A comparison of filters

Sometimes you can completely change the feeling of an image based on how you filter it.

Babies are great

Did a gender announcement shoot recently for a lovely young couple expecting their first child. Some things that I feel really made this a successful shoot were as follows.

1- Make sure you talk to the couple before hand so that you can get a feel for their personality, and let that shine through the photos. In this instance, we talked extensively about their interests and sense of humor, which, led to them choosing sock monkeys as the medium of announcing the gender.

2- Choose the right location, but have a backup. Initially, we were going to shoot in Annapolis. However, due to a combination of atrocious weather, the Naval Academy graduation, and SERIOUSLY awful weather (it was gross and cold and rainy and windy and and and), we ended up using my fall back location the next day. Turns out, it was a fabulous idea.

3- Wardrobe. Talk to the couple before hand and have them dress in colors that compliment each other, but, are comfortable enough that they will be relaxed. A gender announcement shoot is meant to be the embodiment of the love the couple shares for each other and a way to let them shine through. If you ask them to dress more formally than they are accustomed to, you won't get the shots you want.

SO, now that you know the hows, here are the results.

This was the teaser image that the couple released. It drove their friends up the wall for HOURS trying to get them to say what the gender was. Definitely recommended to add some interest if you plan on doing a shoot like this.

Engagement photos are so much fun

Seriously. Engagement shoots are LOVELY. The couples are just so happy and in love and it just feels so easy to get them looking great together. The only hard part is to get them to loosen up a little when you start to shoot. After that, it is smooth sailing and you just need to be ready with the camera.

Week four

Fun with a creepy shed in the snow and the cold. Long exposure and my SB-900 flash hand held on 1/64 power flashed a bunch of times to get the effect I wanted. Only thing that would have made it better would be a little fog. 

ISO400 14mm f/8 30sec

Progress

Quickie post today. My Nikomat, my D70s, and my D600. The Nikomat isn't what I learned to shoot with, but near enough to my F3 to count for this. :)

52 week photo challenge

SO, I've actually been doing this for three weeks, but, I give you my first three weeks of my 52 Week Photo challenge. The goal is to plan and execute one shot per week. The key with it is to plan the shot instead of just winging it and selecting something. What I have so far is almost planned, but not quite. I have been planning the third shot though. So, getting there?

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

For the images in full lovely glory, check them out on my Flickr. Enjoy!

When it's cold outside

Play with Tokidokis inside! The way to do toy photography is to make sure you either have the perspective set up so that you keep them forward in the frame against the backdrop for the size perspective. OR use a macro lens so you can bring them in nice and tight to the lens and make them dominate the frame. Another way to keep the photos interesting is to make sure you have your background carefully selected so you don't have distractions in the image. A poorly placed cup behind your shot could completely ruin the size perspectives that you want.

ISO100 55mm f/9 1/100sec

ISO100 55mm f/8 1/100sec

ISO100 55mm f/9 1/100sec

All of these shot with my SB900 off camera and connected via a calumet flash sync cable with no diffusion. Flash was set at Manual 1/128th in order to not overwhelm the scene with too much flash. By being careful with your flash angle, you can create dramatic light and shadows instead of the boring straight on flash that you get by shooting with the flash immediately above the camera facing the subject. Take the flash off! Expirement! You'll like it!

Doctor Who

I'm working on those fog images from the weekend, but for now I'll give you a glimpse into some ideas I have that I'd like to execute. Namely, this idea involves these little guys.

The Dalek Paradigm Action Figure set. Image from the above vendor.

I'm going to eventually convince myself to buy the set of the (mostly because they're just plain awesome!) and then get them and a suitably nerdy friend for a model and have some fun shooting some dalek invasion photos.

Mostly, it will involve a lot of perspective shooting to get the Daleks to be the appropriate intimidating size in relation to the model. Also, some good lighting to make sure things are quite nice and dramatic enough. In theory it will definitely be a fun and epic shoot. Just need to get things lined up for it. (I'm totally open to donations of Daleks though if you're feeling charitable and want to see an epic story told in photographs! LOL)

Sorry for the minorly Whovian aside, but, sometimes you need to let out your inner nerd. Here is something from the weekend to tide you over though. I give you adorable critters from the National Zoo!

