DC on Stilts – 09.30.07

We’re in DC, getting ready for the start of the PPP tour this week. We played tourist today cruising “The Mall.” We enjoy the Mall and all the history that it contains. After hitting the Museum of Natural History and the Nat’l Archives, we headed up to Ford’s Theater. It was closed but the Peterson House (where Lincoln died) across the street was open. After going through it, we just wondered around downtown where we came across this building.

At first, it was the late afternoon light reflected off the building behind us onto this old thing that caught my attention. Than I noticed that the entire first floor was gone! What you see under the orange girders is the building behind the building in the photo! The entire first floor has been removed as they restore and rebuild this beautiful old building. As I stood there very excitedly photographing this, the locals walked by giving me very strange looks. I felt I should have a sign on my back, “I’m from the mountains” to explain my excitement. One window had the construction company’s logo which I removed using the technique Scott Kelby demos on PhotoshopUserTV 100th episode. Can you tell which window?

Photo captured by D200, 28f1.4AF on Lexar digital film

Here's why YOU want Extended! – 09.28.07

When Photoshop CS3 was first introduced, many ask why should they buy the more expensive Extended version to which I answered, “lots of reasons, you just watch.” Here’s a perfect example of why you want Extended!

A couple issues back in the BT Journal, I wrote about how to take star trails (follow link for PDF) with digital cameras. The method permits you to capture star trails and not the noise. In that article I mention a couple of ways of assembling the final star trail. Those methods have been blown out of the water by my good friend Russell Brown! You might recall last month my blogging about being kidnapped and”forced” to spend three glorious days at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at Havasu Falls by this madman. Well, one of the reasons we were down there was to capture star trails just for the purpose you’ll soon to discover.

The genius that is Russell Brown not only figured out a better way to assemble star trails (which I can’t wait to do with the D3 next month when the moon is gone) but also put the trails in motion! That’s right, you can watch your star trails in motion! Russell being Russell not only figured out how to do it, but he is sharing the whole recipe with you so you can do it too! So, give this a gander and if it totally sucks you in (and it will), you’ll want to watch this to see how it’s done. But he won’t be telling you how my garage lights lit up the rocks at Alabama Hills

Photo captured by D2Xs, 28f1.4AF on Lexar digital film

Doc Brown Services link (a must have and it’s free!)

Here’s why YOU want Extended! – 09.28.07

When Photoshop CS3 was first introduced, many ask why should they buy the more expensive Extended version to which I answered, “lots of reasons, you just watch.” Here’s a perfect example of why you want Extended!

A couple issues back in the BT Journal, I wrote about how to take star trails (follow link for PDF) with digital cameras. The method permits you to capture star trails and not the noise. In that article I mention a couple of ways of assembling the final star trail. Those methods have been blown out of the water by my good friend Russell Brown! You might recall last month my blogging about being kidnapped and”forced” to spend three glorious days at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at Havasu Falls by this madman. Well, one of the reasons we were down there was to capture star trails just for the purpose you’ll soon to discover.

The genius that is Russell Brown not only figured out a better way to assemble star trails (which I can’t wait to do with the D3 next month when the moon is gone) but also put the trails in motion! That’s right, you can watch your star trails in motion! Russell being Russell not only figured out how to do it, but he is sharing the whole recipe with you so you can do it too! So, give this a gander and if it totally sucks you in (and it will), you’ll want to watch this to see how it’s done. But he won’t be telling you how my garage lights lit up the rocks at Alabama Hills

Photo captured by D2Xs, 28f1.4AF on Lexar digital film

Doc Brown Services link (a must have and it’s free!)

Wolves – 09.28.07

This just came in, thought you might like to know about it….

Act now to stop hundreds of wolves from being slaughtered!

 

The Bush Administration is planning to kill hundreds of endangered wolves in the Northern Rockies. We need your help to save wolves from these disastrous policies.

