MORE MINIMALISM...

Yet more downsizing...

Another quickie post, on a theme I've followed before.

Below are two D3S bodies, with Nikon Speedlights (OK, flashguns!) attached. One has my SB900 attached, the other the SB700.

D3S plus SB900, left, and D3S plus SB 700.

Notice a difference?

The SB900 is a huge piece of equipment. I'm not the first to suggest that it unbalances even the big, weighty D3 and D4 pro bodies.

Nikon's SB700, as you can see, is significantly smaller. It's not actually that much lighter, but it has such a more compact, lower profile that it feels tiny in comparison. Even the big camera bodies feel much more wieldy with it attached compared to its bigger brother.

There are a few differences;
the SB700 can't take an external power pack (I've stopped using these anyway because of the already fast recycle time of the newer flashes)
SB700 can't run mixed manual/TTL remote flashes, though it can at least act as a master/commander.

And it's about 1/2 stop less powerful.  Yep, ONLY about 1/2 stop.

As an on-camera unit, this one makes far more sense, most of the time, than the SB900.

And it's usefully cheaper, too.

Minimalist Marvel...

Downsizing isn't always bad...

My 3+ year-old MacBook has finally been replaced.

It's been my work machine for that time. Although I have a "works PC", it is a PC, is slow, minimally specc'ed and pretty much unused and unloved. I must be mad using my own kit but at least I do have stuff that does the required business. Happy photographer = creative photographer, I've found...

The old machine wasn't cutting edge when I bought it in April 2009. A 2Ghz dual-core processor, 160gb hard drive and 2gb of RAM, in the then-new aluminium unibody. I upgraded the RAM to the max 4gb via crucial.co.uk and it was used for editing, captioning, transmitting and pretty much everything else after that. Using Photo Mechanic and Lightroom 2, then latterly Aperture 3, it did everything I needed as a press photographer. Reliably, too, day after day.

If I shot JPEG.

As I began to swap to raw shooting around 18 months ago, it became clear that it was, if not struggling, then at least working very hard on these big files. I evolved a way of working that eased the pressure a bit (import JPEGs, select from these, use that selection to import just those raws) but knew that when the AppleCare expired I'd have to think about a replacement.

I had to wait a bit, as the rumour'ed new MacBook Pro and Air models took a while longer to arrive than I'd hoped, but they turned up in mid-June. Decisions, decisions...

It took me several weeks of checking, thinking and visits to Apple Stores. I'd read other photographers' very positive reviews and opinions of older versions of the Air and the new versions were more powerful. Was the screen big enough? Did I need to have a bigger hard drive? Apple had also launched the first MacBook  Pro with Retina display, and that was tempting for a while.  But I finally chose the smallest. 

Here's my new 11.6" MacBook Air.

MacBook Air 11.6". Dwarfed by the 27" iMac sitting some way behind it.

More after the break...

Apple: some love...

(Not strictly photography related, this...)

Let's get one thing straight from the outset; Apple (the makers of computer and IT hardware and software) are not perfect.

No human endeavour is. And the computing industry is no exception. In fact, you could argue that it can never be, as too many disparate parts - particularly on the software side - are jammed together and expected to work.

For example, I got caught out briefly when the Aperture 3.4 update was released. As many found, once  the update was applied, Aperture simply crashed on launch. As this was the copy on my MacBook Air,  the daily machine, I spent an hour's cursing at 6.00 in the morning trashing and reinstalling the programme, then reapplying the update. It did work after that and I additionally discovered how to use the Remote Disc facility on the iMac! Apple did correct that error within the day. There have been other niggles, too.

So not perfect.

But they do make a far better fist of things than many. Because they are a HARDWARE company as well as a software one, sometimes their innovations, or new adaptions of existing technology, have caught the public's imagination in a way that those others can only dream about. And sometimes it's just looking at what's available and trying a redesign.

Here's what I'm working up to:

The Apple Earphones...

Headphone Heaven. Four different sets of earphones that I've tried recently.

Now, I'm no audiophile. I like my music, such as it is, though, and I do like to be able to listen in privacy and comfort.

In the image above are, bottom left, the Apple Ear Buds. These have come with just about every iPod and iPhone since they first appeared.

My problem is, although they sound OK, they don't stay in my ears! This shape is typical of most earpieces, so they all do it.

Just above them are the Apple In-Ear headphones. At £60, these aren't cheap. They do sound good, and block out more outside noise.

...But like most of this breed, I find them uncomfortable for any length of time. And they still don't stay in my ears well!

