Category Archives: Photography

Related to Photography and taking or dealing with pictures.

Why I think the D90 video sucks

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Back of a D90 showing live view

Back of a D90 showing live view

I have been trying for a few weeks now to take some video of the girls with the D90. I have tried in a couple of homes now. It always looks poor. The reason… no auto focus. When I am trying to shoot indoors, I am always running out of light. I need to open up the lens giving me no depth of field. I used to have a old Cannon DV recorder. I don’t remember having that issue with that camera. I have a Epson Stylus 850 too, and while the video is smaller, doesn’t have the focus issue the D90 has.

So, I have the camera set, I put it into live mode so I can see the action on the back of the camera. I then spend the next few minutes asking the kids to hold still. The focus system on live view is the most ridiculous, frustrating, and useless piece of tech to be over hyped on a camera that I have ever seen. Unless you have something that is sitting/standing still, getting the green square “go ahead I’m in focus” indicator is an exercise in frustration. I was trying to get focus locked on one of my girls that was dancing in the living room, and it was often focusing on the wall behind her. She would move out of the little square, and it would lock onto the wall behind. I don’t care if it is phase detection, contrast detection, or some new futuristic sonar system, it just needs to be better.¬† Imaging Resource has more on live mode, and they are more positive, but the fastest focus times they found was 2.3 seconds. Not good enough.

This brings us to the low light issue. I am forced to use a large aperture with shallow depth of field. This means that the kids need to stay in the narrow focus plane. Ya right. The camera will not change focus when the video is capturing, so I have video where the kids float in and out of focus. Like I said before, I didn’t have this issue with a previous DV camera that only cost the price of one 3rd party lens for a DSLR.

Others seem to do OK. See video here. But, most of the video seem to be outside. I suppose that outside with a larger aperture and greater depth of field would help, but this just isn’t workable for video inside. Maybe you have a bank of flood lights you can use inside your house. Maybe you’re winters are not at -30 and dark at 4:30, but shooting outside in better light just isn’t an option right now. None of the light issue would help the ridiculously slow focus in live view though. I for one am quite disappointed. It seems like more of a gimmick than something useful.

Importance of exposure on higher ISO

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I was taking pictures of the kids with my D90 and a 50mm f/1.8 inside my house. I have bad lighting. Not enough, and both compact florescent and incandescent bulbs, but that is another issue. I had forgotten that I had taken some pictures outside of Christmas lights, and had the camera set to an EV of -1. When I took a picture inside at ISO 800, it was a little dark. I realized that after to reset the EV, and decided to up the ISO to 1250. What surprised me was how much noise, even at ISO 800 I got got when I tried to up the exposure in post. The ISO 1250 exposure looks a lot less noisy, and I didn’t have to try to push the exposure back up in post.

Lily

Lily at ISO 800

13 of 365

Lily at ISO 1250



I increased the exposure, and pulled up the shadows a bit, but I couldn’t go as much as I wanted because the noise started to become an issue on her face. I think this goes to show just how important it is to get the correct exposure, especially when you are dealing with less light, and when you are using higher ISO settings.

I will try to get a better controlled test of taking pictures at different ISO’s, the correct exposure,¬† and the D90 in the future.

Not so stars on ice

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I was able to get out to take some pictures on the local ice rink the other day. My daughter was at dance at the rec center, so I wandered over and took some pictures of some folks playing hockey and broomball. I was surprised that I had enough light at night. The big overhead lights pump out quite a bit of light. I was amazed that with the sun down, there was more light outside in these rinks (maybe it is the reflected light off the ice) than inside at the basketball gym that I have tried to take pictures. Still, there was a bit of bluring in the hands. If I could have kept my 2.8 lens on there wouldn’t have been any, but I felt I needed my zoom, and that isn’t nearly as fast. I found out that it wasn’t so easy to get good images. I could use practice I guess. Anyway, here are some of the images.

The CornerThe PassFaceoffRunning the rinkPut me in coachGoalie

Christopher Ward Photography

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Gerbera photo from new gallary

Gerbera photo from new gallary

I finally have my pictures up at Christopher Ward Photography. I was hoping to get them up before the end of the year, but a couple of days isn’t too bad. I had thought that I would go with a site at smugmug, and I may later, but I had an idea for some javascript-y-ness that I wanted to try first. The album’s on the left contain pictures that fly out into a collage. I will post more on the Javascript later. I tried something different with the albums too. Annie had the idea to group them by color, instead of landscape, people, etc. I think it worked pretty well. I have some images that I wasn’t able to get in because of it, but the individual collages look better and more cohesive this way.