Adorable Red Panda sleeping in a tree with his tongue hanging out.

Sunshine and flash?!

What sorcery is this? Broad bright sunshine AND your on camera flash at the same time? What madness am I going on about? Simple as this. Sometimes, to get the angle you want and the exposure you want you need to pop off your flash (be it an attached flash or your on camera) to get a little bit of fill light to get the image where you want it. How does it end up looking? Well, something like this.

You start out with an image that is framed a lot like you want it to be, buuuuut when you expose for the sky and click that shutter you get this.

ISO400 14mm f/8 1/3200sec

NOW then, framing is alright, sky looks nice, the shore looks alright, but darned if those rocks don't just plain look dull, boring, and well, frankly, completely and totally worthless and underexposed. How do you fix it? You add some fill light!

ISO100 14mm f/22 1/160sec

So, now that we have added fill light you can see that the image just plain pops so much more. You get great highlights up front and a sky that is still nice and defined and not all washed out and overexposed. If you'll notice though, the settings have changed CONSIDERABLY. The reason I had to do this is to accommodate for the D600's maximum shutter sync speed of 1/200th of a second. This is rather inconvenient because in a situation like this where you have a gloriously sunny day, you really need to be able to pop that shutter off as quick as you can. So, I stopped down the lens as far as it would go, minimizing the light coming into the lens. Then, I reduced the ISO to 100 reducing the sensor's sensitivity to light, which allowed me to have the shutter slow down enough to get me the sky exposed correctly and still have the flash give me the right amount of fill. Also, because it was a very bright day, I had the flash bumped down to -3.0 so it wouldn't overwhelm the setting. 

The only unfortunate thing about using the on camera flash though is that with the Rokinon 14m lens the lens hood (which is quite solidly attached) casts a shadow, visible above, when using the built in camera flash on the D600. I could have pulled my bag around and pulled out my SB-900, but, I was balancing on two small rocks over the creek and didn't want to risk dropping something in the water. Oh the things we crazy photographers will do to get the shot, eh?

Starry Night

One of the sad things about living in the suburbs close to a couple of major cities is light pollution mucking up my attempts to see the stars. Last night was very gloriously clear and lovely outside. so I stepped out for a bit on my balcony and gave it a go. 

ISO800 14mm f/10 30sec

Now, here are some ins and outs of photographing the stars. To get sharp images (read not star trails) of them you're going to need a couple of things and to do a couple things.

#1 - A SOLID tripod. I'm not talking about a $20 job from walmart. You're going to need something that has a head which when locked into place is really firm and (if you're going to be out in it) something that won't go all wibbly wobbly if a mild gust of wind comes about.

#2 - High ISO. The above was shot at 800 to reduce inherent noise in the image. NOW THEN, the reason I was able to get away with this is just exactly because I'm in an urban area with a LOT of light pollution. If I was out somewhere gorgeous like Yellowstone with minimal light pollution I'd crank the ISO up to 1600 or maybe even higher to maximize the sensor's ability to pick up that gorgeous startlight.

#3 - A remote (optional, but preferred). Now, if you REALLY want to get nitty gritty and awesome, get a remote (corded or wireless) so you can shoot in mirror up mode and get absolutely no camera shake at all.

#4 - Weather appropriate clothing. Case and point for me I was doing this in shorts and a tshirt while it was a stunning 36*F outside. I could get away with it though by jumping in and out of my house through the patio door. Now, when I did some astral photography while I was in Japan it wasn't too cold, but I was doing it during the summer when I was acclimated to summertime heat so when it got a little chilly I actually had to bust into my hiking pack (I was on top of a mountain in the Hakkoda Mountains, Japan) and pull out my space blanket. Kind of inconvenient to hold it on and manipulate the camera at the same time.

SO, there you have it. Happy shooting and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions!

Veeeediiio

Now for something completely different! Video!

Thanks to the D600 and it'd built in time-lapse function, we have video. SO, here are the basics about the video.
- frame every 5 seconds
- camera on Aperture Priority mode
- ISO 100
- total shoot time an hour-ish
- Manfrotto Compact Tripod

Not the greatest view, but, I do enjoy the view from my balcony. Things that you learn from doing timelapses though is patience. Sadly, I'm horribly IMPATIENT. Hence this didn't actually get to it's full two hour time that I'd set it for. Of course, the exposure times were getting up around 4 seconds each, so, I felt justified in cutting it short.