 

The recovery of the gray wolf in the northern Rockies is one of the great Endangered Species Act success stories and an unparalleled feat of ecological restoration. The biologists, conservationists and wildlife managers can celebrate an amazing return of the wolf from the brink of extinction. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the first step toward the eventual removal of Endangered Species Act safeguards, which would leave protection entirely up to the states.

 

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration wants to turn back the clock on wolf restoration by proposing a new rule that will allow states to kill hundreds of wolves,

even while wolves still remain under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. In fact, Idaho and Wyoming have already announced plans to “manage� wolves down to minimum levels and are likely to use this new rule to begin doing so.

 

Please tell the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reject the plan to weaken wolf management rules under the Endangered Species Act.

 

Thanks for speaking up for wildlife! For more information, please visit the Endangered Species Coalition at: http://www.stopextinction.org/wolves

 

Sincerely,

 

Derek Goldman

Northern Rockies Field Representative

Endangered Species Coalition

Pixel Packin' Landing in DC – 09.26.07

The phone rang yesterday to tell us our first stops on our Pixel Packin’ Pleasure tour has a few hundred folks already signed up. Darn cool, can’t wait to share what I’ve learned over the years and what’s new in the last month. Our office has received a number of calls in regards to whether a D3 will be at the show (seems more important than my being present ). I’ve been told that Nikon will be there with a D3 AND NEW LENSES! There is no guarantee but that’s what we’ve been informed. I can tell you that the D3 will be in my presentation and I’ll be more than happy to field any questions you might have in regards to this great new evolution in bodies. We hope to see you at Service Photo on Oct 2 and Penn Camera on Oct 3…..that’s next week…..I’d best get back to finishing the show!

Pixel Packin’ Landing in DC – 09.26.07

The phone rang yesterday to tell us our first stops on our Pixel Packin’ Pleasure tour has a few hundred folks already signed up. Darn cool, can’t wait to share what I’ve learned over the years and what’s new in the last month. Our office has received a number of calls in regards to whether a D3 will be at the show (seems more important than my being present ). I’ve been told that Nikon will be there with a D3 AND NEW LENSES! There is no guarantee but that’s what we’ve been informed. I can tell you that the D3 will be in my presentation and I’ll be more than happy to field any questions you might have in regards to this great new evolution in bodies. We hope to see you at Service Photo on Oct 2 and Penn Camera on Oct 3…..that’s next week…..I’d best get back to finishing the show!

Epson's New Website – 09.24.07

Dano at Epson just made me aware of their new resource website and it’s worth your read! As a devoted Epson printer owner (that sounds funny) and teacher, this is a great place to go and keep up to date and learn how to better communicate your images through the print. Check it out…now!

Epson’s New Website – 09.24.07

Dano at Epson just made me aware of their new resource website and it’s worth your read! As a devoted Epson printer owner (that sounds funny) and teacher, this is a great place to go and keep up to date and learn how to better communicate your images through the print. Check it out…now!

Great Lakes day3 PM / D3 – 09.20.07

Our last evening was spent at the Old Mission Lighthouse. It was a delightful evening as we worked the area which included forests and beaches, old log cabins, squirrels and bats. The D3 had to go back home, so I was in a photographic frump but I was able to make a couple of images I really liked, like the fence photo above. This is simple shot which was just converted into B&W using CS3.

While the pounding of our blog has slowed down, emails in regard to the D3 haven’t. I want to thank all who have sent emails thanking me for the little information I’ve been able to post on the D3. It was a privilege extended to me by Nikon to shoot the D3 so early on in its prerelease. Can’t thank them enough for the opportunity, it’s a great camera. The images I shot and I was able to posted here are from processed Nef files so I could see just how gorgeous the files truly are. Here’s a simple example of that.

