Wedding Shoot followup

I went and saw the photos from the wedding shoot on Friday, and I was pretty blown away - they were fantastic. Ben was entering one into a competition; the groom was looking out of a window, down to the bride below; the wall was covered in ivy leaves which had turned an autumn red.

Ben had a total of about 1200 keepers, and out of mine there were 200. Not bad for a first effort I reckon. Obviously most of my photos were "his" setups, but I was just happy that technically there were some good ones in there.

I almost helped with another wedding last Saturday, but was meeting my potential first wedding clients, and was feeling a bit off too. Sunday was sick all day in bed with a stomach bug... hopped on a plane at 7:30am the next morning and helped Belinda all day on a shoot in Sydney for an accounting firm. Was pretty hard work (especially trying to engage accountants all day), and was a pity I was under the weather, but a good learning experience none-the-less.

Wedding Shoot

Just finished assisting at a Wedding. 11:30am to 6pm non-stop. Even got a sore arm and finger from taking so many photos and blurry vision from peering through the viewfinder for so long.

Anyway, was an awesome experience. Ben (from Fusion Photography) is a great guy. He certainly knows his stuff... has heaps of gear and gave me pretty much a free reign to photograph anything I wanted (as long as I didn't get in his way). I went through two and a half 8GB cards... probably around 750 photos. Ben was changing cards what seemed like every few mintutes... he's pretty click happy! :)

A few things to remember:

• Tell people what to do, pretty much all the time
• Take many, many photos especially when in dim light with a slow shutter speed
• Have a lot of ideas of where to put people or the actions they should take
• Take detailed pictures of invitations, decorations, dresses, shoes, etc.
• Take photo of the dress hanging up, and shoes before they're put on.
• Take photos of the family dog :)
• Find a good room for the bride to get dressed in
• Show people how to stand/walk, loosen them up a bit
• Tell MC to mention the photos of the table as the last bit of "housekeeping"
• Get a flash that refreshes quickly...
• 17-50mm f/2.8 lens worked well, but need a longer lens occasionally
• Have plenty of (fast) memory cards
  

Too tired to write any more now; going to sleep well tonight!

Bombed

I bombed my first portfolio comp :(

The photos I displayed were the worst set in the room. And I didn't need the judge to tell me that (but glad he was honest)! The competition was extremely tough, and the winners and highly commended were very deserving. The quality was outstanding - the photos I submitted were clearly not up to the standard.

But...

I learned a lot. Saw some great photos. Had some good chats. And am now more determined.

Some lessons were:

• Matting is very important. Each set (except mine) were very well matted. The mats were matching, and generally enhanced the images. I need to work more on this aspect...
• Although the competition is called "portfolio", it should have been called "theme". The photos weren't judged individually, but were judged as a set. I was aware that there should have been some overall theme, but didn't just realise how well each photo had to fit the theme.
  
• Only strong photos - never put a mediocre image in a portfolio. Each photo has to be amazing.
  
• The competition is fierce - to have any chance of winning the portfolio has to be awesome.
  
• Go big. Big photos do well.

My "beach" theme had various pictures of different styles, different matting, one monochrome, six colour, one portrait, a couple of macros, and a landscape. Next time I'll do better :)

First Wedding

Looks like I've booked in my first wedding (!!!). I responded to an ad in the All Classifieds photography section, and quoted the very cheap price of $500 to photograph the whole wedding and post process about 20 photos. Obviously, that price is not going to cover my time but the couple are willing to give me a go as they can't afford an established wedding photographer. This will certainly help me build up my portfolio - I'm really looking forward to it, but it's going to be scary too!

Brandy Flat Hut

This is the first excursion I've done (not as part of a group) where I've specifically gone somewhere to take photos. Everything else, so far, has been taking photos opportunistically :)



Hind and I drove to the Namadgi Visitors Centre and enquired about huts in Namadgi National Park. The ranger told us about a couple of huts, and we chose to visit Brandy Flat Hut. It was a short drive, and then a four hour walk. We walked in from the southern side, which I thought would be quicker because it looked like a shorter distance on the map, but it was very steep terrain and very hard walk. On the way back we took a shortcut through the bush and cut off about 40mins :)

The Hut is quite "modern" as it's been recently rebuilt (the original hut had decayed over time). There was a fireplace, matches, candles, visitors book and a sturdy table inside. There were some fairly tame kangaroos that were hopping around outside.

