Going manual

Hello guys, 

today I wanted to share a story about the best 30$ I've ever spent on photography gear.

As you might know I have a Sony NEX-6 as my primary camera, it's a small APS-C sized mirorless camera. I might be talking chinese to some of you right now but don't worry, this just means that regular DSLRs have a mirror... my camera doesn't.. 

so what's the big deal?

Mirrorless camera have this advantage of having a short distance between the lens and the sensor, Sony's system is actually among the shortest to date.  This means that with the right adapter (usually a small ring made of metal) you can pretty much use any lens on this camera. Of course everything becomes manual (focusing and aperture control) but you can get some very interesting results with this technique.

This brings us to a couple of weeks ago, I was scouting on eBay when I found this lens: 

It's a Vivitar 135mm f2.8 for the old Pentax m42 mount. 

I got it for about 30$, including shipping! Add a 10$ adapter for this lense and you got yourself a very good portrait lens for almost nothing!

and I was not disappointed, these are my first tests with it:

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My dog made a perfect test subject for the glass. The image is sharp and has a good contrast, and the background is beautifully blurred I love it! 

Let me know what you think about it, and if you have good old lenses to recommend I am definitely interested! 

Apparently I can do headshots too!

Hey everyone, 

the other day my beautiful wife asked me If I could redo her headshots. She was pretty disapointed with the ones she got from another photographer and she thought I could do a better job. I was very flattered... and a bit intimidated at first, after all I am more specilized in landscapes/architecture and action photography. I am really not used to give someone directions, but i figured I could give it a try. 

As it turns out it was good fun! The idea behind these shots was to get something pretty natural to reflect the way Charlotte is in person. 

I think we made a good team on that shoot:

We used our backyard patio for the shoot, Charlotte was in the shadow of the sun umbrella and the sky was pretty grey that day which is pretty unusual for Southern California. I climbed up high on a stool to take these picture with my Sony 18-200 and NEX-6 camera, I used the widest aperture my lense could give me and zommed it to about 130mm.

I hope my wife enjoys these portraits, one of them is already my desktop wallpaper :) and you whch one do you like best? 

Jeremy