You forgot about me!

In all the hoopla over the Nikon's D3s we all forgot that Nikon revealed a new DX lens at the same time. The new Nikkor 85mm F/:3.5 Micro ED VR lens is a great addition for those looking for new lens that is great for portraits and macro photography. Most people would say why a wierd a minimum aperature like F/3.5. It's only 1/2 stop from f/2.8 and the the VR somewhat eliminates the need for that I figure. The lens will retail for about $530 street price. It will be availabe in January.

2,904 Megapixels

This is a photograph of almost everyone person at Game 1 of the world series. It was shot by photographer David Bergman. This was taken using a Gigapan.The device allows you move your camera around in tiny increments and take pictures. This photo composition of hundreds of images. But unlike a normal panorama you can actually zoom all the way into the picture to see the details. Here is the link to full picture. When I say detail I mean DETAIL! Zoom all the way in behind home plate and you will see Alec Baldwin wearing a suit. He looks completely out of place since everyone else is in rain coats. David also did a Gigapan image of President Obama's Inauguration

New Gear!

Soon I'll finally be getting some new gear. I plan to purchase a lighting kit and some new lenses. For the lights I plan on purchasing a set of Alien Bees along with a Vagabond battery to make the set portable.As far as lenses go I'd like to purchase a wide angle and a fast long lens for photojournalism. For wide angle I'm getting the Tokina 11-16 2.8. Its a tack sharp wide lens that performs at the pro level for half the price. For my long lens I'd like the Nikkor 80-200 f2.8.

Halloween @ WTD

If your a photographer and haven't read What The Duck your really missing out. WTD is daily comic strip blog that is all about an aspiring photographer who just happens to be a duck. The writer Aaron Johnson writes from a point of view I feel that everyone in the photo world can relate to. Here is Halloween inspired strip called ''Headshot"

Canon 1DMkIV high iso samples

After some searching I finally found some Canon 1DMKIV high ISO pictures. I found them on flickr on Slvr Scoobie's photostream. Looks like he got to hold and shoot the camera onto his own card and keep the files at the Photo Plus Expo( I wonder if Canon ok'ed that). Below is an image he shot at ISO 102,400 at f4 at 1/8000 sec. Um......WOW! Nikon and Canon have changed the game with these new cameras.

Bil Frakes x Nikon D3s

Recently photographer Bill Frakes was given a simple assignment: Take the new Nikon D3s and put it through multiple shooting situations to show how well it works. He shot both stills and HD video and put together the video below:

The Brides Revenge

The next assignment up for my Advanced Portraiture class is Fashion\Glamour\Portraiture assignment. I choose to fantasy for my shoot. Initially I wanted to do a "Half Life" themed shoot. But while watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 the night before I came up with Vengeful Bride concept pictured below. It was the one selected so I've got a fun shoot ahead of me.

Testing ,Testing,1,2,3

Most of my classmates and I are currently in the market for a new lens or lenses. So that means lots of research and price and comparing. But I was wondering how exactly do they test the lenses for sharpness and image quality. I found article here on how Pop Photo do their testing.

"My Photos Made A Difference"

I strongly believe that through photography we photographers have the ability to help bring about change in our world. I recently read an article on Popular Photography's website about 3 photojournalist that have done just that. Ed Kashi exposed the poverty of the people who live near the oil wells in Nigeria.

Mona Reeder did a photo essay on poverty in south Texas.

Subhankar Banerjee spend year traveling and photographing the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and his photos were used to argue against offshore drilling in the refuge.

The Big Picture

A great photojournalism blog I like to follow is The Boston Globe's photo blog called "The Big Picture". The images displayed here are run the gamut from features, sports, spot news, and portraits. Today they posted some photos from Afghanistan . I feel that the photos displayed show the all sides of conflict that is taking place in this country at this time. One of the most powerful images I came across was the one below shot by Paula Bronstein for Getty Images.

