Prime Thirty-Five And Two Zig-Zags, Baby That’s All I Need

As some of you know, I recently got a new digital camera, the first professional camera I’ve ever owned. It is a Nikon D5000 DSLR. I have three lenses for it:

1. A 35mm. prime F/1.8 lens. For non-photographers, “prime” means that the lens has a fixed focal length and cannot be zoomed; F/1.8 means that the minimum ratio between the focal length and the aperture diameter is 1.8. Maximum ratios are less important; most lenses offer a maximum ratio of 22 or 28 or so. This lens is good for low-light and flash work. It is small and light. Autofocus is relatively slow, but shutter speeds are usually high, so I can shoot handheld with this lens without need for studio lighting or a tripod. The lens allows me to fill the camera’s frame with a standing human body from about 8 feet away, and with a human face from about 2 feet away. The ideal distance between the lens and the subject is about 1 foot. By giving up the ability to vary the focal length (i.e. to zoom), one gains the ability to precisely adjust the depth-of-field, i.e. the depth of the plane in which objects will be in focus. I can shoot landscapes with the lens and have a tree ten feet away and a mountain ten miles away both in razor-sharp focus. Or, I could shoot an arm reaching towards the camera and have a half-inch swath of the arm hair in razor-sharp focus, with the hairs nearer and further blurred to oblivion. This is extremely useful for street photography, since I usually can’t control the background and often need to blur it out. I’d like to get an assistant who would sneak up behind people holding a huge piece of white posterboard while I photograph them. Until then, I’ll shoot with my prime.

2. A 55mm-200mm. F/5.6 zoom lens with vibration reduction. This lens allows me to fill the camera’s frame with a human figure from 60 feet away, or a human face from 20 feet. Unfortunately, I have less control over depth-of-field. The vibration reduction supposedly allows one to use this lens handheld. I think that hand-held use of zoom lenses should be avoided at all costs. Use a tripod, or, if none is available, rest the camera atop a trash can or parking meter. If no conveniently-placed solid objects are nearby, lay toeside-down on the ground and brace your elbows against the ground. Shooting free-handed should be an absolute last resort in my opinion, appropriate only when the ground is wet, covered with broken glass, or otherwise unsuitable to lie upon.

3. A kit 18-55mm. zoom lens that I don’t know the minimum F/stop for because I never plan to use it. This lens came with the camera. I think it’s fairly useless. Realistically, there isn’t much difference between focal lengths of 55mm. and 35mm., so the 18-55 hardly gives me any more reach than the prime 35. Zoom lenses aren’t really useful until they give you enough reach to fill the camera’s frame with a human figure from a distance equal to the width of a two-lane road. I’d say you need 105mm. or so for that. Regarding the lower end of the lens’ focal range, there is modest difference between 18mm. and 35mm., but if I need to shoot wider than 35mm., I’ll just take a few shots and stitch them into a panorama in CS5. That doesn’t work for photographing people, of course, but it’s silly to shoot anything besides landscapes at a focal length shorter than 35mm. If you photograph people at 18mm., they’ll look silly. For an example, see the photos that Tiffany So. posts on Facebook. Most of her photos are decent, but they look like they were shot through a brotel-room peephole. Alternatively, see the Southpark episode which involves “Dogs wearing hats through a wide-angle lens”. If you photograph buildings (or anything that has straight lines) at much less than 35mm., the lines will look barrel-curved and peculiar. Lens flare also becomes an enormous problem at much less than 35mm.

I generally shoot in the street with the 35 prime, and these shots were taken with it. I’ve been changing lenses more that I ought to be (the vast majority of wear-and-tear on a digital camera occurs when changing lenses, unless you drop it or something). I also used my 35 prime exclusively during my (first!) paid photography gig. I have a glass filter on the front of it; the filter screws on and off. Ostensibly, it’s an “ultraviolet filter” designed to prevent ultraviolet light from causing haze in landscape shots. You’d have to be an idiot to believe that. All glass is opaque to ultraviolet, and the glass inside the lens is a hell of a lot thicker than the filter; there’s no way that UV would get to the sensor even without a filter. Case in point: Glass lenses cannot be used for ultraviolet photography, period. So, why do “ultraviolet filters” exist? Simple: To protect a lens. They’re tough tempered glass. If they get scratched, you pay $20 to replace them versus hundreds or thousands for a lens. Go to a party and some hot, sweaty broette asks to use you camera? Hand it to her, wrap the strap around her wrist, and you’re golden. She can’t drop it, and if she puts her fingers all over the front of the lens and gets fingerprints on it because she doesn’t know any better, it’s no big deal. Go home, unscrew the filter, put it in a glass of Everclear on your desk, wait five minutes, and the oil on the lens will dissolve. Dry the filter off, screw it back on, and you’re good to shoot another day. That’s what I do. Cleaning lenses is a lot more difficult than cleaning filters, because lenses aren’t waterproof. Get any liquid inside them and FML (Fuck My Lens).

Without further ado, here are some bros and broettes from Palo Alto. I tried to shoot people with beardz and/or bangz, but made a few exceptions.

ERIK: Your task is to write blurbs or captions or something for these. Write a story about each bro/broette, or attempt to transcribe his/her thoughts. I’ve only provided suggested titles.

Click an image to view larger.

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"Gratuitous Demonstration of 35mm. Prime: Hoover Tower Rises Over Green Library At Stanford"

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"Bearded Bro Staring Directly Into My 35 Prime"

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"Bro Exhaling Smoke And Raising His Brows"

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"Unbearded Bro With Amazing Expression"

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"Broette With Canon DSLR Fitted With 17mm. - 35mm. Lens ($1500 Or So)"

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"Broette With Bleached Strawberry Blonde Bangz"

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"Broette With What May Arguably Be Called Bangz"

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"Charles Darwin Solving A Crossword Puzzle"

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"Man Pretending To Check His Watch"

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"Running Bro Stretching Against A Wall"

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Peas out.

brick of quartz

Seven Examples of IR versus VIS photography

Bobby has asked me if it is possible to differentiate between real tans and spray-on tans in IR, Chris seems curious about IR (as he is about most all technological things), and I've gotten a few questions about IR photography from Stanford people as well.

I threw these comparisons together in CS5 to demonstrate "how people look" in infrared. I plan to do another comparison of landscape photography later.

The first two frames show relatively severe examples of skin luminosity difference between IR and VIS.

The following five frames are street photographs from Bay to Breakers in SF. I went with a friend of mine, also an amateur photographer, and although we made no attempt to photograph the same scenes, we did stick together for much of the day, and did get some similar shots. He was kind enough to give me access to all the photographs he shot (several hundred), and I identified a few dozen people whom, by chance, we both photographed.

There are some problems in comparing these photographs.

First, the cameras we used were very dissimilar; I used a minuscule hundred-dollar point-and-shoot; he used a good Canon DSLR with a 17-40mm. My lens was a 6.6-21.6mm, and so you might think that I shot winder-angle than he did, but what really counts in determining the view angle of a lens is the ratio between the lens' focal length and the diagonal dimension of the image sensor. Since my sensor was so much smaller than his, my images are much narrower-angle in effect. I shot at ISO=800 and got terrible noise, both luminous and chromatic; he shot between ISO=80 and ISO=200 and got very little noise, the VAST majority of which was chromatic. One slight advantage of a shitty minuscule CCD is depth-of-field. In most of my images, the collimation in the focal plane is so bad, you can't even see the focal plane fall off- and I probably didn't shoot at any aperture smaller than f/4 all day (!). This was handy because I was mainly shooting at people who were walking nearly directly towards me, and the shutter lag is so bad on point-and-shoots that, without good depth of field, people will walk right out of your focal plane as soon as you've locked the autofocus on them.

Second, he is about six feet ten inches tall, and often shot by holding his camera above his head with his right hand. As a result, the angular perspectives of our photographs are quite different.

Regardless, please enjoy and learn from the following. Click to see larger.

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Example 1:

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Example 2:

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Example 3:

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Example 4:

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Example 5:

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Example 6:

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Example 7:

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Peas Out / V4L.

video chat room

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Visual HIV (Visual AIDZ)

Visual HIV (Visual AIDZ)

Don't take this 2 seriously broz. Iz a joke.

CATDOG GIF BONER

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS
LIKE I CAN'T TELL
WHAT IS GOING ON
I THOUGHT WE WERE
ONLINE BUT NOW
EVERYTHING IS 3D
AND PEOPLE SEEM
TO BE FORMING
MEANINGFUL
RELATIONSHIPS

Annonomous Questions Via Formspring re advertising / internet / depression

Do you perceive your online persona makes 1. more desirable 2. less desirable in the eyes of a prospective employer in the advertising industry? Would you link your film and blogs on a job app.?

i feel like my 'real' AND 'online' personae are something of a burden when it comes to advertising.

ad business is one of optimism and appearances. when one (like me) does not naturally 'appear' 'optimistic' it is somewhat awkward.

online i can't usually help but be myself. in person, i try to be somewhat more kind and friendly than i would be naturally. this is an acceptable form of dishonesty because it helps everyone get along.

i don't usually reference my blogs or film in job situations. however, i'm sure that potential employers find them. if they are the kind of company i would want to work for, they would understand depression, sexual content, profanity, mild drug use, etc as a normal part of human existence. the fact that other people keep these things hidden when online speaks to a difference in 'dealing with the internet' rather than a difference in core values, beliefs..

Can melancholy be marketable? Should people who sometimes get sad try to heep that shit out of the public eye if they ever want to be employed / given responsibility?

the internet has made it very challenging to conceal sadness and depression (or really anything). if you seem a certain way, people will figure it out. there's no point in trying to hide who you are, from your friends, your family, your future employers.

that being said, it seems that sadness is marketable, because (in many cases and especially online) people will identify with you. most people are not super happy with the way the world is, in general. most people are confused about if they are happy or not, in their personal lives. it's ok to not be happy. it's ok to market yourself as not happy. whatever.

Xploratorium

I shot some infrared around the Xploratorium in San Francisco last Saturday. Mainly, I photographed the people I was with, and I will not post those photographs here out of respect for their privacy. However, I did manage to get a few shots of “strangers”, which R here 4 U 2 N Joy. These R a bit blurry; I'm still working on my technique. Click an image to view it larger.
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“Xploratorium Dome”

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“Wedding”
(This is my first “wedding photograph”, which is perhaps significant because the vast majority of money made in photography is made in wedding photography, or “wedding photojournalism” as jackass wedding photographers call it. Even I'm not THAT much of a jackass.)

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“Group Posing”

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“Erik Should Date The Owner Of This Bicycle But Probably Already Has”
(This is not an IR photograph; I shot it months ago, but I want to include it.)

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Peas Out, V4L.