Sep 18, 2007 | Landscape Photography
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
Sep 17, 2007 | Landscape Photography
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
Sep 15, 2007 | Landscape Photography
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
Sep 15, 2007 | Landscape Photography
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
Sep 14, 2007 | Landscape Photography
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
Jun 7, 2007 | Landscape Photography
We were treated to Laurie’s secret big wave locale tonight. The tides weren’t huge so huge waves weren’t on the menu. But it SURE was gorgeous!
Photo captured by D2Xs, 70-180macro on Lexar digital film
