Turfside at Happy Valley.

Over the years I’ve spent many a beautiful night at the Happy Valley Racecourse.  However up until a visit in October, I’ve never watched a race from turfside.  I’ve always sat in the expensive upper reaches of the beautiful facility but never in the “cheap” seats.  Let me tell me, the race and its attendant activities are much more enjoyable from this location.  Not only can you view the race from closeup, you are never isolated from the activity like you can be in the upper seats.  And being so close to the action, one can feel the “excitement” in the air.  And for photos, its chockful of subjects to pursue.

All photos taken with a Nikon D700 and Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom lens or 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens.

Beautiful turf.

Jockey in thought.

Warming up.

Heading for home.

Cool down.

Thinking about my last photographic achievement – the , ‘If you photograph me, I’ll fucking slap you.’ Award; or, was it the ‘DID THAT FUCKER PHOTOGRAPH ME!!!’ award. ( I can’t remember, which ever which, it doesn’t matter, such accolades are merely baubles…) Anyway, thinking on these things brought me around to toying with black and white photography. As surely as I’m gainfully employed now; if I told my editor, ‘ah, that job was shot B/W on 35iso panchromatic film, and I’m just shopping for developer etc.; I’m sure he’d only be too delighted. He’d probably say, Seán, I was going to ask you to shoot on polaroid, large format, but you went black and white, you didn’t use a Holga, did you??? Eh?

Anyway, as usual, I come across really funky and fun things my DSLR’s can do, about four years after they become obsolete. The D1h has this colour space, file thingy called Ycbr Tiff. I never used it when the D1h camera was in my every day bag instead of my reserve bag. (Bags? you’ve got more than one bag??? Why yes. You can never have enough bags and shoes and wet weather gear. The wet weather gear seperates me from ‘the girls…’) But using the Ycbr colour space in B/W give a lovely tonality to a photo, and one of my favoutite portraits in the last few months was shot with it.

Aw here… this one was shot with a D300, the only thing in common with both photos is the photographer, the subject the lens and the b/w colour space and the fact both were shot raw, and in the same house and… yawn… Not with the same camera, not…

I approached a local camera dealer about picking up a Nikon D1x that he had going for, €250 or thereabouts, you know just to get the Ycbr file thingy in a larger file size. Suffice, it to say, two voice mail messages later and I still don’t have the camera. He must have notice my sweaty palms and the twitch in my eyebrow as I enquired in my cool way – my voice did not crack or squeak once – about the D1x.

‘But I have enough cameras,’ I here me say. Lie down conscience, you keep me out of enough trouble.

My daughter is heading for five years old, sometime in the next year. We were discussing Santa and she said to me; ‘you know daddy, Santa knows my favourite colour is purple…’ This was in response to what Santa might bring her this year. One year I treated myself to a second hand nikkor 35mm f2 which has fast become one of my favourite lenses. That’s the great thing about being an adult, you can decide when you want to treat yourself. Within reason of course, and the bounds of extended negotiation if your married, and if you’ve already paid your mortgage, put diesel or petrol in the tank, fed the feckin’ rabbits, sent off invoices, been food shopping and the other myriad thing you need to do. But Crimbo is coming and it’s a time for kids to get some extra special attention. I can’t wait, my inner child is already planning what we’ll do over the Christmas Holiday. I’ll be working for most of it , but I’ll get the time by hook or crook. It’s a bummer but our deadline day will be on Christmas Eve. That might make for an interesting picture, a load of hacks and snappers getting lorried when they should be putting out a newspaper. Ho ho ho…

Hey sorry again for the absence, I haven’t had much time for blogging the past few weeks hence why there has been no posts and not much in the way of commenting on other peoples blogs.

Even though we had some pretty good rain fall over winter and spring it is amazing how quickly the landscape looses its green colour. I took this shot just outside of Canberra a few weeks back and things are starting to get pretty dry indeed. I love the contrast in colours the summer landscape provides with the gold fields feeding off of the blue sky. This shot was taken with the Sigma 10-20mm lens on the D90.

We are heading down to Mollymook next weekend and I can’t wait. It has been too long since we hit the coast but it should be a nice little vacation before the Xmas madness.

