photography

A quick snapshot from a family party today. It was a spur-of-the-moment picture, but I liked it. Made me chuckle when I saw it in the viewfinder... I think the beer in-hand makes the image.

A photo I played with to create a faux tilt-shift effect (basically, blurring the foreground and background of the photo to create the illusion that the captured image is of a small, make-believe set):

Download Original: Miniature-Highway-Tilt-Shift.jpg

Instructions for making your own tilt-shift photo in Photoshop.

The kit I'll be wearing at the Deaconate Ordination Mass this coming Saturday. Afterwards, I'll run to the back chapel, where I'll snap some shots with the D3 and a nice kit of SB-26 remote flashes!

Is anyone selling a used D3 for cheap? I gotta get me one of these cameras!

Gear pictured above:

• Nikon D3 (rented from LensRentals)
• Nikon 50mm f/1.4 AF (my own)
• Nikon D90 (my own)
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 AF-S VR (rented from LensRentals)

I'm going to use the 70-200 on my D90, as the D90 has a smaller image crop, meaning the 200mm will be more like 300mm in practical use. The D3 + the 1.4 lens is a killer combo for in-the-dark shooting (the Cathedral is very dimly lit). I can still get 1/100 shutter speed at ISO 1600 and f/1.8!

After a few months without seeing an update, I finally took the time to process a few more photos for the front page of Lifeisaprayer.com - you can visit the front page and take a look for yourself. You can always click on one of the images to see them all for yourself, in a timeline of sorts.

[Update: Here's a gallery of photos from the big event (on Facebook).]

Image taken last week with my D90 (with 50mm f/1.4) and an external flash shooting through the famous $0.02 mini macro studio:

I hand-held a Nikon SB-24 flash connected via a wireless trigger over a folded sheet of paper that acted as a giant diffuser for the ring, which I simply placed on a 'seamless' piece of cut computer paper (standard copier paper.

You don't need to go expensive to have the finest results. No doubt about that. You just have to do things with care and love, and a little ingenuity.

Here's a setup shot:

One of my favorite features of any Mythbusters shows is the high-speed sequences, where they film an explosion, a reaction, etc. on a high-speed camera, then slow it down to half or a quarter of real life speed (example).

Watching season four on Netflix recently, I saw a rare closeup of the high-speed, and to my surprise, found mounted a 50mm f/1.4D Nikon lens (the same one I use on my D90 70% of the time!). It's an excellent lens, and I can understand why they use it; it's basically a 'light vacuum cleaner," meaning it sucks up light like few other lenses. You can only get a little wider (Nikon makes an f/1.2 (and used to make an f/0.95, and Canon used to make an f/1.0!).

When shooting high-speed, you need as much light to enter the lens as possible - you're taking sometimes 120 or more frames every second, and you have to divide the photos per second into those frames. Less photons reaching the sensor = lower picture quality. So it's understandable why they have such a nice lens on the high speed.

[UPDATE: For a full review of the camera, please visit the Canon PowerShot G11 Review on MidwesternMac.com]

After a few weeks of phone calls, store visits, etc., I've finally found a Canon PowerShot G11. And none too soon, as I'm leaving for Rome in less than three days, and really wanted to get this camera as a 'pocket' camera for walking the streets of Rome!