Lensbaby Control Freak

And now, for something completely different! (ten points to whoever gets that reference) Right before the Boy got me my 105mm lens, I bought myself a Lensbaby Control Freak in Hong Kong. Lensbabies are lenses with a creative spin. They are advertised as being fun and different from traditional lenses. Lensbabies allow you to cut the field of focus and to be able to take photos which can have very extreme and unusual blurry areas. If you are a freak about sharpness, lensbabies are not for you. Even the sharpest point isn't as sharp as dedicated lenses are. If you are a fan of soft photos, I highly recommend getting a lensbaby.

I bought the Lensbaby Control Freak since it is advertised as being great for macro photography. Since this was before I got the 105mm and I wasn't planning on getting the 105mm since I didn't have the money, I thought the Control Freak would tide me over until I had the funds.

View from the top

With the case that holds the f-stop disks

Upon receiving the 105mm, I am afraid I don't use my Lensbaby lens very much. It is very neat and fun to play with but a little more effort than I am interested in putting forth when shooting in most situations. You can actually control the f-stop by taking out disks and replacing them with the correct number.

Looking inside

Handy little container with all the f-stops

It has a little magnet on the end

Magic! ;)

Just lightly touch and lift

Without any of the disks

Magnetic!

 The way to control the areas in focus versus out of focus is to press in and tilt the front of the lens until you get the desired effect. Then you lock it in place using some of the knobs. It is a little unwieldy and I found it difficult to snap into place. Maybe my hands are too small or I haven't spent enough time mastering the lens.

Here are the knobs. The widest ring is what you use to control depth of field by pressing down or stretching it out. On the south side there are two knobs that you click together to free the widest ring. There is another button on the northwest side that locks everything into place. The ring above the widest ring is for focus. You can see why this is so easy...

Taken with my Lensbaby Control Freak

Taken with my 105mm

If you want something different and really neat in terms of setup, go for the lensbaby. If you want a no-nonsense sharp lens, I would hold off.

World Nomads Photography Scholarship 2011

Taken by Jason Edwards for National Geographic: one of the photos on the scholarship homepage

 It's that time of year again for me to be crushed by rejection. I am talking about the scholarships that World Nomads holds ever year. They have three main ones: a photography scholarship, a writing scholarship, and a documentary scholarship. Since I don't have any interest in making documentaries, I have submitted to the photography and the writing ones. Last year was my first attempt at both and I did not even make it to the semi-finalist round. This year, my goal is to win but if not, then I would like honorable mention at the very least.

Photography comes around first and here is the link to my submission: My World Nomad's Photography Scholarship Submission

Be sure to click through to the flickr set so that you can see the captions.

Here is the criteria by which my photographs/writing will be judged:

 1. The closing date and time is calculated on Australian time. (November 8th 2pm Australian Eastern Daylight time sharp! - Late entries will not be accepted!)
Be sure you know when that equates to your local time so that you don’t miss the cut off!

2. Don’t leave it until the last minute to upload your entry, as there may be a backlog.

3. Remember to supply image captions!

4. Use the 300-word essay to tell me about yourself, your photography, and what you hope to achieve through your photography. It’s your opportunity to sell yourself! Do NOT use this text to tell me about the images you submitted that’s what image captions are for.

5. Revisit the Judging Process and read all ten points to be sure you have done what is asked.

6. DO NOT EXCEED THE 300 WORD ESSAY LIMIT! Entries that exceed the limit CANNOT win!!! Seriously, just do a word count on your text.

7. This is not an event for professionals, be sure you do not qualify as such (see Am I Eligible video).

8. Don’t include a weak image in your submission, if you have four great images and one weak image leave it out.

9. Your images are meant to illustrate a PLACE you have visited, and the SENSE OF PLACE must be palpable.

10. The ‘place’ does not have to be exotic it can be your neighbourhood, your bedroom or the other side of the planet it really doesn’t matter.

11. If you are a finalist I WILL penalise you for excessive treatment of your images. Losing a single point might cost you the Scholarship so please be conservative when preparing your images! If in doubt please re-read the Digital Adjustment Guidelines.

12. We are looking for an individual with potential, and the greatest desire to listen and learn. I am working on this assignment and will need your assistance; this will take patience and focus.

Here is the link to browse the other submissions: All Submissions I tend not to because I start getting discouraged...

I would really appreciate any and all feedback. Otherwise, wish me luck!

Nikon 105mm Macro Lens

*Warning: A bit dry if you are not interested in lens shopping*

This is the most professional lens I own. It was gifted to me as an early birthday present from the Boy. We were in Macau, staying at Galaxy Macau. Here is the post of the trip: Galaxy Macau, House of Dancing Water, and Ice World Venetian.

That night as we were getting ready to go to sleep, I found a nicely wrapped present which contained an even more beautiful lens.

When I was an intern with Elisa B Photography, I was able to use her 105mm and instantly fell in love. It is an amazing macro lens and just has the most phenomenal detail and bokeh (the blurriness of the surrounding). It is crisp, sharp and enlarges the tiniest objects and animals. It also works very well as a telephoto lens and can get really great shots from a long ways away. However, it is around $800 and up, and so out of my price range.

Which is why I was so thrilled to have been gifted it! And it was everything I remembered and more.

Working for Elisa, I used this lens with an FX camera (full frame which is basically the digital version of a film camera). I have a DX (smaller) and I haven't noticed anything really different with how the lens handles. Here is Ken Rockwell's review of the lens, if you are interested.

