Back to Analog

Since I am now working full time with Sarah, I have had time to do things that I forgot I loved. Yesterday I spent about 3 hours in our basement in the dark, however creepy that may sound, it was nice to get back to pure analog, no batteries, no computers, just film, paper, and developer.

I had rolls of film that were over one year old that I hadn't developed yet, or even remembered how to. After gathering all my chemicals (and stealing tupperware from the kitchen) I looked up my development times and locked myself downstairs.

I carefully measured my developer and fixer, memorized the times, and then proceeded to sit in the bathtub for the next hour... After nervously turning on the lights, I saw my success, my film developed correctly. I hung it up to dry and went to bed.

Yesterday I spent my work day attempting to get a usable image out of my now dry film. After blowing a fuse and having to rewire my antique enlarger with a lamp wiring kit, I was ready to attempt developing and enlarging my film (something I hadn't done in 10 years) I quickly remembered that the difference in 3 seconds and 7 seconds is enormous in photography talk. After 3 failed attempts at getting the proper exposure, I settled on 4 seconds for the exposure time, 1.25 minutes for the developing time, and I fixed it for about 5 minutes and rinsed.

This has to be the most rewarding part of this whole process. Going from a strictly mechanical camera built of metal, springs, and gears - developing the film - now finally enlarging it and getting a usable image. While it is much cheaper and easier to shoot digital, this whole process really makes me stop and take my time, rather than just firing off 7 frames a second and instantly seeing my results. This is much more rewarding.

I am so thankful that God has allowed me to stay home and work with my wife and little man every day. I hope that through my photography I can show just a tiny piece of how beautiful God's creation and his people really are.

Rare Nikkor Lens.

I recently bought this lens on craigslist, I have no idea what it was used for but it is a beautiful lens. I have emailed Nikon and they have been sending it all around the company trying to help me figure it out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Check out www.facebook.com/adammullinsphotography to see our work.

Check out www.facebook.com/adammullinsphotography to see our work.

Vision

These two pictures were taken within seconds of each other, but lens selection, framing, lighting, and some post processing change the entire mood of the pictures.

This shows that a photograph depends largely on the person behind the camera, not just the person in front of it. 

 


 My wife and I were looking at the exact same thing, standing in the same place, at the same time, and took two completely different pictures. Neither one is “better” than the other, they are just different. 

 She went for a clear, sweet, lighthearted picture. I, on the other hand, wanted a more dramatic picture. We each adjusted our cameras and lenses accordingly and we each got what we wanted.

 Next time you are photographing, take time to think of what you want, come up with a vision or a mood for your photographs. You don’t have to let the subjects in front of the camera determine what the end result looks like.

Night Sky Photography

I was asked to write about how I took pictures at night.First off, it is incredibly easy to achieve beautiful results. You don’t need a top of the line DSLR or expensive glass. All you need is a camera that you can adjust the exposure manually and a tripod. 

Obviously, you need a clear night, but a few clouds is actually a good thing. A wide angle lens is usually best, a kit lens set at 18mm will work just fine. Mount your camera on a tripod, put it in manual mode, and try these settings. Turn your iso up to 3200 (it might only go to 1600), open your aperture to F/3.5, and set your shutter all the way at 30 seconds. Put your camera in manual focus and turn it all the way to infinity. If the image is too bright, turn your iso down, if it is too dark, turn it up. Find a place in the sky where the stars are easily visible but there is also some sort of subject; cars, cityscapes, lonely trees, airplanes, and anything else interesting make great subjects. Look for other light sources or moving objects that might be interesting as well. Anything that is moving will be blurry or even not existent in the final image since your shutter is open so long. Just to the right of the image I shot was a warehouse with bright lights, which is why the bottom right of my image is so bright. I shoot everything in RAW which allows me much more flexibility in post processing. For my image, I adjusted it in camera RAW and then opened it in Photoshop and turned the contrast up and did an exposure adjustment layer. 

Go out and try it. Let me know if you have any questions :)

Tokina 11-16 F/2.8 DX ii lens review

Tokina 11-16 DX ii

 I just received my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X116 Pro DX II from Amazon. I usually don’t review lenses but I decided to review this one because I could only find a handful of reviews on it myself.

Tokina 11-16 DX ii next to tamron 18-270 and Rokinon 14

I own many wide angle lenses and I have tried to avoid buying this lens, but it fills a niche that no other lens I have can fill. Just so you know, I carry the Tokina 11-16 in my bag over my full frame14mm F/2.8, every nikon 18-whatever kit lens, Nikon's own 10-24, and Tamron's super zoom 18-270mm. 

 First off, this lens is not for everyone. Obviously, it is not a full frame lens (even though it fills the frame at 16mm.) This lens is also not for the casual photographer who wants another cool lens. In my opinion, this is a specific lens to fill a specific need; in my case, 

I needed it to be able to shoot SHARP pictures in LOW LIGHT from the front row of a wedding. 

