Kitty lens is not that kitty !!

I use Canon EOS 400D with EF-S 18-55 f3.5-5.6 supplied kit lens. Lovely colors of flowers always attract me and i decided to shoot closeup of the sunflower with this lens. At 55mm and aperture set to f/8 while iso set to 200. I kept moving closer and closer to the flower and kept focusing and discover how close this kit lens can actually focus !(0.92 ft)  image came our pretty good with lots of colors and detail. Click the image to purchase the print. It came out too good i decided to put into my fine art gallery.

I have been very satisfied with this lens and have used it to make a lot photos. It is not much good at focusing and very cheaply built but, it will keep happy a lot budget shooters if they use it carefully. This was not planned test shot just one from random daily shots so i decided to post.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Flower shot with canon 18-55 kit lens no cropping slight PP. click to buy Print to check how it looks when printed. Image will be printed from much smaller 1667x2500 size as compared to 2592x3888 orignal Raw from camera. "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="296" caption="100% crop no noise reduction applied slight USM"][/caption]

Capturing flow of water

It has been always in my wish list to shoot flowing water ! Well visit to northern areas of Pakistan this summer gave me chance to fulfill my desire. I shot a lot flowing water scape there, i shot a lot of images. This is daring Kunhar river that flows through Kaghan Valley. It is known as killer river that will take everything in its way. Crashing water on rocks create horrifying sound that can lead to river phobia ! Rocks ah what a beautiful piece of art full of textures and perfect in shape. I decided to make them part of scene.

Click images to see full galleries

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Canon 18-55 f/3.2-5.6 lens at f/8 at 18mm"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="EF-s 17-85 mm at f32 "][/caption]

The Technique

Before any body asks here is what i did to sucessfully capture these images.

To capture flowing water you got to have set your camera for slow shutter settings. I used canon Kit Lens 18-55 at f/8 and f/11. I had 58mm ND 8 Sony filter on it to stop down the light.  Keep shutter speed lower then 1/8, 1/6 sec. The last one was shot at 13 sec with kit lens. If you don't have an ND filter wait till sun goes down and very little light of day is left, this may give focusing tough time so becareful with focusing.