Above those are a recent purchase, the Sennheiser on-ear headphones. These sound good, can be worn comfortably by me for ages and stay put. But they aren't very convenient to carry because of their bulk and, let's face it, they're not very discreet, either.

Then the iPhone 5 was launched. And it seems I'm not the only one who has the same issue with ear-bud and in-ear headphones. Apple looked at the design and came up with the new Ear Pod. That's them, on the right.

These sound good (really pretty good, actually!). They stay in place. I can wear them for extended periods of time. They are more discreet.

And best of all, they're £25.

A redesign of an common idea. A unique shape
and one that I can actually, finally, wear for long
periods of time. Oh, and £25.

Two Towers...

A quickie post. This to illustrate why press photographers often say we aren't specialists; we have to be able to get something from anything. It might not be great, but it will pretty much always be useable...

The brief here was to photograph two blocks of luxury flats, built on St Mary's Island, Chatham. One is still empty, despite being completed for some years now...

From the list, the newsdesk had already decided the shot needed to be after dark to show the lights on in one, the other dark.

1) Look at time it will be done (earlier jobs on list) - will miss twilight and sky colour, which means it could be a dark building against a dark sky. Grrrr...
2) Check forecast. Aha, yes!! Cloudy evening forecast! It's not quite the same, but I'll be grateful for light pollution today, as there's a good chance the clouds will be lit up by the town lights below.
3) Find a location. Not too difficult, the buildings can be seen in their entirety from St Mary's Island proper, looking back into the mainland.
4) Arrive at gone 7.30pm. It's cold. Grab coat, torch, tripod and kit.
5) Set up, right by the water's edge, Camera D3S, lens 24-70 f2.8. ISO set to 400, aperture to f5.6. Focus camera, turn focusing off.
6) Stand and look at scene and camera settings, say "Meh! Start at 10 seconds..."
7) Set self-timer on camera (to minimise vibration) and press the button.
8) Watch image pop up on LCD screen. Smile to self. Pretty close from the outset...

Anything else was just adjusting the shutter speed/aperture combination to give slightly darker or lighter images choices, plus upright and view versions.

St Mary's Island Apartments.
Enough light reflecting back from the clouds to see the buildings on their own, yet also see that one is lit, the other
not. And all surrounded by the lights of Chatham Maritime.
Nikon D3S, 24-70 f2.8 AFS, 15 seconds, f7.1, ISO 400. Tripod. With a mix of lights,
I let the Auto White Balance do its thing and decided I rather liked what it had made of the scene...

More GLOWing boxing...

Here's a further small selection of images from the boxing tournament at the Glow Arena at the Bluewater shopping complex, held on 13th October.

Technically, as I've noted already, the TV lights made things a bit easier than the amateur tournaments I've done up til now. These are often in very gloomy school sports halls with the ISO jammed against the upper reaches of even a D3. Here at Glow, with the TV lights, ISOs were a slightly more sensible 2500/3200, which is well within the capability of the D3S bodies I have now. Exposure was 1/640th at f4 on the 24-70, for just a little helpful depth of field. I also used my 70-200, but this lens, truth be told, is a little darker than the nominal f2.8, so I used f3.5 and the higher of the ISO settings.

White balance was also fairly simple, though I still tweaked the raw files for skin tone. A couple of quick snaps of my hand suggested the Tungsten preset, with a little extra warming (A2?) dialled in. This gave me reasonable Jpegs out of camera, though a fully-custom white balance is the way to go if shooting 'peg exclusively.

The AF setting was Continuous, with a point set which is off-centre, and used this way from previous experience. I'm not sure if this is the way the boxing "regulars' work, but it's what seems to do for me. What you do is keep the off-centre point over the boxer on that side, assuming they are broadly parallel to you, and let the camera do it's thing.  9 or 21 Point selection was active here. I might try the 3D option at the next amateur bout and see how that will work. But for now I stuck with what I was familiar with and knew did work OK.

I'm still not sure I rate Pro boxing very much. It's not a sport I seek out on TV, for example. The much longer bouts of the main events, 12 rounds, seemed to drag and just give shot after shot that looked, well, the same. Although I had over 2300 images by the end of the evening, I found I was shooting much more sparingly by the final headline fight. Amateur boxing, with its head-guards, short bouts and less "cuddling" between boxers (less blood, too...) seems much more interesting to me. It doesn't attract the big bucks, of course...

Right. Enough techie stuff. The pictures...

