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Another happy morning in the woods with my camera this morning 🙂

But not with a new lens, this time with a new filter.

It’s the Shortstache Everyday Filter, a combination of a circular polarizer and a 1/4 mist filter which has the effect of both eliminating reflections and diffusing and softening highlights. I took it out this morning on my Tamron 35-150 f/2-2.8, which is my workhorse, all-purpose lens when I’m shooting headshots or events. It’s a wonderfully versatile modern lens which doesn’t get in the way, by which I mean it creates true, honest shots which are sharp, clear and easy to edit, but I wouldn’t really use it if I want to create anything arty. It doesn’t impose a character on the shots it takes like some of my vintage prime lenses do, which for a lot of what I use it for is a good thing, but this filter actually brings out some new, interesting facets I didn’t even know it had- I mean look at the picture below, who knew this lens could do swirly bokeh?

So I had a lot of fun- I think this will be a very nice filter to use when shooting stuff that is run’n’gun but not strictly photojournalistic (if that’s a word). I love the way it gives some character and softness to pictures without sacrificing sharpness and clarity.

I love shooting in the dappled sunlight in the woods, and this filter is particularly well suited to the natural pools of light that it creates.

And it takes nice pictures of the dogs too 🙂

I took my full-spectrum converted A7ii with me to the woods this morning, along with one of my favorite vintage lenses, my Auto-Takumar 35mm f/2.3 with a 590 nm “Supercolor” IR filter. This is a filter which lets in a little visible light, producing some very interesting effects, especially after some post-processing.

For example, this is a picture taken with just a custom white balance:

The camera sees green leaves as bright and mostly white as they reflect a lot of infrared, but the blue of the sky as mostly red, however with a simple red/blue channel swap in Photoshop (tell it to render blues as red and reds as blue), you get this:

I’m still learning what makes a good infrared picture, as the converted camera will see things very differently than your eyes do in the moment, and the images will look different again once you get them back to the computer and start processing them, but some of these came out very nicely I think …

Apparently the best light for this is the harsh, noonday sun of high summer, so I’ve got that to loo forward to 🙂

I was listening to The Archers (long running BBC radio soap opera), as I tend to in the morning while walking the dogs, and yesterdays episode (I am usually a day behind as I listen on the BBC Sounds app) was mostly about Alice and her ex-boyfriend Harry and their struggles with alcoholism, when I realized that I missed an anniversary last week- Tax Day (April 15) 1999 was the day I gave up drinking, so this year it has been 25 years.

I suppose that fact that I missed it is probably a good thing, as it shows that it really doesn’t rank very highly in importance my life any more, but I thought it might be nice to acknowledge and thank the people who made it possible: mostly my amazing wife, my daughter (whose impending arrival made it very important at the time), the rest of my family, George Packard, my then boss, and the folks at St. Vincent’s. Here’s to the next 25 years 🙂

(The use of the AA chip image is a little deceitful as I don’t go to AA meetings, but I am a huge supporter of their work for those who it helps, so I think they’d forgive me borrowing it).

… taking the winter tires off.

So if there’s a blizzard in the next week or so, you know who to blame.