Mar 28, 2012 | Field Reports
The Photoshop World precon was not only a great event, but provided a great field testing site for the D4. Starting with light that wasn’t great, I was able to see just what the D4 could do for me. The General was more then happy to be the guinea pig for my testing. I started off by getting past my own issues with photographing people. I’m simply not comfortable walking up to a stranger, talk to them and convince them they should let me photograph them. The General and I locked eyes and I took that as a opening to introduce myself and photograph him. Though the light was really nasty, under the tent flap it was very diffused and perfect. With the 50f1.4AFS attached, I shot at f1.4 and made some clicks. I actually like them too.
The General noticed the motordrive sound of the D4. It is distinct and when it’s rippin, you can’t miss it. He could pick me out of the crowd. I moved out of the scene so other could work with him and switched to the 70-200VR2 at f/5.6 and worked from a distance.
McNally did a really cool thing and brought in a giant sweep and set it up with a big Octie that folks could shoot with. The General moved in and I made my final clicks of him again with the 70-200VR2. This brings me to exposure and the D4. It’s not like exposure on the D3. How’s it different? I’m still running it though my brain pan but I do have a thought I will put forth in the near future. It is better but to talk advantage of it, I need to rethink how we make use of this new technology.
If you have a D4 and you’ve downloaded CS6 (and you SHOULD!) you might have noticed the ACR 7.0 does not recognize the D4 file. Trust me, Adobe is aware of this. Until they update ACR 7.0, you can use ACR 6.7 in CS5 to open and process D4 files.
Mar 27, 2012 | Field Reports
Another incredible Photoshop World is now in the books so after the instructor party and since sleep has been scant for the last four days, why not just make it five. So after a great dinner, we headed down to the Lincoln Memorial with our friends Russell and Kevin to simply enjoy the Memorial at night. Since I’m still working with the new D4, of course I took it along.
My settings were the basics, of course. I was shooting on a small travel Gitzo tripod anywhere from 16sec to 1.2sec at ISO 100. The white balance was AWB and exp comp was -2. As far as I’m concerned, the D4 did a great job. All of these images are straight from the camera, nothing was done in post other then the conversion from Nef to PSD using ACR 6.7.
More importantly was the photographic process. In this series, I wanted the folks included in the photo. I looked for all blurred like the top frame to almost all blurred in the middle to just certain ones blurred in the bottom. Now this took a little time waiting for the right combination and grouping of folks to shutter speed to give them moving the ability to blur during the exposure. I really like the bottom one because the couple frozen in the middle were doing something really romantic like a wedding proposal or something. The one shot I wanted to get I saw but acted too slowly. A bus load of folks came in and all at once lifted up their cell phones to take a photo. I saw the photo and got into position to slowly. The D4 made the whole experience very enjoyable and along with the company, made for a great closure to our adventures to DC.
Mar 26, 2012 | Field Reports
Photoshop World is a biggie to me, it’s just so much fun! The Precon is how it all starts for me so I try to make it as much fun as well as good photography as I can when I start planning it. This spring’s PSW in DC was great with a group of Civil War reinactors. I’ve written many times about my association with Russell Brown who many of you know as Dr. Brown from Adobe. I use the term association because, well, the things we’ve done in the search of an unique photograph goes way beyond friendship and this PSW, we proved ourselves.
When I told Russell some time ago what I was planning for the Precon, he naturally asked, “You need a Abe Lincoln?” In my mind, I could picture him making a great Abe Lincoln and as you can see, he did! The real funny thing was, he was really nervous sitting with the “confederates.” I tried to tell him it was 2012 and he wasn’t really Abe, but it took hours, literally, to get him to sit down to make the photo he went to Precon to get. Of course, I should have known that “Abe” was just to sedate for Russell. We no sooner got off the bus for Precon and Russell is dawning this outfit he commissioned be made for him. Only Russell would come up with this costume!
All of these photos were taken with the D4, a camera I’m coming to like more and more. This is just my gut feeling, but there is more to the D4 then what the sales brochure lets on. I have still not done any formal testing but just shooting with it, there are two things I’m pretty sure of. The files the D4 produces are gorgeous! I’m really liken what I’m seeing on my monitor. I can’t wait to get back to the office and print them up. I’m also pretty darn sure the D4 does have a greater dynamic range. How much more and how we take full advantage of it I’m still working on. The AF system in low light is superior to what we’ve had before, that I am sure of. Have a bugger the holds 74 Nefs on one blast simply kicks ass. And today I shot my first real video with it and it’s sweet! I’m working through my base settings and should have those for you in the next couple of days.
