Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 | Christopher John Photography

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020

A bit of Bokeh

Looking at Wikipedia, you read that in photography, bokeh is “the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens.” In general the out-of-focus area of an image is the background, and one of the best ways to make this out-of-focus whilst retaining focus on your subject is to open up the lens and shoot at a low f-stop. It seems a bit backwards, but the lower the f-stop the more open the lens and the better chance you have of making the background blur. Getting close to your subject and have the lens opened up will give you the best chance for a blurry background. The shot at the start of this post was taken at f2.8 with a 200mm lens in an attempt to isolate the bloom from the foliage behind.

The rose image was taken with an 85mm lens wide open and this shot, taken outdoors, was a real challenge. When you open up the lens to make the background blurry, you also reduce the depth of focus. In the case of the rose, the gentle breeze in the back garden would cause the rose to move in and out of focus. Depth of focus on the 85mm at f1.4 is very shallow indeed. Hard to believe about 2m behind the rose is the door to the garden shed. This is one big advantage of blurring the background. Distracting objects behind your subject will disappear into a nice, soft, buttery blend of colour.

The last shot in this post was again taken with a 200mm lens at f2.8. Again, problems with the breeze made focus a challenge, but I liked the background colour, hence opening up the lens.

200mm at f2.8 to get a soft blurry background

March 19, 2016March 20, 2016

In the Hunuas

Well, what a treat! This is a really lovely part of the country with some gorgeous landscapes and views. There’s a section for sale and it was decided to take a look from this section, at dawn, at the views. I’d never visited the site before and the maps didn’t really prepare me for what I was going to see. Often when people rave about a view it’s because you can see the sea. From this section no sea views and sadly not a particularly spectacular sunrise … but I know where the place is now and will return!

We watched for a sunrise and took a few images until I decided to walk down the hill slightly to look round a bit of a bluff. Losing a bit of height and being able to see more of the valley presented some glorious misty early morning views.

Sunrise in the Hunuas ... complete with lens flare ... arrrggghhh!!! — Sunrise in the Hunuas … complete with lens flare … arrrggghhh!!!

Such a gorgeous place and I’ll be back to take more photos. These first images suffer from a bit of lens flare which is really quite annoying, but hopefully we’ll avoid this issue the next time I visit. Hopefully you like the view as much as I did.

Oh … if you like the views and fancy having a look with the intention of buying your own slice of paradise, contact Shona Brown at Ray White in Drury.

March 1, 2016

Sensor cleaning time

Couldn’t help but notice a few spots appearing in my images that usually means some dirt on my sensor. Time to clean the sensor! I use the Visible Dust liquid and swabs and have been quite pleased with the results. I can recall cleaning my old Pentax film camera and being somewhat relaxed about the process. Strange, but I’m always a tad apprehensive when cleaning the sensors on my dSLRs.

After cleaning I decided to take a few test shots to make sure things were nice and clean … and then head out into the garden. Most of the time I seem to use wide angle lenses, so today, for a change I used my 70-200mm lens. This is a gorgeous bit of kit … I really must find excuses to use it more. Anyway, take a squiz at the shots below and perhaps let me know what you think?

It’s the first day of autumn today. The liquid amber is full of seed pods, but the leaves haven’t started to change yet. I’m quite looking forward to those gorgeous yellows, oranges and reds.

Speaking of yellows … look what’s turned up in my front yard! Pesky weeds!! I so wish I had as much success growing other plants as I do with weeds! Looking at the last shot in this post I reckon there’ll be rather more weeds appearing soon!!

I so hope you like this last shot. I had to get down quite low next to the wall in my front yard, and, it would appear, close to an ants’ nest! I was covered in the wee beasties!

June 20, 2015June 20, 2015

Rather special …

It was a glorious morning and I was there to not only see it, but able to take photographs of it too. It’s not that many years ago that I’d see a glorious sunrise through my car windscreen on my way to work. No time to stop and enjoy, had to get into the office and start work. Thankfully those days are long gone! Now I have the opportunity to not only enjoy watching the sun rise, but photograph it too.

