Tag Archives: Nikon - Page 2

P365 Progress and Getting ready for travel.

Posted by on January 7, 2013 No comments

I told you I probably wouldn’t be posting the P365 pics here as I take them, but to catch everyone up I wanted to post what I have so far.

BUT FIRST.

A few notes about my trip.  I leave on Tuesday the 8th….yeah, tomorrow.  Flight leaves at 9:50pm and is a 12 hour jog over the Atlantic to land in Kuwait City at 5:50pm.  Kuwait is 8 hours ahead of EST so no one call me in the middle of my night!  Actually, you can’t call me since my phone number will be voice mail only.  You can call and leave me a voice mail, it will get sent to my e-mail and I will get it.  I will be available on IM, Skype, and through e-mail.  I should still have access to Facebook and Twitter, so for most folks it will appear as if I never left!

The Project 365 is going pretty well.  I haven’t hit any sort of wall about what to shoot.  I am approaching it with the idea of shooting what I am doing/working on for the day, that way it documents my year as well as practices the art.  Here is the catch up:

A Long Time Ago? let's test that! (P365-6-2)

A Long Time Ago? let’s test that! (P365-6-2)
Bonus Pic!
Since I caved and used Auto on the group shot earlier, I felt I should do another one. This may lead into a series of pics with these two guys as they take the Tardis to different locations. I wanted to grab this shot as a bonus pic since I am leaving the country soon and wasn’t sure if I would have the chance, and I already have the next two shots planned out.

 

RetroNick Radio (P365-6)

RetroNick Radio (P365-6)
Just a fun picture of the RetroNick Radio crew. I cheaped out and went auto for this shot because I just wanted a quick shot of the guys.

 

Days gone by (P365-5)

Days gone by (P365-5)
Today we went to a convention called Magfest. It’s mostly about games and gaming, kind of a “Pax-lite”. Still fun and they had a lot to see and do there. I wanted something that represented the time we spent there. Classic consoles are always a favorite.
No flash this time, all natural (well, indoor con based) light.

 

It was a Dark and Stormy Adventure (P365-4)

It was a Dark and Stormy Adventure (P365-4)
Friday is our game night. This was our first run together playing D&D, normally we stick to card/Board games.
The drink is called a Dark and Stormy, rum and ginger ale.
Simple shot, with an on camera speed light.

 

That time of year (P365-3)

That time of year (P365-3)
Yup, it’s time to toss the tree and tear down Christmas!
For this shot, since it was late in the evening, I used both of my strobe lights. One positioned down and to my left, the other I held at arms length above and to the right of my POV. Both were remotely triggered.
This was also post processed on the iPad using Snapseed. I like the iPad for some quick touch ups and adjustments.

 

Light Orb (P365-2)

Light Orb (P365-2)
Always wanted to try this trick with long exposure. A friend gave me a small blue LED light so I tied it to a string and went out for a twirl.
Nikon D5100, 35mm, f/5.6, ISO 200, 103 second exposure.

 

Project 365, Day 1

Posted by on January 1, 2013 No comments

I actually took this shot last night shortly after midnight.  Sarah and I were up for NYE and she was making Marshmallows from scratch.

Tower Of Marshmallows (P365-1)

 

Shot with my [amazon_link id=”B004V4IWKG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Nikon D5100[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”B001S2PPT0″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]35mm f/1.8[/amazon_link], ISO 200, [amazon_link id=”B0002EMY9Y” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]SB600[/amazon_link] Speed light pointed at the ceiling to bounce the flash.  Minor touch ups in Lightroom.

The Un-intentional Photographer

Posted by on October 11, 2012 No comments

This last weekend was very exciting for us.  Sarah’s step-sister was getting married down in Richmond VA, so she got to spend the whole weekend down there doing very girly bridesmaid type things.  Meanwhile, I got to stay home with the pets and catch up on Fringe (I am in season 4 now, no spoilers!).  That is, until Sunday.  The plan was that Sunday morning, I would drop off the dog at the doggie-sitters house (Thanks Stacy!) and then pick up Sarah’s Grandma and head down for the wedding.  We would sit for the wedding and then go home and enjoy the extra day off on Monday.

Oh plans.

Remember kids, no battle plan survives first contact!  Most of the morning went fine, well, sort of. I had forgot the umbrellas, and to feed the rats, and a few other things, so I had an extra trip back to the house.  Now, I had heard a rumor that someone was expecting me down at the wedding early to snap some photos before the ceremony, but it was all rumor. No one actually said anything to me about it.  There was also a rumor that they were able to hire a photographer at the last minute.