I took heaps of photos, but struggled with the light. It was late afternoon when we got to the hut (about 4pm, sun goes down at 6pm), and most of the shots were outside the dynamic range of the D300. I bracked most shots, but I haven't yet tried to HDR the images. The compositions I were happy with turned out not to bad colour and light wise once I had tweeked the photos quite a bit in Lightroom. At the time I was too concerned about burning out the sky so that it stayed blue, but I've come to realise that a white sky is generally more applealing than a blue one. I've printed two of the photos, and they look really good printed. This is my favourite shot - I especially like the sun coming through the trees:

Canberra Flickr Stobist Meet

The Canberra Flickr group had a "strobist" meet the other day. The idea is that you get to practice using strobes (flashes) by shooting models. The afternoon was a bit of a mixed bag - there were some positives and some negatives. It could have done with better organisation (at the venue - the pre-organisation was very good) and some kind of goals to work towards. Unfortunately the beginners were all lumped together, so there was really no-one to offer instruction or help - it was the blind leading the blind. I knew how to get the lighting right, but I really struggled with directing the models. I really didn't know what sort of pose I needed, so generally relied on others to get the model into an interesting pose.

I ended up with some shots I was happy with. Here's the flickr gallery.

First time assistant

I did my first photography assistant job the other day. It was interesting, and a little boring (!). It was boring because it was photos of a computer rack - even though I'm a geek, two hours of photographing computers does get a little tiresome. The good part was that I learnt a lot, mainly through watching how a professional works. I was surprised how long everything took and the volume of photos taken (the client only wanted 6 images). The lighting equipment used for this shoot was one reflective umbrella, one softbox, two strobes running off a battery pack. Everything was connected by PC cables. There were quite a few cables running around - I reckon my wireless setup would have worked quite well :) I also helped with the selection and post processing of the images.

So, hopefully this will be the first of many assistant jobs!

I've since emailed about 20 photographers in Canberra asking if they want an assistant. I've had quite a few responses, ranging from "I don't use assistants", "no thanks", to a meeting with someone :)

Nikon Zoom Lenses

Here's a fantastic article that compares the current range of Nikkor lenses:

Nikon Zoom Lenses by Thom Hogan (Part 1)

It really puts into perspective the range of lenses from Nikon, and even gives concise advice about which lenses to have in your kit (either if you're a consumer or pro).

I've currently got the 18-200 VR, and a 12-24 f4 on order (Tokina though, which, from what I've read is almost as good as the Nikon 12-24, but is half the price). I'm always watching auctions on eBay looking for a good long lens that goes up to 400mm, either the 80-400 or 200-400 would be great :) I'd also like a really good (preferably long) macro lens too...

I know the quality of the 18-200 is nothing to write home about, especially the softness in the middle of the zoom range, but it's such a versitile lens to carry around - the VR works well, fast focus, an effective range of 27-300mm on the D300.

Digital Printing

I had two 12"x18" prints done a month ago, and got them done at the local Harvey Norman store. As much as I hate Harvey's, they use Fujifilm digital printers with Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper. I was very happy with the quality. The prints were $24.95 each. I thought the price was good at the time, but now I've discovered that it's pretty steep.

So, for the next lot of photos I've done my research. It seems like the vast majority of online and bricks-and-mortar stores use the Fujifilm system (kiosk, priters, paper, etc). I'm assuming that the quality shouldn't vary too much between the places using similar equipment. Also, from reading online it seems like the Fujifilm system is one of the better ones. The (physical) places I know of that are using it are Harvey Norman, BigW, Powerhouse, Ted's. And then there's the online places: Harvey's, BigW, FujiFilm, Dell, BigPond, RGB Digital and a few others I can't remember right now.

I created a spreadsheet with all the options, and the one that has the best prices for larger prints (which is what I'm interested in) is RGB Digital. They claim a 24 hour turnaround time, with overnight delivery via Toll Priority.