Only 9 weeks to go until our first baby arrives, man it is becoming real now!

Photographed by j_bischoff

Ephrata High School Fall Play 2009
Neil Simon’s Fools

– License

good condition,tested on d200
no fog or fungus, only minor dust inside the lens but it doesnt affect the photo
comes with uv filter

COD within damansara / kepong/ sungai buloh for rm550
contact : 012 241 7571

Thanks to Halee, Sharon and Nkeong make themselves to the last minutes outing. Hope that you guys enjoy the outing.

Nevertheless, the outing was challenging. Under the super low light situation, we had no choice but to push the iso higher and higher. I think most of us had using the MAX iso speed.

By the way, about the Aquaria, nothing much species. Don’t even see the hammer head as printed on the brochure.  To me, quite a disappointment. Furthermore, I seem fail my challenge to the low light. Definitely still need a lot of improvement.

I nie po raz ostatni. Julita, jak zawsze

Mitt normalobjektiv har tappat en “gäng” av tre. Antar att det är ok, att det börjar kännas lite slitet efter snart 30 000 bilder =)

Dyra objektiv brukar ha metallgängor, nu börjar jag förstå varför.

Hace tiempo estuvimos hablando de los dos tamaños de sensor en las cámaras réflex digitales (al menos en lo que a Nikon se refiere, aunque esta distinción también se da en Canon o en Sony por ejemplo). En general, los modelos tope de gama de estas marcas son los que van equipados con sensores de tamaño completo (también denominados Full Frame o directamente FF) que tienen las mismas dimensiones que un negativo fotográfico de 35mm, mientras que las inferiores llevan sensores de tipo APS-C que poseen unas medidas más reducidas como podéis apreciar en la siguiente imagen.

Sensores Full Frame y APS-C

Pues bien, ya sabemos que el mundo de la electrónica de consumo siempre va de arriba a abajo, y poco a poco los modelos de cámaras equipadas con sensores de tamaño completo se van extendiendo por las gamas de los fabricantes. En el caso de Nikon, ya no sólo las D3, D3s y D3x van equipadas con estos sensores, sino que la D700 también lo lleva, siendo bastante más barata (aunque lo mejor sería decir “menos cara”) que sus hermanas mayores.

Algo más que una simple diferencia de precio

Como os digo, si vemos el catálogo completo de Nikon vamos a ver que la diferencia de precio entre una D300s (el tope de gama actual en sensor DX) y una D700 (que en esencia es una D300 con sensor FX) no es demasiado elevada; o al menos es lo suficientemente reducida como para hacernos dudar si no merecerá la pena dar directamente el salto a Full Frame. En concreto, la primera sale por unos 1300 euros y la segunda por aproximadamente 2000. Y aunque esos setecientos euros son una pasta se miren por donde se miren, hay muchos usuarios que aplican lo de “caballo grande ande o no ande” y acaban optando por la D700 sin saber muy bien qué es lo que buscan en una cámara.

Los sensores Full Frame tienen mayor rango dinámico, mejoran la relación señal / ruido a sensibilidades elevadas, tienen una definición muy buena, los angulares mantienen intacta su distancia focal… pero también llevan aparejadas una serie de desventajas en las que algunas personas no pensaron cuando se deshicieron de su cámara APS-C para pasarse al sensor FF.

Estamos de acuerdo en que la diferencia de precio entre una cámara APS-C tope de gama y una FF tal vez no sea demasiado elevada; pero el verdadero gasto vendrá a la hora de “calzar” dicha cámara con las ópticas adecuadas: en términos generales las ópticas para FF son mucho más caras que en APS-C, pesan y abultan mucho más y, lo que es peor, nos va a dar la sensación de que no nos acercan lo suficiente al motivo a fotografiar.

El factor de recorte

Técnicamente, al no haber factor de recorte, un objetivo de 200mm en una cámara Full Frame es un 200mm, no hay más. En APS-C ese 200mm cerraría su ángulo de visión para dar el equivalente a un 300mm en Nikon (1,5x) o 320mm en Canon (1,6x); algo que adoran los amantes de los animales salvajes y las competiciones deportivas. Sin embargo, en FF para “acercarnos” al sujeto como en nuestra anterior cámara APS-C tendremos que comprar un 300mm “de verdad” con las consecuencias que esto implica para el bolsillo y la espalda.