IT IS WIDE! A kit 18-?? lens is just not wide enough to get an entire bridal party from the front row. I could use another wide lens but they are lacking in the areas bellow.

IT IS SHARP! Tamron, sigma, and Nikon all offer similar options. Nikon has a lens with more zoom range but at the cost of Sharpness. Tamron and Sigma offer some close competitors in zoom range and aperture but they are just not anywhere close to as sharp as this one.  My 14mm full frame lens is sharp, but shooting with a full frame lens on a DX camera kinda defeats the purpose of a wide angle...  Anyway, this lens is SHARP!

IT IS BRIGHT! At F/2.8 all the way through, I can let a good amount of light in. The kit lenses and many of the other zooms are F/3.5 or F/4 wide open, and when they are wide open, they arnt sharp. The Tokina is nice and bright, but also sharp wide open.

AUTO FOCUS is FAST. I wouldn't expect anything different from such a wide zoom. The focus is accurate and locks on quick. The push/pull mechanism they use to switch from manual to auto focus is weird and it takes some getting used to, but I rarely switch back and forth so it is a non-issue for me. This older Tokina 11-16 did not have an autofocus motor but this one does :)

It is heavier than a kit lens but it is nowhere near as heavy at my 70-200 F/2.8 so the weight does not bother me a bit.

I really don’t know why Tokina decided to make this a ZOOM lens, but I’ll take it :) 90% of the time, people buy a wide angle lens to be able to shoot at the widest angle possible... I guess it would bother me more if the lens wasn’t tack sharp or if it caused a variable aperture; Since the lens is sharp all the way through and has a consistent aperture, I actually like the little zoom I have.

This Tokina has very LOW DISTORTION. Straight lines stay straight. The only time I’ve noticed some small distortion is when the subject is in the far corner (but with a lens this wide, distortion is to be expected.) Some of the other competitors have much worse distortion. 

Tokina 11-16 DX ii vs. 18mm and 14mm

 This is just a comparison of a few different wide angle zooms. There is a HUGE difference in an 11mm lens and a 18mm lens.

This Tokina 11-16 F/2.8 DX ii lens is the best DX wide angle lens on the market now. No other lens can match it's sharpness, wide aperture, and price. At $750.00 it is cheaper than many of Nikon's lens but still out performs them. With the added addition of an autofocus motor, superior build quality, and this lens just being ridiculously sharp, this lens will fill a spot in my bag for a long time.

How to photograph fireworks!

Fireworks are awesome.

I will tell you how to get great pictures of them. 

The beauty of taking pictures of fireworks is that you don’t have to fumble with settings, just set your camera on what I tell you, and shoot. 

First, you need a tripod. Without a tripod, it will be near impossible to hold your camera perfectly still. A shutter release cable or remote would also help, but is not necessary. Next, put your camera in the “M” mode. This is full manual mode (don’t be scared.) Since there are so many cameras, the next set of instructions will vary depending on the model. If you do not know how to do something, simply do a Google search for “how to change _(ISO, shutter speed, aperture)_ on _(Nikon D3100, Canon Rebel, etc…)_ and just put in your camera model. 

-Set your ISO to the lowest default setting (100 or 200)

-Set your shutter speed on 5 seconds

-Set your ISO on F/8

-Put your camera on manual focus and turn it all the way to infinity (either all the way to the right or left, it should be focused on things reallllly far away)

-Mount your camera on the tripod facing the fireworks.

-Plug in your cable or set your camera to remote mode (if you have one)

If you take a picture before it is dark, it will be super bright. Don’t worry, when it gets dark, you will be fine. When the firework first shoots off, hit your shutter button, your shutter will stay open for 5 seconds, capturing the entire flight and explosion of the fireworks. Experiment with different shutter speeds. If you change it to 30 seconds, you will capture every firework fired off within a 30 second time frame! 

 Try not to move your camera when pressing the shutter button. If you want your picture lighter or darker, change your aperture (smaller number=brighter picture)

Nikon's new D3200 and the D600 rumor.

There is a rumor going around that Nikon might be announcing a D600. I am reading a lot of complaint/arguments over where it will fit in the lineup. What camera is it replacing? What camera will it out shine?

Ive realized that where a camera "fits in" and its price tag DOES NOT determine image quality!

With the way technology has progressed, it is almost impossible to release a “bad” camera now. Look at the brand new D3200. Nikon's full frame D700 is nearly $3,000. It is a good camera, don’t get me wrong; In fact, it’s a pretty great camera. BUT it is nearly four years old. Nikon's brand new D3200 is the bottom of the line camera, the entry level DSLR… It is 24MP while the D700 is 12MP. They both go up to ISO6400. The 700 has more FPS and more easily accessible controls but if we are talking pure image quality, the images will be nearly indecipherable, and the $899 D3200 image will be able to be enlarged much larger.

