Tag: Nikon

Add a little Sparkle to your day…

Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Gear, Nikon, Photography, Still LifeTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac  All Rights Reserved

I had the whole day free so I played with my continuous lights and SB600 Speedlight. I bought a couple of pieces of jewelry recently  which started  me thinking about Jewelry Photography and lighting.  I am still trying to get more accomplished with external lights and photography and I hope this exercise will help me grow in that area.

After studying lighting techniques, and jewelry styling for a couple of days I got my props together and by  late this morning I was ready to start taking some photos.

Add a little Sparkle to your day

Sapphire and Diamond Pendant

Ear-rings

Rose Gold Ear rings I still don’t have the lights quite right for the sparkle I want.  I’m looking into getting a Dazzle Bulb for the future.  I also need another high wattage bulb. I’d also like to add some plexiglass sheets to my kit as well;  I see a trip to the hardware store in my near future.

This is my tabletop set up. I set up on the kitchen table with a white sheet, white foam core board, and my lights. I had to hunt for something to tie dental floss on to be able to hang the jewelry and this is what I came up with. My daughters old high-school locker shelf. It came in handy after all these years of non-use.
I took the photo of the set up with a Nikon D300s and 24mm f2.8 AF-D and on-camera flash.

Camera and light set up for Jewelry ShootNikon D700| Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D, and Nikkor 28-105mm AF-D| Continuous lights 1 full Daylight camera right, 1 soft light bulb camera left, SB 600 camera front

I did all the photo development/processing in Photoshop CS6.  All my processing starts in Adobe Camera RAW then I moved to Photoshop for levels adjustments, output sharpening, cloning out the thread that held the ear-rings and necklace, cleaning up dust spots, and adding my watermark then resizing for the web.

P.S. Several times today I wished I had a macro lens!

The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range

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Via Flickr:
Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is from my May trip to Death Valley. It was windy most the time I was there the first two days, but on this evening the winds subsided a little, and the sky was blue so He-Man and I struck out across the flat toward the Dunes. I stopped a few times along the way to capture vistas of the dunes and mountains behind them.
There was sand in the air and blowing off the dunes. You can kind of see that on the dune in the sunlight on the bottom left if you look around the edges around it. It gave the image a softness I like. I also liked the shadows and light on the dunes and mountains.

I rented the new Nikkor 80-400mm G for this trip and I used it to take this photo.
Someday I’d like to upgrade my 70-300mm VR with this lens.

I’m also trying out On One Perfect Suite 7 Premium. I’m a week into the 30 day trial. I’ve used Perfect Portrait quite a bit, and Perfect effects, and focal point.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to access Perfect Layers from LR yet so I sent OnOne customer service an email asking them how to do that. I’ve heard from them this afternoon, so I’ll try it tomorrow.
I’m not really skilled in Lightroom either, but with Adobe’s new Creative Cloud scheme that requires a monthly fee I’m looking into different software to do the layering development work I need.
So far I like Perfect Portrait, and Effects a lot. The presets are really nice and you can fine tune them. On this photo I used Tonal Contrast, and in the Landscape Preset Folder I used Fall Enhancer. In Lightroom I tweaked the highlights, shadows, exposure, clarity,  and did a little dodging and burning.  Then to finish up I went into CS6 to add my watermark, and resize the photo for the web.  I know…I need to figure out how to do this Lightroom. I think it’s possible.
For help with the techniques and “how to’s” in Lightroom I’m using the book by Scott Kelby called the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 book for Digital Photographers, and John Davenport’s Youtube.com Let’s Edit series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfmccqzrt18

I’ll let you know how I like Perfect Layers in the coming days.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-400mm at 112m| Circular Polarizer| Tripod

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Bearded Iris Morning

Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., PhotographyTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

Copyright © 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I went to Nola’s Iris Garden yesterday with a Meet-Up group. It’s in the Eastern Foothills of San Jose, CA.
This should have peak season for them, but we’ve had several days of really warm temperatures lately and that has taken its toll on the Iris. I found most of them wilted and tired looking, but walking through the rows of Iris I did find several that were in good condition.
Nola’s specialize in Bearded Iris and are open to the public in April and May.  I’d like to revisit this nursery next year and hopefully see it in all its splendor.

I used my  Nikon D700 with my Nikkor 28-105mm AF-D micro lens for this outing. It’s an older lens which can only be found on the used market today. I purchased it to have a “walk around”, light mid-range zoom for hiking. The macro function wasn’t something I was really interested in at the time I purchased the lens, but I’ve used the macro function quite a bit since purchasing it, and I’m really happy with the results. The macro is a 1:2 ratio not a true 1:1, but I can get even closer using my Canon 500D Close-Up Lens with it.

Orange Beard

Beard

Colorful Housing

Colorful HousingFarm tools

Pitch ForkWoody met John Deer

Woody meets John DeerA view of the Eastern Foothills from the garden

Wide field view

Volcano

Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Photography, Poetry, WritingTagged , , , , 2 Comments

Copyright © 2010-2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Inspired by Bruce’s haiku and link to Haiku Heights daily challenge my daughter, and I collaborated on today’s Haiku challenge.

Deeply seething dormant

belch gas fire ash

stagnant active unsure

Limited to 3 lines and 17 syllables is quite challenging, but we had fun. Neither one of  us has written a haiku in some time.

This photo of Mt Shasta and Shastina in northern California’s Shasta Trinity National Forest is one I took back in 2010 while accompanying  my husband who was riding a 139 mile cycling event; The Mt Shasta Summit Super Century . We both had a very successful week-end. He finished the ride in excellent time (10 hours), and I had a lovely time hiking in Castle Crags, and photographing pretty scenes like this sunset.

Thank you Bruce for the inspiration, and Baby Girl for working on it with me.  🙂

Nikon D90| Nikkor 18-200@18mm| f14| 1.3 sec| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Center Metering| Tripod| Singh-Ray 2-stop Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Mt Shasta and Sistina Sunset

 

Mossbrea Falls

Posted in California, hikes, Landscapes, Nature, Nikon, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Mossbrea Falls, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2011 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

One from my archive. This fall is in Northern CA. It’s quite an adventure to get to it. There is no trail to the fall. One must walk along railroad tracks for about a mile. Trains still use the track so you might have to jump out-of-the-way and wait for the train to pass on your way to or from the fall.

Once there if it’s been a wet season you’re rewarded with a wall of water cascading down the mountain. I believe the length of the wall or mountain side that the fall cascades down is as long as a football field. I had to shoot it in bits and pieces To take it all in at once was a bit overwhelming at first. The only way I could “see” to photograph it was to break it down into manageable frames.
I’ve looked at my photos off and on since I took them never being motivated to process them beyond a few basic adjustments then I saved them as PSD’s, closed the file and moved on.
I took another look at the “works in progress” over the week-end because I’m planning to pass this way again next month and I’d like to revisit the fall on my way north.
While looking at them again I finished a few photos here’s the first.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 17-35mm| B+W Neutral Density filter 0.9

 

Along the fence

Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Flowers, Landscapes, Nature, Nikon, PhotographyTagged , , , , Leave a comment

Copyright © 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights ReservedAlong the fence in Spring
Another photo from my outing with Rene and Rainey last week-end. I love nature’s bouquets. Here there is Lupine, California Poppies, Common Owl’s Clover, and Fiddle-necks.

The bees were buzzing around here, and the day was warm. The cloud cover really made the colors pop by diffusing the light a bit.  This is my favorite time of year in California when all the hills are green and colorful.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 1735@ 25mm| f14| 1/160sec| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix metering| Single Servo AF| Tripod