12.13.2020

Fujifilm X-T2 + XF23mmf/1.4 R: 1/250s, f/11, ISO200

It has been a very busy few weeks since last I posted. There was Thanksgiving in a pandemic which means Black Friday - Cyber Monday deals have all been arriving in the mail this year. I was also hired as a photographer to shoot some stuff (stay tuned for more on that…). I assisted my buddy Quiet Shadows on a few of his recent personal projects. And I’ve still been waking up early on the weekends to catch the sunrises. Also, my 2020 Fantasy Football experience is officially over.

Pictured above are two new additions to my photography tool kit, and possibly a third if I can convince Ryan to sell me the ball head in the picture that he hasn’t used in years… 👀. The first is the Platypod, which I had learned about listening to photography podcasts from WAY back when. In fact, I had forgotten about it until, on several recent shoots, I had wished I had the ability to get my camera lower than my tripod would allow. On Black Friday, I scanned a few websites to see if there were any deals I might be interested in, and lo-and-behold I saw one of these on sale so I ordered it. I took it for a spin this weekend. This honestly might be my favorite product photo I’ve shot which is why it gets the featured spot.

The first photo in the series is with my traditional tripod. The other three were shot with the Platypod. I’m finding that a low angle can really dramatize the water as it cascades over the rocks by making them appear large like a waterfall which is why I was eager to get the product in my toolkit. As readers have no doubt noticed, I shoot a lot of vertical orientation landscape photos. Ryan was the first I saw doing it and I liked that it was different so I decided to give it a try. It’s been a goal of mine to complete a calendar of vertical landscapes, but I haven’t accomplished 12 photos I’m truly proud of yet. Every year I make it my goal to get 12 good images, and by the end of the year I’m still wanting. A great feature of verticals is that they make wonderful cellphone wallpapers. Another thing you may notice is that there’s often repetition in my location choices. Every morning is a new sunrise experience, but living on an island there are a limited number of photogenic East-side haunts. Sometimes I get bored going to the same places using the same equipment, so I’ve started bringing non-traditional lenses with me lately. The series above is all shot with a 50mm equivalent (Fujifilm XF35mmf/1.4 R), a portrait lens. One benefit to shooting landscapes with a portrait lens is that it compresses the background. In these examples, the lens makes Mañana and Kaohikaʻipu islands look much closer to shore than traditional landscape lenses do. This has the effect of making the islands appear larger. Another benefit is the more exaggerated depth-of-field focus effects. Blurry backgrounds that we love to see in portraits can make landscapes interesting too, I think. Lastly, it forces me into new compositions.

This next set of photos are from the previous weekends between the last post and this one. The first 4 photos were also shot with the 50mm equivalent (Fujifilm XF35mmf/1.4 R), and the last one was shot with the 120mm equivalent (Fujifilm XF80mmf/2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro… that’s R [aperture Ring] LM [Linear Motor] OIS [Optical Image Stabilizer] WR [Weather Resistant] for those trying to follow along). I took the 120mm equivalent lens with me because I knew I was going back to the same place I had gone the day previous when I took the 4th photo in the series with the 50mm equivalent lens. The first three photos were taken together on a different weekend at a different spot. Two things I liked about the 50mm focal length in this instance is that because the backgrounds get compressed, there’s less sky in the photos than a usual landscape photo. This allows me to get the most out of the beautiful golden colors we associate with the sunrise. I also liked that I could actually take a few portraits! No sooner then I had changed my target from the water to Ryan, though, I got caught! 😳