The quality of a camera cannot be based on its price tag. I don’t see the need in placing cameras in a nice and neat line from best to worst. Wherever the D600 fits, I promise it will blow the 4 year old $5000 D3 out of the water. 

Point of the article: Whatever the name of the new camera is, D600/500/400, it will be awesome, simply because it's new. Don't worry about where it fits either. Just buy a camera and go shoot stuff...

Nikon vs. God

So, Nikon is rumored to launch THREE new PRO cameras in 2012, TWO of three in January! I am super excited about upgrading some of our equipment, I check on Nikon Rumors every day :) While looking over the leaked specks for the hundredth time, something intrigued me. First, I’m going to give you some quick background info. The new professional cameras that are coming out have extremely sensitive image sensors, which means they can work in less light. The higher the ISO, the less light is needed to make a picture. When I read that Nikons new camera (along with canons) has a high ISO of over 200,000 I was completely blown away. You will be able to shoot in near darkness!! I was thinking about how far technology has come and how amazing it is… then I started thinking about the human body. How awesome are we? Not because of us, but because of our creator!

When you see an astonishing camera such as the Nikon D4 or Canon 1DX that can take 11 pictures a second in near darkness , you know some extremely smart people had to create and build that complicated piece of equipment, it did not just magically appear one day. When I look at the human eye, I can’t help but think about the creator that created it as well.

As I’m sitting in my living room this evening, I can see just fine. I can read, I can focus on a book that is 6 inches from my face or on a refrigerator magnet in the kitchen. I have no issues looking at my bright computer monitor then glancing over at my beautiful wife. But when I pick up my camera and click off a few shots, all I get is a black LCD. I raise my ISO to 6400 and I get a faint image with plenty of grain. Let’s bump my ISO up to about 100,000… now I get a properly exposed image but at the price of plenty of grain and lose of image quality.

Cameras simply cannot perform anywhere as good as the human eye!!!

God created the human eye out of DIRT a few thousand years ago. There haven’t been retina upgrades, our pupils haven’t gotten any bigger, nothing has changed about our eyes since Adam was made. Scientists have been rolling out brand new $5000 cameras every few years and they have not even got close to touching the quality and efficiency of the human eye.

My camera’s image sensor 4 times bigger than my eyes retina but it can’t gather anywhere near the same amount of light. My camera lens has an aperture 10 times bigger than my pupil, but it cannot let as much light through. My camera has 50 autofocus points, my eye has infinity. I have to adjust my camera for different colors of light, my brain does that automatically. My camera cannot focus in dim light, my eyes focus instantly. Some of my lenses can’t focus closer than 10 feet! Again, my eyes don’t have a problem. Shooting a computer screen and shooting a dark kitchen would require many changes to my camera settings. Guess what, we don’t even have to think about it. Don’t forget to change your camera batteries and fix it when the image sensor goes bad… Our eyes last a lifetime.

Our eyes are infinitely better than the cutting edge technology of today but our eyes were formed from the dust of the ground thousands of years ago.

I do not see how anyone can look at the complexity and efficiency of the human body and say, there is no God.

Choose your lens carefully

Look at these two pictures, can you see the difference? Alright, now can you tell me what lens was used on which? I’ll give you a hint, one is a 14mm and one is an 85mm.

It is pretty easy to notice the difference in these two images. One is much less distorted and has a much less distracting background.

When shooting portraits, it is important to choose the right lens. I personally love doing portraits because I can move, the subject can move, and I can try different angles and lenses and not miss a shot.

Let’s look at this scenario, you are doing outside portraits, and you have your choice between two common kit lenses, the 18-55 and the 55-200. What one should you use?? They both have a maximum aperture or 3.5 and have virtually identical optics inside. The 55-200 is usually the best choice for shooting one or two people outside and here is why.

As you can see above, longer focal lengths give you less distortion and decrease your depth of field, making your background more blurry and less distracting.

With the wider angles, like my 14mm, the person looks pretty strange… I can see the tops of his shoes and sometimes you can see up the subject’s nose… never flattering.Human sight is about like a 50mm lens, so anything wider than that begins to look unnatural.

Sometimes you are in a situation when you must use a wider angle. If you are inside or simply cant separate yourself from the subject, you will have to use a wider angle. If you are photographing many people, you might have to be obnoxiously far away to use a telephoto lens, which means you should use your wide angle. Wide angles are also great for capturing more of the surroundings.