I had no means of mounting the D3 on a tripod, simply no plates. To shoot in the forest in the very dim light, I cranked up the ISO of the D3 to 800 (which I never do) just so I could shoot at 1/15 of a second. When I went through the mornings images later on the computer, I had totally forgotten I had shot at ISO800 until I was in NX and only than, after seeing the meta data did I remember. I couldn’t tell by looking at the images, there was no noise structure hinting at shooting at a high ISO. More importantly to me though was how well the D3 handled recording the very subtle changes in the greens in the forest (at this high ISO) as that was what I was after. It’s called photography, solving problems to visually communicate the passion your feel at the time of the click and the D3 does it so very well.

I’m a photographer and as such, I create images based on my emotional response to the scene and through my photography, try to draw the same emotional response from the viewer of my image. The amazing nuisances of detail the D3 captures aren’t going to be seen here in these small files posted on the blog (and I’m truly sorry for that). The very subtle color grads that the D3 can record that the D2Xs doesn’t is what’s important for me to discover in my first shooting of the D3 (and it does just that). The D3′s ability to pull in highlight detail beyond the traditional 5stops was important to explore and exploit (and it does that too). The amazing, just bloody amazing sharpness of the D3 files were enough to make me ecstatic beyond belief and something I had to really explore. The detail in feathers (even if they were just gulls) the D3 captures just blew me off my chair!

I am a photographer, first and foremost. My shooting with the D3 was for MY photography. It had to be since that’s the only measuring stick that is meaningful to me. I was very, very, very fortunate to first, have the D3 to shoot with and than at the same time, have it to shoot with when I was my good bud Joe McNally who has had extensive time shooting with the D3. He made it possible for me to instantly and with knowledge, jump right into MY style of photography with the D3. I want to thank those who emailed me understanding this and were able to take what morels I can post at this time and use it in their own photography! It’s my desire to provide you the same help I was fortunate to have shooting with Joe McNally by my side with what we’ll post in the future on our website about the amazing D3.

Photo captured by D2Xs, 105VR on Lexar digital film

Great Lakes day 3 AM – 09.19.07

What a great morning! We spent it at Torch River Pathway and saw everything from Copperheads to Leapoard Frogs to Schrums to moss, it was really hard to stop shooting!

These two images are straight shots, what you see is what I saw. It was simply a marvelous last morning shoot!

Photos captured by D3, 105VR & 14AF on Lexar digital UDMA film

Great Lakes day 2 PM – 09.18.07

It was simply a great evening of shooting at Elk Rapids!

It’s great to see the HUGE interest in the few D3 images and trivia I’ve posted here on the blog. In a 12hr period today, the blog received over 1.7mil hits at an average of 20per second. That’s all in response to folks thirsting for info on this killer camera. It also caused our server to crash 4 times!

I’ll be posting no more info on the D3 until later in the year at the time folks are able to buy them for themselves (I’ll post a couple closing images tomorrow AM). I hope that the timing will be such that our new server, text and knowledge of the D3 and website will be out at the time you need it and have a D3 in YOUR hands. For all those emails that have been sent in regards to the D3 that I have not (and won’t be) answered, my apologies but I’m out shooting and simply don’t have time to answer the questions time will shortly answered for all.

Photo captured by D3, 600f4AFS II on Lexar digital UDMA film

Great Lakes day 2 AM – 09.18.07

What a glorious morning! The DLWS gang headed out to the rural center of the UP and cruised the roads looking for and found Americana. This is a old, one room school house nestled in corn fields in a little valley. We spent sunrise here working the area finding marvelous subjects and having a grand time in the warm temps.

The predawn sky was just killer for working wide. The direction of the school house in orientation to the rising sun, the clouds breaking overhead and the light bouncing of them is what created the natural hallo of light you see in the photo. It was a natural for B&W done in CS3. The light on the front of the school house 45min later naturally drew your eye into the door. The paint is very faded on the sides of the school house and dirty in the bright light. What you see here is a straight shot with the brighter door and jam bringing the eye right into the middle of the photo.

