Sundance Day 4++ – 08.31.06

Yes, there is a spa, yes, there is fly fishing, horseback riding, glass blowing, amazing food and the best, peace and quiet, but my wildlife students haven’t seen any of it this week. Why, too much darn fun and good photography. Tracy is showing off some of her new skills in the process of capturing an amazing hummingbird photo.

Photo captured by D200, 200f2AFS on Lexar digital film

Sundance Day 4+ – 08.31.06

Folks have been emailing me asking what Sundance looks like. Well, not a great shot but this is sunrise today at Sundance and Mt. “T”. It is a beautiful place!

Photo captured by D200, 12-24DX on Lexar digital film

Sundance Day 4 – 08.31.06

Whaaa? Fall color in August? Yeah, we had deer & elk & moose this morning, but it was the fall color in August that grabbed my attention. We were in the forest by 6AM, greeted by a Screech Owl and then entertained by the elk. Ah….mornings at Sundance….they are magical!

Photo captured by D2X, 200f2AFS on Lexar digital film

Sundance Day 3 AM – 08.30.06

And the good stuff just keeps on going! First morning shoot from the deck of the Wedding Room. Now, my students weren’t so sure about getting up so early, but the results speak for themselves. Now, I would post images from our other shoot, but stuffed animals just don’t seem to add up to a Dipper.

Photo captured by D2X, 600f4AFS on Lexar digital film

Sundance Day 2 – 08.29.06

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Wow…another amazing day! It’s 11PM & I’m just getting back in my room. We had way too much fun for working. The highlight today had to be the photographic scavenger hunt. This photo is not one of the treasures, well not photographically. This is the famous & very talented & VERY funny Kevin Gilbert who is here teaching with me at Sundance. Not to give you the wrong idea about him, I had to shoot tight so the hallow he was creating with a diffuser wouldn’t give you the wrong impression about him. Great folks, great team, great fun! Really, we’re working real hard!

Photo captured by D2Hs, 200f2 at f2 on Lexar digital film

Sundance Night 1 – 08.28.06

Great locale + Great Folks = Great Fun & Excitement!

Was just too excited to go to sleep, so had to stay up and do a star trail.
Photo captured by D2X, 17-55AFS, finished in digital darkroom camera pointed SW

Sundance Day 1 – 08.28.06

Wow… wish you were here! The Sundance Photographic Workshops start this afternoon and man, am I excited! It’s a beautiful locale with great subjects everywhere. This Sunflower is right outside my cabin lighting up as the first rays of sunshine set it a blaze. I plan on (you know how plans go) to post a new photo everyday from Sundance all week. So stay tuned!

Photo captured by D200, 10.5 on Lexar digital film, finished in Capture NX.

MC-36 – 08.18.06

Nikon did a soft release of the MC-36 a few months back. It’s taken a while, but I finally recieved mine this week. It’s a very cool tool that replaces the MC-30 as a electronic cable release. You’ve probably not heard of it. Like I said, Nikon did a real soft release on the MC-36 and their website has little to no info. If you go looking at the price, you might wonder why a electronic cable release is so expensive.

The MC-36 has a built in interval timer. Why would one want that when it’s already incorporated into so many camera bodies? Have you ever done star trails? I have a huge collection from nearly everywhere I’ve been. That was film days and while I still do them with digital, it’s not the same. Working on a new technique for achieving better star trails than I did with film, I needed a better interval timer system than that built into the camera. The MC-36 provides that feature.

If you go out all excited about getting one, be prepared for disappointment. Like the 28f1.4, the MC-36 is nowhere to be found right now. Adorama was real good about informing me when they came in stock so if you want one, I would get on a list. I’ll have more on the MC-36 and digital Star Trails in the next issue of the BT Journal.

Tech Note: We receive lots of emails asking how we get the product shots. They are all taken by me, an old passion and fun past time (there are a couple of exceptions). This photo is a single SB-800 flash with a custom snoot (thanks Rog!) made from Cinefoil fired remotely with a SU-800.

VisibleDust Swabs – 08.10.06

Keeping CCDs clean is a real challenge for many. We are constantly being asked how to clean CCDs . First part of this process is to realize you’ve bought a really expensive camera, so counting pennies when it comes to keeping it working correctly is real silly. It’s real simple once you realize you just need to bite the bullet and get the GOOD stuff right from the start and then your CCD dust problems are solved.

There’s only one option IMHO and that’s the products from the folks at VisibleDust . I’ve been using their products since they first came on the market and haven’t had a dust problem sence. Their latest products are really darn cool and work beautifully. VisibleDust Swabs are THE best hands down. They have two types, orange and green. Orange works with their VDust Formula for removing dust from your CCD. The green swabs work with their Sensor Clean when you have a smudge on your CCD. It’s a killer solution. We sacrificed two swabs testing the products and we were incredibly impressed how with perfection our CCD was spotless after cleaning.

Yes, these products cost real money! It’s really up to you, do you want to risk having a piece of dust covering up a vital part of your image, risking the loss of detail, or do you just want to shoot and not worry about such things? The answer is real easy for me, buy VisibleDust Arctic Butterfly , buy their VisibleDust Swabs and cleaning fluid and forget about dust problems.