When I arrived at the venue, I headed up to were the wedding party was preparing and noticed a lack of anyone taking pictures.  I had attending various weddings before and knew there there are some pictures that are on “The List”.  You know, those shots that are kind of important.  When I asked where the photographer was, they said she was downstairs.  I rambled my way down and found someone, standing at the doorway, with a “camera” around her neck.  She was just standing there.  Not shooting, not testing light levels, not scoping locations.  Just standing there.

I put “camera” in quotes because she held a Sony cybershot camera.  You know one of those crossover type cameras that aren’t quite a point and shoot, but not a DSLR.  Now I am not in a place to start calling out on equipment.  My Nikon D5100 is not a high end professional level camera.  It’s a crop DSLR meant for the level I use it at.  The weddings I have been to always had a photographer with high end gear.  Usually two people, with two camera’s each and lenses staged everywhere!  But even more important, THEY WERE TAKING PICTURES, not standing around.

Disgusted, I went and grabbed my gear (never leave home without it) and headed back upstairs.  The rest of the wedding, I took pictures.  After the ceremony, I quickly scoped locations in the area, arranged poses, and made sure that “The List” got fulfilled.  During the reception, I relaxed some and tried to let the “hired” photographers do their job. Oh yea, turns out that the girls husband also had a small camera and was shooting as well.  He, at least, made some effort to walk around and take some pictures.  She sat on her butt.

The last few days I spent sorting and processing and, while I am not the best wedding photographer in the world, I think I got some pretty great shots.  I took a total of 941 pictures and sorted out to process 135 of them.

[zenphotopress album=107 sort=random number=5]

https://www.wizzersworld.com/zen/Special%20Events/Emily%27s%20Wedding/

Disclaimer: I really hate to bitch about someone else trying out photography. Normally I would give all kind of kudos to someone branching out and trying something as daunting as wedding photography.  It’s stressful   as all hell, which is why I really try to NOT go about doing it.  BUT, if you are being PAID to take pictures at an event, TAKE PICTURES.

The Ladies of Ragnarok!

Posted by on October 2, 2012 No comments

Last Friday Sarah and I got the opportunity to attend a superb crazy excellent super cool concert of awesomeness! The Ladies of Ragnarok tour (a Dammit Liz Production) was sponsored by Thinkgeek.  Sarah and I trekked out to Jammin Java in Vienna VA to take in this amazing spectacle.  (there, I think I used enough adjectives to describe the concert)

The key players in the concert were The Doubleclicks, Molly Lewis, and Marian Call.  I, of course, brought along the camera to further practice my Concert Photography.  Equipped with my[amazon_link id=”B004V4IWKG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]D5100[/amazon_link], I swapped between my [amazon_link id=”B004Y1AYAC” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]50mm 1.8[/amazon_link] prime and my [amazon_link id=”B004FN1W2I” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]18-270mm[/amazon_link] zoom.  Thanks to some great friends we had seats maybe 30 ft from the stage and dead center.  Due to it being a very crowded venue, I didn’t get the chance to move around a lot so most of these are shot from my seat.  The downside to that being that there’s a lot of microphone eating in the shots.

All my photos are Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons.  Please let me know if you would like to use them.

Mobile Photography

Posted by on September 25, 2012 1 comment

The Apps

I have been traveling around quite a bit lately.  The thing that always goes with me is my photography bag.  (It’s contents are listed in the sidebar)  What doesn’t always go with me is my laptop.  You see, I have a behemoth of a laptop.  It’s an older ASUS gaming laptop that, while great for gaming, and processing photos, and everything else, is just HUGE!  I love it to death, but it’s just not a feasible option for simple travel.  Sure, if I am going to be someplace for an extended time, or have a lot of luggage I can take, it would make more sense.  So in most cases, I just use my iPad.

When I bought the iPad I have now, I knew I would be using it for photog stuff, so the 64gb size made sense.  I shoot primarily in RAW and that takes up a lot of space.  Of course, storage isn’t the only concern though.  I needed a few good quality applications to round out it’s usage.  I thought that I would post about what I am using and the process in which I use them.

The apps that I tend to use the most (for photography) are:

So, there’s all the tools, but how do you incorporate them into a shoot?  Easy!  Here is a play by play on how I would go about using all of these tools out in the field to Shoot, display, organize, process, and publish.

Release Forms

I have an upcoming project I am working on for a photo essay on Portraits. (subject to be explained at a later date)  I will be on location for the duration of the project and won’t have access to my PC until much later.  So I would go about the shoot, like usual.  Meet with the subject and discuss the plans for the project and their involvement.  If they agree to the project they would then fill out the release form in Easy Release and sign.  Then I would have them fill out the form I created in Numbers that asks them for information specific to the project. (Simple questionnaire)  It’s important to have questions in the survey that would identify them in the pictures.

Using my Nikon camera and lighting gear (supplemented by the SoftBox app) we would take the photos.  The Eye-Fi card would wirelessly transfer the JPG preview to the iPad, which would be standing nearby, to display the picture I just took (within a second or two).  This allows a larger screen to see framing, lighting, exposure.  I like the LCD on my camera, but sometimes it’s just not big enough to judge if I got the shot I wanted, or was just off. The downside to this is the time it takes to transfer.  If you are shooting at an event where speed is a factor, this is not a good solution.  Of course, if you at an event like that, you probably aren’t checking your LCD every few shots either.

Eye-Fi used as quick Preview

Softbox can show different colors or textures

Once the shots are done I import the RAW into the iPad using the camera connector. (it’s an important step to delete the Eye-Fi imported JPG’s to avoid duplicates).  Then I can use Photosmith to organize the shots into groups, flag the ones I want to keep/discard/etc. Now, I can stop here and wait for my PC to process photos, since when I get to it I can sync Photosmith to Lightroom and go from there, but, if I am going to be out for a while and want to get some work done quickly, I can proceed with processing.

Organizing and tagging like a PRO!

Using Photosmith I can identify the shots that I want to focus on.  If I shot in bracketed mode for HDR use, I would find the two shots I want to combine and open them in Pro HDR.  Adjust the levels, and save then move on to Snapseed.  For a typical shoot, I would just open in Snapseed. This allows me to adjust all my levels, colors, and balance.  I can do some selective adjustment as well.  If I need to use more precise editing, or want a more Lightroom type feel, I can use Filterstorm instead of or in conjunction with Snapseed.

HDR Editing on the fly

Quick Professional edits

Precise edits

Once editing is finished I can use the iPad to post to various social networks, email, and even my own website.  Using FlickStackr I can upload to Flickr directly, add all the info I need, tag it with keywords, location, and people.

Uploading and tagging on Flickr

So there you have it.  The whole process described above can be done, on the scene, in a matter of minutes.  (depending on shoot time)

Now, that’s not to say that this process doesn’t have it’s faults. You certainly aren’t going to get as accurate processing as you would with Lightroom on a PC.  As with all electronics, battery life is an issue too.  The Eye-Fi card adds a draw to the camera battery, and having the iPad up and receiving drains it as well.  Barring that, I love being able to set up, shoot, process, and publish all while on the road.

London Shots

Posted by on July 17, 2012 No comments

As promised, here are a few of the good shots as I go through and process them.

London Panorama

Click to Embiggen

This panorama was shot from up on Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath.  We stopped off at the Southampton Arms pub and had a few GREAT pints of cider.  Somehow we thought it would be a good idea to stagger through the park and hike all the way up to the top of the hill.  I am really glad we did since I was able to take this shot.  I used Photoshop CS5 to stitch the panorama together.

The Clock Tower

Click to Embiggen

Here is your standard picture of the Clock Tower.  Apparently, Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the tower.  We stopped along the bridge and I snapped this one pretty quick.  I was happy with how it came out.

London Eye Long Exposure

Click to Embiggen

London Eye with the Shard

Click to Embiggen

On the Thursday we were there, the building known as The Shard was having its opening ceremonies.  Part of that was shooting off lasers across the city!  I didn’t have much time to get to a closer location and thought that, through the London Eye would be a good shot.  I set up for about an hour and got both of these shots.  One is the lasers going off and the other is a Long Exposure of the Eye as it spun.  The laser show started at 10:15pm and the Eye stops moving at 10:00pm

London Underground

Click to Embiggen

Lastly (for now) is the London Underground.  On the last day I realized I didn’t have any good shots of the Tube.  I loved the blur on the train for this one, but had to do some cleaning up of some other parts of the shot.  Lets just say someone gave a crack at photobombing.

I will try and have some more shots up soon.

We’re Back!

Posted by on July 16, 2012 No comments

This was the start of our London Journey

Hey all!

We are now back from London!  We had a total blast the whole time out there and I took a metric F-Ton of pictures! (They use the metric system over there.)  Most of them are the touristy style pics, you know, because that’s what we were.  I did manage to set up and take some good solid pictures that will require some post processing and tweaking.  Those will be trickling out over the coming days.  Sarah actually as a very good day by day accounting of our trip over on her website.

 

Sarah got a few snaps of me taking snaps

I did want to touch on a few things that really made the trip though. (from a Gadget/Tech/Game perspective, that is.)  For my photography stuff I brought the whole backpack of gear, but rarely used all of it.  For general city travels I used my messenger bag and typically just the camera and my 18-270mm lens.  It was great for all around shooting.  On a few days I brought my 35mm with me, but rarely needed to swap it out.  I found that carrying around my full 15-20lb bag of gear would wear me out fast.  Also, I am not ashamed to say that a lot of shots were done in AUTO.  I was there as a tourist, I liked some of what I saw so I wanted a picture.  These were for memories, not art.  I know there are some photogs out there that claim they would never use the AUTO setting on their camera……they are full of crap.  It’s there for a reason.  To get the memory you want at a good quality.

Setting up for a shot of the London Eye

That said, I also set up a number of shots specifically to be processed and done in an artistic way.  These were set in M and bracketed.  The downside being that 1: I have a large number of photos to go through, and 2: Sometimes I would forget I was bracketed and ended up with some shots all over the place in exposure. (what, I was tired!)  All of my Touristy shots are in my gallery on the site here.  My Artistic shots will be trickling out as I work on them and probably uploaded to Flickr.  Keep an eye out!

 

Actually, we had good Signal everywhere

We had a very fun experience with Cell phones while in the UK as well.  My friend loaned me an old iPhone 3G for the trip and my wife as using her unlocked Motorola Razr Maxx.  First thing at the airport I tried one of the kiosks to grab a sim that we could at least use to call our driver. It was an O2 card that was 10£. Sadly, I didn’t use it at all, it had no data and we found our driver before needing it.  Next, while out we hit up a local shop that dealt in various phone stuff. I picked up a 3 sim that had the low end of texts and min, but unlimited data for 15£. Since we were only using data while here it would be perfect. It worked perfect in the old iPhone but in the wife’s Motorola it wouldn’t get any data. The guy said to go to the 3 store in westfields and they would fix it.

Had I realized (or not been tired from the plane) there was a mall right next to me, I would have just gone there.  The 3 store was shit for help. Their on staff folks were clueless and their phone support couldn’t figure out the Android APN settings.  We decided to hit the O2 store and got a sim that had 500mb data topped up to 1.5gb. The Guru was enamored with the Motorola and set up the APN very quickly. Everything worked great! Again, had I been more aware of my mental state, I would have just had them top up the card I bought at Heathrow.

As a side note, while out and about we noticed that O2 had better service with better coverage, but 3 had that unlimited data factor for cheap.  The final score board was 1 O2 Sim from the airport never used. 10£ 1 3 Sim from random store, never used 15£ 1 3 Sim from random store, used in iPhone 15£ 1 O2 sim from O2 store, used in Motorola, 20£

Yeah, that’s a game.

From the gaming side of things, we had a great meetup with some of the RetroNickRadio fans out in the UK!  You can find the details of that over at the RetroNick site.  We were also clued in to a little hole in the all Arcade located right near the London Eye.  I got very few pictures and didn’t have enough time to really explore, but it was a great find.

 

 

I know this post is starting to drag on so I will cut out here.  Expect some more excerpts from the trip in the coming weeks!

On the subject of Jelly Beans

Posted by on February 15, 2012 No comments

The other day Sarah was out at an event with some friends while I gleefully stayed home and slept of played video games.  Sometimes we do this.  Well, when she came home she was loaded down with various food stuffs that were excess from the event.  Some very evil person sent her home with a jar of Jelly Belly brand jelly beans.

O_O

Yes, the most amazing jelly bean on the planet.  It is taking all of my willpower to not devour the whole jar in one sitting (it’s a big jar too).  To combat my desire to “eat all the things”, I decided to set up a little photo shoot.  Below are the results:

Forever Alone
No one likes the black jelly beans!

Jelly Bean Statistics
As you can see from this chart, we show 100% Deliciousness.

Both of these shots were done with my SB600 strobe mounted on the Gorilla pod stand, positioned about 2 feet away and the Lightsphere about 1 ½ feet above the subject. (Triggered remotely)

MINI Photoshoot

Posted by on February 6, 2012 No comments

This last Saturday we scheduled some time with the MINI club (DC Metro MINI’s) to get a bunch of us out for a photo shoot.  Turns out a lot of the MINI folks are really into photography as well!  One of the folks found a really nice parking garage and we line up about 15 MINI’s to start taking pictures.  After we spent about 3 hours shooting in the garage we headed out to Wolf Trap in Northern VA for some outside shots.  Unfortunately it started to rain so I ended up putting my D5100 away (no weather sealing).  Thankfully some of the others had the right equipment and we got some great shots.

You can see all of the shots at these flickr links, below is just a few of the shots:

MINI Photo Shoot

MINI Photo Shoot

IMG_6936.jpg

IMG_7002.jpg

Random Objects

Posted by on February 3, 2012 No comments

In my quest to take more pictures I have decided to go with a theme.  Random Objects.  Just some things you may pass every day and not take notice of.  For the past few weeks I have made it a point to climb to the top of our 6 floor stairwell just to get some stairs into my daily routine.  In doing so I pass by these pipes every day.  This one caught a very nice shadow and looked interesting:

Open Here