Vamos a ver esto empleando como ejemplo dos teleobjetivos fijos con características técnicas similares (AF-S, VR y f/2.8) montados sobre cámaras Nikon:

Teleobjetivo Nikkor 300 mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S VR

• Dimensiones: 268 x 124 mm
• Peso: 2850 gr
• Precio aproximado: 5000 euros

Teleobjetivo Nikkor 400 mm f/2.8 G ED AF-S VR

• Dimensiones: 368 x 159 mm
• Peso: 4620 gr
• Precio aproximado: 8000 euros

Como podéis ver, el teleobjetivo de 400mm pesa y cuesta prácticamente el doble que el de 300mm y además es 10 cm más largo. Y la cosa es que en términos de ángulo de visión, el 300mm montado sobre una cámara DX equivaldrá a un 450mm, por lo que ni siquiera con el 400mm montado en nuestra cámara FX podremos acercarnos tanto al motivo a fotografiar. Esto va a dar lugar al síndrome “no estoy lo bastante cerca” que ha afectado a numerosos usuarios que han dado el salto a Full Frame y se han encontrado con un 200mm se queda corto para fotografiar ese gorrión que saldrá volando si damos un paso más.

Además, hay otro “problema” añadido: la gente que pretende encontrar un objetivo todoterreno para FF como los 18-200 que hay en formato APS-C con los que se puede ir a pasar el día con la cámara a cuestas sin mayor problema lo llevan claro. Para conseguir esas distancias focales en FF apenas hay opciones; y de hecho casi lo único que hay en ese sentido es el Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM que cuesta 2500 euros, pesa 1,7 Kg y es un mostrenco que abulta como un 70-200 f/2.8. Vamos, ideal para ir de excursión a la montaña con la cámara colgada del cuello.

Los objetivos de focal variable para cámaras con sensor de 35mm rara vez alcanzan relaciones de zoom más allá de 3x o como mucho 4x. Ópticas como 14-24 (1,7x), 35-70 (2x), 24-85 (3,5x) ó 70-300 (4,3x) son lo habitual; mientras que en DX es muy común encontrar en el mercado zooms de rango focal 18-135 (7,5x), 18-200 (11,1x) e incluso un 18-270 (15x) fabricado por Tamron.

Conclusión

No hay duda de que una cámara Full Frame da una calidad de imagen impresionante, pero eso no quiere decir que las cámaras con sensor APS-C no tengan su público. De hecho, en el caso de que os gusten las fotografías de naturaleza así como retratar eventos en los que no nos queda más remedio que estar alejados del sujeto principal (partidos de tenis, mítines políticos, aviones despegando…) tenéis en el factor de recorte a un buen aliado, ya que para conseguir distancias focales semejantes en una cámara Full Frame vais a necesitar dos cosas: ser millonarios y estar bastante fuertes.

Evidentemente no seré yo el que os desaconseje la compra de una cámara FF “porque sí”, ya que son una verdadera maravilla visual y allá cada uno lo que haga con su dinero; pero sí que os diré que meditéis muy bien si realmente le vais a poder sacar todo el partido posible. Tened en cuenta que en el mundillo de las cámaras réflex son las ópticas y no la cámara las que marcan el límite entre las fotografías que podréis o no podréis hacer; y en Full Frame el dinero que hay que pagar por elevar ese límite aumenta considerablemente.

Well, this was an interesting afternoon… Although I expected to stay no longer than one hour, I ended up leaving after 2 and a half. The company was too pleasant to leave.

I also had the opportunity to shoot the main river crossing Bucharest, during the afternoon and night. The lights were amazing to watch but a pain in the ass when I was supposed to take pictures. I had to give up my camera to Stephan at some point, cause he was keen on showing his talent…. Oh well, let’s just say he’s a novice. My camera wasn’t able to focus a couple of times and that drove him (and me) nuts after a while…. Not to mention that I didn’t have my tripod. And once night fell, it was getting difficult. It was as if my camera knew we had problems and when we least expected the battery was gone. But took some pictures just to fulfill my need for photography and his to be a model for a day.

