PSA – Spring Forward Tonight!

New 80-400VR3 and Coolpix A

The 80-400 is long been a popular lens. The old version while very sharp was, very slow focusing. The new 80-400 promises not only the same amazing sharpness (if not a biut better) but amazing AF performance. I have not shot with one yet but the FX lens might just be the lens for the wildlife, aviation photographer! So, I’ve put in an order for one because even at the price, it just might be the perfect tool especially for the traveling photographer.

Now here’s a P&C that has my attention. While I really like the V2, it’s still to large a package for what I’m looking for in a P&C. The new Coolpix A has a number of big features in a small package. First, is has a AP-C size sensor, it captures Raw, 1080p stereo video, 18f2.8 lens (love that focal length) and a whole bunch more. I have also put my name on one of these, might just be the P&C camera I’ve been looking for the last couple of years.

BTJ vol16.2 – Special Content!

We’ve had a few inquires when the next issue of the BT Journal would be released. Well, we were waiting for the announcement of the D7100 and then permission to tell my story. It came today so I’m madly working on it. The story on the D7100 will include a full users report along with the stories behind shooting the campaign for the D7100. Sorry for the delay but we think this expanded coverage (longer than normal digital version) and special content will make up for it.

The D7100 is HERE!!!

Nikon has announced the amazing D7100 today, the top in their DX family. It is much more than an upgrade to the D7000 and I know this first hand. I had the great honor and huge photographic challenge to be part of the team to produce the images for the announcement of the D7100. Along with the amazing Nikon Team, Sharon & I spent two weeks deep in the Costa Rican rainforest in January shooting with the D7100 (simply an amazing experience!). I really can’t describe in words the D7100 performance, but I think the nearly 13k stills and video I brought back from those two weeks do!

I really like this camera!!! This 24MP, high dynamic range, 7FPS (in HSC mode) with Custom Setting e4 monster produced for me whether shooting deep in the forest, bouncing offshore in a boat, from kayak to high over head to on the beach. A great example is the photo of the poison dart frog. After parking, we walked deep into the forest following a small creek in being followed by Spider Monkeys. All of us had eyes on the muddy ground looking for the dark blue / black form of a frog the size of a quarter. Armed with the D7100 with 60macro, we kept walking. We stopped to work with a Vine Snake as Jason continued up the creek. In a little while we heard the prey had be discovered. Our amazing guide Gary wrangled the poisonous critter so for 90min, stooped over this tiny subject, the D7100 captured the black body on the green leaf with the highlight in the water, not missing a pixel! Simply amazing!

The process of shooting this project for Nikon with the D7100 is nothing like you might think. Nothin! There is a lot more to it than just taking purty pictures. I now have a whole new level of respect for the photographers who have come before me shooting these campaigns. At the same time, I have a whole new level of respect and awe for what goes into the production of these bodies. You can read the specs for the D7100 here but I can honestly tell you, they don’t do justice to the capabilities of the D7100!

There is one helluva of a lot more to share with you about the D7100 and I will in time, the project and the amazing Costa Rican rainforest and our host for two weeks, Luna Lodge. But right now you just wanna know two things. The specs of the D7100 and what Moose thinks about the body. Moose thinks the D7100 is a freakin great body that is a slam dank, gotta have!

(Note: all photos shot with D7100, files direct from camera, Jpegs with all metadata removed. Lenses: 500f4, 10.5, 70-200f4, 60micro)

HUGE – HUGE Nikon Glass Sale!!!

What you see here doesn’t EVEN scratch the surface of all the lenses On Sale for just the next two weeks! Click on the photo or link to see all the lenses for sale at pricing we’ve not seen in years and might not again for some time.

It Will Save YOU Money!

I am amazed every time I tell someone that the Moose / B&H Hotline will save them money, they say, “Really?” This hotline that connects to 7 great folks at B&H who know Moose, his gear and shooting style and ready to help YOU get YOUR gear fast, safely and saving you some money! I don’t see a penny from this, it is simply a service that B&H & I established to help you with your photography. While most see B&H as just a camera store, I know as you will come to learn, they really are all about photography. Call the 800# you see here and give it a try, you won’t be disappointed!

Moose at Canadian Imaging!

Sharon & I are ~really~ looking for to heading to Vancouver for the Canadian Imaging Convention! What will I be sharing? A ton to be honest with you! I’ll be telling stories, sharing images and explaining the tools I’ve used in the last few months shooting current projects. I’ll have a laugh and tip or two to entertain so please, be sure to come by to say hello and enjoy the great line up speaker!

Share the Season – Last Day to Enter!

