New Gear From Nikon

Today Nikon announced the arrival of the new D700 as well as an update to their flagship speedlight, the SB900! There's been a lot of hype surrounding this new camera since it will basically be a D3 in the body of the D300. The price will be somewhere around $3000 which is $2000 less than the D3 and $1200 more than the D300. The D700 is FX which stands for full-frame and includes some new features that the D3 doesn't even have.

For all the info, click on the links above for the respective pages on the Nikon website.

More Interesting Places

This blog is all about us becoming better photographers and getting better pictures. And although most of the time that means talking about technique, equipment, etc., today it's about something that is way easier to understand. I've read in more than one photography book that "if you want to more interesting pictures, put your camera in more interesting places."

It sounds so simple, but how often do we go somewhere with for sole reason of taking great pictures? I know that it's hard enough to travel, especially with kids and the cost, but if we are to be better photographers, we need to take pictures of the beautiful and interesting places that God put on this earth.

So... I'm am going to start planning at least one international and one national photo trip each year. No, I haven't told Brooke yet, but I think she'll go for it... maybe. But until she says no, here's the details... this year I will start with just a national trip sometime in the late fall. It will be a short trip to somewhere in the north east where the colors are gorgeous that time of year and the pictures will be the kind of pictures you can only take in that area at that time of the year. So if you are interested in taking a 3-day trip with me this fall with the sole purpose of taking great pictures, please email me or comment here and I'll let you know when I nail down the specifics. This could turn out to be a really fun group that has the two trips to look forward to each year!

I'll leave you today with three pictures:


This is a port on the coast of Honduras.


I took this in the jungle in Ecuador.


Machu Pichu in Peru.

Color to Black & White DVD

This week I purchased a DVD from KelbyTraining called "Color to Black and White Artistry" featuring Katrin Eismann. I've only watched the first three segments, but I've already learned a lot and can tell this will be well worth the money. Here's a picture I transformed into black & white after watching just the first couple of sessions:



I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the DVD and getting a great black and white picture for this week's assignment. Here's a link to the DVD if you are interested.

Take Your Camera With You

No matter what kind of camera you have, it will do you no good if you don't have it with you. How many times have you said, "I wish I had my camera!"? I've been trying to remember to take a camera with me when I leave the house each morning, and yesterday was one of the mornings that I remembered. I left work to go meet Brooke and the kids for lunch and was a few minutes ahead of them when I noticed this church. I pulled over, got out with my camera, and got this shot:



Not the best picture I've ever taken, but definitely a "keeper" that I would not have gotten if I didn't have my camera.

As soon as I saw how the picture turned out, I knew I had today's blog, so what did I do last night when we went to dinner? That's right! I left my camera at home, and coming home from dinner there was a beautiful full double rainbow in the sky and all I could do was look at it. Take your camera with you!

Kids Assignment

I tried to setup a shoot last night for my kids outside in the front yard. I wanted to sit them on the lawn mower because... it just sounded kind of fun. Anyway, I got a couple of lights set up on stands, took a couple of test shots, and then it started to rain! So I rushed Ainsley out there and put her on the mower and got a few shots off before I pulled everything back inside. Here's the keeper:



I didn't have time to take a setup shot, but basically I just had one SB800 on each side of the camera aiming right at Ainsley.

So... next week's assignment?

--Black & White--

You can either take the image using your monochrome setting in your camera or use a post-processing technique to change it to black & white. See you next week!

Water Bottle Shot

I hadn't taken a picture in almost a week and was wanting to do something creative last night. I had remembered an assignment from the Strobist website that I had seen many months ago but had not ever tried. The assignment was to pretend you had gotten the job to shoot an ad for a bottled water company, and of course, you had to use off-camera flash. We had a bottle of Dasani in the house so I thought I'd give it a go.

I'll tell you what I did and then show you the result:

I taped four pieces of white card stock together to make my seamless background. I took the glass from a picture frame in the house and set it on the "seamless". I placed the water bottle on the glass which gave me the reflection I was looking for. I set up an SB800 just to the left of the bottle and fired it at the background behind the water bottle. I then took another SB800, placed it to the right of the bottle, and bounced it off the ceiling. I used my 60mm Macro lens on a tripod to get the shot. Oh yeah, I also used a water spray bottle to fake a condensation kind of look on the bottle. It was fun and really didn't take too long. I added some text in Photoshop to complete the ad. Here's a setup shot:



and here's the final result:



If you feel like doing the assignment, please come back and post a link to your shot so we can all see it.

