Vaperturebeing little
Posted on December 14, 2013
“This reminds of me of being little” is the first thing I heard when I showed this photo, which is ironic because that’s exactly the nostalgic feeling I was going for.
Taken with a Carl Zeiss 135mm APO Sonnar lens mounted on a Canon 5DIII, f/2, 1/125.
purchase
you might also like
burning
Posted on December 12, 2013
The brilliant red orange sunset contrasted with the muted soft grays and blues of the late evening sky really set this photo off for me. If you allow your eyes to look through the bridge, which is where the spot focus of the camera is, it almost looks like the horizon is on fire, which in a way it is since the sun is what is creating that intense glow.
The Zeiss 28mm f2 lens that I shot this with draw warmth like this so well, especially on the Canon 1DX with its incredible metering capabilities. Wonderful combination for late evening photography, especially with long exposures on a tripod.
purchase
you might also like
window pane
Posted on December 9, 2013
Sharply focused rain drops on a glass window taken in the very early morning during a storm. Beautiful out of focus background with the silhouette of the Queensborough Bridge acting like a photograph within a photograph. Captured with a Zeiss 50mm Makro-Planar lens mounted on a Canon 1DX, f/5.6. Zoom in and check out the amazing detail on the rain drops.
purchase
you might also like
prayer
Posted on November 21, 2013
This is one of those wonderful moments that you could easily walk right by and not ever notice if you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings.
Deep in prayer on the side of the road next to his petty cab in Central Park. The tree and the shadows hid the scene from plain view, but also framed the image in a spiritual way. This shot was taken with a Zeiss 50mm f2 Makro Planar lens mounted on a Canon 5D Mark III camera with a wide open aperture.
purchase
you might also like
four freedoms fall
Posted on November 20, 2013
If you haven’t been to the new FDR Four Freedoms Park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, put it on your schedule the next time you have a free afternoon.
The park has I don’t know how many cubic feet of beautiful white marble, and everything is arranged so linear and perfectly that it makes you realize very quickly how much effort went into this project. There’s a beautiful lawn for relaxing and sunning, and endless angles for anyone who likes to play with perspective in their drawing, painting, or photography. Plus, if you walk down to the most southern tip of the park, you can literally see all of southern Manhattan… it’s stunning!
purchase
you might also like
unfiltered one
Posted on November 20, 2013
Crisp, clear winter mornings bring on some of the most stunning sunrises imaginable, and not only do you have to get up early enough to see them, but you only have about 20-30 seconds to capture each stage of it’s evolution.
This photo is the first of a two part mini-series, each part taken with a different lens for a different perspective at a different stage of the sunrise. I had to use two cameras to get these shots because the colors were changing so rapidly that I didn’t have time to switch my lenses. And as most of you know by now, I am a prime manual focus shooter, so time is truly of the essence.
I’m all about capturing pure moments with my photography, and I despise photo filters, so this series of sunrises is ‘unfiltered‘. Both are straight out of the camera with no processing or filters of any kind. ‘unfiltered one’ was taken with a Zeiss 135mm f2 apo sonnar manual focus lens with the aperture set to f/5.6 and -2/3 EV. This lens renders colors so beautifully… you can almost feel them, and I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true.
purchase
you might also like
blue
Posted on November 17, 2013
All of my favorite shades of blue in the same photograph. I used the Carl Zeiss 25mm f2 lens for this shot because I knew that it would render the colors with this subtle subdued kind of feeling to them. It never gives that over-vibrant look that resembles a filter like some other lenses would have with this scene. It’s a special lens with a really unique drawing style that is quite different than its little cousin the 28mm f2.
purchase
you might also like
rain
Posted on November 16, 2013
Rain drops being held by a fallen leaf in between a few rays of evening sunlight after a storm.
There isn’t much to say about this photo other than it’s a beautiful photo that I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to see, capture, and have in my collection. I used a Zeiss 135mm f2 APO SONNAR lens for this, which is not a macro lens, and has a minimum focus distance of a few feet, so it was quite a challenge to get the focus this sharp since this wasn’t really the right tool for the job, but it’s what I had with me when the opportunity presented itself.
When life gives you lemons, make some delicious lemonade.
purchase
you might also like
intraordinary
Posted on November 8, 2013
This object is extraordinary to my eyes, but only within the confines of this photograph… “intraordinary”.
It’s a close-up with context image of a completely non-extraordinary hand railing next to the East River in Manhattan taken in the late evening hours of August with a Zeiss 25mm f2 manual focus lens, aperture wide open at f/2, shutter speed of 1/1600. The hand rail itself is anything but spectacular, but the image created here is just gorgeous. The dark and subdued drawing style of this lens, which is completely unique to this lens as far as I have seen, combined with the drama of the evening light and the beautiful bokeh that Zeiss lenses are famous for, created something extraordinary out of an ordinary object that has zero relevance outside of this photo.
If you don’t look, you’ll never see…
purchase
you might also like
where dreams come true
Posted on November 3, 2013
On the brand new @Vaperture twitter account, I chose to post the first photo I ever took as my first tweet. For the Vaperture blog, I’m going to do just the opposite and show you the very last photo I took… where dreams come true.
This was taken from a Roosevelt Island rooftop at about 9pm. I used a Canon 5DIII with a Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 manual focus lens set to f/11. 30 second exposure on a tripod with a remote trigger. No post processing… straight from the camera. It took me a few tries to get the composition I wanted, but this is one of my favorite pictures so far, and it’s head and shoulders better than my first-ever photos taken a few months back when I started this journey teaching myself digital photography.
Now I’m going to have to figure out a way to keep shooting on rooftops when it gets cold, and also how to get access to more rooftops in this city.
Vaperture 