I am BLOW AWAY by some of the great photographs and stories that have been posted in my Share the Season photo contest. This is the last day you can enter, winners to be announced on the 31st. To inspire you, here are some more highlights and their stories! Job well done folks and thanks, Michelle, Bill, Jamal, nicely done!

Can anyone find the burned out Christmas light? HA-HA. I came across this house while taking a different route from work due to traffic. I couldn’t wait to come back with my camera and lucky for me they still had their lights on after Christmas. Everyone was stopping on a very busy street to take in the view. Photo was taken in San Francisco, CA with a Nikon D7000. Lens: AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6G II ED. Settings: f6.3 3sec ISO 100 @ 18mm on December 30th 2012. Post processing in Photomatix and LR4.

nikonD600
24-85 nikkor
75.0mm
ISO 640
f.4.5
First good snow of the year decided to get a few pictures , noticed this group of pine cones and decided to capture a couple shots. This is at a local park in Mahomet illinois, Lake of the woods.

Here’s me sharing the season all the way from Singapore. We’re a small island in the middle of the equator but that doesn’t stop us making “snow”. It’s enjoyable to see everyone especially the kids enjoying the festive season. Forget about our differences, young or old or soaking wet for that matter – it’s time to celebrate! As you can see it’s a blizzard!

Nikon D700
20mm
f2.8
1/400s
ISO 3400
Tanglin Mall, Singapore

ioSafe Rock Just as Well!

I love the IoSafe Rugged Portable 1TB Drives as well! You can RUN OVER these things with you vehicle and they still running. They can get wet, frozen, vibrated to pieces and it doesn’t even phase their operation! They run on USB3, wish they updated to Thunderbolt. They are heavier then most external drives but that’s because of their built. Since they are going back and forth from the MacBook to the Win7 machine, I use Folder Sync Pro on the MacBook to backup my images files. These are great drives that for the outdoor photographer, are a must in my book!

Buffalo Thunderbolt

I’ve been asked if I really see a difference using the Buffalo 1TB MiniStation Thunderbolt. I most definitely do! I have been using them with the MacBook Retina for the last four months. They easily extended the small capacity SSD I have in my MacBook with no sacrafice in performance. I load video onto the Thunderbolt and can edit them in realtime with NO delays in performance in Premiere easily! There is only one little erk I have and that’s not with the drives but using in cross platforms. In simple language, just can’t plug a drive formatted on a Mac into a Win machine and they talk. What I have found that works is format on the Mac to ExFat and then the Win machine will can read the drive. Because of this, I use Folder Sync Pro on the MacBook to backup my images files. The small physically size, the speed with Thunderbolt and ability to use with USB3 on the Win machines makes these great drive!

The iMac has Landed!!!

Ya baby, the new iMac is on my desk and hummin right along! The new Apple 21.5″ iMac Desktop Computer is simply an amazing marvel! Its Retina display, speed, ease of set up an bloody small size has made a believer out of me. For the last four months, the mighty MacBook Retina has been my main business machine and done a great job. I still have a Dell Win7 machine running our digital library but desperately needed a desktop for taking care of everything else. My bud Yechiel at B&H saved my tucus by getting first the MacBook Retina and now the iMac in my hands. And in case you’re not aware of the iMac, the entire computer is integrated into the monitor housing. The keyboard and mouse run on Bluetooth seamlessly. This is the basics of the iMac I got:

Product Highlights
2.7GHz Intel Core i5 Quad-Core
8GB of 1600Hz DDR3 RAM
1TB 5400rpm Hard Drive
nVIDIA GeForce GT 640M Graphics (512MB)
21.5″ HD LED-Backlit IPS Display
1920 x 1080 Native Resolution
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, SDXC Card Reader
720p FaceTime HD Camera, Dual Mics
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (64-bit)

In the process of now getting it all set up and data migrated over from dead desktop. The one thing that I find inconvenient is all the USB ports are on the back side of the monitor. I simply grabbed a USB ext cable so I have access to one port from where I sit for plugging in a Lexar Jump Drive

. As I use it more and get more software loaded, I’ll post a progress report. In the meantime, it’s back to work finally with both desktops!

HUGE Deals on Nikon Gear!

Click on Link for these and more!

The Nikon 70-200f4 VR3

When the 70-200f4 VR3 was announced, I was excited to read the specs. While I have the 70-200f/2.8 VR2, its MFD and f/22 max aperture were two aspects of the lens the new 70-200VR3 improves on. I wanted the 2′ MFD of the 70-200VR3 for photographing nesting birds. I wanted the f/32 for my air to air work. The fact the VR3 model is lighter (by nearly a pound!) and smaller in diameter wasn’t as important, just those two features. Well I’ve had the lens a couple of weeks now, shot a bunch with it and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a sweet lens! It’sharp across the plane, doesn’t have any vignetting, AF is nice and fast. It’s nice its shade is flat so I can go back to setting it down without it falling over. I’m not thrilled it doesn’t come with a tripod collar. And the “carbon” barrel next to the body doesn’t excite the senses but it doesn’t effect operation at all. And you might be asking why I’m not saying anything about the new VR3 technology. Using proper handholding works the best for me. For the task I wanted the tool for, I more than highly recommend it!