There’s an app I have for my Android Phone called Sun Surveyor. This is very helpful to decide times and locations for sunrises (and sunsets for that matter). Using this app I could see where the sun would rise in relation to the trees at this particular Beachlands location. There’s a number of trees, with a gap through which you can see the water, and … according to Sun Surveyor, the sun would rise through this gap. The next shot taken with a wide angle lens, gives a better idea of the trees that frame the view.

Somewhat tricky to determine exposure with scenes like this as some areas are very dark whereas other are extremely bright. In situations like this I always use LiveView and the histogram. Sometimes I’ll take several images at different shutter speeds and then blend the images together to ensure I don’t lose detail, but for this shot I was happy to have the darks as dark as they are.

Oh, want to see more of the house that has these gorgeous views? Take a look here.

May 13, 2015

Horizontal lines …

Many years ago, when I was about 8 years old, and I started to use a camera, I was given many hints and tips by my uncle. Uncle Herbert was an enthusiastic and very capable photographer and was keen to pass on tips and tricks he’d learnt over the years. It’s strange, but even now, many years after he spoke to me about composition, I can still hear his voice and often imagine him standing next to me, helping me adjust the camera to get the “perfect” shot. One thing that he stressed was to avoid those stripy pictures. You’ve probably seem them, the land, sea, sky shots where each band is horizontal? Well, Uncle Herbert was no fan of those images I can tell you. So, early this morning, looking out towards Panmure from Mount Hobson Uncle Herbert was there again. Even though he passed away some time ago, we still had a bit of a chat about the shot you see in this post. Think he’d approve? I’d like to think he would.

Image ©2015 Christopher John Photography — Auckland sunrise

May 13, 2015May 13, 2015

Early start

I’d had this notion of a long exposure shot looking over the Newmarket Viaduct in the early morning. I wasn’t sure what the clouds and light would be like, but I thought I’d have a better chance of avoiding traffic early in the morning rather than at rush hour in the evening. Well, that may have been a bit of wishful thinking! I left home close to 6.15am and the traffic was stop start on my way to Mount Hobson. Sitting in traffic I became increasingly concerned I’d left it too late to leave home and that it was going to be too bright to get the shots I’d imagined.

Folks rushing over Auckland’s Newmarket Viaduct to work this morning

I think an evening shot will be better, so will try to get back in the next few days. In the morning as time passes it gets brighter quite quickly requiring ND filters to slow down the shutter. Shooting in the evening has the advantage that it gets darker as tine passes!

Somewhat disappointed with the light over the viaduct I switched my attention to watching the sunrise. Here’s a couple of shots looking out towards Waiheke Island from the top of Mount Hobson.

Looking towards Waiheke Island in the far distance this morning from Mount Hobson, Auckland

Last, but not least, here’s a photo looking across Orakei towards Rangitoto Island. If you’ve never visited Mount Hobson the views from the summit are most definitely worth the steep climb. Who knows, I may meet you there one evening as I try to get a nice shot looking over the Newmarket Viaduct.

View over Orakei towards Rangitoto Island from Mount Hobson

October 21, 2013

Aquilegia

Quite a pleasant day here in Godzone today and I couldn’t resist taking a few more shots of the aquilegia in the backyard. You may recall a snap taken with my tablet yesterday … well, today I thought I’d try a camera and see if there was any difference 😉

The light was similar to yesterday, but perhaps a little more intense. Exposure was taken for the blooms themselves and by carefully positioning the camera I could find a shadowey background which, as you may notice in the images below, gives the impression that the blooms were shot against a black backdrop.

No tweaks or twiddles in Photoshop. These images are straight off the camera. I used a tripod to keep things steady and a 200mm telephoto lens. For the first two images the aperture was set to f4, but the last shot was taken at f2.8 (and has a few Color Efex filters applied).

Quite amazing really that these plants survived the droughts last year and such a lovely surprise to see them flowering.