Photoplus NYC...

Well it was fun yesterday.. the NYC Expo has yet to be a disappointment.

It seem, at least to me, that this year there were fewer companies showing stuff off.. In particular I noticed there were fewer album manufacturers (and who needs 30 friggen companies at one trade show anyway?). To make up for it it seemed like all the big names had much larger spots.

It seemed like the product of the show was the NIK's HDR Pro plug in. It was being demonstrated and discussed in quite a few forums.

The two most exciting booths were absolutely the Unique Photo booth (girls + full body skin panting.. nuff said), and the Nikon booth which had (amongst other things) a halfpipe with guys doing tricks on bikes and boards. This year I noticed many more companies offering lectures and info sessions on all sorts of topics. If you stuck around all three days you probably could amass a pretty good education for free.

So I managed to attend some lectures at the Unique Photo booth.. was pretty impressed with Lindsey Alter's lighting presentation.. The seminar I attended on night photography was pretty interesting... and I would say was worth the $80 I paid for 2 hours.. I also caught bits and pieces of various other presentations here and there..

So the show was cool.. and then afterward I shot the city at night from the Weehawken waterfront.

500 shots later... LKR event post-mortem..

The LKR event went pretty well last Thursday. Like last year it was a pretty good challenge. Anytime you mix low/bad lighting with fast action your in for some fun.

I shot the event with two rigs. For flash photography I used my 40D with a stroboframe flash bracket (the one that rotates the flash around the lens), and a 580EX flash with a Lumiquest soft box attached. I use that configuration anytime I am doing direct flash. The 5DmkII was used with a higher ISO and available light as it has superior low noise performance. Most of the night was shot without flash.. The 5D had a 70-200 f2.8L IS on it and the 40D had a 24-70 f2.8L (although i switched em around from time to time).

As I noted earlier this was the first time I had two simultaneous cameras. Again the Black Rapid strap I use kicked some serious ass. Also some kudos to LensRentals.com for coming through with the 70-200 f2.8 on short notice since Unique doesn't seem to have many of em in stock (and my f4 version just wasn't going to cut it).

As far as the event is concerned.. it was fun, and the VIPs were great.. Because of the tables it wasn't possible to get up close to the stage during the show.. but the room isn't too big so the 200mm was fine.. but none of the usual concert style shots that people seem to get.. more journalistic.

This was the first time I have had to deal with competing media photographers who attended the show (last year I was the only shooter). The posed shots were difficult because I had to fight for everyone's attention during those windows of opportunity. They generally stayed out of my way for the rest of it though. Having a bigger camera then everyone else helps with that..

Bernie and Kris posed for a billion photographs with people and had pretty good stage presence (Kris in particular). The kids did great.. etc.

Ended up with 500+ shots which I culled down to around 180.. for the most part I am pretty pleased with how they came out. Took me a few hours to develop the raw files into TIFFs, and then about a hour of batch processing time to put them through noise reduction, fractal size reduction, and then output sharpening.

I know a few people have already asked me about checking em out.. When they (or whatever they pick from the ones I send) become public by LKR I'll post a link... For various reasons I won't be posting any publicly.

New England and upcoming stuff

I just got back from a weekend in New England to celebrate a friend's wedding. Had a great time, and of course I did bring my camera. No... I wasn't Bob The Photographer at the wedding.. I actually only took a few shots. My basic wedding policy is that I am there as a guest so I don't run around trying to get "shots"... after all they already had paid good $$ to get an excellent REAL wedding photographer who is going to do a kick ass job. I'll let him run around while I enjoy the cheese and wine. :)

That being said since the wedding was in an apple orchard, and it was the "peek" time for fall foliage, I focused on that. On the way back we drove around Brattleboro and I did some work at a few bridges over the CT river.. I also stopped in Hartford for a few minutes at a park on the river edge.. After culling and selecting I ended up with another 20ish images to add to my portfolio.. not bad.

Speaking of portfolio.. last night I finished going through all my recent work (since July). I've got 114 new things to develop and retouch. A pretty wide collection of macro work, scenic stuff, and some abstract architectural things I did. About 45 of the images alone are from Sedona. Not sure how long it will take to do it all but my new work station should help me rip through them (holy crap it is fast!).

