Lightroom 2 is out

I've been waiting for Lightroom 2 for quite a while. I played with the beta a few months back and some of the new features were really good. This is really going to enhance the workflow and further reduce shelling out to Photoshop (= a good thing).

July Update

It's been a very busy week-and-a-bit.

• I watched the judging of the NSW/ACT APPA competion (part of VIVID photography festival). Very interesting watching the judges score the photos, and even more interesting when they have mini-debates to convince the other judges one way or the other.

• Attended "Magicians and Travellers" conference (put on by AIPP also as part of VIVID). The standout talk for me was Phil Kuruvita. Peter Eastway had a good presetation, as did Phillip Andrews.

• Use DNG. I never really saw the point of DNG, but the main reason to use it is for better workflow going from Lightroom to/from Photoshop. I've gotta test this out soon. The other benefit is that you get around 20% storage saving over NEF files... which actually is a good enough reason in itself to use DNG. Now I've just got to convert all my photos...

• I've finally registered "t8 photography" as a business name.

• All my insurance has been finalised. I got a couple of quotes and in the end went with photoinsurance.com.au Quite good value and email communication was pretty smooth.

• I put an ad in the "A day to remember" wedding liftout in The Canberra Times. I was the only photographer who did so - I'm not yet sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... it could mean it's a waste of money! I have had two enquiries from the ad so far though. I'm also advertising via Google Adwords, which seems to be more effective so far. I've had most enquires from people who have clicked on the Google ad.

• 5 weddings booked. Yay! Next wedding is in two weeks.

• I've moved my email from GoDaddy (which is attrocious) to Google Apps (ie. GMail). So far so good. I'm going to see if I can do the website hosting with Google Sites, then I can get rid of GoDaddy for everything except domain registar. As part of Google Apps you get Google Calendar - which imports iCal calendars and iCal can subscribe to Google Calendar (and still syncs the calendar to my phone). I would have prefered that Google Calendar do proper two-way syncs with iCal, but I suppose you can't have everything.

• Still doing photography work for ALVA media on the weekends. I'm now doing the team shots by myself (sometimes with a little help from George). Next weekend I'll be showing someone else the ropes.

• Sent in the form to join NPS Lite. Nikon Professional Services. You get stuff like priority equipment servicing, free CCD cleaning and a few other minor things. I'm not sure if they'll accept my grey import Nikon gear though. Does anyone buy from authorised Nikon resellers these days??

• Talking about grey imports - just got my first macro lens: Nikkor 105mm with AFS and VR. Looking forward to using it when I've got some time!

• Took some photos in the rain halfway up Black Mountain (the hill, not the tower) with a couple of the guys from the Canberra Photography Society. One I liked below:

Victorian High Country

Just got back from a week away in the Victorian High Country. We stayed at Bright which turned out to be a fantastic base. One of my objectives with the trip was to photograph Wallace's Hut, but the access road is closed in winter and it's a 17km return walk from Fall's Creek in the snow. I'll do the walk another time when I've got the gear (snowshoes) and someone that can hike the distance through snow with me :)

Instead we found Dinner Plain Hut. Not quite as much history as Wallace's, and not as picturesque, but it was only 30m from the road and was nestled in amongst the gum trees.

Here's one of my favorite shots of it:

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 22mm, f/10, 1/400sec

We all had a cuppa in the hut and then headed up the road and found JB Hut. It's a couple of hundred metres walk from the roadside through snow but is just visible from the road. I rushed the shots of this hut and the first few that I took were over exposed and had to be chucked. This one with the show gum in the foreground is one of the more interesting shots, but the tree is out of focus on the left hand side as it exits the frame. It's not really too much of an issue, especially considering that this is at 11mm and less that a metre from the tree (main thing is that the hut is in focus).

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/5.6, 1/125sec

This is the Cathederal on Mount Buffalo. Very amazing views. It was hard work dragging the kids up the mountain as the snow was knee deep in most places, and slightly deeper in others... but the reward was worth it.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/9, 1/320sec

We visited a Emu and Alpaca farm. They had animals roaming around the carpark and some ostritches which seemed a bit unusual (they were behind a fence fortunately). The interesing photos I took here though was of this rusty old cart.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 14mm, f/10, 1/40sec

This is the waterfall on the way up to Mount Buffalo (can't find the brochure with the name of it atm). I spent a long time taking shots from many different angles and unfortunately couldn't get the shutter speed below 1/10th of a second without overexposing the water. The minimum apeture on the Tokina is 22 but most of the shots I did at 22 had weird flare which I only saw when I got back to the apartment - luckily I took lots of shots with a wide variety of settings!