365

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1 of 365 So I have started a 365 series. This is where you post a picture every day for a year. I imagine that most will have something to do with my kids, as that is what I am dealing with pretty much every day of my life, but who knows, there might be a flower or landscape or two. I am posting it on flickr, at the 365 2009 set.

Nikon GP-1

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Not sure when this started shipping. Adorama has it listed now. I had been looking for it. It is the GPS accessory that was announced with the D90. That was quite a while ago. Nice to see that it is shipping, but it is double what I hoped the price would be. At $200+ it is a little rich for me. Maybe some other time. Moose has one and wrote about it a few weeks ago. Also, I now have the Eye-Fi that is supposed to capture your location. I am still trying to figure how that works, or get’s enabled.

Happy New Year

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So, I started to think about the last year, and what my New Years resolutions might be. So what did I do last year?

  • I started up the blog again.
  • Got my first full year of DSLR shooting under my belt
  • Spent a bazillion (well, to me) on photoshop, but don’t really know how to use it.
  • Upgraded my camera to a D90, and promptly stopped taking pictures

Yea, I am not sure what happened. The pre winter blah’s seemed to hit me in November around my birthday. I had finished the Marathon, purchased the D90 that I had been saving for for quite some time (actually before it was announced), and then petered out with no real goals. So what are the goals for the new year?

  • Read six new photography books. I was going to say 12, but lets be realistic. New ones to me.
  • Find a mentor. I need to find someone to shoot with, someone that can push me, and someone that can tell me why the photos that I take are just not quite there.
  • Do a 365 series of the kids. This will at least put the camera in my hands, and hopefully help with the next point.
  • Learn about off camera flash. Actually I have been trying to learn for awhile, but not having an off camera flash was a bit of an impediment. I now have a SB800, so I need to start to put this to practice.
  • Get more comfortable with Photoshop. I want to finish Scott Kelby’s 7 step progarm, and then do it again.
  • Finish the christopherwardphotography.com site. Ok, no one ever “finishes” a site, but I want to finish the new site I am working on. This shouldn’t be too hard to do in the beginning of the new year. I was hoping for Jan 1, but you know…
  • Attend a multi-day photography workshop. This one is mostly a cost issue, but I don’t have a big hardware list at the moment for this year.

I suppose I could go on with other little things I want to finish and do, but those are the bigger ones I guess. I didn’t mention anything about vision. I don’t really know how to set a goal for that one. It will just have to sit there in the background hopefully leading the way.

Best Photography Blogs

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I was out on Scott Kelby’s blog when I saw he linked to a post on The Top 100 Photography Blogs. I looked through the list, and Scott’s is on the list (why he linked to it in the first place), but not all the places I check in with on a mostly daily basis are there. It got me thinking. Where and why do I check in with different blogs? So here is my much smaller list of photography blogs I read regularly and why.

  • Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider – I just love this guys writing style. He is very honest, genuine and fun. I come here to read about general photography and shooting stuff, and for pure entertainment. I just like reading this blog. I think it was one of the first photography blogs I came across, and I have ben hooked ever since.
  • David DuChemin’s PixelatedImage – This is blog about vision. About one mans quest to take his inner vision and turn it into images. It is a very interesting read. David often “rants” about the industry and can provoke discussion. I got caught up in one of his rants once, but it is almost always worth a read. My own vision I find somewhat elusive, and through David’s blog I am looking for it bit by bit.
  • David Zizer’s Digital Pro Talk – This is all about the wedding photographer. Sort of. He is an amazing portrait photographer, and offers many tips and insights into gear, the business, weddings shoots, portrait and location shoots, using flash, and more. He writes well, and you can always pick up some useful piece of information from this blog.
  • Joe McNally’s blog – He makes long rambling stories into posts that just have to be read. I always get a chuckle out of things he has written. I think of Joe as Mr. Speedlight. His blog and books are all about this travels, shoots and the half dozen or so Nikon Speedlights he seems to carry with him.

That is about all I really check in with on a daily basis, but there are several others that I will stop in a check out as well. These are in no particular order, but I usually stop by once every week or so.