What you see here is really a pretty simple click, one I’ve wanted for quite some time (and I’m not done yet). Out our kitchen window is one of our many bird feeders. It is really popular with our Mountain Chickadees. The feeder is no more than perhaps 9″ from the side window/side of the house. The icicles that form are perhaps 2′ from the house and when they form and don’t get too big in diameter, the Chickadees use them as a perch prior to coming into the feeder. In the past, I’ve had to stand in the middle of the kitchen to shoot. That’s really not a good place to be working in any household. The 70-200 VR3 attached to the D4 though worked perfectly! The VR3 was at 200mm and at its MFD and was spot on for shooting right at the window frame! A single SB-900 w/Lumiquest was on a Justin Clamp attached to a post on the outside of the house providing the lighting. A Pocket Wizard was used to control the flash and a Pocket Wizard used to fire the camera (stayed warm by the fire as it snowed outside). So as I sat by the fire writing, I simply watched the icicle and when the Chickadee landed, I pushed the button on the Pocket Wizard. And that’s really the point of having the right tools, making photography not only successful, but fun!

Moose @ Calumet SF 31 Jan ’13

It’s me, some images, a ton of stories, a trick or three and it’s free! San Francisco, 31 Jan, 2013. Cya there!

The Mac Retina – It Has Saved My Butt!

I am still without my desktop computer and it hurts! While the new iMac is finally on the way, for over two months I have been without what was the most important computer to my business. All the data is safe, it’s the ability to multi task to get work done that is the killer. So when my friend Yechiel at B&H said I should try the MacBook Pro Retina, he didn’t know it at the time but he saved my butt! There is no doubt that my Dell m4500 would have worked, it just wouldn’t have saved my butt. I would have limped by with it and that would have really made my 3 month road trip on the business side, hell! The speed of the Retina and its ability to set up quickly with the all of “stuff” that my old desktop functioned with so effortlessly was a treat. Now the Retina is not perfect, Mac is not perfect. I have crashed it, stressed it and when it comes to presenting, it stil sucks. Nothing is perfect but all I know is, that if Yechiel hadn’t put the Retina in my hands when he did, I would be in a world of hurt. Thanks my friend!

Here’s what I have:
MacBook Pro Retina
Magic Mouse
Buffalo 1TB Thunderbolt x3
ioSafe 1TB USB3
Lexar USB 3 Reader
Master Suite – Photoshop / Bridge CS6 Extended
Photo Mechanic 5
PhotoMatix Pro
Photo Rescue
Nikon Capture NX 2
Nikon Camera Control Pro 2.0
Word
Thunderbird
Chrome
FotoQuote
Keynote (App Store)
ScreenFlow (App Store)
Folder Sync Pro (App Store)
CyberDuck (App Store)
SuperDuper (App Store)
Disk Doctor (App Store)

Stop Playing With That Camera!

I knew that look! This time though I had the new Nikon1 V2 in hand. With the ISO3200 (she moves too much) @f/11 with the 10-30f3.5VR attached, I talked to her while shooting. While there is some noise in the photo, the sharpness is pretty amazing to me. To open the Nef, gotta have NX2 2.3.5 update but other than that, right out of the camera click. When it comes to shooting, the only thing that’s bugging me so far with the V2 is the momentary preview of the photo you just took sticking around in the viewfinder. I guess I should read the IB.

Nikon 1 V2 – 1st Impressions

When Mr UPS dropped off my box from B&H this week with the new 70-200f4AFS, it also contained the new Nikon 1 V2. I had a fun and interesting time shooting with the J2 mirrorless and while it produced good images, I really didn’t enjoy the platform. So with I opened the V2 box, I went through the actions but didn’t really expect any better an experience. Man, was I BIG TIME wrong! For the last 24hrs now, I can’t put it down and in fact, I’ve totally ignored the 70-200f4 I’m having so much fun with the V2. The image quality is bloody amazing, it’s close focusing outrageous and being able to “see” through the lens and ability to properly handhold, outstanding! I’ll get some images posted this week. I just wanted to mention this cool little camera in case you’re looking for a stocking stuffer. Ya, it’s that small!

Image Wizards Rockin It!

I just ordered more prints from them and you’ll see some of mine featured in this piece just. Image Wizards Rocks!

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