He is handsome, isn’t he, cousin? He, he…..

Too many hobbies, too little time.

This bike is done, and it’s gorgeous (this picture is from the day I brought the frame home, which was probably four weeks ago. I finished building it about two weeks ago). Building it and riding it are two of the many things I’ve been doing instead of photography. I got back home Wednesday from a six day backpacking trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway area of western North Carolina (unfortunately, we were blown off Mt. Mitchell by a hailstorm, but nearby Linville Gorge is incredibly beautiful and has some of the most technical trails I’ve ever hiked), and spent that week surrounded by people who are enthusiastic about photography. This made me want to get back to shooting. Hopefully I will.

Apparently I’ve missed a few things since I’ve been, well, doing other things. I’m a bit of a gear nerd, and I’m working on catching up on the things I’ve missed. Most notable so far:

-Pentax’s K-x, which I can find precious little information about but has an impressive buzz (good for Pentax)

-Pentax’s K-7, which doesn’t seem that impressive to me (come on, Pentax, I thought a K#D would be a professional model, not a K20D with the zero dropped)

-Nikon’s D300s, which means my body of choice is now 1 1/2 iterations out of date

-Canon’s 7D, which is yet another violation of the number-of-digits-before-the-D-connotes-the-level rule (definitely not worth converting over)

I’m sure there’s plenty more that I’ve missed (unfortunately, this does not seem to include a $50 35mm f/1.2 Nikkor or a $75 10-20mm f/2.8, though I am still looking), but I’ll catch up eventually. For now, I need to start shooting again (and to get a Nikon lens that will go wider than 50mm. Or longer).

Nikon D200, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D, ancient Minolta strobe somewhere off camera.

Nikon D300s + AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G at f/18, ISO200 1/200 Second / SB900 (camera L) +1.7EV, SB800 (camera R) -0.7EV

We have some lovely orchids in our bathroom that recently bloomed, and Bridget’s been after me to take a photo of them. Seeing as I’m still getting over this nasty cold that I’ve been fighting all week, which has been keeping me indoors and preventing me from heading outdoors for photography, I decided today was a good time to make an image of these flowers.

Until I started getting more comfortable with hot shoe flashes, I relied solely on natural light for flower shots (or any kind of still life for that matter….or any kind of photography for that matter….). The sun had already set when I started shooting the orchids, so natural light was not an option. Sometimes, you just gotta roll your own light! This shot was taken using the pop up flash on the D300s set to command an SB-900 high on camera left and an SB-800 low on camera right. Both flashes are firing first through dome diffusers followed by a light tent that is housing the flowers. I shot in manual so I could set a shutter speed that would prevent ambient light from effecting the exposure while setting an aperture that would give me long depth of field for this macro shot.

Speaking of macro, it’s been quite a while since I’ve used my Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G lens. I forgot what an amazing piece of glass it is. Focus speed is absolutely silent and feels instantaneous, even in low-light. To think I considered selling this thing!

Once again, the photo looks amazing in Lightroom and just so-so on WordPress. Can’t figure out why!

Just a quick note to say thanks to all the regulars who visit the blog. Also to all the techies, engineers and programmers that make all these great new photography products that I can’t afford to buy. (But drool over in catalogs all day long.) One day…. The Nikon D3x and D3s will both be mine… with the new Nikkor 70-200 F2.8 VR II lens. Yes… One day!

In any case, I’m still testing the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport and will have some thoughts to share on it shortly. I’m also working on getting some other videos together for some of the current tutorials as well as some new ones. But right now, like most photographers, this is the busiest part of the year for me so spare time to sit down and work is sparse.

Lastly, have a great Thanksgiving and don’t forget the extra memory cards for those family moments! (Hopefully good ones.)