Weddings

I've been to two weddings the last two weekends and didn't take one picture! That's right, two weekends ago I was the best man at a wedding in Nebraska, and this past weekend, I officiated a wedding in Nashville. I had a great time at both and of course I was watching the photographers like a seeing if I could learn anything from their approach while I was performing my duties.

So I'll get out and shoot some tonight and I'll have something that has to do with photography for you tomorrow. Until then, check out the Creative Photography Book website. It has a ton of great information in it. I'm certain you will learn something.

Travel Day

I don't have any pictures to share with you today as I am on the road headed towards Nashville, and I am posting this blog with my iPhone. Being on this short trip with my family with limited space, I did not bring a camera with me but have wished I did at times. So today I am passing on some advice for a small point and shoot camera that you can always carry with you when you don't have room for your SLR.

By far, the best one out there is the Canon G9. It is complete with hot shoe, will shoot at f/2.8, and a large LCD with live histogram. It has a ton of features and accessories that I feel are needed for a camera to be considered a "photographers camera." I have gotten to use this camera a couple of times and will be buying one shortly.

So if you are in the market for a point and shoot camera that doesn't act like one, check out the Canon G9

Backup

Backing up your photos is one of the most important things you will ever do as a photographer. Whether you are a full-time professional or you are a grandmother who only takes pictures every few months, anyone could be a victim of a crashed hard drive and lose everything! A couple of weeks ago, Scott Kelby talked about his backup procedure on his blog so today I will share mine with you.

I upload my pictures to the desktop of my hard drive with my SanDisk FireWire Card Reader. Before I do anything else, I then move that folder(s) to a portable external hard drive. I use the OWC Mercury On-The-Go FireWire drives (they are the most reliable in the business). I back up that On-The-Go drive to a bigger, desktop, external hard drive. Finally, when I am finished with a client, I put their entire session onto a DVD. That's right! I have 3 backups for all of my pictures. Call me paranoid if you want, but the first time you lose all of your pictures, you'll be emailing me asking, "what's the name of that external hard drive you use?"

Self Portrait Assignment

Welcome back to Assignment Wednesday! I really want to see some of your self-portraits and how they turned out. The hardest part of this assignment was finding the correct focus while using the camera's automatic timer. Once I got that down, I fired off about 10 or so shots. Here's the one I kept:



I took this in my garage as I don't really have many places in my house that you wouldn't see toys in the background! I used two strobes, one at a 45* angle in front of me shooting through a Tri-Grip diffuser and one on the same line behind me for a back light. I fired the lights with the SU800 commander. I also used a white reflector to camera left to fill in some of the shadow side of my face. The blue circle on the floor was my mark. Here's a setup picture:



Anyway, that's it for this week. Please comment with your picture from this assignment.

Next week's assignment:

---KIDS---

One of my favorite subjects to shoot is my kids! They are so fun and are always coming up with new, funny expressions. Find a kid who will let you take their picture this week (make sure you know them!!!).

Drag The Shutter

Have you ever heard a photog say "drag the shutter"? It's a phrase used often when we are using flash. The simple definition of the phrase is to choose a slow shutter speed such as anything less than 1/30 of a second.

So the question is, why would you want to "drag the shutter". When choosing a slower shutter speed while using flash, you will allow more ambient light into your picture. You can also show motion with blur by having such a long shutter speed while keeping your subject sharp because the flash freezes your subject.

It's important to remember:

When using flash, your shutter speed controls the exposure of your background (slower shutter speed = a brighter background and a slower shutter speed = a darker background). Your aperture controls the power of your flash and the exposure of your subject (the bigger the aperture, the less flash power and darker your subject will be).

Here's a picture I took at a reception where I used this "drag the shutter" method. I wanted to bring in the ambient light instead of making everything but the subject black because the colorful lights being used by the DJ added to the picture. I also wanted to show some motion blur which was accomplished with the slower shutter speed.



Make sure you practice this technique as it will take a little time to fully understand it.

Different Place

I returned late last night from my weekend in Colorado and Nebraska. I've never been to a place like western Nebraska. It's a totally different way of life out there. On the drive back to Denver, I asked Clint to stop on the side of the road and I got out and took a few pictures. I thought I would share my favorite one with you.



I think one of the reasons I like this picture is because it reminds me of the opening of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. My favorite thing about this picture though is the headlights coming right towards the viewer just under the horizon. Enjoy!

Jackass Hill

I'm headed to a wedding this weekend in Nebraska but made a stop to stay with Clint in Denver. I asked him where a good place to take a picture of the mountains would be and he said, "Jackass Hill in Sunset Park". After figuring out that he wasn't calling me a jackass, I was excited because he said it is in the top 4 views of the mountains in Colorado.

