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

Happy New Year!

Best wishes in the new year to come! For Somali speakers, sano cusub wanagsan! For Chinese speakers, 新年乐快！！祝你们好运！