Chases Follow Up

I recently posted a video Chase Jarvis did while he was in New Zealand shooting a campaign for SanDisk. I'm pretty sure some had technical questions about how Chase shot this. Well he recently posted the video below on his blog to answer those questions. Its 30 minutes long so get comfortable:

Chase Jarvis CURRENT: SanDisk Q&A FollowUp from Chase Jarvis on Vimeo.

Lightroom 3 Public Beta

Photographer and Photoshop super genius Scott Kelby announced on his blog the public beta of Adobe Lightroom 3. As a Lightroom user I'm pretty excited about this. So far here are a list if the improvements announced:

(1) Importing has been redesigned with a new import window that lets you easily see where your images are coming from and where they’re going, with lots of little improvements and enhancements to make the process easier and much more visual.

(2) Drag and Drop Publishing to the Web (and more). Now you can just drag and drop an image to have it automatically published directly from Lightroom right up to Flickr, or directly to an iPhone sync folder, etc..

(3) Pro-level Noise Reduction. This is an area that Lightroom always lagged behind on, but now they have real pro-level noise reduction which competes, or beats, about anything out there (especially because it can do its noise reduction at the Raw file level, rather than on a processed 8-bit file).

(4) Built-in Film Grain feature. There’s been a lot of buzz recently about bringing back that film-grain look, and now that’s built right in.

(5) Better vignetting by a long shot. They really enhanced the post crop vignetting, and now post crop gives you a much better looking, and more natural result (and you have two choices for the type of vignetting effect as well).

(6) You can finally (finally, finally!!!!!) export a slideshow with music embedded in the slideshow (at last), and you can have your slideshow automatically sync the length of the slideshow to the length of your song. Plus, they made it so, on a Mac, you don’t need to use iTunes to host your slideshow music.

(7) Real watermarking is here! Now you can create real watermarks, at different sizes and opacities, and put them where you want them, for both web and print.

(8) Create print layouts with photos wherever you want them. Now there’s a Custom Print Package feature that lets you put as many photos, in whatever shape and size, on the page wherever you want them (you’re no longer restricted to use a grid of uniform cells), so now you can really come up with some creative print layouts without having your hands tied.

(9) You can change the background color for prints. Now you can choose any color as your background for printed pages. I know it sounds like a little thing, but it’s big.

(10) The Collections panel is now in the Develop Module, too. This one addition will dramatically increase your efficiency because now you don’t have to constantly switch back and forth between the Library Module and Develop Module, because you can get to all your collections and images from right within the Develop Module itself.

Feature Oppertunity!

I completely forgot about this! This weekend The Hoop Atlanta 3 on 3 Classic takes place down at the Phillips Arena. This would be great chance for us students to shoot something for our feature assignment. It runs from 9am-8pm Saturday October 24th and it cost $8 to attend. Bring a fast lens and shoot away.

Blog Surfing

Tonight as I was cooking surfing through some blogs I follow I came across a link to one called Photo Dino. The author of this blog had some insightful advice :
What Every Aspiring Photographer Should Know

These are my thoughts, nothing more and nothing less.

I get asked all the time, during workshops, in e-mails, in private messages, what words of wisdom I would give to a new and aspiring photographer. Here’s my answer.

- Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward.

- Know your stuff. Luck is a nice thing, but a terrifying thing to rely on. It’s like money; you only have it when you don’t need it.

- Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically. You cannot build your sense of aesthetics on a concensus.

- Say no. Say it often. It may be difficult, but you owe it to yourself and your clients. Turn down jobs that don’t fit you, say no to overbooking yourself. You are no good to anyone when you’re stressed and anxious.

- Learn to say “I’m a photographer” out loud with a straight face. If you can’t say it and believe it, you can’t expect anyone else to, either.

- You cannot specialize in everything.

- You don’t have to go into business just because people tell you you should! And you don’t have to be full time and making an executive income to be successful. If you decide you want to be in business, set your limits before you begin.

- Know your style before you hang out your shingle. If you don’t, your clients will dictate your style to you. That makes you nothing more than a picture taker. Changing your style later will force you to start all over again, and that’s tough.

