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Video: What’s in My Bag (and Why?)

August 18, 2010 Posted in equipment, photography tips

I just made another massive contribution to Nikon’s bottom line, replacing my trusty D3, which I essentially ground into dust, with a second D3s. This meant that every last piece of gear I owned the last time I made a “What’s In my Bag” video has been sold, lost, stolen, or (mostly) broken. Every flash, lens, camera, everything. So here’s another one. More important than the gear are the reasons behind it — I try to only bring what I can carry to most weddings, and like to travel overseas without checking bags, so everything is carefully planned to give redundancy without taking up needless space.

The short list, for gearheads:

Cameras: Nikon D3s (x2)
Flashes: SB-900 (x3)
Lenses:
24mm f/1.4
35mm f/1.8
50mm f/1.2
60mm f/2.8 Micro
85mm f/1.4
135mm f/2 DC
70-200mm f/2.8 VR II
Memory cards: 16GB Sandisk (x4)
Sledgehammer of Light: A Manfrotto 682B and Lastolite triflash
Umbrellas and Lumiquest mini-softbox (not in video)

I also have a bunch of White Lightning studio gear, but I only bring that to weddings when there is a very specialized need, or for photo booths.

This is the point where I note that one of the advantages of living in NYC is that my apartment is made darned hard to break into.

Photo of the Day: Inner Glow

August 6, 2010 Posted in equipment, photo of the day

Shakun and Tim’s connection is so visible at every glance. I loved the crazy golden glow that was coming in through the leaves, and did this 16-shot Brenizer method with the 85mm f/1.4. Then I said … “You know what? If there’s a glow like that, we might want to follow it.” And that led to this shot.

New toys and new tricks

May 5, 2010 Posted in equipment

Given a lot of traveling this year, with weddings as far as Singapore, and that we are more and more producing same-day slideshows and edits for our weddings (which you can see on my Facebook page), I figured we should ramp up our road warrior tools a bit, so I picked up the new 15-inch Core i7 Macbook Pro with higher-resolution anti-glare screen.

For this picture, I used a technique called “freelensing,” which I’ve been too nervous to do much of. Basically, by actually removing your lens from your camera before taking the picture and shifting it around, you can create strange, diagonal focus planes (like you see here), and also reduce your lenses’ minimum focusing distance (usually the 50mm f/1.2 AIS can’t get very close to its subject). It also means that I am going to have to make sure I or my assistants cleans my cameras sensors’ a LOT, since snapping photos without a lens on the camera is generally not recommended, and I usually keep effects like this to a minimum. But it’s a handy trick to know how to do. Up-and-coming photographer (and my Flickr pal) Gene Pease makes use of this trick really well.

Bokeh panoramas and Photoshop CS5

April 30, 2010 Posted in brenizer method, engagement, equipment

The trials of Photoshop CS5 are available for download, and of course the first thing I did was to try a “Brenizer method” panorama on them. Since I like to be timely, here’s one I just shot a few hours ago, during an engagement shoot with Jennifer and Richard.

For new readers, basically the trick is to use a multi-image panorama to make for a super-shallow depth-of-field by using a longer lens. This was 18 images with an 85mm f/1.4. If I’d had to use a shorter lens like a 24mm to capture everything in one frame, all of that background foliage would be in focus as well. Here is an example of a single frame from the shot:

I have not been happy overall with the performance of CS4 in stitching these sorts of panoramas, keeping CS3 around or using a dedicated program like Autopano Pro. Is CS5 better? On the good side, I fed it 18 full-resolution images, which usually causes Photoshop to hang for a long time, if not crash. It took a while, but the progress was steady and measured, and produced an image without major artifacts. On the bad side, it still has the CS4 habit of throwing pieces it doesn’t know what to do with into the corner and not making it easy to move them:

Now the exciting part is “content aware fill,” which fills in gaps by taking into account all of the textures around it. And it seems to work really, really well in general. Here was the cropped section, with a gap the stitching couldn’t fill. One swipe of content-aware spot healing produced the image up top:

BUT you have to be careful when doing these panoramas, as the whole point of them is to create a very three-dimensional look where everything is in a certain amount of focus due to its relationship to the focal plane (like most pictures, just more so). Photoshop will very happily grab the surrounding textures even if they’re in a different part of the focal plane, which in this case would have made content-aware fills of the out-of-focus brown patches in the grass look out-of-place. Overall, though, it should be a valuable tool in the panorama arsental.

