We’ve been up in WA and really smitten by The Palouse! I’m not sure why it’s taken us this long to get here but I love it! I want to come back up to photograph it when’s its green so we’re offering a trip for 6 folks 23-28 April (in 23rd & out the 28th out of Spokane). This is simply an amazing place and the possibilities seem endless. We’ve already been to places you don’t see in print which is really spinning my imagination. The price is $1895 which covers transport once on location, guiding, instruction and entertainment. Oh yeah, a bit of education, as well as this, is a bit of a new world of landscape photography. This is a long landscape shoot just as much as pano which makes it such a photographic delight. If you’re interested, give Sharon a call 661.204.1506.
You see light? I’m being incredibly serious in asking this question. Seeing light with your eye, then through your viewfinder and in the final capture is only part of it. Do you see that light, and stay true to it in the digital darkroom? What the heck am I talking about? Hit the play button and find out. And if you want to learn more about light and how I use it, work it, manipulate it, be sure to check out my Light Class and Finishing classes on Kelbyone!
My new class on Camera Gear Care has just been released over at KelbyOne. The class in incredibly thorough covering a whole lot more than how to clean a lens or sensor, which are covered. What I have in my travel cleaning kit, tips on working in hot and cold places and so much more is covered. I hope it helps you get the most out of your gear and extend its life in service of your photography!
A month ago I was very fortunate to be commissioned by Nikon USA to do an aviation themed shoot to promote the D7500 and Nikon’s wireless flash system. I instantly knew what I wanted to do, a 40’s aviation themed shoot of an executive and his wife heading off on a trip in their executive aircraft. That was the easy part cause after that came all the planning and execution. Well, here, you’ll get a taste of our afternoon from this behind the scenes video Brent created (and did a brilliant job!). Make it full screen, it’s 4k!
Wanting to work with the best, I had to look no further than in-house. Sharon, Brent & Jake were my crew with everyone including myself doing many jobs to make the budget work. We flew into Minneapolis, home of the Howard 500 a day early to not only check out everything but do a dry run of all the sets and gear. We had over 20 sets to work in a five hour period. Having everyone on the same page prior to the actual shoot was essential. That’s because no matter how well planned it might all be, you never know what’s going to unfold the day of the shoot. In our case, it was two tornadoes to the south which caused horrendous ground winds changing everything from hair, set lighting and the biggies, backgrounds! But as you saw in the video, we got it all done with most coming out as planned and desired.
You’ll notice I had 8 SB-5000s. That actually was not enough for some of the shots which to this day I regret. The SB-5000s did a fantastic job, the D7500 / SB-5000 wireless system is mind boggling! Seriously, being able to stick SB-5000s totally out of sight, hiding them completely and still able to control and fire them wirelessly from the D7500 was essential to my success. But that only works when you have enough of them. The Howard 500 is a BIG plane and with four models on set, I simply didn’t plan it right so ended up short. Just means I’ll have to do it again which would be fine with us. It was so much fun!!!!
The D7500 Gang
Thanks gang … you were the best and it was a ton of fun!
Cliff mentioned something today that I had forgotten but are sound words of advice. It’s the mega pixel demand. The D850s 45.7 megapixels capture a lot … I mean … a lot of information! I’m talking so much succulent, delicious, spectacular detail that if you’re off on your craft even a slight twinge of a heartbeat, you’ll see it in your file. What I’m talking about is sharpness, sharpness coming capturing a sharp image! That means lens, focusing that lens and giving that D850 the support to produce a sharp image!
To illustrate my point I enlisted the ever cooperative Sadie (who will do anything for a treat). Shooting with the 24f1.4 at f1.4 just inches away, I focused on the left eye (our left, not Sadie’s). You can see how the right eye is really soft and that illustrates my point. While it would seem that they’re being that close physically, both eyes should be sharp, they are not. Same with those mega pixels, off just a hair and it’s going to be soft, really soft. What can you do to maximize them darling pixels? Practice your hand-holding, raise your ISO for a faster shutter speed, use a tripod more often, a combination of these and much more. I remember the flood of emails of “lenses” gone bad when the D800 came out. Hard lessons were taught and now years later, we should forget them. It’s real simple, the megapixel demand.
London Canals captured by Df / 24f1.4 / No Polarizer
Polarizers are for removing reflections! Yes, they can make skies bluer but that’s better done better in ACR. Removing reflections is a tool in our photography just like DoF or Flash, all are a means of bringing the viewer’s attention to the subject and tell a story. But when to apply a polarizer is a commonly asked question.
The first GIANT challange of the polarizer is that it works with physics, math, the hallmark of photography but not most photographers. It’s an angles machine removing reflections based on the theorem, angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. In both of these photographic examples, the reflection we are removing is from the sky. If you look at the Channel shot, you will see that there are sides of buildings, leaves and the vegetation on the water is what is being affected by the rotation of the polarizer.
With the Sopwith, the polarizer is affecting the wing and parts of the fuselage. You can see dramatically in both photos what the reflection of the sky is doing to the photograph. But this still raises the question, when do you use a polarizer? To answer the question in regard to these two photos, the Channel was not the time to apply the polarizer and the Sopwith, it was the time to apply the polarizer IMHO. Why?
Sopwith “Pup” captured by D5 / 24-70VR / No Polarizer
Who wants to see “pond scum” on water? I sure don’t so polarizing it so you can see it isn’t really visually pleasing. On the other hand, I want to see all that information in the Sopwith so it was the time to use a polarizer. How do you decide for yourself? Well, you need to teach yourself because it is your photograph, your story! Simply shoot before and after shots everytime you ask yourself the question, “Should I use a polarizer?” Create a folder for just these photos and constantly revisit that folder and start to teach yourself when you do and don’t like removing reflections. In the final photograph, only you can answer the question, “To polarize … or not.”