Keno Ext Tubes – 08.11.06

It would seem that macro is becoming very popular again (interesting how things cycle in photography). Many photographers rather not put out a bunch of money for a new lens, opting for more finanicial friendly solutions to getting in close. We’ve received a bunch of requests asking for extention tubes that can be used with Nikon bodies. That’s because Nikon STILL doesn’t offer any automatic tubes. Well thank goodness my friends at Kenko do and infact, have a new series out.

Kenko’s DG Extention Tubes work perfectly with Nikons and their lenses. The combos I like personally are the 12mm with the 600f4AFS, the 20mm with the 200-400VR and 36mm with the 105VR. These tubes provide full metering and AF hook up on my D2X, so I’m a happy camper. So if you’re looking for a less expensive way to play in macro, this is the best option I can recommend.

D80 – 08.09.06

Here you go… a new body, the D80!

Lexar's 133x 8GB – 08.01.06

The new Lexar 8GB 133x card is a scream! As I’ve noted before, this increased write speed doesn’t help the camera end, but it SURE does help the computer end. With two 8GB cards full to the brim with D2X files (used the same files on all cards), I got these speeds:

8GB 133x 11.75mps or 11.3min

8GB 40x 4.84mps or 27.61min

for comparison

4GB 133x 11.64MPS

this was using Lexar’s screaming card reader . That’s a WHOLE lot of time saved in uploading images. That just can’t be ignored.

What’s also cool is the 133x is a Type 1 card where the 40x is a Type II card. Not that the size or weight makes any operational difference, but it does open the door for bigger cards in the future. The way folks keep screaming for FF sensors, bigger files are coming so we’ll need bigger cards. For now, I’m quite happy with the 133x 8GB D2X/D2Hs combo.

The 133x has left the old card in the shadows!

Lexar’s 133x 8GB – 08.01.06

The new Lexar 8GB 133x card is a scream! As I’ve noted before, this increased write speed doesn’t help the camera end, but it SURE does help the computer end. With two 8GB cards full to the brim with D2X files (used the same files on all cards), I got these speeds:

8GB 133x 11.75mps or 11.3min

8GB 40x 4.84mps or 27.61min

for comparison

4GB 133x 11.64MPS

this was using Lexar’s screaming card reader . That’s a WHOLE lot of time saved in uploading images. That just can’t be ignored.

What’s also cool is the 133x is a Type 1 card where the 40x is a Type II card. Not that the size or weight makes any operational difference, but it does open the door for bigger cards in the future. The way folks keep screaming for FF sensors, bigger files are coming so we’ll need bigger cards. For now, I’m quite happy with the 133x 8GB D2X/D2Hs combo.

The 133x has left the old card in the shadows!

BT Journal – 08.01.06

The snipits are posted, it will be in the mail the end of the month!

Where Does Your Vision Take You? – 08.01.06

How many of you have been to Mesa Arch at Canyonlands Nat’l Park? I’ve been there just a couple of times personally. The first time I’ll never forget. I’d seen thousands of photographs of the arch, a couple just blew me away which is why it was high on my list of locales to photograph. What I saw in the photographs though is not what I saw standing at the arch.

The first time I went to the arch I had Laurie as my guide. We got up early and drove the 45min from Moab to be in position at the arch long before sun up. We arrived at the parking lot and it was one of those rare mornings, no one else was there. We walked up over the ridge and down the trail which is when I saw the edge of the canyon. I was confused and asked Laurie, “Where’s the Arch?� She said, “Right there!� I looked to where she pointed and saw a lump of rock. We kept walking towards it with just a slight hint of dawn way off to the east.

We get to the bottom of the path and then I saw the window. Dang, it’s small! The arch isn’t big enough to park my truck in it. In fact, depending on how you look at it, it’s not a arch at all but just a hole in the rock. Now I had seen the photos so I knew there was potential here for a great image, but at first, I sure couldn’t see it. Then the glow appeared in the east. WOW! Or better put OMG! The shutter started to smoke as I shot. Later that day looking at the images, I liked what I saw, but it’s not what I saw, not in my heart.

My first two visits I shot the arch with a 14mm and 12-24mm. What I came back with was the arch but it wasn’t an arch. Yeah, I had been faithful to the arch but it had no arch to it. The rock was all nice and plum, square and kinda lifeless. The last couple of visits, I wanted to put the arch in the arch, bring a new dimension and drama to a familiar photo.

In matching my vision with photographic vision, I was not true to the arch. In putting an arch to the arch, I had to use the 10.5 lens. Many have looked at the photo and they instantly recognize it as Mesa Arch, but they all have asked, everyone, how did I get that perspective?

Photography is such a unique and very special way to communicate the wonders we see. Lots of folks are talking about post processing and the possible ramifications of altering in post reality (as if that’s a new topic). Ever watch MythBusters on Discovery Channel? Adam has a great saying, “I reject your reality and substitute mine.� Food for thought there, really…where does your vision take you?

Photo captured by D2X, 10.5mm on Lexar digital film. Image worked in digital darkroom