Photography tip: Fun with t-stops

April 13, 2010 Posted in equipment, photography tips

Here’s a quick descent into geekdom. I’ve seen hundreds of new macro lens owners run to me with the same question: "When I focus closely, my maximum aperture closes a LOT! Is my lens broken? Was it made cheaply?"

Nope. In fact, your aperture isn’t really changing at all. All that happens is that to come up with a good, general-purpose macro design, there is a trade-off that at super-close distances, a "bellows effect" means that the lens is less effective at transmitting light. (Something that’s measured in t-stops) Note, though, that the aperture of the lens isn’t closing down (measured in f-stops). But new lenses and cameras are smart, so they let you know "Hey! You’re not getting as much light as you might think, and you’ll want to adjust for that!"

Confused yet? Maybe this video will help. We start out with a way-out-of-focus image of a nickel, and there’s a big ol’ blown highlight. Note that as I use the Nikon 60mm AF-S macro to focus all the way in, the exposure gets darker, and the blown highlight goes away. But the *aperture* doesn’t change — you don’t all of a sudden see more depth-of-field.

So don’t freak out when you buy a new macro, but adjust your ISO or flash power accordingly when shooting close-up.

A Grand Production (Nikon 24mm review!)

April 11, 2010 Posted in documentary/photojournalism, equipment, photo of the day, wedding

Sameepa and Beeren get all the new tech. Not only were they perhaps the first wedding in the world to get an iPad slideshow (starting at 10:30 a.m. on the launch date!), I also shot their wedding with the new 24mm f/1.4. Read my full review of it at Amazon’s End User blog!

Getting more latitude from the iPhone

April 1, 2010 Posted in equipment, personal flavor, photography tips

Here’s another shot taken with my iPhone 3Gs on Jamaica. I’ve done a review of the HDR applications that made these shots possible over at Amazon’s End User blog. Check it out for my thoughts and more photos!

New Camera!

April 1, 2010 Posted in equipment

On advice from my chirpractor and Ken Rockwell, I’m paring down and going smaller and lighter for the new season, taking it back to basics! Introducing my new flagship, the D70s!

Hey, I heard that vintage cameras are in. Am I doing it right?

Or, the strobist angle: Who needs ISOs higher than 800 when you can sync at 1/1000th of a second?

OK, a paltry April Fool’s entry, but I thought you might want to see what a $2200 lens looks like on a $220 camera.

UPDATE: D70s owners shouldn’t take offense to this … after all, there’s a reason I had one in my studio. The flash sync is an incredible tool, and I shot gallery shows and Nobel prize-winners with one of these. But technology marches on quickly, and there’s a reason I keep re-investing in equipment, since I want the best for my clients. The D3s with a 24mm f/1.4 shoots with about 40 times the light sensitivity as a D70s and the f/2.8 lenses that are the fastest you can use for that frame-of-view on DX. Awfully handy in cavernous NYC venues.

Nikon 24mm f/1.4: Initial impressions and RAW samples

March 29, 2010 Posted in equipment

Who loves ya, baby? I was supposed to be one of the first people in the world with the new Nikon 24mm f/1.4, but it came while I was on a work holiday in Jamaica. I’m still one of the first to sample its goodness, but instead of a sunny week in Jamaica, you get a rainy day in New York. Thanks to the people at Adorama for being so great, again and again.

I’m a nice guy, so to anyone who’s really curious about this new lens, I’m including some RAW samples. These are D3s RAW files, so make sure your RAW converter is updated so it can open them.

