SooSing Photography

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Werri Beach, NSW
SooSing Photography

This is the story about my photography journey. In 2010, I dabbled in iPhoneography, which was great fun, but somehow, I was itching for more.

By Dec2010, after "researching" for abt 6 months, I jumped in with a Nikon D90 and 18-200m lens purchase. And there's no turning back! Equipment
Camera: D90
Zoom Lens: Nikon 18-200m; Nikon 24-70 f2.8; Tokina 11-16 f2.8; Nikon 80-200 f2.8
Prime; Nikon 35mm f1.8

"Lust" list:
Camera D800 or D600 (to be launched)
Lens 70-200 VRII f2.8; Sigma 85 f1.4; Nikon 14-24 f2.8 or 16-35 f4

08/08/2021

Endlier Guppy Fry.
F51, 1/200, ISO100, flash at 1/16.

Finally opened the flash set I bought for my Z5, and used the FTZ with the macro lens.
Wow, it's been a while, but what better way since we're all locked down.

Learnings:
1.The Neewer flash trigger doesn't work with Z5! Not sure if Nikon doesn't support 3rd party triggers :(
2.I used the old Nikon flash as a trigger.
3.Shooting this was a lot of trial and error, just trying to find the right settings to get the flash to fire.
3.New flash has so much more output! needed to dial down to... 1/16 power with smallest aperture.
4.Although can't see with the naked eye, with macro lens, every bit of dirt is picked up. I had to "clone" out all the dirt.. darken the background.
5.These fry swim really fast! unlike shrimp. Much more challenging.

I need to give this another go some day. Not happy with the result.

08/05/2021

Australia Autumn. Z5, 14mm, F11, ISO800, 1/50s.

After using D600 for the last 10 years, I decided to make the jump to mirrorless. This is my first outing with the camera. I've discovered:
1.Glad I went with Nikon. At least the menus are familiar - really shortens the learning curve.
2.Flip screen is great! No more bending down in awkward situation trying to shoot different angles.
3.No more IR remote. Snapbridge app allows me to view the image (If say I'm in it) before shooting. I can even use my camera to change settings! No more trial and error.
4.Seeing exposure even with ND filters! Wow!
5.Snapbridge also keeps a copy of the photo on my phone. So no need to wait till I get home, view and quick edit on my phone, if I wanted to.
6.No more ugly oil spots that my D600 kept churning out, esp visible on long exposures.
7.Don't delete photos using Snapbridge. It leaves a corrupted copy of the photo on the SD card.

I have yet to really test out the IBIS. And long exposure shots.
After losing interest in photography for a bit (hence the MIA on this page), I'm now much more excited to get back into it.

And happy to retire my D600 body, the (twice) broken 16-30mm lens I've been using.

18/07/2020

Sunset at Gerringong.
F22; ISO50; 24mm (the zoom is a bit broken, so I thought I went as wide as I could or 16mm, surprised it is 24mm.... fail).

Headed back from family walk, I stopped to take a photo of this super cool classy IronMan like mansion by the cliff - but suddenly, the skies lit up, for that brief moment - and I had to stop shooting, run to this spot 100m away (I love reflections!), and snap.

I do feel that the camera cannot capture the glory of God in all its splendor, the dynamic range just.... limited. So enjoy it whilst I could (with my God given eyes), snap what I can, and capture a memory.

Oh, I did rip my beautiful Aldi down jacket, brushing past the barn wire, so had feathers flying everywhere whilst I tried taking this.

11/07/2020

Macro photography workshop.
Went for a workshop organised by Sony. Got to learn a few new tricks, try out macro in the shop.

I must say that it isn't all that easy, without an articulating screen and without focus peaking. But I am very happy to have tried something different, and learned new things.

Only time will tell if I will shoot any more macro at home.

28/06/2020

Surf's Up.
Shot at 600mm (120-300 with 2x converter) at F5.6; 1/2000s.

The auto-focus is hopeless with the converter, so it's manual focus - which is challenging for sport/fast shooting! It was after breakfast, around 9, so the light was harsh as. I shoot when I have the opportunity.