Here are some shots that I have done. If you are using it as a macro, I would recommend a tripod unless the animal you are photographing doesn't really move and you have a very still hand/very great lighting. One of Ken Rockwell's complaints is that while you are focusing the shot, the image size changes which is called breathing. I noticed this a little but it wasn't a big issue for me. Here are some shots that I took with it, using it as a macro:

Those are not my fingers, I had the boy pose with the ring so you can see the star ruby clearly

I love how extreme the blurriness can be. This was me just messing around.

 I LOVE it for a telephoto. I already have a 55-200mm lens which I use as my main telephoto lens but this 105mm is sharper in its range. It doesn't zoom as far as the 200mm end, so it depends how far you want to go. I actually like both of them for different reasons and don't feel like I overlapped. I use the 105mm as a mid-range telephoto. Here are some shots I took with the 105mm. I am also posting some I took with the 55-200mm so you can see the difference:

105mm used as a telephoto

Monkey fight with the 105mm

Closer to the 55mm end of the 55mm-200mm

200mm end of the 55-200mm

If you have the money, get this lens. I am extremely happy with it. Be warned though, it is heavy.

Samye Monastery

This is a continuation of the post I started here Dorje Drak and the Drive to Samye Monastery.

Introduction

Samye Monastery is an extremely large complex and is shaped like the traditional Buddhist map of the world. The central temple represents Mount Meru and then it is surrounded by four major temples which represent the four cardinal continents. Those individual monasteries are accompanied by two subcontinents that each major continent has. Then there are two temples dedicated to the sun and the moon respectively. There are also four stupas. One is white, one red, one black, and one green:

Yeah, I didn't really see the formation either..

The Building Myth

There is actually a legend about why Samye was constructed this way. Once upon a time, there lived a sorcerer in India who wanted a magic sword that could grant him the ability to fly. The only way to do this was to use a corpse. So, he did what any rational person would do: he hired help. He roped a Buddhist layman (maybe a monk) into assisting him. After ritual ministrations, the corpses tongue darted out. The assistants job was to grab the tongue. You can see why the sorcerer didn't want to do this himself. After two tries, the assistant failed. Tongues are slippery and hard to grasp! The sorcerer then informed him that if he didn't grab it a third time, the corpse would become invincible and begin a zombie apocalypse. This being an undesirable outcome, the assistant had the genius idea to clamber on top of the body and put his teeth right up against the corpses mouth. Sure enough, when the corpse's tongue darted out, he managed to crunch down hard, whereupon the tongue turned into the hilt of a sword. As someone who hates the feel of metal against teeth, I did not enjoy this part of the story.

Pulling the rest of the sword out of the corpse's mouth (he used his hand), the sword immediately took him flying to the peak of Mount Meru, which is at the center of the world. From there he was able to survey the whole of the Earth and saw the formation described above. After the assistant flew back down, he handed the sword over to the sorcerer who, as a thank you, gifted the body of the corpse to the assistant. Lest you think that the assistant got the short end of the stick, the body had conveniently turned into solid gold. He then used this gold body to pay for the construction of Odantapuri, a monastery in India modeled after the form of the world. Samye is based Odantapuri.

Highlights

The front!

An important rock?

Opposite the front of Samye

Just inside where you pay 20 yuan per person

Pehar! In rooster form.

Statues inside! Anyone not Tibetan has to pay 40 yuan

The central Buddha statue in the main chapel on the first floor

If you get the opportunity, Samye is well worth visiting. The main chapel is pretty neat with its murals and giant statues but it had a couple of surprise treats to make it different from other monasteries. One of my favourite parts was on the second floor. On the right, just inside the main chapel area, there is a little hidey hole that was supposedly the hiding place of Vairocana (Vai-ro-chen-ah). I'm not actually sure about why he had to hide. Here is what is looks like from the outside on both sides (inside the chapel and the hallway leading to it):

The name wall

What it looks like from the outside hallway

When you go inside (warning, it's a tight squeeze), you'll see a wall with lots of signed names and a ladder that you can climb which leads to two statues. Facing these statues is a neat loft area. Careful when you climb and turn around to look at the loft area, the ladder is not the most stable. 

The khorra is a hallway type area that surrounds the main chapel. It is used for people circumambulating for merit. That is really worth walking through since there are these beautiful murals and, depending on the time of day, amazing blocks of light and shadow which highlight different parts of the murals.

Sorry it is blurry! It was dark and I didn't have anything to balance the camera on

 Another area worth seeing is the third and final floor. While it is screened off, it offers some great views of the different stupas (stick the camera right up to the intertwining wires).

The walk leading up to the stairs to the third floor

Black

Green

White. Sorry, the wires weren't cooperative on this one!

Red

 Finally, after exiting the main compound and passing under the famous bell (it was a gift from an Chinese queen a long time ago), go to the Pehar Khordzoling (cort-zo-ling). Pehar is one of two central protector deities of Samye Monastery and the Khordzoling is his main abode. It has a special spirit house where he was reputed to keep the souls of the dead that he defeated in battle (Mortal Kombat style). Basically you walk up to this door and look into the little slit to see if you can spot the undead spirits. Alas, I saw nothing but a dusty dark room. It was still pretty cool though. Upstairs, there is his chapel and you can see more statues. On the second level, there is another set of stairs that leads to the top level. It's pretty great for pictures.

The bell

Better view of the green stupa

The entrance to the Pehar Khordzoling

Peering in the spirit door!

The two main protector buddies: Pehar on the left and Tsiu Marpo on the right

View from the top!

I peeked

I love the random goats

If you want to and have time, you can go into the nearby green stupa and walk around it. We didn't since, at the time, we thought we were going to spend the night and I was anxious to go to Mount Hepori. We figured we would do it the next day. Likewise, I think you can go to the other stupas but I’m not sure since we didn’t.

This is the end of the Samye Monastery portion of the trip, continue on for Mount Hepori!

Sweet mother daughter combo =)