I finally have a blog. Yeah!! And now I am sitting here at my table and try to think about what I want to share with you. This is my first time blog in like ever, and I do my best to keep it interesting. If you have ideas on what and how to improve please let me know! I am always looking forward to comments!

The first topic for today is Macro Photography:

So far my Macro equipment consists of a Canon 100 2.8 L Macro Lens. That's about it. But I want to dig deeper into that topic, because I find it very interesting how much details one can see in even the smallest animals. Just a regular fly is so much more intriguing when seen close-up. Yeah, they can be pretty annoying when you are sitting outside on your patio, but if you take the time to look a bit closer, you will discover amazing details you didn't even know existed!

I read some articles, magazines and other blog posts on macro photography and found it time to invest in some additional equipment. Over the weekend I ordered two things:

1. A set of extension tubes from Movo Photo
2. A Round flash diffuser that can be used for macro and portrait

I am not quite sure yet how versatile the flash diffuser will be, since it is very bulky, but I will be able to use it for portrait as well, and so I will give it a try.

The package should arrive tomorrow and I will grab my camera as soon as it arrives and will head outside to get some testing done. I will keep you updated and will post some pictures and my experiences once I am comfortable with the new equipment. So exciting!

The second topic for today is photography on overcast days:

We have that kind of weather now for over a week ( a least if feels like that) and while I understand that those overcast days can provide awesome soft light I always find myself a bit hesitant to actually go outside and shoot.

It is a nice, soft light, but on the other hand it is also very dark for the camera. Let’s assume I try to get a picture of that Osprey hunting (I actually really try that now for a couple weeks, but that’s a topic for another post). In order to compensate for the light I have to raise the ISO since my adjustments for time and aperture are limited (Hunting Osprey at 1/10sec. anyone…?).

But wait! Didn’t we learn that high ISO values increase noise in our pictures?

Right, and here we have my problem. In such light situations I have to increase the ISO to levels that increase noise and smooth down the picture in a way, that I can hardly use it anymore.

I hate noise in my photos and try to avoid it by all means. Maybe this is also a problem of my camera. I use a Canon 7D and while sometimes the noise level on a certain degree seems acceptable, sometimes the photo is completely useless.

Does anybody have a Canon 7D and made the same observations, or am I just too picky when it comes to noise in my photos?

Please let me know what you think about it, I really appreciate your feedback!
 

Have a photo-tastic week!

Ben