but I do love chancing upon the herd of wild horses in the space between New Mexico and Colorado, in the space between sunset and moonrise, in the space between goodbye and hello.
I went out tonight to try to catch the super moon, but the sky was too cloudy to really get anything good. I soon saw why, as this red virga gave way to electricity.
I've never tried photographing lightning before, so I'm a little happy with these first attempts.
Last year, I learned of the new Petzval lens Kickstarter too late to join, but I was still able to pre-order one in December. I've been not-so-patiently waiting for six months, but my new Petzval lens arrived yesterday and I got to take it out for a spin in the afternoon. (Breaking my self-imposed blog rule of not putting people pictures - my regular website is full of those already - here are some of the shots I liked.) Shot #1 with my new Petzval. OK, it has some swirl, but the manual focus dial will certainly take some getting used to.
I quickly discover that
the Petzval, with said manual focus dial, is not the lens to bring to
the Pond to photograph a toddler happily on the move. I miss many cute
shots before he pauses for a split second.
I also quickly discover that trees give the best swirl. Sure, I could add this effect in Photoshop, but that's no fun...
I can't wait for my experimental aperture plates to also get here, to really set this bokeh apart.
OK, so this lens has a little flare problem... duly noted.
Now I think I'm getting the hang of it, perhaps. Ashley Pond fish sculpture.
A cool thing about this
lens is that it asks me to slow down, to consider the background
carefully - rather than rely on my aperture to blur it out and put the
focus on the subject, I actually want a specific background to try to
get that Petzval blur to put the focus on the subject. Still need to watch out for trunk-head, but hey.
I'm getting a little dizzy now, swirled around.
In love with my new lens and ready for more subjects, please.