click on the respectively lens and you will be linked to the its lens review post.  Also if you want to see my best work/portfolio please visit my site, www.tomhoustonphotography.ca.  Also it would mean a lot if you signed the guest book under the connect tab.  It would be neat to see where everyone is visiting my site from!  Also I don't mind if you sign it in another language other than english.  My french and spanish is alright and if not I will translate it somehow.  

Photos: Orchid (In Colour)

Hey,

I wasn't only going to post the black and white photos I did of the orchid and here is one of the ones I kept in colour.  I have two more on my site that I think you should check out (In the new arrivals gallery) at www.tomhoustonphotography.ca.  Here is one of my favourites:

Orchid - 105mm f/2.8G VR Macro

Hope you enjoy theses.  I had a lot of fun taking these photos.

Tom

Photos: Orchid B&W

Hey,

Had a lot of fun with a spray bottle and an orchid last night.  I decided to push myself a little and do some black and whites since I always do colour shots.  So I posted them onto my site on the new arrivals section and here is one of them:

Orchid - Black and White - 105mm f/2.8 Macro VR

I highly recommend just playing around inside with a flash and a macro lens with flowers or other cool objects.  I was originally using my tripod however I find it too restrictive so I turned up my flash and my stutter speed (1/250s) and used my camera handheld.  I ended up using my lens hood for my 105mm as a stand for my SB-900.  Surprisingly it worked really well.  I absolutely love the bokeh and well everything about the 105mm.  Stunning lens.  If you don't have one and love macro I highly recommend it!

Please go check them out on my site at www.tomhoustonphotography.ca.

I hope you like these shots, I really do and stan posted for some colour ones later!

Photos: FS Shot #8!

Yes that is right ladies and gentlemen,

My 8th FS shot is up and I am very happy with it.  I hope you guys like it too.  The model was lovely and my MUA was very good as always.  Here is the FS Extra and I have both this and the actual FS shot on my site.  You can find the FS shot in my FS gallery as well as with this shot below in my new arrivals gallery.  Hope you enjoy!

Flower Series Extra - 105mm f/2.8 G Macro VR

Remember my site is www.tomhoustonphotography.ca if you didn't know/click on the link above.  

Thanks for following my work,

Tom

Review: Beauty Dish

Sorry for the small delay on my review of my beauty dish however I wanted to use it enough to make sure I could give a good review.  

Review: Cameron Mini-Max Beauty Dish (Set)

Recently I purchased a beauty dish because I wanted to create different lighting that had more character.  Before the beauty dish I was using two umbrellas with my SB-600 and SB-900.  Most of my portraits had no shadows and were perfectly lit however I wanted more attitude sometimes which two umbrellas couldn't deliver.  So I decided to get a beauty dish.

Thoughts and Opinions:

It was one of the hardest things to assemble since the instructions did not make sense.  Once I decided to ignore the instructions it was easier to built.  However I had never seen how a beauty dish was setup so part of the could have been my lack of knowledge.  Anywho, it is a 20 inch beauty dish and it came with the brackets and a diffuser as well as a honeycomb grid.  The size is great for my SB-900 and the beauty dish and its pieces are well made.  I am not worried about it being cheap and breaking easily.

So far it is a very great light modifier to have.  I do love the light it makes, especially with the grid.  If I need to go back to my shadowless lighting then I can usually achieve it from just using the bare beauty dish or with the diffuser.  

I think it is a great beauty dish to use with a speedlight and is a good size for what I use it for.  I have no complaints with it so far and it is doing everything I need it to.

Usage:

I have used it in five shoots now and I really like the results.  It does add a lot more character than an umbrella which is great.  I am very impressed with the lighting and I find that I am learning to use it even better with each shoot.  

Pros:

- Good Size

- Great Lighting

- Versatile (grid + diffuser)

- Well Built

Cons:

- Springs holding the dish in the centre might lose their spring over time (however there is a spare set)

Sample Images:

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

Portrait - 35mm f/1.8 G

Portrait - 105mm VR Macro 

Conclusions: 

Overall very impressed with this light modifier and I am very impressed with what I have gotten from it.  Well built, lightweight and produces great light.  I hardly have any faults with it and I really like the effect it is having on my portraits.  There isn't much to say about it other than it is a great addition to my lighting setup.

