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.