Sometimes you have to compensate

The only good thing that has come of the Hipster movement is that I can still make use of my old crappy Nikon D70s. Now, when I say old and crappy, I really mean it. Periodically it will eat part of or all of the data on my CF card for no reason. If the camera wasn't so old, I'd send it in and get it refurbished. SO, what does this mean for shooting with it for now until my D600 arrives? HIPSTERIZE IT!

ISO200 50mm f2.4 1/125sec

What does this mean though? The short of it is, overexpose, blow up your highlights, soften the focus, and soften the colors.

Here is the thing though, why would you want to do this? In my particular case, it is because my camera can't gather data in low light/shadows anymore and I also get a lot of color noise throughout. So, to counterbalance this I overexpose (aka shooting to the left) which overloads the sensor with lots of light and extra data, allowing the sensor to fake it. What helps facilitate this is using a wide open aperture so you can really pump the light in to your image as well as get that glorious creamy bokeh in the background.

Now then, there are a couple of ways to achieve this sort of look on a regular (read non-crappy) camera. You can drop a mint on Photoshop and some premade filters, or, you can just use something like Lightroom and pump the highlights up a little bit on your already overexposed image. Then, add some fill light, reduce color noise (which will help soften your image), and adjust your white balance to where you want it.

Happy hipsterizing!

ISO200 50mm f4.8 1/30sec