Additional Info (Added October 2012):

Here is the link for my video review of my beauty dish: http://youtu.be/ZUU4LCUCuZM

Hope that helps!

Photos: [N] Flower Series Extras

Hey,

Just finished editing my shoot from last weekend and I loved the final products.  It was a fun shoot with my makeup artist and the model.  As always and we had a blast.  Got a great flower series photo from it which I will post with the rest when I am done the series (at 6 now).  Also one of the photos was really dark and I edited it a lot more than I usually do just to see how it would look.  I think it turned out well.

Here is one of the extras and you can check my Flickr for the others.  Without further adieu:

Portrait - 105mm VR Macro

Hope you enjoy!

Photos: Nat's Flower Series Extras

Photos: Nat's Flower Series Extras


So I was able to fit in another shoot and do another flower series shoot in my studio.  I really liked this one because I kind of got to build the shoot from the ground up.  I went out and bought a bed sheet and used pins to make a dress with it.  Got the flowers and used my studio.  The model was a great help and was also able to get the large lily I have ever seen to stay in her hair which, was an impressive feat.


I can't wait to have enough of these photos to call them a series.  I have three currently and hopefully will get more over Christmas break.


These are two extra photos from the flower series however the one shot I will use for the series is not posted yet.  So without further adieu here are the Flower Series Extras from this shoot:

Portrait - 105mm

Portrait - 35mm

Thank you for looking!

Photos: Fall Makeup Shoot

Hey

Just posted the Fall Makeup Shoot photos on Facebook and Flickr.  I really love the final products of this shoot.  The Makeup Artist, Leslie Emmerson did a great job with the makeup as well as our planning we did into the clothing and the other finer details of the shoot.

Really impressed with the models, they did a great job especially since it was fairly cold that day.

So here are some of the photos and be sure to check them out on Flickr and Facebook:

Portrait - 50mm

Portrait - 105mm

Portrait - 105mm

Hope you love them as much as I do.

Update: Photos:

Hey,

So I managed to make a contact at a local flower store.  This means I can get scrap flowers as well as they may want me to take photos for their website.  I call that a good day.

I got some more flowers and one of them was a very nice orchid.  Also I decided to add some water drops into the scene.  I like the extra detail as well as the reflections in the droplets. So without further adieu:

Orchid & Water Drops - 105mm VR Macro

 And I like trying black and whites so this was my B&W one.

Orchid - 105mm VR Macro

Hope you enjoy!  And don't forget to check out these photos are more on my Flickr.  Lastly if you have any questions please don't hesitate to e-mail me at tomhouston7@gmail.com.

How To: My Macro Shoot

How To: My Macro Shoot

I was wanting to take some photos so I went out and bought a Daisy to do some macro photography with.  This was the first time I have done "serious" in-door macro shoot and I like my results.  so I thought it would be helpful to explain how I got the shots that I did.

So the gear I used was:

- Camera (Captain obvious)
- Tripod
- Macro lens (105mm VR Macro f/2.8)
- SB-600 (Since I lack a Macro flash/ring)
- Light stand (To hold said flash)
- Wireless Shutter Release

- Stool
- Flower (Gerbera Daisy)
- Vase

So what did all that look like?  Well I decided to take a photo of the setup with my phone to show yeah.  However as I mentioned there, it was with my phone so sorry for the quality:

My Macro Shoot Setup

So I had my SB-600 left of camera pointed at the daisy which was mounted on my light stand.  The D90 with the 105mm VR Macro lens on my tripod.  I had a lamp lighting the flower however I had my flash set to overpower the lamp so it didn't effect my photo.  The lamp was just so I could see the flower so I could focus on it.