- Accept critique, but don’t apply it blindly. Just because someone said it does not make it so. Critiques are opinions, nothing more. Consider the advice, consider the perspective of the advice giver, consider your style and what you want to convey in your work. Implement only what makes sense to implement. That doesn’t not make you ungrateful, it makes you independent.

- Leave room for yourself to grow and evolve. It may seem like a good idea to call your business “Precious Chubby Tootsies”….but what happens when you decide you love to photograph seniors? Or boudoir?

- Remember that if your work looks like everyone else’s, there’s no reason for a client to book you instead of someone else. Unless you’re cheaper. And nobody wants to be known as “the cheaper photographer”.

- Gimmicks and merchandise will come and go, but honest photography is never outdated.

- It’s easier to focus on buying that next piece of equipment than it is to accept that you should be able to create great work with what you’ve got. Buying stuff is a convenient and expensive distraction. You need a decent camera, a decent lens, and a light meter. Until you can use those tools consistently and masterfully, don’t spend another dime. Spend money on equipment ONLY when you’ve outgrown your current equipment and you’re being limited by it. There are no magic bullets.

- Learn that people photography is about people, not about photography. Great portraits are a side effect of a strong human connection.

- Never forget why you started taking pictures in the first place. Excellent technique is a great tool, but a terrible end product. The best thing your technique can do is not call attention to itself. Never let your technique upstage your subject.

- Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never “arrive”. No one ever does.

- Embrace frustration. It pushes you to learn and grow, broadens your horizons, and lights a fire under you when your work has gone cold. Nothing is more dangerous to an artist than complacency.

- CJ

Music Video

Last quarter in Multimedia I we have to make videos using images we shot and put them with music and sometimes voiceovers.We used Apple's iMovie, Garage Band, and iDVD Though they were a lot of work(I had to stay up over night working on two of them) I did pretty well on all of the assignments. Below is my music video assignment. It was shot at a local skatepark .

Street Photography

Imagine walking up to perfect stranger and asking them "can I make a portrait of you ?" Scary thought for some(including myself) but the images you can create in that type of scenario can be great pieces of art. One day I'd like to get together with some classmates and set up a street photo both like I saw in the video below of Clay Enos of the street photography sessions he likes to do that was featured on Wired's website.

Here is another cool street photography video by local photographer Zack Arias

High Key Post Processing

Recently in my advanced portraiture class we shot out high key\low key assignment. I chose to shoot low key myself. Other students choose to do high key which is more difficult because you have to use more that one light to get the background pure white. These high key situations reminded me of a video Gwinnett Technical College commercial photography graduate Zack Arias put together of post processing of a high key shooting situation. He gives a lot of great info here.

Chase Jarvis hits NZ

Recently sports and lifestyle photographer Chase Jarvis and his crew went down to New Zealand to do a shoot for SanDisk. The shoot itself was an advertisement shoot for their new line of memory cards the "Extreme Pro" line. What better way to showcase their extreme line other than to shoot extreme sports athletes. Chase shot pro snowboarders and freestyle skiers in various situations in the mountains of New Zealand. The video posted below of the shoot makes me want to push my sports photography more and more. It also makes me want a D3.

Side By Side

Right on the heels if Nikon's D3s released Canon has released its own re-up of its flagship line in the 1DMKIV. For those who have the coins for either of these monsters here is side by side comparison:

Feature	Canon EOS-1 Mark IV	Nikon D3s
Resolution	16MP	12MP
ISO Range	100-12,800	200-12,800
Top “Hi” ISO	102,400	102,400
Video	1080p HD, 24, 25 or 30fps	720p, 24fps
Sensor	CMOS, APS-H (1.3x crop)	CMOS, 35mm “FX” format
AF System	45 Point, 39 cross-type	51 Point, 15 cross-type
Pixel size	5.7 microns	8.45 microns
LCD resolution	920k pixels, 3 inches	921k pixels, 3 inches
Burst rate	10fps	9fps (full frame) 11 fps (DX crop)
Shutter speeds	30-1/8000 sec, 0.3, 0.5, 1 stops	30-1/8000 sec, 1/3 stops
Flash sync	1/300 sec	1/250 sec
Meter	63 zone	1005 pixel, auto scene recognition
Card slots	1 CF, 1 SD slot	2 CF slots
A/D conversion	14-bit	16-bit (?)
Cool	Auto copyright info in EXIF	Quiet Shutter Mode
Pseudo-HDR	Auto Light Optimizer	Active D-Lighting
Build Quality	Weatherized; Magnesium alloy	Magnesium alloy
Battery	Li-on LP-34 rechargeable	EN-EL4/4a Li-ion rechargealbe
Size	6.2×6.2×3.1 inches	6.3×6.2×3.4 inches
Weight	2.6 lb	2.7 lb

