Old St Pauls Wellington

Another photographic trip with my mates over and done with. This time we went to Old St Pauls in Wellington (http://www.historicplaces.org.nz/placestovisit/lowernorthisland/oldstpauls.aspx). This is a wonderfully rich in wood building. A photographer's dream!

Most of my photos were shot with +2 exposure bracketing which on the Canon 600D means 3 shots. These were pulled into Photomatix for HDR processing. Needless to  say I am very pleased with the results.

Back to the Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD lens.

Pros: This lens were very useful since it allowed me the ability to take shots ranging from full wide angle to nicely zoomed in, without changing lenses.

Cons: All pics were shot using a tripod, but for the first hour I forgot to switch off the VC!! Nooooo. So many lost pics. On my big screen I could clearly see the blur caused by the VC.

Regarding image stabilizing. The Canon 18-55mm kit lens is better at managing IS on a tripod. However, I would recommend switching off IS using a tripod even with a Canon lens.

So here are some images to enjoy, while I plan my next trip back to the church to re-take those missed shots.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 18mm, Exposure 13sec at f10 +2/3EV, ISO 200, Focus manual, VC off, Flash none, Filter UV, 3 shot bracketed at 2 stops.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 50mm, Exposure 10sec at f8 +2/3EV, ISO 200, Focus manual, VC off, Flash none, Filter UV, 3 shot bracketed at 2 stops.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 35mm, Exposure 8sec at f8 +2/3EV, ISO 200, Focus manual, VC off, Flash none, Filter UV, 3 shot bracketed at 2 stops.

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Spiders Spiders Everywhere

Wow, I've had a lot of fun the past two days. Any insect that ventures into my house by implication is eligible to pose for my photos :-)

Here are some images of spiders snapped using my Tamron VC PZD with a +4 diopter on. Note multiple photos where taken at varying focal depths and combined using image stacking software to produce a single image with good depth of field. Also, I am still getting used to the image stacking software, so the resulting images are not yet to my liking, especially the background on the last one. All images are crops.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 270mm, Exposure 1/10sec at f13 +2/3EV, ISO 200, Focus manual, VC off, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 270mm, Exposure 1/10sec at f14 +2/3EV, ISO 200, Focus manual, VC off, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 270mm, Exposure 0.3sec at f14 +2/3EV, ISO 200, Focus manual, VC off, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter.

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Mr & Mrs Prickly Spider

Worked from home today and my wife was outside busy in the garden when I heard her calling me. She almost had a little spider fall on her. I rushed back inside to grab my camera to take some pics of the creature. This spider is only about 1.5cm long in sitting position and about 2cm I would guess in walking position.

Shooting was not easy, since I had to take the images standing plus I had a +4 diopter on to get close enough to the tiny thing. Later in the day I found another spider outside, and only after downloading those images to Lightroom did I see the two spiders must be from the same species. My guess would be the bigger one is the female and the smaller one the male.

Please add a comment if you know what these spiders are called.

Due to the small size of the spider all pics had a small amount of sharpening added and all are crops from the bigger original pics.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 270mm, Exposure 1/50sec at f18 +2/3 EV, ISO 800, Focus manual, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter.

And the Lady of the house. She was hanging upside down  outside almost at ceiling level. This one was difficult to snap.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 200mm, Exposure 1/50sec at f16 +2/3 EV, ISO 800, Focus manual, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter.

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Berry Bonanza

I love strawberries! So when my friend told me the local supermarket had stock, I immediately got in my car and came back home with three punnets of strawberries. 2.95 punnets for eating, njummy, and 1 strawberry for taking photos.

All photos were taken with a +4 diopter on my Tarmon PZD. Lighting was using my custom lightbox (see earlier post) and 23W globe. All images overexposed by 2/3 EV. No sharpness added in PP.

My first try was with a red wine glass filled with Sprite Zero (I know, wine lovers will have me executed for such sacrilege!). Next time I would rather try plain water and a small fish tank. Note, the bubbles made the strawberry move around in the glass. It was quite challenging to shoot a moving berry :-)



Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 110mm, Exposure 1/80sec at f5.6 +2/3 EV, ISO 800, Focus auto, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter.

Next up just a simple shot on a shiny grey card. Note the pretty decent image quality. This time around the strawberry was not going anywhere :-) Vignette added in PP for effect.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 59mm, Exposure 1/100sec at f6.3 +2/3 EV, ISO 800, Focus auto, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter. 

Below a 100% crop of the image above. No complaints from my side. Not a Canon MP-E 65mm, but for what I've paid for the lens and the versatility it provides, it will do.

One of my favorites from the shoot. Again nice sharpness, a simple vignette added for dramatization.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 142mm, Exposure 1/25sec at f29 +2/3 EV, ISO 100, Focus auto, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter. 

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Dahlia Diopter +4

Today was a good day, the local camera shop had some Marumi diopters (close-up filters) in stock. So I could not let a set stay in the shop, no, I just had to adopt them :-)

The image below is a quick snap of the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD with a +4 diopter fitted. The shot was taken without a tripod. Note that the center part of the dahlia is less than 2cm in diameter. I cannot wait to see what this lens can achieve at +7 (+1, +2 and +4 stacked). Although I am pretty sure I will need a tripod at that "magnification".

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 200mm, Exposure 1/100sec at f14, ISO 100, Focus manual, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV and +4 diopter stacked.

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Itsy Bitsy Spider

Another post from our recent walk in the bush. This time not the best photo on its own if you ask me, but I really liked the detail the lens managed on the minute spider, keeping in mind this was shot hand held in a light breeze. I will let the pictures speak for themselves! PP included some sharpening but very little. As I've been posting mainly photos with no sharpening to date, I've thought it best to post a closer to reality shot, since most digital workflow will include some amount of sharpening.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 270mm, Exposure 1/500sec at f9, ISO 800, Focus auto, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV.

100% crop.

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Here's looking at you

We went for a walk in the local "bush" today and I've managed to get a whole number of good shots. It is difficult to pick which one to post, so I will post a number of the top ones over the coming days. Since I've posted a number of flower pics recently, I think this little dragonfly is a welcome change.

This guy is pretty small and the day was windy but I tried my best to click in between light gusts of wind. No sharpening done, but black levels and saturation changed in PP.

Canon 600D, Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. Focal length 270mm, Exposure 1/500sec at f9, ISO 800, Focus auto, VC on, Flash none, Filter UV.

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