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Friday photo challenge: Bokeh

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Bokeh (derived from Japanese boke, a noun form of bokeru, ”become blurred or fuzzy”) is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field.[1] Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject. —wikipedia

This week, create a photograph with out-of-focus background to emphasise the subject, either using the photo editor of your choice, or by focusing ;)

Happy weekend!

English

Photo challenge: The Lilliputian world

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Since the first time I read this tutorial, I’ve been wanting to try out fake tilt shift, and I was reminded of that desire when I read and clicked Stefan Jansson’s comment on ichimusai’s Hötorget post.  Stefan has posted some excellent fake tilt shift photos on his site, check it out!

This week’s challenge is to create your own Lilliputian world, by no means are you restricted to using fake tilt shift, even though I am going to :)

Have a nice weekend!

English

Hötorget

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Street SalesHötorget is famous for the people selling things in the daily market place all the way back to the early medieval days. This used to be a village called Väsby in those days and when they built the street ”Kungsgatan” (the King’s Street) they found several skeletons, money and other remains from some 700 years back in time.

In 1914 the trade with fresh raw meats such as beef, sheep, swine or horse. Later the same year all freshed and skinned animals as well as birds, salted or smoked fish, boiled shellfish, butter, bread, cheese and flour was also banned for sanitary reasons.

Hötorget

Many of the people selling foodstuffs then moved into the indoor marketplace nearby instead where it was still allowed.

Today you will find mainly people selling used second hand items, toys, mobile phone accessories, bags, handbags and valises, cheap clothes (with varying quality I must say) your various bric-a-brac stuff and old musical instruments, CD’s, LP’s and so on… and you can find pretty much anything if you asked around. I saw two laptops being sold as well. One looked severely used. The other looked brand new.

No questions asked.

The houses around is dominated by shopping but there is a huge blue house where which is the Stockholm Concert Hall. This building requires a page of it’s own but it is a great example of 1920s architecture.

English

Patrik Freij

Patrik

We got to meet Patrik the first time in 2006. Then we hardly saw him for a while since he was working at Wallmans Salonger for a long time and we visited him there one magical night.

Patrik is involved in a long term project called Varietéteatern, he is an artist and actor and have worked with circus and theater for a long time.

He lives together with Ylva and their two kids on what used to be a farmsted in Trollsta, a few minutes from Segersän in Nynäshamns kommun in Stockholm.

In the same place there is another family as well with three kids and they are also involved in the same theatre project so there are two very nice houses there, a huge barn for repetitions and working out new acts, a workshop place to make props for the acts, a place to sew costumes.

We are so happy to know these people, every time we get there we are feeling so welcome and there is always something going on. If nobody is arc welding outside to make a home built solar panel for water heating, then there is someone sewing on a costume for a new.

Thank you guys! You rock!

English

Review: Nikkor 16-85 f/3.5-5.6

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This is a wide-angle-to-normal zoom lens that is ideal for street and general walk around photography especially if you keep a longer lens, such as the 70-300 as a possibility. If you already own the 18-55 or 18-70 lens you may wish to spend your money on something else. This lens is different in some ways but generally it is the same family as those two lenses. This lens is meant to be a replacement for the 24-120 on a digital body and does a good job.

Full lens designation: Nikkor AF-S DX VR 16-85 f/3,5-5,6G ED-IF

Features

This lens uses the Nikon silent autofocus motor so it works on all digital bodies, even those without focussing motor built in. It has low-dispersion glass and internal focusing meaning there is no rotating of the front lens (great if you use polarizer).

Distortion

The lens have a very obvious barrel distortion at 16 mm which is normal for this wide angles, but I was surprised how much more distortion it had compared to the 18-200 mm lens or the old trusty 18-70 kit lens that used to be delivered with many cameras in the past. The distortion is kind of fun and can be used in interesting ways but when shooting straight lines such as buildings you have to be careful how you point the camera or it looks like the buildings are leaning back (or forth).

This type of distortion is not difficult to correct in photoshop, GIMP or some other editing software but I feel it is a little more than what I had expected at these focal lengths. Once zoomed out to 25 mm and beyond the distortion is much more normal and actually becomes more of a pincushion distortion than a barrel type.

Vibration Reduction

The Vibration Reduction (VR-II) works great. I hardly ever think of it any more but it is there and I have done some serious long exposure time shots hand held with it and there is never a problem. Turn it off when you use it on a tripod however, it can sometimes act really weird when you have a tripod fixed camera and happen to forget to turn VR off.

Sharpness

The sharpness of this lens is good in the middle and average in the corners. It is however better than the 18-200 in almost all comparable focal settings and I have to give it a pretty decent rating because of this. I always considered the 18-200 very soft and the 18-70 is good but this lens is even better. The sharpest setting for this lens are apetures centered around f/8. Fully open it gets a little soft in the corners but stay remarkably sharp in the center. It is also extremely sharp on the smaller apertures, up to f/20 or so it is still really good and this is unexpectedly well performed by a lens in this cost range!

Sharpness is better than the famous 18-70 and much better than the 18-200 lens which is well known to be quite soft at any aperture outside its sweet spot around f/8-f/11. If you are looking for sharpness then this is your lens.

Vignetting

This lens have a easily seen vignetting. Fully open at f/3,5 and focal length of 16 mm the corners are at leas one full EV darker than the center section of the lens. When stopped down 1 stop it is much better alright and two stops down it is not noticeable any more. The vignetting is worst at 16 mm and becomes better the further along to 85 mm you zoom. I guess this is the price to pay for the excellent sharpness of this piece of glass.

Chromatic aberration, flaring and ghosting

I have not seen any problems with this, I would say it is better than average.

Build quality and feel

Excellent. It feels like the much more expensive pro lenses would. The zoom will not ”creep” like the 18-200 would do and all movements are nice and smooth and precise.

The lens takes 67Ø filters so this is fairly standard and the same thread diameter as the 70-300 which is a gread second lens to this one. I still favour the 18-200/3.5-5.6 lens because of less distortion as a walk-around lens but the added wide angle of 16 mm is great sometimes.

Positive sides:

  • Light
  • Very sharp for a zoom, comparable to a prime in some aspects!
  • Same filter diameter as the 70-300 which is a great companion lens
  • You get VR with it!

Negative sides:

  • Vignetting is strong when fully open on the widest angles
  • It’s not a really cheap lens
  • The distortion could be better actually, compared with the 18-200 or the 18-70 it is much more pronounced at the wide angles.
English

Shooting in the winter – over expose!

I love the winter. For many reasons but it is also one of my favourite times for photography. The reflected light from the snow is really useful and sometimes you can get the most incredible colours at sunrise and sunset. And since sunrise is pretty late in the morning and the sun sets early in the afternoon this time of year it is an excellent time to capture those special colours and ”scandinavian light”.

A tip if you are shooting snowy landscapes is to overexpose when you take the pictures. About 1/2 – 3/2 EV is a great setting if you have more than 50% snow in your composition. The reason for this is that the camera tends to underexpose snow, the reason being that the light meter in the camera expects the world to be 18% grey for a perfect exposure. Since the snow is usually pure white the camera tends to adjust it down, about 18% or so from the total white. Therefore your pictures can look devoid of contrast and bland when you have them developed.

Dial in a bit of over-exposure on your camera, make a test shot, turn on the highlight markings that shows if you are blowing out the snow and then shoot for perfect exposure.

Kallhäll in Snow
Winter light. The setting sun lends a pinkish hue to the whole setting.
Street light
Street light
Sagovägen in Snow
My car is the second one...