Some prices for comparison:

10" x 15"
RGB Digital : $3.75
BigW Online : $9.84
BigW Store : $16.34
BigPond : $11.10
Dell : $10.45
FujiColor : $10.45
Harvey's : $14.95
Harvey's Store : not printed on Fujifilm equipment, "needs to be photoshopped" says the idiot in the store. Obviously someone forgot to check an option in the setup app.
Ted's don't list this size on their website

The other size I'm interested in is the 8" x 12", which RGB Digital do for $2. How good is that?!

So, armed with the RGB Digital Ad in Australian Photography mag, I visited a few stores at lunchtime (mainly because I'd rather get the photos printed locally if possible, and I need them within 2.5 business days...).

First up was BigW. The conversation went something like:
Me: "Hi, I want to get some 10x15's printed, do you pricematch?"
BigW: "Yes. Do you have the ad?"
Me: "Yes, here it is"
BigW: "Oh, those prices are cheap!" Duh! "I'll have to check"
BigW Manager: He studied the ad and magazine for quite some time, verified their price then "I'll have to check"... when he came back a few minutes later "Sorry Sir, we only price match 4x6's"
Me: *sigh*...

Then was Harvey's... it was much more black and white. No kidding, the conversation went like this:
Me: "Hi, do you price match printing prices?"
Harvey: "No"

Ouch...! So much for their price matching policy that they flaunt all over their advertising.

Next was Powerhouse. Yes, apparently they pricematch. I asked the attendant a few times to confirm, and she seemed quite confident but added they she'd have to check with her manager. But then the killer was that anything big (I assume greater than 4x6) needs to be sent to Sydney, with a turnaround time of 10 days. Geez, do they use a horse and kart to carry the photos to Sydney on a few hundred floppy disks?

After all that walking around, it was time to do some surfing :) I checked out the RGB Digital site in more detail and called them to discuss turnaround time. The person I spoke to was confident that I'd have prints by Tuesday (it's Friday afternoon). So, that was that then - RGB Digital it is. I tried the web app to submit photos, but it was dead slow... so I downloaded the Windows software and was pleasantly surprised [*1]. It allowed very good control over printing sizes, cropping and uploaded quickly (I hope it's not re-compressing the JPG's to a smaller size). Total order for 16 prints of varying sizes from 10x10 up to 12x18 came to $60 including delivery. Excellent price, and shits over all the other printing places in terms of price. I'll report back here when the prints arrive to make sure they are of good quality!

*1 - The online and downloadable software they use is developed by some mob in Tasmania. I've seen it on a few sites now. Most sites it on, the sites looks crap and the online form for uploading photos is very basic (and amazingly slow). The Windows software is really quite good. But where's the equivalent Mac version - don't tell me I have to use the crappy web software.

Lighting Equipment

For my current assignment I need some better lighting equipment. And I also want to get a makeshift studio setup in my garage for protrait photography. I want to use the TTL wireless capabilities of the SB-600, but shoot into an umbrella. It sounds quite simple, all I need is a silver or white reflective umbrella, an umbrella swivel, and a light stand. And two of everything...as I want at least two sources of light. It's really hard to find reasonable priced umbrellas and swivels in Australia. So far, the best I've found is from an eBay store, but the prices are at least double of what you can get from the US (and the US stores charge a lot of postage for international shipments). Most of the Australian based websites I've looked at only carry very expensive lighting kits, or no lighting gear at all. I still haven't decided which way to go (either from the Aussie eBay store, or from a US website). I need to make a decision soon...

On the Easter weekend we went camping. I got a couple of good photos (one of a butterfly, and a few cool light painting shots near the campfire), but I was quite dissapointed with how many of the shots turned out. The light was very poor for most of the weekend because it was overcase and raining most of the time and I didn't take enough care to correct the exposure. The photos I took in the cave were very bad... definitely need more practise there.

One strange thing I found (which I haven't yet had time to verify), was that the autofocus on the D300 didn't work at all when the AF assist lamp feature is turned off. The light was low, but it was still during daylight hours... it confused me for quite some time and I thought the lens/camera AF was broken! I'd turned off the AF assist lamp the night before because it was annoying people as I photographed them sitting infront of the fire during the dark.