And for those who have been dying to to see what Nikons ISO 102,400 here you go(canon pulled their shots from online)

Flickr!

Today I finally got serious about my Flickr account for my Multimedia II class. Flickr is a site that allows you to upload your photos for the world to view them. The best part is they allow you to upload high res files. I've upload my 10 best/favorite files. They can be seen here or below.

Low Key Assignment

Today in my advanced portraiture class I had to shoot my high key, low key assignment. The concept I had for this shoot was a model dressed in black on a black background with red scarf blowing in the wind. It came together pretty well but I'd like to reshoot it. My classmate Ze was my model. I used two lights. My key light was in a soft-box placed camera left and a hair light place behind the model.

Free Tethered Shooting to Macs.

A few of my classmates and I have wanted to be able to shoot tethered to out mac books. Well I found free software called SOFORBILD. It works pretty good. It gives you the ability to make adjustments to aperature and ISO with the onscreen interface. Here is a screen shot of me using the app.

XTM Online

About a year or so ago my good friends Franco and Eric started a blog called XTM Online. The blogs focus was on fashion, music, and culture. I was brought as photographer for the blog and gained a lot experience with my photography and met quite a bit of cool people along the way. Earlier this year XTM had its first fashion show called EXPOSURE. The event was huge success and will take place next year as well. I was on hand to shoot the show. This was huge lesson in being prepared to shoot in any conditions and bringing back up gear. I though I would be able to use my 18-135 and sb-800 flash but withe the low celling and mixed get lights that was not going to happen. I switched to prime 50 1.8 ,shot wide open and let flow from there. Below is the video form the show. The shots from the runway and stage are mine.

Exposure Recap 1 from Franco Roberts on Vimeo.

Horror Photography

Earlier this week I came across photographer named Joshua Hoffine's blog. On it he featured some great behind the scenes of his horror photography. The stuff is pretty grotesque but alluring. Bellow is one of his works called BABYSITTER. You can check out his main webpage here.

AB's New Lights

Alien Bees are great starter lights for students looking for their first lighting set up. I am currently in the market for a one light lighting set up like the AB1600 and a set of cybersyncs to trigger it. But I came across some news of new alien bee lights called the AB Einstein. These bad boys are the upgrade from the current AB series. The upgrades include an LCD screen that shows output, color temperature, recycle indicator, and radio frequency selection. The big news is its ability to power all the way down to 2.5 watts/sec. Thats as low as camera speed light setting. Looks like I might be waiting to make my purchase now that the are coming soon.

Good Apps !

Found this cool site with 50 programs for Macs for photographers. The usual suspects are here of course(Photoshop,Lightroom,Aperture)but there are some other gems for workflow here.

Inspiration!

Zack Arias is flat out one of my favorite photographers. He creates great images with very minimal equipment. He developed this philosophy into a workshop and dvd called "One Light". Last year as guest blogger on Scott Kelby's Blog he released a video called transformed which I feel all aspiring photographer can identify with:

Earlier this year on his blog he had a great discussion that lead to this video:

Joey Lawrence's new DVD.

Commercial Photographer Joey Lawrence recently released his new DVD "Sessions With Joey L". It is a comprehensive tutorial DVD that goes over his lighting styles, post production, and his business practices. I am really interested this dvd because he is in the industry that I would like work in. The crazy thing is he is only 19. Here is preview of his dvd:

Sessions With Joey L - Tutorial Preview from Joey L on Vimeo.

