Reply To: Where Are You in Your Creative Journey?

[cameraclicker]

I have a couple of macro lenses.  The Sigma 150 mm, I would not use without a good tripod.  The Canon 100 mm L has an excellent stabilizer and can be  used for hand held macro photos.  I understand Sigma has brought out a new version of the 150 mm with a stabilizer that is quite good, but mine is the old version without stabilization.

I too, miss the split prism viewfinder but between the diopter in the digital viewfinders, live view and immediate play back of the image, I have learned to live without it.  Live view while doing macro photos works well but requires a good tripod.  Mostly I use the viewfinder.  If you are shooting for the web or a relatively small print, you can stop the lens way down to get lots of depth of field.  If you are shooting stock, after stopping down to f/11 or so, diffraction starts to make your images softer, which the stock folks don’t like.

Am I satisfied with all my work?  Some days I’m not satisfied with any of it!  Other days I feel better about it and hope springs eternal, so tomorrow I may get better results.  At the same time, I realize much of my photography has to fit into the rest of my life, as frustrating as that can be.  On one of the few days the sky cleared and sun shone while I was in Hong Kong, I could not run up to The Peak for a photo session because a dozen people were expecting us to be at dinner!   Many times I see a wonderful shot and cannot stop to capture it because I am supposed to be somewhere…  Such is modern life.  Perhaps, so it has always been.

On an episode of the Grid, someone provided a quote that went something like “If you want more interesting photos, stand in front of something more interesting when releasing the shutter”.  A quick search on the web gave a slightly different version:  “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.”