  • David Hobby’s The Strobist – The number one stop on the internet for a off camera small flash education. There is lots of material here to look at other than the blog, and I have spent some time going through the 101 and 201 intro how to classes.
  • Jao Van de Lagemaat’s blog – I “met” Jao on the ArsTechnica forums, and check into his blog every once in awhile. He takes great landscape pictures, and has posted some interresting things about color, lightroom, RAW, and other things.
  • Steve Weller’s Bagelturf – Another small blog that I happened upon while looking up Aperture related items. I check in on this guy from time to time to see if any Apple/Aperture/programming things he is up to are interesting.
  • Dave Cross Dave Cross Online – I have to check out the Canadian every once in a while. Some of his recent “finish the sentance” interviews have been funny. He also stars with Scott Kelby on the Photoshop User TV video blog that I try to watch each week.
  • John Paul Caponigro’s Bog – If you want to learn about light, here is the place to go. The blog can be technical, but practical, and you will learn all things light and photoshop.
  • Moose Peterson’s Blog – Wildlife photographer extraordinaire, Moose will teach you tons about taking that great wildlife or landscape shot. Lots of entries from his blog are from the seminars that he takes part in, including the DLWS, that I would love to take part in.
  • Sly Arena’s PixSylated – He is often giving great tips on using small flashes and other fun photography stuff.
  • Matt Brandon’s The Digital Trekker – Matt is a travel photographer creating pictures out of his vision of the world. Along the way he tries to pass his insights and thoughts on in his blog. He lives in Singapore and travels quite a bit, which puts a neat spin on his insights.

Creativity, the Artist, Vision, and Me

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Matt Brandon posted an article just before Christmas that I read today about the photographer as artist, and where inspiration comes from. He linked in a Joe McNally article that I had read when he published it back on the 15th of Dec. It was reading Joe’s article that I decided that I need to scrap trying to get paid to take pictures and try to find ways to get great experience doing things I like to do, to both enjoy photography, and get some portfolio building stuff. Besides, I need to learn to be able to take pictures that would be worth charging for.

Matt’s post was interesting too. Before I started to consider myself a “photographer”, I don’t think I would have considered a photographer as an artist. Looking at others photography, and knowing now what can go into the picture taking, and the picture processing, I can definitely see others as artists. I have a friend that tries to call me an artist, and it just doesn’t sound right. I don’t see myself as an artist. I am trained as a technical person, and don’t really do “artsy” things. I came at photography from wanting to take pictures of my kids, and digital photography because I like toys I can use with computers, and becuase I hate getting pictures developed for the time and expense of it. Something has happened along the way though, and I have come to love photography for the photography part. My wife even tells me I don’t take as many pictures of my kids as I used to with a point and shoot.

I talk lots of different pictures now. Macro stuff, flowers, night exposures, landscapes, etc. But, and artist? I don’t think of myself as uncreative. I am the guy the other technical people turn to when they need site design, or graphics help. But, and artist? I am not sure why I resist it. I have accepted the label of photographer, but maybe I don’t feel that my pictures are yet good enough to get the artist label? Maybe. Maybe it is because I don’t feel that I draw on the artists creative well to drive my picture taking. I don’t even know what that is.

Matt and David talk a lot about vision. I am on a quest to understand really what that means. They make it sound like it is just something you have, that you use, that comes out in your pictures. Is this what artists draw from? Is this what artists want the world to see in their work? Both? I don’t know where to draw the creativity from within me. I know that I have some, I have great ideas, and am left handed for goodness sakes!¬† I don’t know what I want to say with my photographs. I just seem to like taking them, and get a kick when others like what I have done. There sure isn’t an overriding theme to my pictures.

What is really interesting is that both Matt and McNally talked about hitting a dry spell. Well, that would be me as well. I haven’t really taken many pictures this fall/winter (other than a few of family). I used to shoot every day, and wanted to go out and just walk around and see what I could take a picture of. So what changed, or dried up? Good question. It is not that I have technically perfected taking pictures. It is not that I can always get an image from my mind to the camera. So where did the passion go from a couple of months ago? That is probably why most of the recent posts have been about Javascript, and my flickr account has seen one new image since Halloween.

It is hard to systimatically get back on track when you don’t know where your creativity came/comes from, or what you vision is, or wants to be.

Eye-Fi is pretty neat.

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So I have had a few minutes to play with my Eye-Fi card now. First off, it is now working. It does appear that they sold a bazilion of these for Christmas and the servers couldn’t handle it. (According to their site) They have aparently recoved, and I was able to get registered. So far I have hooked it up to Gallery2 running on annieandchris.net to recieve the pictures. Pretty cool. I could just snap a picture of the kids, and blamo, it would appear on the website.

A couple of things so far. I have no geotagging data in EXIF. Not sure if that it becuase of my router doesn’t work with their “skynet” or whatever they are doing, or something else. Also, you can’t tell in camera if the picture has been sent or not. I saw in their control panel that you could select to get a SMS or email or something if pictures have been uploaded, so that might work just as well. It would be nice to know when it is safe to delete the images. When the images hit my Gallery2, they get placed in a new folder named with the date. I think I want all Eye-Fi pics to get placed into the same folder. I might have to try hacking the remote script.