Mircea Ploscar, Author at mPloscar

Squirrel Rant

December 6, 2018
By Mircea Ploscar

Squirrel vs Canon 5D Mark IV with the Tamron 150-600 mm G2 Lens

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Now, that winter is here and it’s cold outside, I will have time to publish content.

Once in a while, I take the camera with me when I go hiking. While these pictures might not be anything special per se, they are special to me because at the time I’ve just purchased a new camera. As you can see in the EXIF data under the images, I’ve got a Canon 5d Mark IV. Wohooo!

The day prior I’ve done a hike in the same spot, same trail, and figure I’ll just shoot on Auto mode. O boy, big mistake, while at first glance the pictures looked great. That was not the case when I got home and transferred all the images from the card to the computer. The ISO got bumped to the max setting and the images came out super noisy.

Sad really, because I’ve got a few great shots of chipmunks. Decided to go again the following day and that’s when I got all the pictures that you see below. This time, I went all out…straight up manual mode. No way I was going to risk getting my images ruined again.

I was lucky enough to find a squirrel that enjoyed getting photographed, so took few decent shots. Usually, they don’t really “pose” they just take off as quickly as possible. This particular squirrel did just that but then stopped after it climbed in the tree and then stopped.

To end the rant, the biggest lesson out of this is not to trust your auto mode all the time and make sure you zoom in to 100% when reviewing pictures on the camera, not 50% like I did. ;p

Happy shooting and see you again in my next post.

Squirrel vertically facing down — Shutter speed: 1/125s
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
ISO: 2000
Focal length: 428mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Squirrel vertically facing down, but slightly tilted. — Shutter speed: 1/125s
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
ISO: 2000
Focal length: 428mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Squirrel climbing a tree. — Shutter speed: 1/125s
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
ISO: 2000
Focal length: 483mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Nature Photography Wildlife

Great Egret by the Lake

March 26, 2017
By Mircea Ploscar

First photoshoot with the Tamron 150-600 mm G2 Lens

Just got my first telephoto-zoom lens, Tamron 150-600mm G2, and these are some of my first shots taken with it. I used an old rebel which adds 1.6x crop factor, making the lens a whooping 960 mm on the high end. That is a lot of zoom, giving me the capability to photograph this beautiful Great Egret.

Shutter speed: 1/1600s
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
ISO: 1600
Focal length: 552mm
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

Shutter speed: 1/400s
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
ISO: 1600
Focal length: 600mm
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

Shutter speed: 1/1250s
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
ISO: 1600
Focal length: 600mm
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

I can’t wait to try this lens on Canon 5D Mark III.

Close-up Photography Tutorials

Happy Holidays

December 21, 2016
By Mircea Ploscar

Making a Holiday Postcard

Every year after I’m done with my Holiday decorations, I take few pictures because it looks nice with all the lights. I didn’t always do this, but I remember a few years back I was looking at some photography techniques on YouTube. The idea was to zoom in or out with your lens as you are taking a long exposure shot to try to get this “time traveling” effect. Ever since then I just got hooked on taking pictures of various Holiday decorations.

Shutter speed: 1s
Aperture: ƒ/4.5
ISO: 100
Focal length: 80mm
Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

It doesn’t take much effort to create a postcard and it’s easy to make. You just have to keep few things in mind when you are taking the picture.
– Try not to center your main subject, place it to either side. You want to have room for your text.
– As you take the shot think about your text placement and try to make that part of the image soft focused so the text can be easily read, when placed over the image.

Shutter speed: 1/80s
Aperture: ƒ/2.8
ISO: 5000
Focal length: 100mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Using your favorite picture editing software open the image you just took and place your text over it. In this example below I used Photoshop and the Amatic SC font, which I got from google fonts.

Download my photoshop file

Here is another pictures from this session; also if you like any of these images you can download them for free.

Shutter speed: 1/100s
Aperture: ƒ/2.8
ISO: 1600
Focal length: 100mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Nature Photography

All about Mushrooms | Photography

December 7, 2016
By Mircea Ploscar

Photographing mushrooms while skipping through the woods!

Mushrooms are just so cool to photograph and they look like something straight out of a fantasy tale. Most of the fungi stand out, especially the non-edible ones, in a very pleasant way. They are brightly colored and have interesting geometric characteristics. I think about them as little houses since, on occasion, they can look like little huts.

Shutter speed: 1/500s
Aperture: ƒ/4
ISO: 200
Focal length: 18mm
Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Humid, wet and misty environment, a mushrooms favorite environment to thrive. Coincidentally, these are favorable conditions to take pictures that are underexposed and have a gloomy feel to them. Here are few examples of such photographs.

Shutter speed: 1/500s
Aperture: ƒ/4
ISO: 200
Focal length: 18mm
Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

The best way to photograph a mushroom is to get as low as possible to the ground. That way you get a really nice perspective on the subject. This allows for a much softer background, which in turn makes for a greater contrast photo. Getting low can be challenging at times with most cameras since the viewfinder lays flat against the body of the device. Cameras that do have a flip or movable screen are a huge plus. They allow you to get that low angled picture much quicker and with very little effort.

Shutter speed: 1/400s
Aperture: ƒ/4
ISO: 200
Focal length: 18mm
Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

So go out there and find some mushrooms, take some cool pictures and share them so we can all enjoy!

Camera settings for the first image
Shutter speed: 1/320s
Aperture: ƒ/4
ISO: 200
Focal length: 18mm
Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Nature Photography Skyscape

Skyscape, fun photographic exercise.

December 2, 2016
By Mircea Ploscar

Earlier this fall I took these shots around the house. I was trying to walk a little bit since I’m spending most of my day on a chair. So, I figured I would take the camera with me just to make the walk a bit more enjoyable. I’ve spent maybe one-hour walking and I was able to get some decent images.

Shutter speed: 1/200s
Aperture: ƒ/4.5
ISO: 100
Focal length: 100mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Even if you don’t have a high-end camera, the sky is always a good subject to photograph because it has plenty of light and all cameras work well if there is a good light source available. If you want to take a panoramic shot, as I did with the image at the top, you need to make sure you take the pictures in manual mode as well as manual focus to achieve the best results possible. Using automatic mode will change your camera settings from one shot to another and when you try to combine all those images together you will see that they won’t match. You want the consistency of the light to be balance throughout the composition once you stitch all the images together. Using a tripod it’s always great…if you have it with you.

Shutter speed: 1/250s
Aperture: ƒ/5
ISO: 100
Focal length: 100mm
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

If you like the images above you can go download them for FREE from my Pixabay account.

Sky Pano [first image at the top] | Flock of Birds [second image] | Flock of Birds II [last image]