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/20, 1/10sec

And another waterfall - not quite as interesting but all good practice.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/16, 0.6sec

And some of the native fungi growing in a tree.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 80mm, f/5, 1.3sec

I was also looking for some really mature snow gums, but didn't find any. Apparently there are lots in Fall's Creek, but we didn't get there this time.

Last CPS comp

A bit late with this post - I can't remember the scores I got exactly, but here goes:


This one got a 5. The judge liked the movement in the birds wings and thought it captured a great moment. This was shot with the 80-400mm lens at 400mm (600mm equivalent) and was cropped heavily.


This one got a 4 I think. The main criticism was that it was printed too dark. I think all of my prints were a bit dark (especially the butterfly - need to investigate and do some tests I think).


I think this one got a 4. Pretty good score for a very simple photo that lacks a bit of punch and not perfect focus. The judge was pretty easy on the B graders :) I love doing these kind of macro shots, but the 18-200mm lens is just not great for this - still waiting for the 150mm Sigma macro.


This one got a 4.5. The main criticism was that the eyes weren't in focus, although to me they look like they are. The print was quite dark and the background especially, but on the screen it looks quite vibrant and bright. I'll reprint it with a brighter exposure and see how that looks.

Depth of Field Calculator

This is pretty cool - and posting it here so I can find it when I need it :)

The Depth of Field Calculator

Congratulations to Tereza and Guillaume!

Did my first solo wedding today! I was pretty nervous and didn't sleep too well last night... but the wedding was great and the photos turned out really well (well, I think they did...). The wedding was at the Helm Winery in Murrumbateman, with a lunch afterwards at Grazing in Gundaroo.

I used the 18-200mm lens and my new SB-800 (and obviously the Nikon D300). I took my other lenses with me, but didn't need to use them. Occasionally I would have liked to use the wider 11-16mm, but didn't bother changing since it would have been a bit of a hassle because all the other lenses were in the car (might need to think of some kind of small bag to carry a little bit of gear around with me).

Anyway, ended up with 539 exposures from around 11am till 1:45pm (yes, quite a short wedding and there was also a 20 minute drive to Gundaroo in there too). Batteries lasted well - I used 8xAA's in the battery grip and the D300 only switched over to the internal battery right at the end. The internal battery ended at about 96% I think.

I should also say that it was a fairly challenging location. Bright sunlight, heavy shade from the house and a deciduous tree, and in the cellars it was very dark. But I suppose there's never an easy wedding :) I also have only very lightly touched up two photos - over the coming days I'll hit 'em with Photoshop and see what I can come up with!

So, without boring you further, here's a selection of shots:

Website

Finally got around to fixing the website today.

http://www.t8photography.com

I'm concentrating on doing weddings at the moment, but won't say no to other photography jobs. I feel that I have to compete on price and value for money because my portfolio is still very small and my experience limited. I put quite a bit of effort into the Weddings page - I've specified pricing and quite a detailed frequently asked questions section. Hopefully this'll generate some more business :)

Also I'll be putting an advertisement in the Canberra Times "A day to remember..." special wedding liftout in a fortnight. Here's the ad... still a work in progress - comments appreciated! :)

Phottix BP-D300 - a MB-D10 clone

After using a D300 with the Nikon battery grip (MB-D10) a couple of times, I started wanting one :) The battery grip makes it much easier to take portrait orientation shots because the camera is easier to hold and it has an extra shutter button. The grip also has an extra 4-way controller and an AF-On - which come in handy sometimes.

Also, and maybe more importantly for some kind of shoots like weddings, is that it allows the D300 to run at 8 frames per second as opposed to 6 fps and it allows using extra batteries (either an extra EN-EL3e, 8x AA's, or EN-EL4).

Now, the problem is that what is essentially a piece of molded plastic with a couple of buttons is very expensive. It's $250 from Adorama and B&H [plus $40 shipping to Australia], and grey import it's about $270 (ex GST). I dunno what it would be from a bricks & mortar camera store, but probably around $400 would be my guess! For that kind of money you can buy a lot of lens or even a good 2nd hand entry level DSLR body. What a rip!

So - it's been on my wish list for a while, and wasn't looking like it was going to be marked off... But, about a week ago a Phottix BP-D300 appeared in one of my ebay alerts. The Phottix BP-D300 is essentially an exact clone of the real deal Nikon MB-D10, but at about a third of the price. Let's just say I didn't have to think very hard about making the purchase. I've also got a Phottix Timer Remote (clone of the Nikon MC-36) which has been excellent.