Lenny Daws, left, fights Ville Piispanen for the vacant EU Super Lightweight Championship.
D3S, 24-70 at 32mm. The wider shots looked nice, with the lights putting the ring brighter than the
rest of the hall. School sports hall lighting just can't do this, so I don't shoot the very wide images there.

More after the break...

The GLOW of boxing...

A quickie post...

The Bluewater shopping centre in Kent hosted a series of boxing matches on Saturday 13th October, in the complex's new Glow Arena. The event was headlined and topped off by James DeGale's defence of his EBU Super Middleweight title and so I took up my ringside position for the evening, and tried to remember how to shoot the sport.

I've only shot amateur boxing until now, in gloomy school sports halls, so this televised event meant that there was actually some decent lighting...

Here's a picture from a fight earlier in the evening, with local boxer Adam Dinsdale, from Hoo, up against Ibrar Riyaz.

Adam Dinsdale, right, from Hoo, Kent, on his way to beating Ibrar Riyaz in this lightweight bout.
Nikon D3S, 1/640th @ f4,  24-70 f2.8AFS at 70mm, 2500ISO.

More pics to follow in a few days.

Summer of Sport, Pt 2...

Or, " You shall go to the Olympics..!"

OK, I confess to being something of an Olympo-sceptic on the build-up to London 2012.

Various ministers trying to claim the event was under-budget, the seemingly totalitarian powers granted to LOCOG, the enforcement of Olympic branding restrictions to a stupid degree (Little Chef's Olympic Breakfast, available for many years, for heaven's sake!), latterly even the abject failure of private company G4S to understand what it needed to do to fulfil it's contracted security commitments...

I thought the Torch Relay around the UK was over-egged, but sitting on the back of the media bus showed me that plenty of people were really looking forward to the event, and my mood began to shift.

Then there was Danny Boyle's truly wonderful opening ceremony, Jacques Rogge's very generous opening speech, the Queen and 007 "parachuting" into the show and suddenly it was clear the bulls**t had stopped and London 2012 was going to be fantastic. Even the weather, pretty dire through spring and summer, largely cooperated!

And the medals started to come. Women's events are the biggest growth area of sport and  fittingly it was the Team GB women who put the first ones on the board, with Lizzie Armitstead's cycling silver and Becky Adlington's swimming bronze. Then rowers Heather Stanning and Helen Glover won the coxless pairs for the first GB gold. The men stepped up, and Team GB ended in third place in the medal table, remarkable for a tiny island with a (still) relatively small population.

Then it was the turn of the Paralympians to take the stage.

And here, I actually got to see some London 2012 action, when I hadn't been expecting to do so...

More after the break.

Tuesday free practice, D3S plus 300 f2,8 and TC14EII (=420mm), pretty much the combination used for most of
my time, unless it was a close-in shot or obviously a wide angle view.

Summer of Sport, Pt. 1

Every year, there is an event called the British Transplant Games, where those who have undergone transplant surgery take part in sporting events as a celebration of the life that's been given to them by medicine.

This year, with London 2012 hitting the headlines and keying the nation up for sport, Medway hosted the transplant games based around Medway Park in Gillingham, slotted in between the Olympics and the Paralympics at the end of August.

It would be wrong to say that this was high calibre competition, even if many were willing to approach the games seriously. Indeed, many were still clearly unwell from their traumas. It was probably best described as a Hospitals' Sports Day.

But as I said, when you think that many of those taking part owed their lives to the transplant they had undergone, then it was a great celebration of new life.

Sadly, the biggest disappointment was a near-complete lack of interest on behalf of the national media. On the two days I was there, there was no sign of any other photographer except me, and the games' own...

Maisie Danher, 7, in the Children's Obstacle Race.
Nikon D3S, 300mm f2.8 + TC14EII (= 420mm), 1/500th f4.0, 8000 ISO.
Thank heavens for D3S. Medway Park is not *cough* the brightest of venues, though at least the lights are
"simple" for colour temperature. Who thought painting the walls lurid "hospital green"
(thanks, T, for that description!) was a good idea, though...?

MAGICAL MYSTERY TORCH...

July 20th, 2012, and the Olympic Torch relay leaves Maidstone for the Medway Towns, bright and early for 07.50hrs in Gillingham.

Logistically, I understand this all was a nightmare to sort out, with much of the final detail being confirmed only as the day was going on. The paper had committed itself to a magazine-style special, to be on sale on Saturday morning, which meant a 2.00pm deadline that afternoon for the last day in Kent. Which sounds OK until you understand that the photographers were often also having to taxi colleagues as they leapfrogged from area to area, before then getting down to taking more pictures.