Child Portraits

Today we had to photograph children in advance portraiture. This shoot was pretty difficult even though I was shooting my own daughter. Her names Laila and she is 2 years old. I figured she would be a hand full and she did not disappoint. I got some good shots anyway because I have to say my daughters so cute she can't take a bad picture.

An Early Morning

Last week I got up early to check my e-mail before I headed to class. My photojournalism class was that morning at 8am but I had an e-mail from my instructor to go out and shoot a weather assignment. One thing I hate is rain and of course it was raining this moring. I hopped in the car and turned to news a.m. station. It lead on a chase to a bad 5 car accident on highway 78. But after wading through traffic for an hour or so I made it to the scene just to see a Hero vehicle leaving the area.  So with nothing shot I headed to school to at least shoot the traffic over the bridge. On the way there I was able to get the following photos on the way so it worked out well.

The Pets Shoot

Recently in my Advanced Portraiture class we had to photograph pets. I felt that this shoot was an exercise in patients and anticipation. Luckily my subject Mischa was a great sport. He did great through out the shoot and had good energy. I shot him on a tabletop with a blue background. I lit him with one light and a soft-box. The only issue was the fact he was a all white dog which gave me all kinds of exposure issues. But all in all is was good and thanks for all the people who helped out with shoot.(Brett,Jenni, Cathy ,and Harkins of course)

Nikon's Big Announcement

There have been rumors that Nikon will have a big announcement on October 14th. According to the Nikon Rumors website they will most definitely be revealing the D3s the successor to the already great D3. Im pretty sure this update will pack on more pixels and add an HD movie mode. It seems that this is the trend that Nikon is moving towards. I feel that this whole movie mode thing is more for consumers and not professionals. And besides if I wanted to make a movie with a D3 I would do something like this:

Superstitious from Andrew Kornylak on Vimeo.

Creating Videos from still photos

With the recent advancements in DSLR technology many photographers have been pushing the lines between photography and videography. Though many new cameras have implemented HD video as an option some feel that the quality it gives is not up to par with a raw or even a jpeg file. Instead photographers are using cameras such as the Nikon D3 which has a high speed frame rate, and using battery powered strobes such as Profotos to actually create motion videos. One such photographer I first saw doing this was Andrew Kornylak. The first video I had ever seen from him was this one featuring local inline skater/photographer John Kelso.

Inline from Andrew Kornylak on Vimeo.

He soon after followed up with a promotional video for Nfinity shoes featuring WNBA player Nikki Blue.

Nikki Blue from Andrew Kornylak on Vimeo.

Gregory Crewdson At ACP

One of my favorite photographers is Gregory Crewdson. He photographs are a big production. He usually shuts down small towns in the northeast and brings in movie set crews to create his photographs. His work has a very surreal quality that really enjoy. This year he will be speaking at an Atlanta Celebrates Photography lecture. It takes place on October 15th at GSU's Rialto Center for the Arts. Here are a few exapmles of his work.

Was I ready for some football?

My first assignment for Photojournalism is photographing sports. Being a bit of a sports fan , I am very excited cut my teeth in this area. I decided to shoot the South Gwinnett Vs Grayson JV football game. The game started at 6:00 pm so I had good sunlight to shoot at first. But as the sun set and the stadium lights came in I soon realized the inadequacies of my Nikon 18-135 lens. Under the lights the best I could get was this:

This was shot at 135mm F/5.6 @ 1/250 ISO 3200(pardon the noise the cameras four years old). This is straight of camera. Even at ISO 3200 that f/5.6 aperture only allowed my shutter speed to reach 1/250 which was not enough to freeze the fast action of the players. So I figure it might be time for an upgrade to the Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR. Its a great lens for sports and portraiture. Its also great at emptying out your bank account !

Check This!

One of my favorite blogs to read belongs to David Hobby. He is a photojournalist who runs The Strobist. The blog is dedicated to all things off camera lighting. He recently posted the hilarious video below. Its a comical look about how bouncing light makes your photo better.