Day 10

This will be the last post tonight as I'm pretty tired. First Con then working all week without a break wears on you.

So without further ado:



I like this one (even though it's posed). Cindy is a lot of fun. I think this shot captures a bit of her attitude. I also like the feel of it. An author, holding her book, in a book shop, as a game character. This is Comic Con :)

Also, notice that the background softens due to depth of field. Damn but I like the D700. It nailed the exposure and white balance in the cavernous room.

Day 9

The first full day at Con.



So, why this one? Well, it was a tossup between this one and the Star Trek Ladies. I chose this one for the lighting and sense of scale. When I took the picture it was before opening and not all of the lights were on. There was a spot shining down on Bumblebee. It gives a very dramatic feel to the light. once they turned on all of the lights it softened it a bit.

Day 8: Comic Con 2009

For the next 5 days I was at Comic Con. It really tests the low light capability of the camera. It also tested my ability to find photos out of the chaos. As on of the Wired photogs said, every guy with a camera takes photos of the girls in costume. I do too. But rather than be scatter shot, I try to find interesting subjects. It doesn't mean I don't' occasionally break down and do it, but I don't spend Con trying to capture only that.

Each day I'll pick the photo I like best and try to describe the situation.

Today was setup and preview night.



I took this photo from the foyer as we were picking things up from one of the cars. I don't like it as much as Inkistas shot through the circles from the escalators. But I like it in that it gives a feeling of the size of the Con.

Day 7

Prep for Comic Con 2009.

Day 6

This is a bit of filler until I post the photo. It's a re-shoot of the Flower done around 8 in the morning. I don't really like it as much as the other but there it is. That's how we learn :)



Well here it finally is. See what I mean. The colors of the flowers are better. But the fence is now blah.

On a side note. I am shooting regularly. I'll update as quick as I can. There will also be days when photography is not possible. I'll make note of those :)

Day 4 and 5

Well, looks like I'm a bit behind. Doesn't mean that I haven't done anything.



This shot was taken on Saturday (day 4) around 11:30 am. I saw the vine growing through the fence and decided to give it a go. Not too bad. I'm happy with the leaves but I feel the flowers were a bit too washed out. I tried again and I'll post that tomorrow. The focus and depth of field are good. And the sharpness is pretty good as well. I like the composition. Mostly vertical lines with simple colors. The vine stands out nicely from the boards.

Sunday. Ahhh, Sunday. About all that I accomplished was to read about 120 pages of the manual. Still, it was something to do with improving my skills.

This week is going to be interesting. I'll be at Comic Con for 5 days. I'll have lots too choose from and I'll post at least the best shot of the day. I have an acquaintance who does cosplay so you should get to see some costumes :)

Day 3 : White Balance

One of the final checks is white balance. The contact sheet shows all 8 default settings on the camera.



As you can see by the numbering, photoshop can sometimes do strange things to contact sheets :) So I'll set up the data by photo number from 1-8.

1: Automatic - 4000 temp
2: Incandescent - 2950
3: Florescent - 3950
4: Sunlight - 5000
5: Flash - 6150
6: Cloudy - 5700
7: Shade - 7300
8: K (5000) - 4800

The setup was on a desk next to a large window with a single florescent tube overhead. The sheet in front of the items is a neutral gray/white card.

There is a table in the manual that gives the values for the average value. It roughly corresponds to the measurements above. Although it looks like I'm about 200 off. Still, it's in the acceptable range. I mat try fine tuning under the lamps I have. But that will be for another day. I think it's cool to be able to correct the color setting in the camera.

Day 2

So, on to day 2. Which is really today the 16th.

I spent most of today reviewing the first 100 pages of the manual and setting up the basic functions. Date, time, mode, quality, etc... The quality is the type of file the camera saves to. In my case I'll be doing most of my shooting in 14 bit non-compressed RAW format. Ill do other file types as I learn the in camera editing functions. But that's for later.

First, today's shot.



This is a simple shot to test out a couple of things. First was the default white balance(WB) vs. a preset. Second was the noise at a moderate ISO. And lastly was the Depth of Field (DoF) for the 50mm. Real nice bokeh. And this shot was hand-held too.

This shot uses ISO 800, F1.8 and the incandescent WB. It's odd. But the auto WB for both of my Nikons was a bit reddish. Setting the WB to incandescent fixed it. But I would have thought it would be closer. Especially with the white areas in the field of view (FOV).

I'll do a future post on the equiptment I intend to use. But I gotta admit, I really like this camera :)

365 day project

So you have to be wondering, what the heck is a 365 day project?

Well, the concept is simple. Pick something - Martial arts, painting running, photos :-) - and every day for a year, do something new. Create something, use a new technique, do something...

Well, what I'm doing is, for the next year I'm going to take a photograph every day and post it here. I will describe what I did and why I did it. Simple.

Why? Well, because I feel my photography is missing something.

So here is the situation. I have a new camera. I graduated from a Nikon D70s to a D700. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, the D700 is a pro level camera. and secondly, the D700 has a manual with over 400 pages of instructions! So for the first month I'll be learning the camera.

I'll start off with my first photo with the camera.



This shot was taken around 9 in the morning with memory and battery dropped into the camera. There was nothing set or done other than to turn it on, point it at the dog and shoot. Not very exciting I know. But it does finish day 1. And it does show how good the camera is on default settings.