My own brief, evolving throughout the week, was as follows: at 07.50hrs, the torch would begin it's formal relay from Canterbury Street, Gillingham and I would be strapped to the media bus, running ahead of the bearers, from here until the relay left the towns on Gravesend Road, Strood at 09.34hrs. Then I would be picked up (by varying people until that morning!), ferried into Gravesend where I would be in the crowd as it passed, then meet a reporter to head to Brands Hatch together. At Brands Hatch there would be a photocall involving a Paralympic cyclist and a representative from the British Superbike Championship, racing there over the weekend. This was timed for 11.16hrs.

Now, as you can see, I was a long way away from my car, which worried me on two counts; one, that I was in the hands of others for transport from Strood to Gravesend to Brands and then finally back to my car at Gillingham, and two, I would have to decide, well beforehand, what I was carrying with me, as I would have to carry it with me...

On Boley Hill, Rochester, and probably one of my favourite images from the day.
Check out her expression...  D3S, 24-70 f2.8 at 60mm'ish, 1/800th f5.6, ISO 320.

More after the break...

Faces...

Don't forget the people.

It's men and women who race cars and bikes; they are the ones who give the machine heart and speed. Anything else is simply design and manufacture, no matter how fine.

Luciano Bacheta (GBR), FIA Formula 2 Championship 2012. The points leader
signing autographs at Brands Hatch, Kent, on Sunday 15th July. He seemed a
little awkward, looking around him as though he was uncomfortable to
be there.  And he is only 22, after all. I wasn't in his face here, either, when he
made eye contact - it was worth standing 15 feet away waiting for gaps in the crowd
surrounding the drivers just for the defocussed background.
 Nikon D3S, 300mm f2.8VR plus 1.4x converter (= 420mm),
1/200th @ f4.5, ISO160.

HOW LOW DO YOU GO?

RagSnapper had a rare Saturday available for a change so I went to the first day of the HSCC Historic Superprix at Brands Hatch, as well as the usual Sunday, with a view to creating some "art"on the first day. Working for a newspaper (especially a local one) can drag you into bad habits, one of which is you give up shooting certain images because you know "they won't run that..."

Playing around with the views and different focal lengths out on the GP circuit, it was good to just experiment again with tilts, leans and particularly, ultra-slow shutter speeds.

The secret weapon I now have to hand is a 2-Stop Neutral Density filter, in 52mm thread, which screws into the slot-in filter holder in my Nikkor 300mm f2.8. (ND filter - basically, just cuts down the volume of light transmitted through it). Straight away, even in sunshine, this means I can use 1/30sec at Lo-1 (call it ISO100) on my D3S bodies. Without the filter there's too much light and not enough small apertures available to give really slow speeds if the sun shines.

The downside is that you'll still get small apertures - f16+ - with the sun out, which means some diffraction degradation of image quality...

...and every last little dust spot on the sensor becomes very visible...!!

Peter Williams, March 78B, Historic Formula 2 qualifying.  Nicely sharp on the driver's helmet.
Nikon D3S, Lo-0.7 (ISO125),  1/30th @ f8, 300mm f2.8 + 1.4x converter (= 420mm lens). Shot out at Hawthorns corner. (not Westfield as I first posted - my fault, couldn't recall corner names!). This is a shot spectators can get without a media pass - I was perhaps 10ft closer, but there's much less fencing out on Brands' GP circuit. It is a bit of a hike, though...

The images made from here required some anticipation and learning, as the cars appear suddenly in sight and the lens needs to be swung smartly to keep them this tightly framed. I started on 600mm (300 + 2x), realised that I wanted the barrier at the bottom to show more and also that I was struggling to frame up that tightly, so went back out to 420mm. As usual, make sure you shoot a lot as this is not an exact science. Just to illustrate: I never did get one I was happy with of polesitter (and race winner) Martin Stretton from here. He was visibly travelling faster through Hawthorns and I just could not frame him properly!

More images after the break...

I THINK I'M IN LOVE....

...with this...

Nissan GT-R (I keep calling it the Skyline but it's not, anymore), run by RJN Motorsport and the winner of yesterday's British GT Championship race at Brands Hatch, by 0.022 sec (a bonnet length!) after two hours of racing...

