Rodney Campbell's Blog

I havn’t posted any photos for a little while (two weeks) so I thought it was about time for a little update. This doesn’t however mean that I havn’t been taking any photographs – in fact quite the opposite as you’ll read below…

I’ve been away – I spent a few days assisting with a school camp which my eldest daughter and about seventy of her school mates attended as part of their school development. I attended as the additional parent helper along with some of the teachers from our school and amongst other more normal duties I acted as the unofficial school photographer to document the experience.

During the three days of camp I managed to take over 1,200 images of the children and their activities. Then on the weekend after the camp I also took a number (300+) images during a spring parade and stage performance that all three of my daughters were involved with (unfortunately whilst there are a few gems which I’m quite happy with in there I can’t post any of those photos up).

What we have below are a few images I took whilst walking to and from school with my girls in the past week.

The first is a closeup of some interesting little flowers growing in the grass on the nature strip:

Nikon D90 + Nikon 105mm macro, 1/2000 sec at f/4, ISO 200

The second and third are a reprise of some earlier dandelion seed heads that I had photographed. Since then I had felt that I had used too small a depth of field (the amount of the picture apparently or acceptably in focus) for the image I’d wanted so I had planned to shoot one again when the chance presented itself.

In this instance I have two versions – the first focuses again on the outer surface of the seed head with a much smaller aperture (f/16) this time to try and increase the depth of field and get more of the ball sharp.

Nikon D90 + Nikon 105mm macro, 1/60 sec at f/15, ISO 1250

The second actually uses a wider aperture (f/5.6) for a smaller depth of field but this time I manually focused more towards the inner stems and heart of the seed head so that the outer “fluff” would be softer and the heart and the long stems of the seeds would be sharper.

Nikon D90 + Nikon 105mm macro, 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

I’d really be quite interested to see which of the two people prefer – both the composition selection (e.g. area of focus and depth of field) and also the post processing technique – the first has a more contrasty natural black and white conversion whereas the second has a softer moonlit feel.

This last shot is of some very common fresia’s found in lawns and nature strips everywhere. This shot was taken purposely backlit to highlight the flowers and leaves of grass and leave the background very dark or almost black.

Nikon D90 + Nikon 105mm macro, 1/1250 sec at f/4, ISO 200

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