USA

Laguna Beach Walk

Published: Thu, Aug 30, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Lensbaby, Photography, Photowalk, USA
Tags: Burnside 35, California, Laguna Beach, Lensbaby, Photography
After dropping off my daughter at school (she has just started as a Freshman), I headed down to the ocean with my camera to take a walk in one of my favorite beach cities, Laguna Beach.
It was pretty early and the city was not as crowded as I experience it most of the time. I grabbed my Lensbaby Burnside 35 for this short walk, and except for the last image, I kept it on my camera.
I couldn’t walk by this beautiful Lily without snapping a picture of it. Then I headed down to the beach.
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LA County Arboretum Visit with my Lensbabies

Published: Sun, Aug 12, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Photography, Photowalk, Sweet 50 or 35, USA, Velvet 56
Tags: Burnside 35, LA County Arboretum, Lensbaby, Photography, Sweet 35, Velvet 56
Smile! You are on camera.
Yesterday I made a visit to the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia. It was another hot (89F) and sunny day, not the most ideal day for photography, but I still had a ton of fun. I took all four of my Lensbaby lenses and I ended up using three of them. I started out with the Burnside 35, switched over to the Velvet 56, and finally used the Sweet 35. Let me take you on a pictorial walk of the arboretum and also give you some of my thoughts about the lenses.
There are lots of different birds at the Arboretum, but what it is most famous for are the peacocks. There are over 200 peafowls leaving on the premises currently. These two were my favorite photographs of them from yesterday, and I prefer the Burnside photo over the Sweet 35.
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My Final Thoughts on the Traveling Burnside Project

Published: Wed, Aug 01, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Hungary, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Traveling Burnside Project, Photography, Recommendations, USA
Tags: Burnside 35, Hungary, Lensbaby, Photography, USA
In the spring of 2018 I was extremely happy to find out that I was one of the chosen Traveling Burnside Project participants. I was given a Lensbaby Burnside 35 lens to take pictures with partially in the United States, and then in Hungary as well.
I took all my Lensbaby lenses on my trip to Europe, and one zoom lens. Surprisingly, I left the Burnside on my camera for most of the time, and not just because of the project. I liked how light my gear was, I liked looking for the right subjects for the lens, and I started becoming more efficient with manual focusing as well. I found that certain topics didn’t work for me with this lens, but many others did. Obviously, the same can be said about any lens. I loved finding subjects where I could utilize the swirly effect.
I have been writing about my experience with the lens (all posts here), but as the end of the project approached I felt I should give my final thoughts about it.
First, I want to tell you where I felt I was most successful with the lens. I absolutely loved certain floral images the lens created. Utilizing the wide open aperture and the highest vignette setting I’ve created flower images that really wowed me. Some of the following pictures were created strictly with the Burnside, for others I used a +4 or +10 macro filter. My post-process tools were Lightroom, On1 Effects, and rarely Photoshop.
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Little Corona del Mar (Traveling Burnside Project)

Published: Sat, Jun 16, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Landscape, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Traveling Burnside Project, Photography, USA
Tags: Burnside 35, landscape, Lensbaby, Little Corona del Mar, Photography
The Lensbaby Burnside lens arrived yesterday. This morning it was low-tide, so I took the Burnside and the Velvet 56 to Little Corona del Mar (Newport Beach, CA), to one of my favorite low-tide places in Southern California.
I tested both lenses facing the same subject at all settings; with the burnside it meant using apertures F16 to F2.8, and with each aperture I used all 4 vignette settings. On the Velvet it was just the various apertures I tried.
My observations: my frame contained some cloudy skies, and with F16, F11, F8 and F5.6 the maximum vignette added too much darkness with the Burnside. I liked the maximum vignette with wider apertures, because what was darkened was also blurry (last two images).
F16
F11
F8
F5.6
F4
F2.8

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Disconnected and Disappearing (El Toro Airbase Thematic)

Published: Tue, Feb 27, 2018
Written by GizellaN
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Categories: Blog, Photo Events, Photography, Photoshop, USA
Tags: El Toro Airbase, Photography

Picture

The End of an Era
In April, May and June of 2013, as well as in June of 2014 I attended a few photographic workshops lead by members of The Legacy Project. During these days the participants were taken back to shut down runways and hangars of the former El Toro Airbase, which were closed to the public.
Why did I attend these workshops? It wasn’t a military background. I very much enjoy taking pictures of architecture, and the older the building it is, the more interesting it becomes to me. Portraying former beauty or function in decaying buildings and places is another favorite photographic topic for me. When I heard about the first workshop and how close to our home it was going to be, I signed up right away. I am very glad I did. This was a very interesting and eerie location to visit and to photograph.
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