A side note on processing. The top “Abe” shot is a D4 Nef processed in ACR 6.7 which doesn’t recognize the D4’s Standard or Vivid (or new Landscape) mode. So I’m not pulling the full potential out of the file when processing. The image was then finished in PS CS6 using Nik’s CEP4 Detail Extractor and Glamor Glow. Then that was run through Silver Efex Pro. The middle went through ACR and then Silver Efex Pro > Old Time setting. The bottom photo was shot on the Wescott shoot on the PSW exhibit floor and is an out of the camera shot. Many are stopping me and asking me how I like the D4. I like the D4. I will be honest with you like I am them. I think the D4 has some evolutionary and revolutionary advances that will require me to rethink and advance my approach to exposure. The increased dynamic range is exciting to me.
Mar 23, 2012 | Field Reports
Yeah Baby…the Moose Hotline is up at B&H and I am INCREDIBLY excited my dear old friend Jay is heading it up! Jay back in the day took care of all of my needs, most importantly getting film to me where ever I was in the country. He, along with a team of four others are there at B&H to HELP you with advice and sales just like if you called me. We’ve worked hard to make it happen so give them a call!!!
212-502-6307
877 865 8960
Mar 23, 2012 | Field Reports
Today in my mind was the start of Photoshop World as we held our NAPP Safari Precon. As always, I had the honor to teach it along side my good friend Joe McNally. A precon I’d been planning for a year unfold with perfection and man, was it great! The story deserves more photos and text which I just don’t have in my tonight, I’m already toast and I’m not done. But here’s a slight hint of what we did and I shot the whole time with the D4. So, stay tuned, more to come! Gotta say thanks to all the participants and especially our reinactors. You were all great!!!!
Mar 23, 2012 | Field Reports
Before nearly every Photoshop World (which starts tomorrow, today are Precons), my bud Russell Brown and us take on some adventure. This time, Russell suggested we take advantage of his friendship with the two official photogs at Smithsonian NHNS. Well, I was all over that so today we basically spent the whole days cruising the collections. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Dr. Dove had pulled out some great bird skins for us to examine. Those collected by John James Audubon and Teddy Roosevelt to examples of the extinct Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet and Ivory-billed Woodpecker. If they had taken away my D4 and walked away with it, I’d still be there!
We walked and walked and walked going from the collections to the exhibits and back to the collections. Absolutely the most amazing tour! This was also my first shoot with the D4. I have my initial settings in the camera and just shot normally just to get a feel for the camera and its default nature. I was impressed with the AWB working in all the mixed indoor lighting. What you see here is what the camera delivered, I didn’t clean up colors in any way. The top photo is ISO 1600 and next, ISO 100, the results are what you expect, really quite fine!
We went a lot of places the public doesn’t have access to. One of those was near the top of the dome and man, what a view! I did some HDR here and tried to process them in Photomatix Pro but it’s not liking D4 nefs. The D4 has a HDR setting but it only works when shooting Jpegs only, I was shooting NEFs.
The metering in the D4 I’m finding so far is slightly better then the D3, at least when coming to my style of photography. I’m not having to dial in minus exp comp like I did with the D3. The AWB like I mentioned is nailing stuff which is cool. The LCD has a manual and Auto LCD brightness control, I’m not so sure about the Auto yet. The Sensor clean more doesn’t do dittilly but didn’t expect it to. I have dust with it turned on. And while I’ve not printed any files yet, the file quality is at least as good as D3s and at ISO 1600, a tad better. The one thing I wasn’t prepared for is the change in the shutter noise. The D4 sounds totally different and it could just be me, but seems to be a little quieter. I have a ton more shooting and field work to do with it, but so far I can honestly say I’m seeing better results that I didn’t expect. Oh, and I shot 767 Nefs using just 23% of the battery. That’s a good thing! And I’m lovin seeing r50 in the viewfinder when i depress the shutter release! You can see a little of our day from the photos Jim took, check them out here. I wanna thank Don & Jim and all the curators who gave so generously of their time and knowledge today. One helluva experience!