About halfway through there is a brief camera flash. Once again, that is me getting impatient and messing with the exposure value briefly. Gotta love it.

Hope you enjoyed!

We have wide angle

Just got my final bit of kit to go with the D600 until I have more $$ padding my pockets. The Rokinon 14mm f2.8. First impressions are that it focuses smoothly and is a royal pain the the bum to get my focus set because the focus ring is so long. HOWEVER, as it is mostly for landscape/city use anything past 3 feet is in focus, so, it is convenient. Haven't had a chance to give it a real go yet, but, here is a quick setup on my favorite kitty Kona. Love him and his gimpy ear.

ISO100 14mm f22 1/200

Shot  with SB-900 + Strobies Portabox handheld up and to the right. Black background achieved through having the living room dark with the D600 set to it's fastest sync speed and the camera stopped all the way down limiting light. Additionally, the flash was powered down to -2.3 limiting it's output to prevent too much of the environment being lit.

A little bit of red

Sometimes you just get really lucky as you're walking along. Side of an amazing burrito shop in Virginia. 

Not going for much of an update today. Though, this may b the beginning of a photo a day project. We'll see how things go. 

ISO500 85mm f4.5 1/40sec

D600 sensor issue

Well, I appear to have gotten a model of the D600 that suffers from the annoying sensor dust issue. The fortunate thing is that it appears to be something that goes away after about 1000 shutter actuations, so, I guess I'm going to go snap happy so I can work the dust out of the body. It is really unfortunate and extremely annoying too.

You can really see it here in the image below along the left side. It is really quite aggravating all things considered. Especially since this was a great snap of a friend visiting me for the holidays. Oh well, I still love the new camera, flaws and all. I just can't wait for it to get over this issue.

ISO320 24mm f13 1/250sec

ERMAGERD FLIKR!

Hey all! I'm updating to a dedicated Flikr just for Caffeinated Pixelations work. You can dig it HERE (aka http://www.flickr.com/photos/caffeinatedpix/ ) for full on tastiness of everything. Enjoy!

Taken with D90 on a foggy day

A study in snacks

ISO 640 50mm f1.8 1/800 sec

Because sometimes you just wanna have fun. A study in snacks today. Shooting fruits and vegetables in the grocery store provides a good challenge for balancing existing light and glare on your subject. As many fruits and vegetables sold today in stores have a wax coating to help preserve them, you can get unwanted highlights. To counterbalance this shoot a little to the underexposed side of what your camera's meter reads at. However, only shoot one or two stops down so you don't lose too much image data. If you shoot where it meters, you will most likely get subjects that seem overexposed with overblown highlights.

Everything shot at ISO 640 with the 50mm.

Quickie Comparison

Just a quickie comparison for now. I'm really loving the new D600. She is a lovely monster and I promise I'll have more for you soon that really shows what she is capable of. Honestly, I'm still learning my way around her and her quirks. :D

ISO 500 50mm f1.8 1/80sec

ISO 1250 85mm f4.5 1/25sec

My favorite orchard

First post with the D600! Came to the discovery last night though that Lightroom 3 doesn't have D600 support so for the time being I'm doing this the high tech way. Using the wu-1b to connect to my phone and then upload from here. Gotta love technology. So, I give you the first thing from D600! A shot of the inside of Bashita's Orchard store in Massachusetts. I grew up going here and stopped in to get some fresh pressed apple cider.

***EDIT*** 

SO, now that I've seen this on my computer I have figured out that the phone upload totally compresses the ever living daylights outta that image! SO NOTED. When using the wireless sender and the phone for uploads, Facebook quality only! I'll get some decent edits up here for you guys soon! Promise!

Blogosphere, we have shutter movement

Here forward I will be using this lovely beast for my photos. She just arrived late last night and is fabulous to use. You will likely still see things cropping up from my old bodies, but, I'll let you know what is from what. Can't wait to test her out this weekend. I'm hoping for at least one evening of clear skies at my grandmothers house for some astral photography on the pond.

Happy shooting!!