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Better Than Daylight


I do a fair amount of higher ISO rated shooting with my photography these days and there is no doubt that the capacity to which we are capable to shoot this way has literally changed the realm of photography.  Its a game changer as much as roll film or Polaroids or the advent of digital photography.

Camera sensors are rated for a range of sensitivity and my Nikon D700 shoots from 200ISO through 6400ISO. Then you have the option of pushing beyond the sensor’s ratings into “High ISO” or, essentially, push processing (remember that?).  Push processing was rating film at your camera for underexposure then “pushing” the film back to its original rating during the processing of the negatives. This was tricky to get just right, unless you did the math.  Let’s be honest though, the math sort of ruined the fun and sometimes I’d rather just guess and see what came out the other end. This was akin to shocking your film with a cold water rinse just before the fixing stage or cross-processing chromes in color chemistry. All these options, with so much left to the unknown, often resulted in undesired results, but every once in awhile strange and happy photographs would greet you on the other end.

I know a lot of photographers that wont budge over 800ISO on their fancy pro DSLRs.  Three years ago I was more inclined to agree with them as the loss of detail through noise reduction or the overwhelming amount of noise produced in the image made it near impossible to see what was what.   Put simply, as a photographer, all we do is chase the light around.  Today, however, if you’re not venturing down the higher ISO road, you’re missing out on some great light.

I love night photography.   The color cast from lights at night are anything but normal.  The strong shadows and eerie light patterns are a draw to my photographic eye. Normally higher ISO ratings aren’t a necessary tool with night photos, a sturdy tripod is, however, a must have piece of equipment.  My daily tripod is the Manfrotto 3021BPro which is the earlier version of the 055XProB.

The image above (click for a larger view) was shot without a tripod because I can’t find my quick release plate for my tripod head.   I know, I know… =/  so the thought enters my head, lets see what light is out there.   With my D700 and my 70-300VR lens hand-held (lens hood pressed against a glass door) I looked across the backyard, dialed the ISO to High 2 (25,600 ISO, this is two stops above 6400 with each stop acquiring two times as much light), set the aperture to f/11 (the sweet spot on that lens) and the shutter speed to 1/2 seconds.  This metering set is equivalent to 200 ISO, f/11 at a 60 second exposure time (shutter speed).  Keep in mind VR in your lens can compensate the same 2-3 stops regardless of what shutter speed you start from.   I braced myself against the back of a chair for a little extra stability.

B/W picture control was set at the camera. The image was processed through Nik Capture NX2 for sharpening only. NO noise reduction was applied (NR was off in the camera, also).

I don’t normally venture above 6400 ISO on my camera, but i didn’t often cross-process slides either. Some days it just feels right to be a little abnormal.

Go shoot something differently tomorrow.

Get outside your comfort zone.

___________________

John Scott



Spring Expo Starts Tomorrow

So, tomorrow is day 1 (or, for you Carmel shoppers, the only day) for this year’s Spring Expo. For those who’ve never been to one, twice a year we have a whole gaggle of our reps come in to our local brick-and-mortar Indianapolis stores and show off all their stuff, answer your questions, etc… Generally it’s a good time to get to try out some rare equipment you might not get to see on shelves normally (like Leica’s line-up, Olympus’ Top Pro Lenses, Nikon and Canon’s tilt shifts, etc).

And of course there’ll be specials, deals, sales, limited offers, you name it bouncing around, too, and I’ll be posting some of those on our homepage tomorrow. There’ll be buyers on hand to relieve you of old equipment and liberate some funds for shiny new toys, if you’re so inclined. It is spring, after all, out with the old, in with the new.

This time around you’ll be able to chat with reps for Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, Manfrotto, Gitzo, Elinchrom, Sandisk, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Hoya, Tenba, Lowepro, ThinkTank Photo, Lastolite, Avenger, Mamiya, Leica, Skooba, Induro, Kingston, Westcott, and more.

Expo is at our downtown store Friday and Saturday April 23 and 24 from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm. It’ll be at our Carmel store Friday only 5:00 until 7:30 pm.



Tripods and Pinched Fingers

So, as my co-worker beside me works on finding a tripod for a customer who insists on flip-locks over twist locks, I thought I should take a moment to talk about my thoughts on these two popular ways of telescoping tripod legs.

Twist locks are actually my preferred method, I find them faster, more comfortable, and considerably less likely to end in me yelling profanities after catching some soft, fleshy bit of my finger in a lever of DOOM.

However, some people have had problems with over-tightening twist locks, which strips them and makes keeping their camera tripods upright a very difficult chore. Flip locks are much more difficult to do this with, in general you set the initial tension to the right level and then it’s either on or off.

Maybe I just don’t trust flip locks because I’ve had the mechanism inside them snap while pulling the level down, which made me quite unhappy. I don’t tend to be much of an over-powering dude, so I’ve never killed a twist lock. To each their own, though.

If you like twist locks, Induro and Gitzo are big into those.
If you like flip locks, why not peep out some Bogen Manfrotto tripods, or maybe some Sliks?



Did We Mention We’re Having an Expo?

Spring Expo 2009

Spring Expo 2009

So, I somehow miraculously keep not mentioning this, but the 24th and 25th this month at or two Indianapolis (area) stores is our annual Spring Expo. We’re going to have most anybody who’s anybody (Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Mamiya, Leica, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Profoto, Induro, PocketWizard, FJ Westcott, RPS Studio, Manfrotto, Gitzo, Lastolite, and on and on and on…) out in our store, showing you the merch. If you’re within traveling distance, it’s really a good time to swing by and give us a visit, because there’re just too many toys to play with. It’s one of the two times a year I get to try one of the f2 constant zooms for my E-3, for instance. (Although, dyed-in-the-wool Oly shooter I am, I think I’ll step down and play some with the A900 and some Zeiss lenses and with Nikon’s under-rated D700, both of which are systems I’d have in a giant rolling case if my pay-grade allowed for it.)

I’m sure specials will abound as well, and for those of you who unfortunately can’t come out and see us I’ll be mirroring as much of them as humanly possible on our website as well, so remember to swing by the site that weekend and check on that equipment you’ve been scrounging for (and maybe some you didn’t know you needed, occupational hazzard).



Buy Something Cool, Get Something Useful

Christmas shopping is down to the final week, and I just remembered that we have a special coming to a close at the end of this month. No no, this is good, listen:

You buy one of a selection of Kata’s DR-465 Rucksack (available in several colors, including the one pictured here)

Kata Digital Rucksack

We’ll include this free Manfrotto monopod (yup, Manfrotto, maker of fine camera tripods).

Manfrotto Monopod

There you go. I just made everything easy. Buy the bag for yourself, give the monopod to someone you love (if that happens to also be yourself, don’t worry, we won’t tell.) Is the monopod as good as a Trekpod? Well, not entirely, but heck, it’s free, and free is the best price.



It’s EXPO!

EXPO 2008

It’s Expo here at Roberts. Well, today and tomorrow anyway. Our sales floor is busy busy buzzing with activity and darn near everybody is down there. The list of manufacturers with representatives 10 feet below me as we speak is over 30 now. We’ve converted many of our sales displays downstairs, draped them in brightly colored cloths and buried them under Canon digital SLR cameras, PowerShot digital cameras, Nikon digital SLR cameras, a rainbow of Nikon Coolpix Cameras, and Sony digital cameras of all sorts.

Olympus is down there, and I had to stop and chat with them and try some of their f2 constant glass on my E-3 Olympus digital camera. And, bonus for you guys: they’ve loaned me a 1050SW so we can make a Raw Footage showing you just what sets the SW line apart from others.

If you’re eyeing any camera tripods (Bogen Manfrotto tripods, sturdy Induro tripods, the niftiness that are the Trek-Tech Trekpods, you name it) you’ll find the best help in the area.

Mac Group is down there with popular digital camera accessories, including Sekonic light meters, PocketWizards, and the ColorMunki (which I use for my own laptop’s color calibration.)

Professional studio lighting more your cuppa (you can keep it, my current cuppa is a nice mellow Juan Valdez Colina), Profoto and Elinchrom are down there, as is Lastolite for you lighting accessory needs.

And video! I almost forgot our Canon video rep is down there next to a case full of shiny HD camcorders and a few odd professional camcorders.

Bottom line, if you’re in the Indy are– heck, central Indiana period– and you aren’t here, well…THEN YOU’RE IN LUCK! We’re doing it again tomorrow. Don’t miss out.



