Sigmoid (Re-Post)

Note

I'm back here now after a little vacation off work which I've tried to invest heavily into sleeping! However, for some reason which I'm not sure of, my last blog post was deleted after being posted already and it was saved back to my draft folder - and hence some of it was lost already. So, for the time being I'm just re-posting this blog post (minus the Finale part which was lost), in hope that I will be able to post a full article soon, hopefully by next week! 

Re-Post

To be honest, I don't feel like typing my blog for this week, but I didn't jot down anything here last week so I must do something, right?
The fact is, I've done much lately to be posting it here but I did one stroll at work with my "one camera one lens" challenge to myself, but the result was 2 images mainly (from a handful of images). Some of the images were taken were shaky as well so I've put them aside, for now. There is also one "experiment" that I've been working on for 3 weeks now and still didn't conclude yet!

Sigmoidal

Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5

As I proceed with my self-challenges, changing lenses with each challenge and heading to work with one camera, I've tried my typical 50mm (Canon) lens as well as 20mm (Voigtländer) lens. This time though is my first time to try a "range" lens instead of a prime lens, namely the Sigma 12-24mm.
I got this lens from a friend who changed to Nikon and gave it to me without selling it actually! I didn't use it much and the lens is cheap as I could tell (the price tag was on it as well!). However, I can see some future for this lens with its flexibility IN the range of wide angles. The only problem I have here, though, is the wide diameter of its front (there is a special adapter ring with thread for filters). It's 82mm wide, and I can't fit any filter in it so far. I might, for some reason, just try to fit infrared gel filter at its back, but this is for later. I can also dust off some of those gel ND filters or those big stoppers sheets (for solar observation and photography) and put them on the lens front and securing them with a rubber band, just in case I plan to do a long exposure job. However, this is for later for the time being, when need be. The design is apparently dedicated to landscape photography but that didn't stop me from shooting at close distances, specially that the near-focusing range is at around 20cm which makes for some useful distortion or enlargement for close-up shots.

The Warm Bloom

As I stated before already, I've taken many shots, some of them of the same subject as a plan to make some 3D anaglyphs later on but unfortunately that seldom did work and many of the shots were shaky to a minute degree that I didn't notice it first when I first reviewed the images. Anyway, there is a plenty of abstract shots I need to go through again and see if I can deduce something. One of the shots I've liked so much is one for a Fake Sunflower, I realized its name from searching online or maybe the formal name would be Heliopsis or Ox Eye. I've shot this bloom (which raise abundantly around my workplace) from various angles but probably the best was up close and person which resulted in The Warm Bloom. In this image, when processing, I tried to mix sharpness and softness altogether, beside cropping to eliminate distracting elements in the background (in fact I tried to fix that and make the background of homogeneous nature but I failed). At the end, i thought it might be a good image for some text or something so I cropped accordingly to keep some space on the side  for that purpose. The image was a cliché, I know, but still it was quickly accepted in stocks like Dreamstime and Canstockphoto (while 123RF is having more than a dozen of my images pending still for months!!!).

Below The Boss

After finishing from the outside around my workplace, I headed inside with not much intention to do much. In fact, it seems that my eyes got kind of bored with its surroundings in this place, and hence I didn't think of much. This makes me think of taking this lens again with me to work to give it a fair try next time and press more on my eyes to extract something. Anyway, when I went inside I got this urge, again, for a low angle shot with this lens. I've placed the lens (at 24mm) below my desk and switched the timer on to give me some time to sit down . After taking several shots, it seemed that the very first shot was the best of all! Didn't do much processing with this one (just a bit of cloning to remove texts or stickers and some dirt on the floor). This image was accepted as well in Canstockphoto and Dreamstime. As for the name, Below The Boss, I did not mean to sound an egocentric individual but it's just a title for this image, because typically, low angle shots for people do add some power to the character and it is used (with other concepts) widely in the world of portraiture photography.