Blooming
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/640
Now that plants are starting to bloom (though this technically is a weed), I will be able to get much more sample shots for when I can make time for the 105mm f/2.8 Micro AI-s review.
To make a long story short, I am in a bittersweet mood about my NEX-7 finally being back in my hands. I’m happy I finally have a “real” camera again, but am a little disappointed that A)The sensor cleaning function still doesn’t seem to work and B)The rear LCD turned out to be peeling when I took the plastic off (when I sent it in, the rear LCD was immaculate). I believe Sony has sent me a refurbished NEX-7, instead of my own camera. Not too keen on getting back a camera in worse shape than when I sent it in for repair, so I’ll be contacting them this week to see what the deal is.
But in the meantime, I’ve been busy! I photographed everything from tiny flowers to the sky this past week and managed to shake off my “camera blues” from not having my NEX-7 for over three weeks.
First up, I learned a little bit more about light painting in my photography class. Though I feel this genre is overdone and cliqué in many ways, I tried to be as original as possible for my assignment. In class, none of us had our tripods, so we took this one handheld—at different angles—of our teacher:
Ghost
35mm, ISO 400, f/8, 10 Seconds
I wasn’t too pleased with it, as the background is obviously not blacked out like most examples of light painting show (we popped a flash at the beginning of the exposure, so this didn’t help!). So, in the controlled area of an impromptu studio in my room, I used my 105mm f/2.8 Micro AI-s on a tripod to get these examples:
Impossible Shadows
105mm, ISO 100, f/11, 6 Seconds
In this macro of a moving fan, I shined a flashlight at different angles to throw the shadows in multiple different directions that are impossible to make at once. Black background from a coat behind the fan.
Centipede Hands
105mm, ISO 400, f/8, 6 Seconds
By wearing a black T-shirt and throwing another black shirt over my head, I could isolate the movement of my hands lit by an LED strobe light.
Feeling Blue
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 10 Seconds
This one was a lot of fun to make. By setting the color of my phone’s screen to blue I waved a pattern in the first five seconds, then tilted the light to my face. Sitting still that long was tough!
A few more with that 105mm micro, one of the students on campus displayed some impromptu art by pinning multiple origami swans onto a tree. Not too sure how the tree felt about that. 🙂
Against Sky
105mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/200
Triple
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/640
I also found a lowly Halyomorpha halys, commonly known as the brown marmorated stink bug, crawling around some dishes at night near a window (undoubtedly where he got in). Luckily due to the cold he didn’t move around too much, and I was able to stop down for a long exposure—I have yet to purchase a ring flash, unfortunately:
Bug on a Mug
105mm, ISO 400, f/11, 1 Second, 1:1 Magnification
Wanting to go for a “floating” effect, I symmetrically placed three gumballs (from a sweetgum tree, naturally, hehe) on top of a glass table and overexposed the background to white. I always love seeing the detail in this spiked fruit. I wouldn’t recommend ever eating one, though!
A Study of Gumballs
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/10
It was an active week for sports as well, as I shot a little bit of a softball game and most of a lacrosse game. Spring sports are really kicking off, and the next month-and-a-half are going to be very sports-heavy for me. Taken with either the 180mm f/2.8 AI-s ED or 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED:
Contact
300mm, ISO 400, f/3.2, 1/1250
Focused
300mm, ISO 400, f/3.2, 1/1600
Thanks to the much bigger viewfinder and focus-peaking ability of the NEX-7, I got a substantially larger number of keepers than when I shot lacrosse with the d300 last time.
Signal
300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/1000
Rushing In
180mm, ISO 100, f/3.2, 1/1250
Shot!
300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/1000
Head-to-Head
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1000
Wind-Up
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1000
Blocked
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/800
Celebration
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1000
Now for something completely different. There’s a large tree right outside my window with a squirrel nest. I’ve seen as many as five of the little guys come out at any given time, but they are usually moving too fast for me to take anything (let alone to give me enough time to haul my 300mm f/2.8 onto a tripod!). However, I had the unique chance yesterday to see two of them merely sitting out in the sun warming themselves. I quickly got my set-up ready and knew I was going to have crop substantially. This meant staying at ISO 100 and f/5.6 (the lens’ optimum aperture), which translates to very slow shutter speeds. Multiple fires of the remote later, I came up with a fun little progression, and realized just how sharp this super-telephoto can really be:
Two Brothers
300mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/100
“Ahh…this is nice, don’t you think?”
Curled
300mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/100
“Wait, where’d you go?”
Stretched
300mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/100
“Noooooo! Don’t leave me!”
Also, I still do use the excellent 35mm f/1.8 OSS when the situation calls for it (remember, I’m usually a telephoto guy). I got this snap of a rather hazy but interesting sky and added a lot of clarity in LR4 to give the clouds more texture:
Hazy Texture
35mm, ISO 100, f/5, 1/4000
For a grand finale of sorts, I return to the 105mm Micro. I managed to get some test shots over the weekend to get a better idea of how “technically” good the lens is so I can be at least one step closer to writing its review. Let me tell you, this lens is easily the sharpest lens I have ever used (especially at and around optimum). The only time it won’t out-resolve your sensor is if you mis-focus—which, in macro, can easily happen with the slightest of camera position changes. This lens also exhibits absolutely ZERO field curvature, and is truly sharp corner-to-corner. This means that it is perfectly suited to panorama work, in which I’ll be using it over the next week or so for a project on street murals (essentially, legal graffiti). Below is a downsized-version (about 1000×5000) of a 65-megapixel panorama. I used Photoshop CS6 to merge the frames, and I tried using the patch tool to edit out the pole on the right. However, when it tried editing out areas where the painting became more complex, weird artifacts were introduced that were obvious. So, I left it in for a bit of size context, this thing is big! 🙂
The Musical City
105mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/6, 7 Exposures Stitched
That’s all for this big update, guys and gals. Thanks for dropping by! No promises on when the 105mm Micro review will get here, but I can tell you I’m getting closer with every shot I take with it. 🙂
Matthew Durr Photography 
Nice to have the NEX-7 back? There are some really nice shots in here, and I like the variation. There’s a little bit of everything, but that “gumballs” picture steals the show, in my opinion.
Having a truly capable camera back in my hands feels great, but knowing that Sony has sent me back a “lesser” camera than what I sent them for repair really bums me out. Unfortunately, I cannot afford another two weeks without my camera given all the assignments I have to shoot for both class AND work. As you know, I have 90 days, so that should put me right at the end of the semester.
And thanks! That gumball picture is one of my recent favorites, too. I never get tired of their prickly symmetry.