Portrait Day

I took my mom's portraits today at the local park. We had a great time but the sun was very harsh so a lot of the shots looked good on the LCD until I got home and they had a lot of blown highlights and washed out areas.

I'm going to try to work with them and correct them where I can. The positive about the situation is that my mom had a good time with the shoot so I'm sure she would be up for a re-do anytime.

This is one of my favorites from the day (no editing was done to it at this time):



And this one is edited and I love how it came out...very "mysterious mom." I did some similar to this of my self-portraits down below:



When I got home from taking her portraits I decided to take some self portraits in my backyard.

The sun was SO bright (even at 5pm) that it washed out a lot of my face in the shots.

So I tried to salvage them. I converted a lot of the colored ones to B&W and then I was playing with the levels and decided to go really dark on some of them and ended up with this effect which I like a lot





To view the rest of my self-portraits click HERE.

Couldn't help taking a portrait of *Lucas* :)



More of my "people & portrait" photography can be seen HERE.

Got to Test the New Lens for a Few Minutes Today...

Saw a field of these yellow wildflowers on the side of the road and felt compelled to pull over and capture them.

The sky was terrible today so this was my chance for some photos with the new lens.

A close up...I love how the Depth of field came out on this one:



Zoomed all the way out to highlight a wide view of the field:

(click to view larger)


I also captured a butterfly on the side of the road:



To view my flower photography gallery click HERE.

To view my Butterflies & Bugs gallery click HERE.

After Waiting 4 Months...I Finally Got It! The New Lens Has Arrived! 18-200VR - Yee Hah!

The lens I wanted (AF Zoom Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX VRII) has been out of stock at B&H Photo since I got my Nikon D80 DSLR back in May. After a tip I received I ordered it this past Saturday at Best Buy with a price match (of all places!). If I had known about the price match I would have gone there and ordered it back in May!

I refused to buy it anywhere but B&H Photo because everyone else was charging way more. I had an 18-135 which worked well so I figured I would be patient and get the price I really wanted at B&H Photo.

I never even thought of Best Buy's price match policy! Not only did they match the price but they taken an addition % off to BEAT the competitor's price. The ordered it for me and shipped it free to my home! Got it within a few days.

Anyway, here's what she looks like (what a beauty!):



Check out Ken Rockwells review of this lens HERE.

Ken Rockwell also talks about how to get one HERE. I guess I'm not the only one having a hard time getting one....makes me think twice about not ordering all 5 that Best Buy had in stock and selling them for a profit on ebay! :(

You can also check out DP Review's forums to read more about how other's felt about the lens.

First shot with the new lens was my best friend, Lucas:



Then I went outside and did some test shots to see the lens zoomed out at 18mm and zommed in at 200mm with my best model, Lucas (of course).

At 18mm:



At 200mm:



At 18mm:



At 200mm:



I can't wait for work to end tomorrow so I can go out after work and get some shots with the new lens!

"Watch this space" as they say!