The Choice Is Made

So I just got back from some whirlwind travels, and they have made the decision of which item to review first.

I carried a camera bag the entire time, with my camera, three primes, a zoom, a flash, and several other accessories. Although I love my primes, the zoom was really the heavy lifter, as it always has been so I will be taking a critical look at it first.

In short, 18-200 VR review coming soon. I am going to try and do, from this point out, at least one review a week. They may be faster but without a deadline, I will continue to work on them periodically and never be satisfied enough to call them "done."

Away, with camera

Due to circumstances beyond my control, my internet access will be unreliable for the next week or so. I am going to spend the time without network to shoot as much as I can with a couple of new lenses I recently purchased, so it will not be time wasted but don't expect any regular posts. It will all feed into the reviews of these lenses I am working on. As a side note, I love primes.

That is all.

Site Editing

I am doing some re-organizing today, so some pictures might vanish for a little while. They will come back later on, I promise.

Nikon CLS

I have to say, I love the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS.) For those who don't know, this is a system that lets you trigger off camera flashes wirelessly, without the need to buy radio transmitters. Basically, the mid-range and higher camera bodies can use the built in flash to send a series of pulses out that the flash units see. These pre-flashes tell the off camera flash units when to fire, and how much juice to use. While the system has some limitations, it can come in really handy.

This image here was made using this technique. I made it for a challenge over at www.dgrin.com called "Open or Closed." It did not survive the judging, but I am still pretty happy with how I did the lighting. It is supposed to be a little wooden guy opening a box, from which a glowing light is emerging. I think I cropped a little too tight. The box looks a bit more like a book than a box. But the lighting is pretty good, I feel. There is one Nikon SB-600 inside the box with a Gary Fong Light Sphere II clear attached. I also have some white craft foam in the bottom of the box to give it a little boost in reflectivity. There is a second SB-600 behind and below the wooden artists model to give him some separation from the background. That gives the highlights under his arms. The whole thing is shot in front of a big piece of black velvet. Black velvet is a great secret weapon for this sort of shot. Unfortunately, my velvet is a bit dusty and covered in cat hair, and the flash back there picked all of that up initially. So there is a piece of black craft foam between the rear flash and the velvet, to control light spill. I was still having some problems getting definition on his head, so I held a piece of white foam core board just above the frame to reflect the light back onto him. I have also found that the built in flash on my D200 can give some strong highlights when you are in close and use it to trigger like this, even if you have the built in set to zero power. It is as if it does not quite cut off before the shutter opens. So I have a small piece of white craft foam in front of my pop-up flash to bounce the light up instead of directly at the scene.

Reviews Coming Soon (Teaser)

I am busy working on product shots for my upcoming reviews, and it has been incredibly fun. Here is a taste, although I can't promise that it will be first in line.


(I know, I know. You're thinking, "That cheap lens?" Don't knock this baby until you have tried it...)

Review Overview

Over the next few weeks (ok, it will probably take months...) I plan to go about reviewing just about every piece of photography gear I own or have access to. I have several reasons for doing this.

Firstly, I want to try to improve my own writing and, perhaps more directly, my product photography. Taking pictures of stuff and making them look good is not an easy thing. I mostly do landscapes with available light, so taking pictures of smaller things under more controlled lighting conditions will be a good exercise for me.

Secondly, I think I have a perspective to offer on this subject. I could never do as good a job of evaluating the technical aspects of cameras and lenses as a site like, say dpreview and I can't really offer the experience of a professional photographer like, say Ken Rockwell. But I can give the perspective of a dedicated amateur who has taken tens of thousands of pictures during years of shooting. Like many of you, I have a real job that, sadly, isn't photography. I would like to do it for a living, but professionals work too hard for too little money. I shoot when I can and I don't have a lot of money for my gear. So I have to make sure that what money I do spend is on gear I will use and doesn't break the bank. A lot of us have to walk that fine line between saving money while avoiding wasting money on something that isn't good enough. I guess one way to look at it is that we have to be cognizant of value. Spending only $100 for a lens is a waste of $100 if the lens isn't good enough to use. This is not to say that I haven't made my share of mistakes over the years or that I don't wish I had more money to spend, but we all make mistakes and we all want more. Yet somehow we all manage to muddle through. But if we share what we know, maybe we can all do a little better than we would have alone.

And lastly, I am doing this because I think it will be fun. No sense in having a hobby if you don't enjoy it, after all. Along the way, we will take a look at camera bodies, lenses, tripods, and all manner of random crap that I keep in my shooting bag. Oh, we will look at bags too, of course.

Little Things

So it has been a while since I have posted anything, but I have been quite busy.  We all do that, I suppose, get busy with "real life" and neglect the things that we enjoy but are unnecessary for day to day living.  That has, unfortunately been the case with me and photography.  I love to take pictures, but most of what I have done lately would best be described as "vacation snapshots" rather than planned out photographs.  There are some winners in there, by statistics if nothing else, but there hasn't been much that really made me happy.

I have decided to try and change that.  I have started dragging my camera with me to work everyday, on the off chance that I will find the time during the day to sneak off and take a few pictures.  I also have a new small point and shoot that is in my bag pretty much all the time for when it is impractical for me to drag my DSLR along.  There are actually a couple of winners in there, too.  It helps to have a camera readily at hand.  It is pretty hard to take a picture without one, in fact.  But I guess the point here is that I want to try and make the time to photograph.  

I am also trying to think about it more, too.  There are dozens of things that I walk or drive by everyday that have a picture in them someplace, I just have to find it.  I have always tended to look down at the ground when I walk, but I am trying to look up more, to find these photographs.  And when I can, I am going out intending to take pictures.  The picture in the post is a good example of that.  I was invited to a party at a house out in the country.  I suspected that there would be some great opportunities there, and I was not disappointed.  Although my light was fading fast, I got a few good shots in.  I am also experimenting with my post processing a bit.  Since the Sun was just about gone, this image had a little bit of a pale, washed out quality to it.  Oh, I could play with some curves and saturation and gotten it back, there was plenty of light for that.  But I decided to go the other way and crack the saturation down.  I wanted this to have more of an old time feel, like you were stepping back into a simpler time.  I am not fully happy with it yet, but I think it is a good start.  And aside from the small blue tarp (or bucket, maybe?) over by the barn, I am pretty happy with the strength of the composition.  I feel the eye is lead to the barn pretty well, but the blue tarp there (much more obvious in a larger version) kind of distracts.  Maybe I will clone it out.  Or maybe it keeps this image from feeling too contrived.  

The point of all this is that you should take the time to do the things that you enjoy.  Life is short.  You can't ignore "real life" completely, but don't forget to live life while you can.  Take pleasure in the simple things, like finding five minutes of light that is just right for a picture of a barn and a birdhouse.  And some blue thing that still distracts me...