Garden birds

Posted on Jun 12, 2019Aug 25, 2019 Posted in Wildlife PhotographyTagged adode, bird feeders, birds, bokeh, Canon 6d Mark II, Garden, garden birds, great tits, Lightroom, sparrows3 Comments

I have always loved watching the birds in the garden and since I was a small boy we have always put out food for them. For my last birthday, my wife and children bought me a couple of feeders and they have been well used. It may sound silly, but it brings me such happiness and pleasure. The cats seem to agree.

I was using the Canon 6D Mark II with a 75-300mm F4 lens and the editing was done in Lightroom. I’ve tried to give another feel to these photos and keep them slightly unnatural, but it seems to work. I hope you think so too.

Clisson in colour, and close up…

Posted on Apr 27, 2019May 30, 2024 Posted in Architecture, Landscape Photography, Street Photography, Travel photographyTagged bokeh, bokeh whore, Canon 6d Mark II, Clisson, Close up, France, helios M44-2, Loire Atlantique, swirly bokeh2 Comments

As you might know from reading the rest of this blog, I love using my Canon 6D Mark II with vintage glass. This Helios M44-2 is a bokeh beast for my inner bokeh whore… I love depth of field and this lens allows me to really express myself. Not only do I get the bokeh but due to a design falut in this lens, you get a “swiry bokeh.”

When I saw photos with this swirly bokeh for the first time I was blown away. I wanted that so boadly and when I first got this lens onto my camera I loved it. I’ve been getting acquainted with this lens and am beginning to get find what I can do with it.

Of course it has limits, the major one being that I can’t focus to infinity but i’m ok with that. I can get around it by using zone focusing. I can be around 6 to 10 metres away from my subject and have a small aperture. Above that the mirror with smack into the lens and my camera with start throwing a wobbler! And we don’t want that , do we!

So this bokeh, what is it then?

In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”.
Wikipedia

My Wife…

Posted on Apr 17, 2019Apr 17, 2019 Posted in PortraitTagged bokeh, Canon 6d Mark II, helios M44-2, wife2 Comments

I don’t usually think of myself as a portrait photographer, but I do take photos of my wife and children for family albums. I have a Helios M44-2 58mm which is a dedicated portrait lens and found a willing victim…

I say victim but she did say “yes” all that time ago. She usually hates my photos of her… No, she hates all photos of her, but here are some that said were Ok, which is praise indeed!

The Helios lens is a bokeh beast and is a wonderful focal length for portraits. I manage to use it with the Canon 6d Mark II with an conversion ring. It’s like having the best of both worlds… Digital and analogue.