Category: Lighthouses

Cheap Lens Vignetting

Historic Buildings at Fort Casey

This is an example of the vignetting you get from a cheap lens. The same cheap 400mm reflex lens that I discussed on my last post (and from the same trip to Whidbey Island and Fort Casey). You tend to get some vignetting with any reflex lens due to design issues, but I was a little surprised at the amount I got in some of my images. I haven’t figured out why some images are more ‘severe’ than others, but there is some in most images. Vignetting can be intentionally added to some images to focus the viewers attention on the main subject. The image below shows how this might work … and is an example of cropping away a lot of the corner areas of the image to minimize the vignette.

Jefferson County Building Clock Tower

Finally, another couple shots from that trip that were cropped to eliminate most of the vignetting.

Point Wilson Lighthouse at Fort Worden
Fort Worden Historic Buildings

2

New Lens: Depth of Field

Wild Rose and Cow Parsnip at Fort Casey

I recently bought a new lens: a Tokina f/8 400mm reflex. It is a wonderful lens for its small form and cost (less than 10% what a Nikon 400mm ‘normal’ telephoto lens lists for). There are some trade offs for any reflex style lens: you get a fixed aperture and some artifacts from the front reflex mirror. I took it on the Port Townsend – Coupville ferry run and while on Whidbey Island, I walked around Fort Casey.

One of the characteristics of long telephoto lenses is relatively shallow depth of field. You can use it to your advantage, but it can be a challenge getting your image to work out. In the image below, I was focused on getting the kite in the image … which I did successfully. But the kite is just about all that’s in focus.

Kite at Fort Casey
3

Holga Panoramas

Holga Panorama 1

The Holga cameras are a fun diversion. They are inexpensive to purchase, shoot 120 film and have a single lens similar to the Kodak Brownies of old. Since the lens has just one element, you get a very soft focus. The panorama version of the Holgas uses two frames of the 120 film … so you get 6 shots per roll. Developing is where things start costing money … well, after the $10 per roll of film, that is. There is an extra charge for processing the panoramas … so it you get high res scans, the cost comes in about $40 per roll for the processing … which brings the total to close to $10 per shot. Almost enough to make me want to start processing the film myself. Almost.

The above view is of the lighthouse at Point Wilson on Fort Worden from the dock of the Marine Science Center. Below is the view in the opposite direction showing the driftwood that has accumulated along the beach.

Holga Panorama 2
0

Fort Worden Views in Winter

View Looking Southeast

One of my regular exercise routines is walking the trails at Fort Worden. And I’m always carrying a camera … especially if it is sunny in winter. In these images (taken with a Nikon F6 on Portra 400 … except for the bottom image which was taken with an iPhone), the afternoon sun warmed the colors. The image below shows the Point Wilson Lighthouse and just above it, (in the haze) Mount Baker.

View Looking Northeast

The trees below show what happens when you clear cut old growth and trees grow back too close together. They end up being skinny and tall from a lack of sunlight.

Trail Tree View
0

Dungeness Spit (2)

Mount Baker from Dungeness Spit (looking northeast)

Dungeness Spit State Park is located on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. The views (on clear days) is spectacular and can include views of Mt Baker in the North Cascades plus the northern Olympic Mountains. The Dungeness lighthouse is a 16 mile round trip hike … I’m not sure if they sit offer it, but there used to be an option to stay the night at the lighthouse (bring your own everything).

The Olympic Mountains from Dungeness Spit (looking west)
1

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑

%d bloggers like this: