Thursday, May 29, 2008

Old School - New School

Nothing like a low-pressure photographic opportunity to experiment. I took two assistants, Jon Troast of www.jontroastDOTcom and my lovely wife, with me to photograph recently engaged Nicole & Scott. The goal of the outing was to work with a Nikon d70s, two 5-way reflectors, and a gray card. 
1. Gray cards allow you to be exact with light measurements
2. Reflectors are great for diffusion 
3. Constantly reflecting light at subject is not preferred over brief fill of flash. Squinting.
Post-processing was a breeze by utilizing raw converter, photoshop and Lightroom. Selective color toning can't be any easier with LR. Limited time was spent on all pictures due to versatility of these programs. And it was fun :)

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Sprang

Let's create something new...since it's Spring and all. Like this little mom outside my place. I'll keep you posted on the winged family drama as is cracks open. I can't wait to see what you guys have been shooting.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Lightroom 2 vs. HDR

Before you judge too harshly, most real estate agents I work with like their photos a little more "fake" than real these days. So, to accomplish the fake look and to fix a bad image on a bright day I ran the photo through CS3 HDR (5 minutes) and used Lightroom 2 (2 minutes). Even with some curves and Highlight/Shadow adjustments to the HDR image, it lost a bunch of the good stuff and added some bad stuff of its own. For quick edits (not for architectural photography) Lightroom 2 could prove handy. What do you think?
Original @ 10:30am
CS3 HDR
Lightroom 2

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

LA or New York???

Mike, Hugh, and I went to LA on Sunday to shoot some fashion...90mm Tilt/shift lens and natural light baby. What do you cat's think..

Mike shot this gem. He's the man and creative master mind behind this project. Check out his work at www.mikestonis.com. The blur of the TS lens is amazing.



Some of mine shooting over Mike's shoulder with the 50 1.4 shot mostly wide open. Each photo was treated with the Boutwell SX-70 filter and a little cinnamon toast.




Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Click round 2



Thanks for all who come over last night. Another stimulating episode had by all. Next meeting will hopefully be in the new Klein Ranch (actually just a house we bought and are in escrow for here in SC).

It was good to go over marketing and how we can connect to clients. We decided that next round everyone will bring photos to share and discuss.

Also, it's neat to think that we are only in the infant stages of "the click" and are already getting things out of it. Can't wait to see where life takes us.

5d Rumors????

I found this on www.canonrumors.com. Could be sweet but doesn't seem that much better other than better ISO and more frames per second. Don't you love rumors.

New 5D Specs?

-17.2 megapixel CMOS sensor
-Improved 19-point AF (11 cross type), no 'invisible' AF points
-3-inch LCD display (921,000 pixels) - same unit as Sony/Nikon?
-Live view with contrast detect autofocus
-Viewfinder 100% frame, 0.90x magnification
-ISO 100 - 3200 (L - 50, H - 6400)
-Burst 5 frames/second up to 27 RAW or 75 JPEG
-Auto Lighting Optimizer and Highlight Tone Priority
-New 2% spot metering
-Dust reduction in-camera and software
-Compact Flash card slot
-Optional battery grip BG-E4, same as original 5D
-BP-511A lithium-ion battery, 800 shots CIPA Standard
-Shipping in July for $2999 body only.