So out of 150 shots, I like these 3.

07/06/2020

Epic Fail.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA4UFOQH_TT/?igshid=b9e0eo6ybty8

19/05/2020

M2 Barclay Bus stop, F11, ISO100, 6s

It was an uncharacteristically foggy morning, and I grabbed my camera on the way out. I had to stop to take this photo when I saw the gorgeous light.

I didn’t have my tripod, so I balanced my camera on railing - hoping to catch the light trail from the bus as it passed, and hoping the camera wouldn’t drop down below!

It’s been a while since I’ve felt like shooting, so was good to bring out my camera to shoot such an everyday scene (for me). Beautiful light is a bonus!

08/04/2020

Beefsteak Plant. F36; 90mm; ISO100; 0.5s w flash.

After 3 hours of virtual meetings, I needed a mental break, so went to find something at home to shoot. Love the vibrancy of this plant (from the garden).

I did underexpose (for darker background), then added flash to light the main object. So this is a new experience for me - to shoot plants, at home, and using the flash. It's a good thing my wife has tons of plants at home - so I'll have different "subjects" to shoot over the next few times I work from home.

28/03/2020

Skyskline. F11; ISO100; 24mm; 260s.

Another photo where the picture in my mind was quite different to what is here. After giving up on the Sydney Opera House and Bridge long exposure, I noticed that the clouds were clearing from the city skyline. As the sunset, the lights of the buildings came on, casting a beautiful reflection on the water. It looked beautiful as I shot it (from my camera's LCD), but as I processed them, it was fairly unimpressive and dull.

So looking at what I could do to rescue the shots, I tried this B&W minimalist conversion. It could be a series! of 2.

Regardless, I enjoyed being out to shoot.
There was another photographer shooting this same view too, who stood there, shooting long exposures with diff lenses and filters. We keep our social distancing of at least 10m!

27/03/2020

Mrs Macquarie's Chair.
24mm; F22; ISO100, 258s.

Always wanted to come to this iconic spot, so I did - which is just a 10min ride from my office, and free parking for bikes too!
It is a very Sydney shot- Sydney in lock-down.
Kept my social distance as I shot this.

Well, it's a shame that the sunset was completely bland, and clouds uninteresting - for my usual sunset/long exposure type of shots.

So the best I can do is convert it into a black and white/minimalist type of shot.

14/03/2020

Sony Test.
#1. Pyrmont Warehouse F4; 1/60s; ISO1250; 16mm (using 16-35 F4)
#2. Model F1.8; 1/500s; ISO100; 135mm (using FE 135mm F1.8)

Been flirting with switching to Sony, and so I took the opportunity to go to a Sony hands-on workshop. Got to try the A7RIV (61 mb files!) and a bunch of lenses.

I learned that
1.Pixel shift works bad as long exposure replacement.
2.It's difficult to use a different system, but the Sony guys were super helpful
3.EVF was pretty good. Not as good as optical, but I adapted quite quickly
4.Tilting screen was great! Helps you shoot down low.
5.Whilst the gear may be water resistant, water droplets on the lens still spoils the photo
6.Sony lenses are pretty good, but pretty expensive. 16-35F2.8 is twice the price of the 16-35F4. I'd prob go for the latter.
7.Eye auto focus is pretty dope. Although in post-processing, a bunch missed focus, that is prob due to my not being used to the settings, but most focus were pretty spot on.
8.Lightroom 6.0 (my old version) cannot handle any Sony RAW files! So I had to download the Sony software, convert them to TIFF files, before processing them in Lightroom.

At the end of the day, the shooting experience was great! I was very much persuaded. However, my Lightroom not being able to handle is a real buzz kill. I'm not sure I want to pay for newer version of Lightroom (subscription) or learn Sony's photo editor.

So in the meantime, I'm going to stay with Nikon.

13/03/2020

Shot the moon, because it was there.
600mm; F11; ISO400; 1/200s.

Address

Werri Beach, NSW

Website

http://soosingphotography.blogspot.com/

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