A Scenic World

Oh, my, the new Pentax K-7 looks tasty! It’s compact and lighter than the K20D and should have better auto-focus (including low-light!) and cleaner high ISO photos, with all the features of the K20D as well. In short, OMG I HAVE TO HAVE THIS CAMERA. It means foregoing my love of AA batteries, but to be honest I haven’t had to buy any AA batteries in years because it’s become as much a habit to charge my batteries as it is to brush my teeth every day.

I remember when the K200D was announced on January 23rd, 2008; I thought I would be content with my K100D for years. Then on March 14th – a mere 7 weeks later! – I scratched the sensor on my K100D. I had to shoot a wedding and didn’t have time to wait for Pentax service to fix it, so I bought the K200D.

I love my K200D. I have absolutely no qualms with it. Sometimes the autofocus is dodgy, but I ask a lot of my camera, and it usually performs. I trust it to shoot at ISO 800 quite comfortably without feeling the need to use extra noise reduction. To be fair, it is a little on the heavy side; today I used Jens’ DS (which is more similar to the K100D in size) and realized how much I missed having a light camera. The K7 isn’t lighter than the K200D, but it’s not much heavier – only 2.3 oz. more.

Now I just have to convince Jens to buy my K200D. He took it on an aerial photo shoot today; with any luck he’ll realize just how awesome it is, and I’ll end up with the K7 come July…..

It sounds like a good dream, eh?

Oh, and here’s my self-portrait of the day to commemorate the announcement, inspired by my photo commemorating the K200D:

Did I mention that this photo wasn’t taken in a studio with studio lighting and a wind machine? This photo was taken outdoors, along a fairly well-travelled thoroughfare. I chose it because I could tell if the sun ever came out from behind the clouds while the wind was blowing, then my hair would be backlit but the wall behind me would be in shadow, creating the dark backdrop.

So I waited. The clouds were endless, but that meant the wind was gusting perfectly. And then – SUN! And no wind. I still snapped away with the remote, but these were all useless.

So I waited some more. Approximately 20 people had walked by at this point, seeing me standing in a low-cut shirt, next to tripod and camera and not seeming to be taking pictures of anything. One person stopped and asked me if I was taking pictures of nature. I hesitated, and then told the truth: I was waiting for the wind to blow so I could take a picture of myself. She looked at me like I was slightly crazy and walked on.

Finally, finally, finally, the sun broke through the clouds, and one gust blew my way as I scurried in front of the camera. I snapped and snapped, and out of about 30 total shots, I ended up with exactly one that fit the bill.

I thought about waving goodbye to the old man who had been tending his garden about ten feet away the entire time, but he had pretended to ignore me (thank God!) so I pretended to ignore him as a thankful gesture and just went home.

It wasn’t until after I posted this photo that it occurred to me that this shot could have very easily been taken in the comforts of my living room, with a leaf and a glass of water and a black background. If I knew how to control flash, I could have easily made the lighting as dramatic as I wanted it.

But I don’t know how to use flash that effectively, and this certainly wasn’t taken in my living room.

It was taken in the backyard, which is almost just as wild as the paths I walk. I had to use the tripod, which terrifies me (an unlucky incident with the K200D and the FA 31 and an unsecured tripod still haunts me to this day). It took me forever to find the right kind of leaf with the right kind of light that was getting enough water to make a drip predictable enough to shoot. Luckily the wind was in my favor – there wasn’t any.

Once I had the setup, it still took me at least a dozen tries to get everything exactly how I had envisioned it. I kept accidentally hitting the leaf with my hand which is MUCH closer to the drop than it appears here. The vignetting, by the way, is all natural – my hand just naturally blocked the weak sunlight.

All told, I probably spent at least half an hour on this shot. And it was set-up, to a degree, but all the elements are in their natural state – this was real rain water, on a real leaf that really hangs at just that angle and with my real hand immediately underneath and with the real lighting hitting everything just so.

If I had achieved the same indoors, in a studio, it would have the same dramatic effect on the viewer, but I would not feel the same accomplishment as the photographer. Likewise, I almost never crop a photo – getting it right in the camera heightens that sense of achievement, even so far as just straightening horizons (somehow, though, when I use my camera bag this rule flies out the window). The irony of my prodigious (some would say obscene) use of Lightroom is not lost on me, however. I think I’m probably in the minority by thinking that using Lightroom to full effect is no more a photography sin than setting up a shot in a studio.