I was dying for something to charge by so I could put the D3′s AF system through its paces. I’m using the 21area AF and it works really, really nice. I was shocked when I first started to play with the D3 in a darken room during a slide presentation and the D3 in those very dim conditions was able to focus on black items. I picked up the D2Xs and it couldn’t even focus on the same items. I’ve been shooting with the new 24-70VR and wow, what a bloody sharp lens! It’s much smaller in real life than I thought it was from the photos and feels really good in the hand. Hopefully this afternoon, I can plug the D3 on my 600AFS II and really give the AF a solid test.

Photos captured by D3, 14AF / 24-70AFS on Lexar digital UDMA film

Great Lakes day 1 PM – 09.17.07

It was another excellent night of shooting, so good that I spent most of the time with students rather than continuing on exploring the amazing qualities of the D3. I did manage to get a couple of minutes though with the D3 and the results are still hard to grasp. The top photo was taken just prior to the sun setting. What is amazing to me is the color retention of the new color engine and what you can’t see here, the beautifully crisp, sharp files the D3 produces. The files truly are a work of art. The new LCD while not the best at color & exposure rendition, it does show sharpness better than any other LCD I’ve used.

The bottom photo was taken at Slender’s Restaurant. This is a locally renowned restaurant where you can kiss a Moose (I hang out here during my off time) head mounted on the wall. Well the DLWS staff couldn’t pass up having dinner at such a place. Carol, the NPS rep suggested I play with the high ISO, so I cranked it up to 3200 and went exploring. When you open the file and search pretty darn hard, you can find noise but it’s so little, it really is amazing. It’s so good I’m afraid many will pass up good photo technique and simply crank up the ISO.

Since posting this AM that I had a D3, I’ve been flooded with emails with tons of questions. You should be excited about the D3 as it’s a really impressive camera, but I have to apologize, I simply don’t have time to answer every question (especially when many are answered on Nikon’s site), don’t have the bandwidth to post full res files and shoot resolution charts and send them out to folks. I’m more than pleased to have the opportunity to test drive the D3 and make some quick reports, but I simply can’t write a personal user report for every email that comes in. When the time is right, I will post all of my findings and settings. Until then, I hope what I can bring you here will be enough to satisfy and excite you about this evolutionary camera.

Photos captured by D3, 14AF on Lexar digital UDMA film

OMG!!!! – 09.17.07

What a morning! I’m incredibly fortunate that Bill Pekala & Carol Fisher at Nikon NPS have made it possible for me to shoot with a D3 right now and OMG! I mean, OMG!

The DLWS gang spent their first morning shooting at Fishtown and what a subject rich environment, perfect for my first run with the D3. The camera just rocks! If you shoot with a D2Xs, getting comfortable with the D3 takes seconds. The large viewfinder and FX sensor is just to die for. Shooting again with a 14mm at 14mm brought tears to my eyes. The AF system is awesome, the metering and dynamic range is better and 9fps is simply the sexiest sound in the world! The new color engine and AWB are really nice and the dual card CF works beautifully. If I wasn’t in the middle of teaching, I would go on and on and on and on about the D3. It’s SO much more than a high ISO stud! I’ll keep posting D3 images as long as I can produce ‘em. Can you tell….I’m dam excited!

Photos captured by D3, 14AF on Lexar digital UDMA film

Just Delightful! – 09.15.07

The countryside of the MI Pennisulas is simply delightful! The folks are so nice and helpful, and curious just what this white van full of photographers find interesting in their backyard. The answer is lots! Here’s a couple more examples.

Spider Lake is a small boat launch tucked way back in the middle of nowhere. We pulled up and I instantly saw the dock, shoreline and the clouds as this amazing merge of line and texture. Lens selection was a no-brainer, a 10.5, straight shot.