Getting Us Ready

Expo 2008

Hey everyone, I’m here at the desk with a special Saturday installment of my Out of Focus blog. We survived Black Friday and the dangers of Thanksgiving dinners (beware the food comas, I tell ya). And, we’re not done yet. Coming up this week we’re having our annual Fall Expo, where you’ll find continued specials as well as several extraordinary new ones. I know, I’ve been looking over the ads here. Plus, for those of you in the Indianapolis area, you can come in next week and get your hands on a lot of the hottest items in photography this year, including the best Canon lenses, the new constant aperture Nikon lenses, the blue, red, and black G1 Panasonic digital cameras, Sony camcorders, Profoto professional studio lighting, Bogen Manfrotto tripods, Gitzo camera tripods, and way more than I even have space to plug here.

I’ve got a busy plate of homepage ads sitting here, so be sure you check back every day this next week because our homepage will feature different highlighted products and specials each day.



Computer: Fire my Canon

Wired has this. It’s from Rob Galbraith’s site. And, darn it, we’re not going to miss out on talking about it, either. It seems there’ll be some software coming out next month that’ll let you Windows shooters using Canon’s software for tethered shooting to work it by imitating Star Trek captains. No, really. It uses WIndows voice recognition system built-into Windows, and then it uses that to operate the Canon software. The catch? You have to preface all commands with “Computer.” I mean, check out the video:


One of the people here in the office asked us why this’d be useful. Well, other than the ‘awesome’ factor of telling your camera what to do in the most literal way to date, how about the following:

You’re in your studio, your professional studio lighting glaring away like an artifical sun (assuming artificial suns have modeling lamps, that is). Your EOS is on your camera tripod (perhaps one of those Bogen Manfrotto tripods). You’ve got it pointed where you need it, but you’re not sure where you want your lights pointed and your model is getting impatient. Then, in a burse of inspiration, you run your video out to a TV so you can monitor shots in real time and you run over to your lights. You move one and shout for the computer to fire, which it does. You check. Too dark. You tell it to change your aperture and fire again. Perfect. Instant feedback with hands-free operation? Put me down for that.



Quick Release Camera Straps

So, I just finished working on a web ad for the D700 Nikon digital SLR camera, and I was taking a breather and fiddling over my much loved E-3 Olympus digital camera. using live view to explore under my desk, and I noticed the little quick release connects for my strap and thought to myself “Aha! Story time!”

Quick Release Connectors
So, I rooted through my bag and realized I’d forgotten the strap itself at home. Sooo, I journeyed down to our sales floor and grabbed a new Tamrac Boomerang strap off a shelf. Now, I’m not a fan of camera straps, using them only in a transport capacity more than a carry around one, but I did feel it worth upgrading my stock camera strap to one of these. Why? Quick releases.

Also among the things I hate, as a few of you early readers might remember, are tripods. So, whenI have to use a tripod (like the Bogen Manfrotto tripods I use for some of my blog shots) and have my camera strap dangling in the way, getting caught on crank levers and under the ball head, well, you can just imagine my frustrations. So, quick releases. Right near the camera, this strap has two heavy plastic snap buckles. A good pinch and there we go! No more annoying camera strap. This is far superior to the more traditional approach. You know the one:

Quick Release, Wide Shot“OK, so, I think this threads through here, and then I, wait, yeah, I put it through that bit there, and then up and… wait, down? Aaaaargh!”

No more of that for me. Click. Snap. Happy.



Vacations are great!

Well I was off all last week so if you missed I’m sorry. I spent a week in sunny, warm and wonderful Florida. My parents live on the gulf side right on the Suawnee River, and my daughter lives on the Atlantic side in Port St. Lucie (about 40 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale) and I divided my time between them (and in the car) all the while clicking away with my trusty Stylus 1030SW Olympus digital camera. The 1030SW is a 10.1 megapixel camera, and shock and waterproof, plus it will operate down to 14 degrees. Thankfully I didn’t have to test the low tempeture capibility.
Before we headed home we went up the coast with our daughter to New Smyrna Beach just south of Daytona.
While I was on New Smyrna Beach I clicked off a few shots using my camera tripod, one of the little Bogen Manfrotto Tripods to be exact, and did a lot of hand held shootiong as well. I even got the camera in the salty water a few times with full confidence that it would continue to produce wonderful images. I have a few shot I think I’ll let the lab guys put on some Epson wide format paper after they pull them off my Sandisk Cards (yes they sell xD memory cards too). Below is a full frame and zoomed in close up I shot with that little Olympus digital camera.
sea gull full frameThe full frame (corrected for horizon a little).
Hand held and zoomed in, otherwise not modified. I like my Stylus 1030SW Olympus digital camera. A lot! It was perfect for this vacation.




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