So we headed up to the "Hill" after dinner, threw the frisbee and waited for the sun to duck behind the Rockies. Here's my two favorite shots from the night:





Enjoy!

Tenba Sling Bag

I recently stumbled upon a company called Tenba. They make awesome camera bags and had just the thing I had been looking for. It's a sling bag that holds just a small amount of gear but does it in a very organized fashion. I will definitely be using this anytime I am traveling or just when we go out for the day and I don't want to take everything.

I'm leaving today for the weekend to go to a friends wedding and in the Tenba, I will have my D50 with my 17-35mm attached, a 50mm, one SB800, and the SU800 commander. I'll also have extra batteries, SD cards, and my iPhone. Check out this great video for more info on the Tenba Sling Bag.

Shooting Water w/ Slow Shutter

A couple of weeks ago, our assignment was to shoot water. The shot I took was with a fast shutter speed that froze the water and you could actually see individual drops. Here's the picture again to remind you:



The other way to shoot water is to use a slow shutter speed and make the water blurry. It makes it look like clouds. Very cool! So the other day we found a small water fall and I got this picture to show you the difference:



So go out and try both techniques, and let me know how your shots turn out.

Reflectors

I talk a lot about using small speedlights for lighting in order to get some of the shots I get. However, this week I was reminded that at first, not everyone has invested in these lights and stands for them. So while we were taking pictures yesterday morning at the beach, I wanted to take one with no external lights and use a reflector instead.

For about $40, you can buy a two-sided reflector that collapses into a small circle carrying case. This is much cheaper than the more than $300 it costs for one of Canon or Nikon's top speedlights, and it works like a charm.

In yesterday's case, the sun had come up over the ocean behind my subject. I had my sister-in-law hold the reflector to camera left using the sun to bounce light onto my subjects face. No lights... no stands... and the result:



I'd say that's pretty good. Without the reflector, the right side of his face was a total shadow. This opened it up nicely and we pulled off a nice shoot with minimal gear. Always a plus!

Sunrise Shots

This morning we woke up very early and made it out to the beach before the sun came up. I set up two strobes on stands and two Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffusers on two other stands. I set my main light up about 6 feet away from my subject at a 45° angle to camera right and the other right beside me to camera left minus 2 stops for fill. I fired the strobes using the SU800.

As soon as the sun showed itself, I started shooting away. Here's two of my favorite shots:





We had a lot of fun and then had the whole day ahead of us. Of course we crashed in the afternoon from lack of oxygen to the brain!

Tamrac Expedition 7X

I've talked with many new photographers and one of the biggest issues that comes up is how to carry all their gear. When you bought your first SLR, it probably came with a lens and you maybe bought one more. It was easy to fit your entire outfit into a small camera bag. However, if you are like me, you quickly added to your list of gear with different lenses, flashes, filters, extra batteries, extra memory cards, a second camera, and so on. Before I knew it, I had outgrown not one, but TWO small camera bags! So, today I thought I would share with you my bag of choice for hauling all of my main gear around.

When I began my search, there were lots of good choices, but I felt the Tamrac Expedition 7X was the bag for me. There are actually 5 different sizes of backpacks in this line, and this is the next to largest. This bag easily holds both of my camera bodies, 8 lenses, filters, filters, straps, cleaning supplies, and light meter all on the inside of the bag. The outside features other pockets where I keep extra batteries and memory cards. The slots for memory cards are great because they feature a small red flap that either can go on the outside or inside of the small pocket to let you know which cards are full and which are empty. The outside of the bag also holds a standard size tripod.

Of course, one of the biggest selling points for me, was the dedicated laptop compartment. Now I can have all of my gear with me at a shoot and even take the pictures directly into my MacBook Pro. And even though the backpack is relatively large, it still can be carried on an airplane so you can keep everything with you! Great bag!

Make Shift Studio

On Saturday, Brooke was taking Ainsley down the street to go swimming at a neighbor's house. She looked so great in her new swim gear so I quickly took a frame off the wall, set up a strobe on a light stand shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser on another stand and stood her on her little play table. I was using the D3 with a 70-200 f/2.8 lens and firing the strobe with the SU800 commander.

I kept asking her questions to get a reaction out of her like "Who do you like better, Elmo or Cookie Monster?" I knew I didn't have much time until she jumped off the table so I was trying to get off as many shots as possible.

Ok, ok... enough about how I did it. Here's the keeper: