The Camera Chronicles
The fuel for late night ventures.
Earlier this year, sometime in February or March, I was finally nagged into taking pictures of the jewelry I make with the intent of putting it up on a website and finally giving my work some exposure out there on the world wide web. Dutifully, as the nagging proceeded unabated, I spent a weekend taking pictures with my all purpose Canon digital point and shoot. While the results were surprisingly good. Well, at least they were sufficiently adequate to start posting pictures. Nonetheless, the focus wasn’t particularly sharp and there wasn’t a decent was to get a very detailed close up. Clearly I needed to venture forth into the more complex field of the DSLR and I needed a macro lens. Happily, I have a friend who is a professional photographer who was willing to listen to my ruminations about what I might need, my whining about the cost, and ultimately directed me to his source at Adorama. The lovely people at Adorama introduced me to the world of used and refurbished camera equipment. And so it was that I came to own a new Nikon D90 and two used /refurbished lenses. I would have gladly gone with a used D90 as well, but there simply weren’t any.
Spiral Necklace, the latest project.
The problem when acquiring a very fine piece of equipment is that one encounters the vertical learning curve, also known as banging ones head against a brick wall. So, I settled in one weekend with the Nikon guide and better yet the “Magic Lantern Guide”, which in my humble opinion, and based on the advice of my photography friend, one cannot afford to be without. After fumbling around with the Nikon guide for awhile and not being able to get the camera to work, I finally switched to the Magic Lantern Guide and found answers. Although briefly cited here, the actual process took several angst filled days rife with emails back and forth to New York and complaints, on my part, regarding the general worthlessness of the Nikon manual. (The Nikon manual is actually quite good, I was just missing or overlooking an essential piece of information regarding setting the aperture on the lenses that feed information to the camera.) Basically, the lenses are smarter than I am and I need to play catch-up. Sigh…sad, but true.
The unabated desktop clutter.
So, at long last, camera functioning, it is time to play with my lovely macro lens.
Rediscovering “depth of field.”
Higher aperture number, smaller aperture, greater depth of field – get lights and a tripod!!