The BP-D300 arrived on Friday and I attached it to the D300. Initial impressions are that the plastic is not quite as good as the Nikon, but certainly not too bad. The BP-D300 comes with two battery trays, one for the extra EN-EL3e, and one that holds the 8 x AA's. It certainly makes the camera a lot bigger and heavier, as well as making it look more professional (and expensive). All the buttons work as advertised and the camera detects it as an MB-D10. There are a few negatives though:
1. The shutter button doesn't feel anywhere near as good as the one on the camera body. The half press feels quite weird - it's like pressing a button, not just getting to the first stage of a press. And when pressed fully you get a loud click.
2. When loading the AA battery tray, the clip doesn't lock easily - you have to push the tray in harder than you'd expect to.
3. The plastic... as mentioned above.

The other minor niggle, is that you can wiggle the battery grip very sightly independently of the body. I would guess that the Nikon MB-D10 would be similar because of how it's designed, but I'll check this next time I use the genuine one.

The BP-D300 also comes with a cigarette lighter adapter which the packaging claims to recharge the EN-EL3e. I haven't tested this out and I don't think I ever will as I prefer and trust the charger that came with the camera.

Summary: I've got no regrets - it's a great addition to the D300. Buy one now and save heaps of money over the MB-D10 to get something almost as good.

Feet together, sit up straight, SMILE!

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on the weekend for a local media company taking individual portraits and team shots of sporting teams. Today started with some "tiny tots" - under 4's, and I'm pretty sure there were quite a few kids under 3 years old. Let's just say it was pretty hard work making the little brats kids sit up straight, look at the camera, and smile.

It's all good experience though - and particularly for weddings, as getting a bridal party to do what you want has amazing similarities with a group of eight year old giggling boys and girls. Today I was "trained" in doing the group shots. Usually about 4 kids sitting down on stools, with the coach and manager on either side, and then usually about 5 kids standing behind them. Some groups are fantastic: they listen to what you say, sit and stand quietly, and smile (nicely) when asked. But, some other groups are the complete opposite! And when I say trained, it really means that I helped out for the first couple of group shots, and then Pat says "Ok, your turn now".

I'm booked in again for Sunday morning at 7:30 tomorrow and then next Saturday... I'm not sure how many more times I'll do it because it's pretty draining work, with absolutely no creativity, and crap money ($20/h).

Competition Night

Just had another competition night at the Canberra Photographic Society. Unfortunately I got done for speeding on the way home... which certainly puts a dampener on the mood.

Anyway, here's the images I submitted and some of the judges comments that I remember.


I presented this image as quite a large print at 24" wide. The judge commented that she didn't know if it was a photograph of the bush, or of the hut (she didn't call it a hut, but I can't remember the word she used). She liked the colour and the afternoon light falling on the grass, but was distracted by the sign and the tree to the left of the hut. She also felt that it was tilted a bit to the left - I've never noticed this but I just checked in Lightroom with the straighten tool and she's right. Scored 3 out of 5.


She commented that it seemed to be lit with studio lights (right), shot outside (right) and a picture of the bike (wrong... it's a portrait of the rider and his passenger...geez). She was distracted by the leaf (I think the leaf looks cool...) and felt there was not enough space to the left of the handlebar (agree, and the way the mat board was cut, it was extremely close to the edge). She didn't comment on the expressions on the people's faces which I found a bit strange, especially considering how much time she spent talking about expressions with other photos. Score 3.


She liked this photo, mainly because she couldn't work out what it was I think. She thought the mangrove roots were twigs, but liked the water. Score 4.


She had a lot of good things to say about this photo - colour, child, birds, sea (it's actually a lake, but does look like the sea). She described her emotions when she looked at the photo and had nothing negative to say about it. I'm dissapointed that she had no negative comments considering it's low score. Score 3.

I found her judging to be excellent when criticising the technical qualities of the photo (composition, colour, DOF, sharpness, etc), but her scoring seemed a bit inconsistent and biased towards very abstract photos. The vast majority scored 3, and only one photo scored 5. For some photos she had a lot of negative things to say, but then scored it 3 or sometimes even 4... Some examples - a picture of the lake with the carillion in the background scored 3, but it was a very poor photography IMO, and she had very negative things to say about it...eg. poor composition, bad lighting, etc, etc, so why score it 3? Also, a pretty boring picture of a moose scored 4. The composition was boring, and it had a very distracting piece of grass in the way of the moose's face.

Anyway, it's great to get other people's opinions and especially good to get some good technical critique.