Call me cheap

For a change I stuck my two cheapest zooms (both bought used for comparative peanuts) on a couple of bodies and went to see what I could find at the beach yesterday. Almost as soon as I arrived, to find the beach closed to cars, it began to rain. So I didn't stop long. What I tried to do was make a picture that showed the beach as deserted. I failed. Not easy making something empty look interestingly so.

There were a few other detail shots, details really, that which worked a little better. One experiment was to try the macro setting on one of the lenses. Previous attempts had lead me to think it wasn't so good but with some thought it seems to be reasonable. A trite shot of rust and paint looked pretty detailed on the computer screen at pixel-peeping level.

This gave me the impetus to try the lens out under more controlled conditions to see if it would serve for doing product shots for my website. If it did it would save me buying a short focal length macro lens as my long macro lens is a bit awkward to use for this work. Camera on tripod, ISO low, aperture stopped down and hey presto. Close enough for rock and roll!

Zooming in to 100% and it looks too good - showing up dust and flaws! More than adequate for my purposes. My bad impression of the lens before must have been due to operator error. No surprise there.

This little experiment also made me think that using available light might be a better plan than the messing around with flashguns I've been trying. Pick an overcast day and lock the camera down so shutter speed isn't an issue and I should be okay. With my improved processing skills cutting out the background, when required, is a lot easier than it used to be. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

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