To the right side of the photo you can see the light getting by my black curtain which is what I used as a black background to get this effect:

Gerbera Daisy - 105mm VR Macro

Where as I used my wall for the white background however it wasn't white enough for what I wanted so I used a sheet of printer paper.  So I held a sheet of printer paper behind the flower to get a white background as seen here:

Gerbera Daisy - 105mm VR Macro

As for other details, you mostly get the shots you want after experimenting.  I didn't really have an idea of certain photos I wanted, I just tried different angles, lighting and backgrounds.  As for camera settings, you have a lot more control over them inside than you do out in a garden.  I was continually changing my aperture and shutter speed to see what effect it had on that on the photos.  Usually I am restricted by aperture when I do shots outside since I want a very fast shutter speed to freeze any motion from wind or my hand shaking since I mostly shoot handheld.  Another tip I can give is keep checking your histogram to make sure nothing is too far off the left or right side.  As well it helps to have the most information in the centre of the histogram and as close to the top of the of the chart as possible without going off the top.  The larger the area in the histogram the more information in the photos usually.  

Also I just thought of one thing I did that was extra was I washed off some pollen of the petals.  I was doing some 1:1 shots so I wanted to make sure I didn't have extra pollen on the flower. 

I hope that helps and again any and all questions are welcome.  Just send me an e-mail at tomhouston7@gmail.com and I will gladly answer your questions.

Photos: Macro

Hey,

So I was doing more writing in my blog than I was doing photography lately so I decided to change it up a bit.  I went out and bought a Gerbera Daisy and decided to do a macro shoot.  Usually I am crawling around in my mom's garden when I am home taking photos of flowers.  However this time I wanted to control all the variables.  So here is a sneak peak and then I will put of the flowers and how I got the shots:

Gerbera Daisy - 105mm VR Macro

Gerbera Daisy - 105mm VR Macro

Stay posted for more photos as well as how I setup the lighting and such.  Hope you enjoy!

Photos: Lavender Falls

Hey,

So I just went hiking today and I wanted to try to capture the motion of a river.  I have never really tried this properly so I thought I would give it a honest go this time.  It was a semi-cloudy day so I thought that this type of photo would be a good one to go after since there was not a lot of light.

My dad and myself went off to try to find a certain area of the Bruce Trail.  So off we went.  We found the river and then decided to hike along the bank to get to the small rapids that were further upstream.  This got a little risky from the mud and such but after a couple of minutes of trudging through mud I found a good spot.

So after a small amount of trial and error I got some decent photos.  The sun did come out more and more as the afternoon passed so I couldn't have the shutter speed I wanted.  As I wrote in my take on the exposure triangle, I just fiddled with the settings on manual to get the right shutter speed to catch the motion but the right aperture and ISO so that it wasn't one big blown out photo.

I am happy with my shots I got but I know I can do better.  I just need to find a better river and a cloudier day.  Maybe wait till fall since I will have a little more colour in the photos.  However one of my photos I did toss in black and white since it had some cool tones going on.

So here are my two photos I liked the most from the trek:

River Wisp - 17-55mm

Flow - Black and White - 105mm Macro VR

I hope you like the photos and thanks again for reading!

Focus: Depth of Field

Focus: Depth of Field


So I mentioned Depth of Field (DoF) earlier in Part I, on exposure using aperture.  Changing your aperture settings of your lens changes the depth of field in your photos.  Now, what is depth of field?  It is the width of area in your photo that is in focus.  The larger your aperture (or smaller the aperture number) the smaller DoF you have.  So I demonstrated this using my portrait shot of my friend at f/1.4 (wide open/large aperture) with my 50mm f/1.4:

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

So, I mentioned that the area of focus is just on her eye that is closest to the camera.  That is a very small or "shallow" DoF.  Another example of this would be some of my hand held macro work.  I need to use a wide open aperture to allow the most amount of light in to allow myself to have a fast enough shutter speed to not have any blur.  Some of my macro photos demonstrate a very small DoF which happens when you shoot macro photos with a wide open aperture.  This example of the dragonfly demonstrates just how small of a DoF we are talking:

Dragonfly - 105mm Macro VR

The depth of field in this photo is roughly the width of this dragonfly's head.  And when you look into the background it is completely blurred out.  This blurred out background is call bokeh.  Bokeh is not so much a cool hip trait for dragonfly portraits but more so for people portraits.  The photo above has very nice creamy bokeh.  The bokeh or out of focus background allows portraits to pop out a little more.


