ripples © Lilly Schwartz 2011
At the moment I’m staying at my dad’s place in a small suburban town near Düsseldorf. It’s one of those places full of lawnmowers where the neighbours give you strange looks if they haven’t seen you before. There are rows of houses, little patches of front garden, washed cars and strange decorations. It’s my definition of a nightmare: Not only is it so boring that it can drive your brain out of your skull, no, it’s also photographically dull.
Nonetheless I went out with my camera yesterday and tried out my new telephoto lens. It’s a Canon EF-S 55-250mm IS lens, so the low budget version. As far as I can see after about 200 pictures with the lens the autofocus is a little slow and not exactly spot on. Several times it focussed on something that was closer or further away than my actual subject. So, I assume that I can get better results with using the centre-point and re-composing. Where the focus is right it does produce nice pictures though and the image stabilisation does a good job too even at 250mm. All in all a good lens for the price I paid. And I’m also really curious as to how far I can get just with the low budget equipment.
Sure, I read blogs of people who shoot with a Leica M9 and a Noctilux lens and of course that’s nice, but honestly: Where do these people get $7,000 for a camera body and $10,000 for a lens if they’re not professional photographers?! That’s just insane since I wouldn’t pay that much for a car!
With my low budget equipment and in the photographically dull surroundings I was facing I still managed to get this great shot yesterday. It was taken at a stream near the s-bahn station where somehow ripples where spreading across although it wasn’t raining at all.
amazing picture!!
http://rodposse.com/
Thanks 🙂
All that light bouncing off those ripples made for a wonderful shot!
I know all to well what you mean about a photographically dull place, though. *sigh* I’ve been in a similar location for quite some time now…
Thanks 🙂
Yeah, photographically dull places are just annoying. I’m already thinking of where to go for today’s picture and I’m at a loss if I don’t want to take a train to somewhere else.
wow…gorgeous!
Glad you like it!
this almost monochrome photo (but I like the little green leaves) is very pleasant and a clear demonstration that it is more important to have a low budget gear an excellent eye than an high budget camera and lens and a poor photographic eye. Having said this I admit there is a sort of fetishism in the photographic world, I would dare to say more among the amateurs than among pro’s (who have to make their calculation very well in order to make profit).
And about the dull place where you are now in my opinion you have two options: one is to document the dulness (M.Parr made a serie about boring places) and the other is to see it as a challenge and try to make it interesting…I know, easy to say…but I’m sure you can manage it quite well 🙂
robert
Thanks Robert! It’s indeed some kind of fetishism amongst the amateurs when it comes to the gear. However, if you think about it, cameras like the Leica M9 really show how far you can go with good gear. There is this blog called Shoot Tokyo in my links that shows just amazing pictures taken with a Leica and they have just beautifully soft colours. I don’t think I’ve seen anything similar with dslr cameras.
what a very nice picture 😮
Thanks indeed 🙂
Hi,
“Gear is good. Vision is better”- David duChemin.. (www.pixelatedimage.com/blog , wonderful photographer.)
Hope your vision helps you in transforming the photographically dull ones into new challenges.
Best
Georgie
PS. its your photograph that the audience appreciates, not your camera or settings..check http://www.dannyst.com/your-camera-takes-great-photos/ for more..
Thanks Georgie! I totally agree with you on this. It takes more than just great gear to take a good picture. However, let’s just say that good gear sure can help. Some shots are just impossible to get with point and shoot cameras for example …
What a wonderful photo. It’s like a vortex pulling you in!
Aww, thanks! “Vortex” is a great word, don’t you think?
I agree there.. I myself can see the difference between the first hundred images in my blog – with a digital camera – and the current (almost ) hundred – with a dslr- 🙂
Yeah, point and shoot versus a dslr makes a big difference. And of course the lenses make a big difference, you just can’t compare a 200 quid lens with one for more than a thousand quid.
Fantastic! All aspects of this photo are fantastic, good eye.