Photographed by Laurent SJ

Testing the Nikkor PC-E 24mm on the D300 around Lugano Lake, Italy-Switzerland

– License

Recently I had bought a Nissin Di622 for strobing purpose from Mitmivec – Eric. To summarize it, the flash has a rather slow recharge speed. It is good to use for strobe, but not really for event covering. As usual, I still prefer to have the own party flashes to stay on the camera’s hot shoe. Else, it is fine to trigger via Radio Trigger or Optical trigger.

Other than that, to fullfill my needs, I had DIY some color film that can work as gel and to be used on the flash. That was how I create these two photos. By using the color films on the top of stofen. The ingredients are listed in the DIY GEL for flashes.

As usual, the setup will be shared. This time I had draw it into a pcs of paper and scan into computer. First it is easier to keep track on what I had did before, and also I may need similar setup in future. Here the setup for this round and please forgive my ugly drawing:

Note: Both flash doesn’t really direct flash to the Chivas. To avoid reflection, it is somehow the feather light hit on the chivas.

Since the gel is on top of stofen, there are still some white color flash to be produced. The reflector is to reflect some of these lights to fill some lights on the Chivas.

Please feel free to comment on the setup. You may have better idea and help me to do better. Thanks in advanced

Congratulation to Sin Heng and Jing Jin.

Photographers: Censesence and McKenny

Location: Kepong

]]> http://nowakowski.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/lotnisko-pumba-i-prawie-dziki-krolik/ Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:27:52 +0000 Damian http://nowakowski.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/lotnisko-pumba-i-prawie-dziki-krolik/

Wczoraj razem z chłopakami z GKJ-otu wybraliśmy się o 6 rano na plener pod wrocławskie lotnisko.
Miał być piękny wschód słońca, a było mleczne niebo. Udało się za to upolować Pumbę
Ciekawe tylko kto był bardziej wystraszony- ja czy on.

Wracając do domu udało mi się upolować jeszcze jednego zwierzaka. Biegał na skwerze pod blokiem.
Złapanie takiego kitajca nie było łatwe, ale od wczoraj mieszka już ze mną.
Nie chce ktoś przygarnąć królika-zguby?

Photographed by badzmanaois

This shot was taken from Anderson Bridge, tone-mapped and moderate adjustment on the saturation.

– License

Recently bought a 50mm f/1.4 lens, all the while I borrow it from Daniel Hong, but now he got it back, so I guess is time for me to invest one, my last purchase of a lens was back in 2007, which is Tamron 17-50. I bought this lens is because of the big aperture, and I find that it will help me a lot in my wedding shot in low light condition. My next lens will be either a 24-70mm f/2.8 or a 135mm f/2, so hope that I will get more photos shooting next year to help me raising fund

I was going through some older images the other night and came across this shot that I liked quite a lot. It was taken about a year ago up in the Tamborine Mountains near Curtis Falls and I remember at the time I was going through a HDR phase and was bracketing a lot of my shots. It turns out that I am not a huge fan of the exaggerated HDR look but upon revisiting the image and having gained a lot more knowledge in Photoshop I decided I would create a blended exposure out of the 3 images I took at the time. As it turns out I only used two of the images (the correct exposure and 2 stops underexposed) and combined them using layers in photoshop. I boosted a bit of saturation and gave it a minor adjustments curve but that is it.

Also for those out there with any experience I am thinking of purchasing Joseph Holmes DCAM 3 colour profile and was wondering what people had to say about it.

I’m off to watch the Tudors, lovin that show!

Kebosanan lepas amek gambar utk apply praktikal…tangan plak x lepas dari camera yg dah lame gak la dok dlm beg 2…so..tersnap la muke sndr dgn berbagai2 impressions. Nasib baik la camera 2 nk focus kat mata sbb aku mak pic sndr..hahaa…Dah abes shot..tngk2 balik kat LCD camera…mate cm lawa plak..hahaha..perasan je kot…iris nmpk jelas n i like it. Since aku nk cm kelainan sket..asek pic kaler je..dah bosan..so..change to B&W gune preset photoshop je. Ape tah name die…silver effect kot..x ingt (mls nk bukan photoshop n tngk). Just 1 click je then..wat sket enhancing eyes bg nmpk sket iris.hehe..cool..semua bnde baru blajo. So enjoy la….