Taken with Nikon D80 and Porst 135mm f/2.8 M42 lens and macro bellows

This is very unusual for me, a pastel colored flower photo. I don’t really like this type of photos nor understand how to take and make them but still I ended up with this on day 64 of my project 365.

On Friday I tested my M42 mount macro bellows with M42 mount Porst 135mm f/2.8 lens (@ f/8) and Nikon D80 digital SLR camera. The colors turned out so bright that I had to tweak them in Photoshop.

Here are two most recent Project 365 photos (Saturday and Sunday). Photo enhancement was not on my “Project 365 objectives” list but I could add it. Because 2010 has been lacking great photos so far, I’ve tried to make snap shots better by tweaking them in Photoshop.  It’s almost embarrasing how into fake retro look I am at the moment. This feeling reminds me of 2003 when I was 19 and got my first own computer, a PC laptop bundled with Photoshop Elements 2. It was fun to discover all the photo enhancement features.

Nikon D80 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D, available light

Nikon D80 and Nikon Series E 28mm f/2.8 AI-S, available light from the right

Nowadays I see bokeh everywhere. I cannot watch TV or movies or even drive a car without noticing bokeh circles all over the place. It’s a disease!

On Monday (8th of February, day 39 of my 365) I was sitting in my car in traffic lights, waiting for the green light. It was snowing and the snow flakes melted on the windshield. I stared at the red light and noticed that the melting snow flakes made nice bokeh effect when I didn’t focus on them.

So, in the evening I went to sit into my car again (the car was safely in the parking lot) and took a few photos of the windshield bokeh. The white balance is set based on the light in the car. The lamp posts outside gave the turquoise touch to the photo. I added only a hint of light in Camera RAW.

Click on the photo on the left to see it in larger size.

You can also follow my Project 365 photo stream in Flickr.

It’s day 34 and in three days I’ll get 10% of my Project 365 done. I’m sort of lacking ideas for photos at the moment. Especially on work days it’s difficult to be innovative because when I get home, it’s already dark outside. I’m hoping to improve my project quality next weekend. Here’s today’s photo which was inspired by my lack of inspiration.

…bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.”

‘Bokeh’ can be seen in two ways: some think that bokeh is only the round shaped out-of-focus spots but some think that all out-of-focus (blurry) areas are bokeh. In this article I’m referring to the round shaped spots when I mention bokeh.

Bokeh can be good or bad. Lens’ aperture size and shape affect to the quality and look of the bokeh. Some lenses are good or great bokeh lenses while other are worse. For example, the bokeh of my modernish Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens is usually swirly and chaotic but the bokeh of my old Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8 AI-S lens from the 1980s is usually round and pretty (or at least rounder and prettier).

Usually there are the in-focus areas and the out-of-focus areas in a photo. The more the area is out-of-focus, the stronger the blur is. Bokeh is formed if there are lighter or glowing spots in the out-of-focus area. The further away the spots are from the in-focus area, the stronger the bokeh is.

Yesterday I went for a short walk and intentionally took a few out-of-focus photos. The photos below are taken with the Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8 AI-S lens (wide open) and they have not been post-processed in any way except for the resizing. To create effects like in the photos below you just need to manually focus to the front of the light sources. The more you focus forward, the bigger the bokeh circles are.

Christmas lights (21 / 365 of Project 365)

Colorful Christmas lights

Lights by the road

Here’s the photo number 17 of 365:

Taken with Nikon EM and M42 mount Porst 135mm f/2.8 on Kodak TMAX 400 black and white film

Speaking of wide angle lenses… I currently have a Nikon kit lens (18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR) with a widest angle of 76 degrees at 18mm. I would like to get a wider lens in the near future for interior and scenery photographs. I have a few options which fit into my strict budget. At the moment it’s quite difficult to say exactly which features I want or need so I have to go to test some lenses in a local store.

I’m not that into barrel effect so pure fisheye lenses are out of the question. Tokina has AT-X 107 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 lens which combines a fisheye and a super wide angle lenses into one. It offers angles from 180° to 100° but even at 17mm (100°) the barrel effect is visible. Tokina also has AT-X 116 11-16mm f/2.8 and AT-X 124 12-24mm f/4 wide angle lenses that have smaller distortion on the edges. Also Sigma has a 10-20mm f/4-5.6 wide angle but it loses to Tokina lenses in speed. Korean Samyang has the cheapest option: fully manual 14mm f/2.8 which offers great speed and slightly over 100° angle in DX format. Samyang lens was announced in August/September but the launch has been postponed a few times. It’s not available in stores yet.

Nikon EM and Auto-Beroflex 28mm f/2.8 (M42 mount), shot on Fujifilm Superia 400

The print was totally green so I decreased the tones in Camera RAW after scanning. I kinda like the industrial feel of the photo. I’m collecting all the Project 365 photos into a Flickr set.

It’s 4th of January and I’ve taken a photo each day except on the 2nd so I could set my project to start on 10/01/01 but I don’t want to play hooky right in the beginning.

Without thinking about it more, I’m setting my Project 365 to start on 3rd of January (yesterday). Overall learning (lighting, composing, techniques, photo enhancement) and trying new things will be my project objectives. I will try to do more than just snap shots each day but if I don’t find time for anything else, I will settle for one. Probably I won’t publish all my 365 photos on Sipping Designs but I will be posting them in Flickr. I’m tagging all related blog posts with Project 365 tag.

I will start posting photos tomorrow because my yesterday’s photo is still in development.

This would have been my 1/365 on 1st of January (taken with Nikon D80 and Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR)

Project 365 is a year long project and the aim is to take one photo (straight out of the camera or manipulated) each day. There are no universally set rules but usually you are allowed to post the day’s photo afterwards (many things can delay the process) and it’s not death serious if you miss a day. The purpose is to learn something, not to cause nervous breakdowns. If you are interested in other people’s project, Flickr is a great place to start looking.