Initial impressions (full review after this weekend’s wedding): Sharper and more contrasty than it has any right to be. AF is not world-class in speed, like the 24-70 and 70-200, but still speedy and very accurate. If Nikon makes a 35mm like this, there will be nothing left in the Canon camp that makes my skin crawl with envy.

Nikon has some new, hyper-shock resistant packaging, which I really appreciated given how pricey this darned lens is.

Sharp, colorful, love it. RAW sample.

f/1.4 isolation makes the buildings pop through the foreground in this puddle reflection.

Can you say flare resistant? Heavily backlit statue. Still contrasty. RAW sample.

Mmmmm isolation. Not generally a tight portrait lens, but this guy doesn’t mind. RAW sample.

Water droplets in a cab window show the quality of foreground and background bokeh.

Also, you can see those qualities here, in a quick video. Also shows the focus throw and the sound of the manual focus, for video geeks. 720p version here. 1/50th, f/1.4 ISO 1600 on the D3s:

UPDATE: One from night-time:

Nikon finally listened!

February 8, 2010 Posted in equipment

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I’ve been asking for Nikon to make fast, wide primes forever, and we finally got one! Meet the 24mm f/1.4!

Also out is the 16-35mm f/4 VR, another new type of lens from Nikon. Both of these have potential to let me see in some new ways this season, so I will be testing them ASAP. Read my quick take at End User Blog!

(I’m not counting the discontinued 28mm f/1.4)

My review of the Nikon D3s is up!

December 17, 2009 Posted in equipment

It’s my new baby, and you can find out all about the highs and lows (and — surprise! — there are some lows) at Amazon’s End User blog.

Click the magic camera to take you there:

Well, that’s ONE way to fix a blown red channel

December 5, 2009 Posted in equipment, photography tips

I’ve talked before about the creative possibilities of extreme white balance adjustments, and how the grey point controls on Nikon’s Capture NX2 provide the most extreme, high-quality control I’ve seen.

Well, I meant it.

Particularly interesting is how all of that hard-to-retain red-channel on a red flower in hard sun came back and the textures are realistic even if the color is very much not.

Quick tests with the D3s

December 2, 2009 Posted in equipment

I just got the Nikon D3s in today — a camera that, frankly, is a little scary in its lowlight abilities. I have two shoots lined up on Sunday, and should be able to give a fuller review next week, but here are a couple teasers. First, here is a test shot that, while not high art, is better than a brick wall. It was taken at 1/20th, f/1.4, ISO 12,800, which makes it about 1/50th of candlelight. This wasn’t taken at twilight — that sky was as black as it ever gets in NYC.

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As I was shooting, I was stopped by a friendly guy named Luis, who has apparently been following my work for years! So, of course, I had to grab a video:

Much, much more to come.

PhotoPlus is here!

October 22, 2009 Posted in equipment

It’s time for my annual gear geek-out at the Photoplus Expo! I’ll be taking notes on all of 2009′s big releases in this spot at Amazon’s End User blog!

A brief bit of gear-geekery

October 21, 2009 Posted in equipment

First, I will be at PhotoPlus Expo on Thursday morning, trying out all the new gear for Amazon’s End User blog. I’m sure I’ll want to grab lunch somewhere away from the $8 hot dogs, so let me know if you’ll be there!

Secondly, I finally got around to digging out the credit card, and my studio will have a new team member for the very end of the season (I expect, with my luck, it will arrive right after my last big wedding for the year)

Yup, I’m moving to an all-massive camera line-up for 2010, and the usable 12,800 ISO of the Nikon D3s is calling to me. I was planning on buying another D3 anyway to supplement by badly beaten and scarred one, and I will be selling my (surprisingly in-good-shape) D700. I got the D700 so that I would have a more portable camera to take around with me, but these days my pocket camera is the Panasonic LX3, and the camera I actually take with me everywhere is the iPhone. My dSLRs are for workin’ these days, and so the esoteric advanced features of the D3 come in handy — the dual CF card slots alone are worth it to me, since I can back up every image I take, as I take them.

Oh, and you can definitely expect me to geek out over the movie mode, too, meaning lots more video content to come.

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