Next weekend I have an outdoor client shoot, and the following week I've got the Little Kids Rock concert. I also am trying to fit in a trip to Bushkill Falls at just the right time for the colorful leaves. I may be attending the HDR seminar at Unique Photo next week.. which hopefully will teach me something I don't already know. I also registered for a night photography seminar at Photo Plus... hopefully something useful rather then a sales pitch for the teacher's book. That was, for the most part, the only expo seminar that both interested me and I thought would be worth the $80. They did have a few Lightroom/Photoshop classes but I didn't think they were advanced enough. I am going to go to the Dave Cross seminar in Nov instead...

Speaking of PhotoPlus.. I plan on going on Sat to the trade show for a little bit and then spending some time in Manhattan taking pictures.. Probably down in Battery Park (maybe even go to Gov Island.. still up in the air).. If anyone wants to meet up let me know.

FF DoF.. A-Ha! LOL

A few weeks ago I spent a considerable amount of time wrapping my head around the topic of Depth of Field in regards to my full frame camera. Specifically, how it appeared to have a more shallow DoF then my 40D which has a 1.6x crop sensor.

For those that don't know.. basic Photography theory 101:
The aperture setting not only is involved with exposure, but also DoF. The larger the f-stop the larger the DoF (and the smaller the actual opening). Sounds semi-simple right? Well it is actually more complected then that....

While the f-stop does change the DoF.. the actual *effective* DoF varies on the distance to the focus point, and the lens focal length. What varies is the zone of focus.. the distance in front, and behind the focus point that remain in focus.

As an example.. lets say you use f5.6 and you focus on the eyes of a subject standing maybe 15 feet from you at 50mm. In that case you may observe that the tip of the person's nose remains in focus. However if that person comes closer to you and you again focus the same way you may find that their nose is now out of focus... the same way that may have happened if they stayed where they were and you moved to f2.8.

So getting back to my full frame dilemma.. I did some shots in my studio and realized that my usual f5.6 was not going to cut it.. and started using f8.. which I also found had a slightly shallower DoF then I desired. My initial conclusion was that the full frame sensor had a shallower depth of field then the crop sensor.. but I didn't understand why. It made no sense. A google search directed me to several articles that confirmed that my conclusion was incorrect.. that both sensors have the exact same DoF.

So I sat there and tried to wrap my head around it.. I just kept thinking that if I took the same exact picture with both cameras the DoF on the FF camera was shallower. So WTF?

What I didn't realize was that I was forgetting something that WAS different between the two.. the Field of View.. because the FoV is larger on the FF camera I would have to either get closer, or increase my focal length to compose the same shot that I would on the smaller sensor camera.. this means that I was adjusting at least one of the two other parameters which determine the size of the ZoF! So inadvertently by just trying to recompose the same shot I was creating a smaller DoF. If I kept the distance and the focal length the same, and just cropped the picture smaller to create the same composure, the FoV would be the same as the crop camera.

It was one of those "how did I miss that?" moments that had me going for a few hours.. In the end I decided that because of this effect I was going to stick with using my 40D in the studio. Because of the large FoV with the FF 5DmkII I would have to zoom in or get closer to my subjects to get similar shots as I get with the 40D... and thus would need to raise my f-stop and strobe power.. which is ok for most things except for high-key.. So just to simplify I'll stick with my trusty 40D.

New workstation...

For most of this year my main workstation has been crashing and locking up without warning. I figure that after 3 years of overclocking this hardware to the very edge of sanity it finally has developed some flakiness..

So I've been dealing with it.. but things got harder when I started working with the 21MP files from the new camera. I just don't have enough memory to handle all the plug ins and etc that are a part of my work flow. Photoshop CS5 is a total memory pig as well.. as compared to the slightly less piggy CS4. All this means that it locks up more often, usually after I just finished painfully creating a layer mask and was just about to save...

Sooo.. I finally broke down and ordered parts for a new machine. Instead of overhauling the watercooled pimped up monster that I currently use I decided to build a simple yet powerful one from scratch. It will have an I7 3Ghz quad core CPU, 8GB RAM, and an SSD for a system drive. I also solved my storage issue by getting a 2TB data drive (no more RAID mirror.. just my standard external backups). So in short (for the non computer-geeks) this thing should handle anything I throw at it.

Of course there will be some complexities.. for one I am moving to full 64Bit Windows 7 (from the 32bit version). Some of my plug ins that I have grown to love do not currently work under 64bit.. so I will be flipping back and forth from 32bit Photoshop and the 64bit version.. Hopefully in a few months that will all be resolved with some updates.

Rock Concert... More expedition ideas.. and PhotoPlus

Wow another new post from me... I am usually not this verbose when it comes to blogs.. don't worry it won't last long.