By no means am I saying you should never use a wide angle for portraits. I use mine pretty often. Wider angles are great for shooting down on subjects, like if they are laying down. I also use wide angles when I want to see more of the scenery. Wide angles are great for inside portraits because you cant always get far away from the subject.

Remember those few tips when shooting your next portraits!

Macro Photography

I recently got asked about some of my macro shots and how I go about macro photography.

Anyone who has been around photography for a long time knows that there are MANY ways to shoot macro.

First off macro or micro pretty much means close-up, or life sized.

If you want to get technical, macro lenses are categorized and rated by the ratio of the actual size of the subject vs. the size it is on the image sensor or film. A 1:1 lens is about the best you can get. If you take a picture of a 35mm rectangle with a 1:1 lens at the minimum focusing distance, it will cover the whole frame. If you do the same with a 1:2 lens, it will cover half the frame. Most lenses are about 1:6 which means that a 10mm bug on a 35mm piece of film (or full frame image sensor) covers only 5% of the frame!

Of course, you have seen images that have a ratio much better than1:1, where a fly’s eye may take up the entire frame!! We are going to discuss some methods used to make a 1:1 lens a 4:1 lens or better! Or maybe you just want to make your kit 1:6 lens a 1:1 lens.

The great thing about macro photography is that you can get decent results for basically next to no cost.

The first thing I am going to talk about is the cheapest but also EXTREMELY simple. These handy gadgets are called macro filters or close-up filters. They are simply a filter that screws on the end of your lens. These filters look and act just like a magnifying glass. They come in different strengths from +1 to +4 to just stupid close. The great thing about macro-filters is that you can use them on auto-exposure mode on your camera. You can find a set of 4 with a nifty case for under $20 on e-bay. Some disadvantages are a slight sacrifice in image quality (especially along the edges) and it shortens your depth of field which can make it extremely difficult to get a sharply focused image. Also, you have to make sure that you get the right diameter filter for your lens (which is fine if you only plan on using one lens or lenses with the same filter size.)

The next fun macro toy is an extension tube, which is a…tube… that extends your lens. The difference in this and the macro filter is that an extension tube goes between your lens and your camera body rather than on the end of your lens. There are no optics (glass/lenses) in an extension tube, it just moves your lens farther away from the camera body. Like the macro filter, you can get different sizes or strengths of tubes. The more expensive tubes have electronic contacts that allow autofocus and auto exposure mode to be used. Some tubes cost less than $5 but they are nothing but a piece of metal, which means that you must use manual exposure mode and manually focus. The biggest drawback to the cheap tubes is that they MUST be used with a lens that has an aperture ring (you can change the lens aperture by turning a ring on the lens not just a dial on the camera.) If you put a cheap tube on a lens without an aperture ring, the lens will be stuck at its smaller aperture and render is useless. I like extension tubes because you do not lose any image quality. Some negatives are that they are more expensive than the filters (about $75 for the tubes with electronics) and like the macro filters, they decrease your depth of field.

Last is one of my favorite photography toys, a teleconverter. They (like everything else discussed) come in different “strengths”. You can get a 1.4x a 1.7x or a 2x. These numbers correspond to the amount of focal length added. A 2x teleconverter DOUBLES yours focal length, making a 50mm lens a 100mm or a 70-300mm a 140-600mm!! What is fun about a teleconverter is that it doubles your focal length but still allows you to focus at the same distance. This is fun for telephoto shots along with macro shots. If you have a 50mm lens that can focus at 1 foot, put a teleconverter on your lens and it is a 100mm lens that can focus at 1 foot… awesome :) A teleconverter looks almost like an extension tube because it goes between your camera and lens. Unlike an extension tube, it has glass in it, which means that it can lower your image quality because it magnifies any imperfections your lens may have. Another disadvantage is that it cuts your aperture in half which means that your awesome F/2.8 lens is now a so-so F/5.6 lens. A teleconverter can be found for about $75 also.

Now, let’s take a standard 50mm F/1.8 lens. This has a reproduction ratio of about 1:6. With this 50mm, you can focus at about 1.5 feet. Let’s put a 2x teleconverter on it and make it a 100mm F/3.6. That makes the lens have a 1:3 ratio. Let’s put an extension tube on it, allowing it to focus at .75 feet meaning it’s a 1:1.5. Hmmmm, let’s now add a macro filter and allow our lens to focus at about 4 inches!! A disadvantage of all of this is that your depth of field is going to be stupid small… like, half of a fly can be in focus but the other half completely blurry. Some ways to combat this is stop down your aperture (because that increases your depth of field.) You can also just lean back and forth to focus rather than use autofocus or try to manually turn to focus ring.

Macro is cool because you can do it anywhere, you do not need a busy city or a beautiful country landscape. All you need is a bug, or an eyeball, or a flower… anything God created looks amazing close up :) Buy a cheap set of macro filters and see what you come up with!