Re: Gravestone photography

[Pablo Coronel <pcorone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Are you shooting with the lens fully opened?  even if it is a f/4.5 lens 
it should give you a blurrier background.  Those pics seem to be taken 
with f/8 or smaller

To do so set your camera in A mode and open the lens to its maximum 
aperture.  If the speeds are too fast then you'll have to decrease 
sensitivity or use  aND filter.




Elson Elizaga wrote:

> I did as you described but my lens seems unable to blur the background 
> much. The shots of the relatively flat gravestones -- those raised and 
> cemented on the walls -- appear to be fine. But those of the obelisks 
> are not so.
>  
> Your idea about using flash came up on me, too, except that I had no 
> companion when I made the shots, and it was so windy. I went to the 
> cemetery on bright sunlight, and decided the contrast was extremely 
> high. Then I returned several days later on cloudy afternoon. The 
> scenery looked better, but I was forced to shoot at low speed, and it 
> was windy and I had no tripod, and I was in a hurry. But at least I 
> saw the difference, and now I know which climate is best for this 
> assignment. I wanted to maintain an ISO of 200 to 400 only.
>  
> I'm wondering how a 60mm micro (macro) lens would handle this scene.
>  
> The project has me curious about the symbols -- the obelisks, the 
> pointing finger (a reference to Da Vinci's John the Baptist?), the 
> weeping willow (I don't know, yet, what this means), and what appears 
> to be the masonic handshake. All these repeated in several instances. 
> I intentionally placed a large photo on the cover, showing the name 
> "Magdalena". I'm sure some of you here have also read "Holy Blood, 
> Holy Grail," "The Templar Revelation," and similar literatures.
>  
> Near one of the gravestones marked "Bryans" 
> (http://isb.elizaga.net/94-99.htm), I found four coins during my third 
> visit. I had a companion then. He is doing the documentation of this 
> cemetery. He took a quick look at the coins and said they were US 
> money, dated 1970s up. How they got there we don't know.
>  
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--

Pablo Coronel R. Ph.D. Research Associate Department of Food Science 
North Carolina State University Room 14B Schaub Hall, Box 7624 Raleigh, 
NC, 27695 Phone (919) 513-8077 Fax (919) 515-7124 e-Fax (419) 818-7590 
e-mail pcorone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www4.ncsu.edu/~pcorone