Fred & Molly

Fred, the golden retriever, and Molly, the spring spaniel, met me on a drizzly day for a super sneaky session that was a surprise for their dad! We started the adventure in old downtown St. Cloud.

The very little, energetic Molly rocked her pictures in the alley. Fred on the other hand, was more content to pant and lounge in front of the red florist wall.

We bundled up and headed out to Sand Prairie Wildlife Management Area for shots of the pair together as well as some shots of Molly running through the tall grass. 

The rain persisted and then decided to downpour, but luckily we had wrapped up the session moments prior!

Freelensing - A Creative New Way to Shoot!

Once upon a time, there was a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens. In an unfortunate accident it encountered a fall and face plant upon the floor. No real damage could be seen, minus that the barrel of the lens was slightly separated and said lens had decided it wanted to be a tilt-shift lens! Eek (but actually kind of cool...)

Another 17-50mm f2.8 lens, also made by Tamron, was purchased as the replacement. Not needing to use the "shifted" lens, I did a google search on making a tilt-shift lens (actual tilt-shift lenses are SPENDY!) Lots of diy projects that explained how one could create a tilt-shift lens, though most didn't touch on the idea of a zoom tilt-shift.

Sifting through the google results I stumbled across something I had never heard of. Freelensing. What the heck is freelensing? Basically it was ripping the rear mount off of a prime lens (once again zooms were vaguely touched on) and using the lens freely in front of the camera to capture an image with tilt-shift like characteristics. A Photographer's Guide to Freelensing, The Poor Man's Tilt Shift Lens by Jay Cassario was super insightful on how to create a freelens. (Props to him for buying and destroying a new 50mm f1.8 lens!)

So I gave it a try. First unscrewed the rear metal mounting element. And found the screw drive for the auto focus system (heehee, cool! Yes I'm a camera nerd.) I felt a little bad ripping the rear element off to expose the brains of the lens as it still auto focused "fine", but the results from freelensing have been worth it!

(The pictured lens isn't my 17-50mm f2.8 - the above lens is a 28mm f2.8)

I haven't had much play time with the freelenses yet (dang cold weather!) but that hasn't stopped me from creating a solid collection of freelenses. I've got a 17-50mm, 3 50mm f1.8s, a 50mm f2, a 55mm f1.7 and a 28mm f2.8! This might be an addiction... Also if you have any old lenses.... haha!

The results thus far have been super neato. There are natural light leaks are interesting, lights drop off in an eerie manner, and focusing is a whole different beast!

I managed to snag some freelensing images in Florida :) Yes it was really that nice out!

And some from here in the cold state of Minnesota :) (believe these were all taken with the 17-50mm)

I can't wait to explore this new way of capturing images this coming spring!

Yellow - 52 Week Project

What better theme for those cold dreary days here in Minnesota than yellow? Granted it was cold and chilly the day Bender, Icey and I went out searching for yellow walls downtown. Poor pittie feet and rottie feet aren't use to the cold!

Next up check out the awesome Blue Amrich Studio in Massachusetts and how she captured the yellow theme!