In landscape photography, as I also mentioned in Part I, needs a small aperture (or large aperture value) to create a large DoF so everything in the landscape is in focus.  Here is an example:

Boardwalk - 17-55mm

This photo just demonstrates that the depth of field is good because you can still make out the grass in the background and the boards going off into the distance.  In landscape photos you want the most detail you can get usually.  However in this photo the background isn't completely sharp because I focused more on the foreground because I wanted that area of the photo to be sharpest.  This was so that you looked at the bottom of the boardwalk first because it was sharpest, and then were led to the top of the photo.  The boardwalk gave your eyes a path, literally through the photo.  So you don't always have to follow photography rules especially if you have a game plan with what you are doing.

Depth of Field can be changed by Tilt-Shift lenses.  These flatten the DoF a little so that the DoF is more horizontal than just vertical.  This allows landscapes to have more detail because the DoF is flatter to the horizontal axis.  I personally have not used a TS lens so I have no examples and the photos would just look like a very sharp landscape photos from the foreground to background.  

Other manipulation of optics or in post-processing can blur the photo more to make the aperture effect on the DoF different.  Lensbaby lenses alter the effects of the DoF to blur areas of the photo while keeping certain areas of the photo in focus.  Again I have not tried one of these lenses so I am not an expert witness but that is the gist I have gotten from seeing the photos from those lenses.

So DoF can be a factor that makes or breaks a photo.  But just like most rules in photography, they can get tossed out the window from time to time.  It's art, who cares.  I am sure you can find an audience to like your photos even if you don't do the normal things with DoF.  But more often than not, DoF is a good thing to pay attention to since it is a large-ish part of photos.  

And with that I will wrap up my focus on DoF, I hope that helps and again if you have any questions or things you would want me to cover on my blog, do not be afraid to send me off a e-mail @ tomhouston7@gmail.com.

Photo Shoot: [E]

I finished editing the photos of the shoot today and I think they look great.  It was shot on a farm mostly by an abandoned house that was falling apart.  Sadly it was a little too unsafe to go into due to all the lead based paint falling off the wood everywhere.  Also the floor boards would probably give way under weight.

Anywho, great shots as I said and I do really like them.  I will put up some photos here that are not on my Flickr account just to have some variety.  My Facebook Page for photography will also have some unique photos from the shoot as well so be sure to check those out.

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

Portrait - 105mm 

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

 So again make sure to check out the other photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomjbh/sets/72157627094657878/

And as well on my photography page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.214153681959835.51840.153882831320254

I hope you enjoy the new photos,

Tom

AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

Lens Review: Nikkor 105mm Macro VR

Thoughts and Opinions:

Where to begin... well lens may be my favourite lens.  I just thought about it for a second there and concluded that it is my favourite lens.  I thoroughly love this lens.  Here is why:

This lens is tack sharp, hands down.  The detail it can pick up just makes you want to take pictures of everything to see what things look like at a macro level.  It is a great macro lens.  It is great at taking 1:1 photos and they look great.  I can go on about why this is a good macro lens but I would rather keep this review shorter than a novel if I can.  

If I have space to back up, I use this lens for portraits as well because it is tact sharp.  Turns out it is a wonderful portrait lens.  Personally, I want a 85mm however between a 50mm and this 105mm, a 85mm might not have it's own niche there.  I have decided that if I keep doing portraits a lot and such, I may get a 85mm but as it stands my 105mm does the trick just fine.  

One bad habit that this lens allows me to get away with is not having to lug around my tripod with me everywhere I go.  Now this is just from my personal experience and I do not suggest doing this but, the VR on this lens lets me get away without using my tripod.  Any website you find on taking macro shots will have "use a tripod" in there however I find it just limits what I can do.  Yes, I am sure I could have better shots if I use a tripod.  I agree there, but I was in Saskatchewan and I was chasing shy dragonflies around these bushes which was difficult to begin with.  It was hard to slowly sneak up on the dragonflies and would have been nearly impossible with a tripod.  Another time I was balancing myself on a branch on a muddy river bank to take photos of frogs.  Again, it was very difficult and if I had my tripod I could have ended up swimming with it in the river.  So that is just my personal view and I know it isn't the best way but it works for me.  I can't promise it would work for you but I can tell you this is an amazing lens.

The cost has dropped since I bought it but that only means it is even better for its cost performance.  Also a lens this good, which has the Nikon's pro gold ring around it, is a no brainer if you like macro or want a good sharp versatile lens.  It is pro glass and it less than $1000.  

One thing about this lens that always makes me happy is the colour rendition.  As I mentioned in my Tokina 11-16mm review, I want photos that look like what I saw with my eyes.  The closer the photo is to what I saw then the happier I am.  My examples of this is taking photos of leaves in the fall because I find with other lenses the colours get a little darker and muddier looking.  I took a photo of yellow leaves in the fall and it was exactly how I saw it.  Also I took photos of a pow wow in Saskatchewan and the colours of the all the outfits was truly amazing.  And again, the 105mm passed with flying colours with colour rendition.

Before I got this lens, I tried out my Godfather's macro lens.  He owns the Tamron 90mm.  This was a good lens and I got some nice shots with it however I had a few issues with it during the short time I had it.  The autofocus was slow and loud.  I know AF is not used for 1:1 because it is easier using manual focus but I wanted a lens for more than just macro.  A slow and loud AF wouldn't be fun for portraits other other non-macro uses.  I could be wrong but I don't believe it had any vibration reduction either.  This was also a negative because I didn't want to have to be attached to a tripod for everything I did with a macro lens.  Another feature that caused the Tamron to lose points was the lens did not have internal focusing.  The barrel extended almost half of the original length of the lens.  It was almost far enough when you are doing 1:1 you could bump into things.  Also having this large object moving towards a shy insect could be troublesome.  Because of these things, I ruled out the Tamron.

I put a lot of thought into getting the Sigma 150mm Macro.  It was a worthy contender however it did not have stabilization as well, and I know sigmas are known to be heavy.  For these two reasons I did not want to chance it if I wanted it to work well being hand held and hiking with it. 

My only bone to pick with this lens is that it actually is not a fixed aperture lens.  Depending on focusing distance, it can go up to f/4.  It is a minor detail since that is only when you are very close to something which helps most of the time because it gives you larger depth of field (DOF) which aids with macro photography.  At f/2.8 in a 1:1 photo, the DOF would be smaller than a dragonfly's head.  

Just as a side note, the lens hood for this lens is very good.  It stops the sun from coming in from bad angles for outside shots as well as protects the front element from easily being hit by anything.  

Usage:

As I have mentioned, I use this lens for macro work, portraits and anything where I want the colours to be perfect.  

Pros:

- Sharpness

- VR

- Relatively fast and quiet focusing

- Internal focus

- Good for macro, portraits and vibrant coloured photos

- Cost for performance 

- Pro glass

- Not too heavy

- Built like a tank

- Focus range switch

- Nice lens hood

- FX lens

Cons:

- Aperture changes with distance, but that helps increase depth of field which is nice for macro shots

Sample Images:

Portrait of Hayleigh - 105mm (Portraiture) 

Frog - 105mm (Macro work)

Fall Leaves - 105mm (Colour rendition)

Conclusions: 

As I am sure I you’ve noticed, I think very highly of this lens.  The Nikkor 105mm Macro VR is a very good lens.  I highly recommend it for macro use as well as portrait or nature shots.  It doesn’t have a lot of reach with this lens for only being 105mm however for my purposes I find 105mm is perfect.  Also on the D90 it is more around 150mm because of the crop factor.  Anyways, this is a very solid and sharp lens.  For the price and the versatility of the lens it would be a little silly not to own.  Haha, but that is just my opinion.  So in conclusion this is my favourite lens, and I am very happy with it so far.  If you are thinking about purchasing this lens, I would, but if my word is not good enough I would keep reading reviews of it and you’ll find nine times out of ten this is the lens people pick for macro work.  I did a good month of research into macro lenses and that is what I found.  Hope this helps if you are sitting on the fence.

I would definitely give this a near perfect score if I had a rating system.  


If you have any questions please don't hesitate to e-mail me at tomhoustphotography@gmail.com.  Also if you are interested in visiting my photography website to see my top work, please visit it here: www.tomhoustonphotography.ca.


Rating: Overall 4.5/5


Macro Photography: 4.9/5
Portrait: 4.5/5
Overall: 4.5/5


Lastly, I have started doing video instead of writing my long blog posts.  I started up a Youtube channel and I will be re-reviewing all my gear there in a video so here is my one for the 105mm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfbknCpkio0

Hope that helps!