All my client work up to this point is done... (just need to order some prints).. so it is back to portfolio work for a week or so. (yay!) I am committing myself to publishing my Facebook page and my personal site by the end of Oct.

Yesterday I was asked to shoot the Little Kids Rock concert in NYC as I had done last year. It was a great experience (and photographic challenge), and I loved doing it so I quickly said yes.. last year Liberty Devito was there (drummer for Billy Joel) along with Clarance Clemons (sax player for Bruce Springsteen). This year it will be the 2009 American Idol winner and Vanilla Fudge.. along with all sorts of music industry celebrities and some kids playing rock music.

The only issue was it fell on a day that was going to be during my schedule work trip to AZ.. so I had to do some juggling. Oct is going to be CRAZY busy with a ton of photo stuff and work stuff and weddings and so on and so on.. LOL. I love being busy.

(BTW if you are curious my shots from last year are HERE on the LKR web site... rather I should say the handful that they picked to display as I gave them more then 100 to work with)

Speaking of AZ.. I likely will be going back again in Nov (and probably in Dec too) for another week. I am going to try to stay a few more days to visit the Grand Canyon and do some more photography. I don't know how many more opportunities I will have with these work sponsored trips so I need to take advantage. Unlike last time my personal days will be on my own dime but at least the flight will be covered... Between now and then I need to do a lot of research and some planning.. thinking about doing a guided hike of some kind.

Another idea that popped into my mind yesterday was doing a trip up to Mount Washington in NH. Some friends were there and said it was a great experience to hike up.. and I've seen some great photo work done there... so it might be a thing to do. It isn't an easy hike (but I should be able to handle it).. not sure who I would go with since going alone is not really advisable. I have time to sort it out as this will have to wait till next spring due to weather conditions there.

In Oct we will be going to our yearly trip to the Photo Plus Expo in NYC. Normally we just go to the trade show and get ideas for products, equipment and etc. However after a few years we really don't need to see anything new (and my equipment shopping list is quite bare I have to say). We are thinking of doing some seminars instead this time around. There are a ton of "classes" offered all three days. The only issue is that they are kinda expensive (in my opinion). Not sure how much we will really get out of them. They have this nice digital dark room track that focuses on post processing and workflow that I am really interested in. There also are a handful of lighting and creativity classes that I would benifit from. Patti has a whole slate of classes as well picked out. But without some prior experience I have no idea if these are just rah-rah sessions or book infomercials rather then a real learning experience... more thinking on this topic needs to be done.

Fall shoot planning.. and smugmug..

Fall is here.. been waiting all summer for the leaves to change so I can go back to Bushkill Falls.. I keep looking at the pictures from my last time there (in April) and just something seems wrong.. maybe the lighting.. or maybe I processed them too contrasty.. not sure.. hoping that having more colorful leaves will improve things as the shots I have currently are slightly in the state of suckage. I also want to do some long exposure shots to get that "white sheet" look with the water... I didn't do that last time.

So making some plans now.. October is VERY busy with all sorts of things so I don't know how much non CDP photography I am going to do. I did want to also go to NYC as well but that may have to wait till early Nov. I actually have several trips to NYC in mind..

On to more good news.. I worked hard the last week and was able to finish up the mega client order I had.. nearly 40 images fully retouched (25% with more then one face...). That's at least 10 min per image, 400 minutes total.. nearly 7 hours of work if I was a machine and could do it straight. Sometimes I wonder if my clients really appreciate the kind of work that goes into their prints....

So now that the mega order is done (At least it went to the client for approval.. hopefully off to the printer soon) I already got in a new order for my client I had on Saturday. A nice low key pregnancy shoot... only 4 images to retouch and I plan to get that done tonight (4 images x 10min each = 40 min... crossing fingers...)

The next few days are going to be busy with non photography things.. and then its back to pounding away at the portfolio. I also have a handful of Callie shots we did weeks back that need to be finalized... the Cindy Lobster shoot as we call it.. :)

Seriously.. if I were to calculate how much time I actually spend taking pictures, and compare it with how much time I spend post-processing, I wonder what the ratio would be. I mean this is expected since if it were with film I would be working in a darkroom instead.. Ansel Adams spent GINORMOUS amounts of time in the darkroom... It is kinda frustrating to a point as I would rather be out and about taking pictures, and displaying them. But I guess that is like doing step 1, step 3, and skipping the all important step 2.

So other news... I have the initial setup on SmugMug done with what I have so far. I like it so far but still needs to be refined a bit (And obviously more content added). I think I like SM enough that I will get an account.