The bottom image is of Old Mission Lighthouse which is just a really cool place. On our visit to it yesterday it was pouring rain. The clouds started to part this afternoon so we made a run hoping to find a great sunset but instead, nearly bald skies. With the turn of the clouds, it was a high contrast B&W image which I achieved using CS3. I’m really looking forward to returning to the lighthouse to see its other moods.

DLWS starts tomorrow, no shooting but we’ll be back at it hot and heavy on Monday so I’ll post new images than. Have a great weekend shooting!

Photos captured by D200, 10.5 & D2Xs, 17-55AFS on Lexar digital film

MI Magic – 09.15.07

The DLWS Staff woke up and started out in a gentle rain heading up the coast to Elk Rapid. The rural landscape, barns and villages are so inviting and the land just sucks you in. In the top photo, we ventured to a great preserve that runs along the lake where some kid made this cool pattern. It was real easy to stroll out into the water and make the first capture. The B&W was even easier in Photoshop again using B&W Adj Layer with an additional Contrast Layer. The bottom image was taken along the Rapid River and is a simple straight capture. Walk up, click and continue to enjoy the grove. It was a great morning!

Photo captured by D200, 28f1.4AF on Lexar digital film

Great Lakes, Holly Cow! – 09.14.07

My good friend and DigitalPro creator David Cardinal has for a long time told me how gorgeous this region of the US is (and he leads workshops here) but not until today doing our scouting for our upcoming Great Lakes DLWS did I discover this for myself. This is a gorgeous, gorgeous place to come and shoot! We had a great time today cruising around, exploring, shooting, playing tourist and of course, finding all the good food in preparation for our start on Sunday. All I can say is, wish you were here!

Besides keeping track of our photographic pursuits on my blog this coming week, please check out other photographic visions of the same opportunities on Laurie blog and my assistant Josh’s blog. I selected my images to blog prior to seeing what Laurie & Josh posted just because I too wanted to see how we photographically communicated the uniqueness of the same locales. It’s what makes photography so special!

In regards to these two images, the top image was shot with a 10.5 because I had seen how the waves were breaking. They were curving up towards me kinda looking like a smile. To accentuate that curve, capture that vast, great sky and the expanse of Lake MI, the fisheye was the only lens to use. The horizon is straight because I kept it dead center in the frame. I than converted the image to B&W quickly using the Black & White curve in CS3. The lower image, I just happened to have lucked out to be in the right place at the right time when a spotlight of sun hit the farm. It was only present for a few minutes.

Photo captured by D200, 10.5 & 17-55AF on Lexar digital film

Hoodie you say?! – 09.14.07

Those who have been shooting with me of late know that my 200VR, 200-400VR & 600AFSII are all covered in the black LensCoat from LensCoat. Many have asked where I got though the cool “Hoodies” or better known as lens caps for those lenses as well as those on my 28AF and 14AF. They all come from LensCoat and they are VERY cool! They work really great and I highly recommend them. For example, those of your who own the 200VR know what a pain the factory lens cap is, especially when the shade is in its stored position. Well, their one Hoodie (Large) fits the shades when stored or in use and slips on and off with one hand tied behind your back.

I apologize for grabbing the screen shot from the LensCoat website, but I’m writing this from O’Hare Airport and I forgot to upload my product shot (this one doesn’t do this cool product justice). I can tell you though that Scott has a great product YOU should buy. I do know that Scott is right now working on the LensCoats for the new Nikon VR telephotos (might even switch to Nikon because of the D3(sorry Scott, just had to say it)) and he made a custom coat for my treasured 28AF which is great.

You want to take care of your gear and keep the eagle crap from getting in the cracks, this IS the way to go!

In follow up to many emails in regards to if I’m going to upgrade to the new 600VR. The new 600VR focuses 3 feet closer than the 600AFS II, that in itself makes it a must to me! The fact that my good friend Joe McNally says it’s a whole lot faster has me digging through the couch for pennies (and all my neighbors couches too!). Yeah, I plan on having the new 600VR & 400VR as soon as possible!

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