Nissan GT-R GT3, at Surtees Bend, and just heading out onto the Brands Hatch GP loop.
Nikon D3S, 300mm f2.8 + TC14E converter (420mm equiv), 1/250th at f8, ISO 100 (Lo-1 on a D3S)
Raw file as usual now, processed in Aperture 3.3 but very little other than a modified Auto-Enhance and
Sharpening applied.

The car was driven by Alex Buncombe and a young lad called Jann Mardenborough. Google his name, and you find that last year he was a Gran Turismo player until he qualified for and won the GT Academy, set up by game-maker Sony and Nissan. A year later, he's winning races...

Alex Buncombe, left, and Jann Mardenborough celebrate with traditional Champagne on the top step of the podium.
Mardenborough was "just" a video gamer until he was selected for, and won the Sony/Nissan GT Academy last year.

Red, White and Jubilee Blues

After last year's Wills and Kate wedding, this year it was the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II which tested the nation's media cliches to breaking point...   :)

Once again, it looked like street parties all around if you weren't fortunate (unlucky?) enough to be working for a national or an agency, like Tabascokid. With four days of festivities over the weekend, plus a week-long build-up in schools and clubs, it also looked like a slog. I was allowed the Sunday off, but this was a week of long days and a loooong weekend otherwise. A lot of extra work was done - I personally filed 25% more images per day over the 7 "Jubilee" days.

The problem with street parties, nowadays, is that people don't associate with their neighbours so much (this is a polite way of putting it!). The gut feeling amongst my colleagues after last year's royal wedding knees-up was that it was like turning up to a succession of family barbecues to get pictures... Even with the roads closed, families were just sitting in little groups or in their front gardens.

However, perhaps it's the practice we've all had now but this year didn't seem quite so bad. There was, I think, a missed opportunity for me locally, with an excellent "500 Years of History" parade (yay, not a street party!) from local groups on the Saturday that I should have been able to spend longer at, and get there earlier, but with the piclist I had it wasn't to be. Once again, after the jubilee was all done I wasn't really happy with what I had shot and filed, either.

But, with a week's distance from the actual moment of pressing the shutter release, there's a few images that I'm now warming to, and hopefully you'll like too...

Kids in Schools... With the jubilee a part of the National Curriculum, the primary schools
were all holding events of one sort or another. I'll not put names here, or locations, just in
case. We have to have permissions for photography in schools, and it's a nightmare elsewhere.
I still believe the obsession with kiddy-pix vs paranoid child-protection concerns is a minefield
newspapers (local ones particularly) have not yet properly addressed - not the least because editors
are expecting (demanding) to have them, but you try finding somebody to give
parental permission at a street party...

Face-painted. This school had been making crowns as part of their take on the monarchy
and its history.

Behind a cake at a street party. I had to get her to hold still to line it up, as the wind, light and point of view
weren't co-operating. Luckily, she understood from a distance and held her pose...

At the 500 Years of History parade, a bystander becomes a subject himself. Warwick Neech captures memories in Tunstall Road as the groups go past. I could (should) have spent longer here, and arrived earlier - I got there just as the parade was moving off, but had to leave before it reached it's destination. Note to stewards: a somewhat offhand "Better late than never", when I rush up and ask what the route will be, is not a good phrase to use when my picture list is as busy as it was...

Part of the build-up in the week before; a 40's and 50's - themed jubilee tea party with a singer, Annie Love, at the Leysdown Over 60's club.  Rose Overland as a Pearly Queen sings a duet. Shot at a slow shutter speed with them walking and me moving to keep up; as is the random nature of such things, the singer is sharp but the Pearly Queen has some movement. She's sharp enough, thanks to the flash, for me to like it.

A Jubilee Fish and Chip supper at The Freedom Centre, Sheerness; a meeting place for those with disabilities to socialise and get creative with art and games. Claire Barnes in patriotic garb and gear. 

Young DJ at a Street Party on the Saturday, under a Union flag gazebo. This was the best picture from this job, and pretty much the only one that I took a liking to on the day itself...

A young man makes a draw at a game at another street party on the Monday. 

And finally, the traditional street party table. Not a great pic, but one I was pleased to get, as I wasn't seeing this anywhere else...  Whilst it might jam the kids and food closer together, I think the pics from the 50's coronation celebrations work better as their parties were mostly only one table wide...

"Multi Meeja"

(Updated: corrected some layout errors; and a clarification - this isn't "new" to the world of photography. A/V is what it's been known as in the past (multi-media is just a catchy phrase used by suits and others who want to to appear trendy and cutting edge) but it is new to me. It's also, despite it's trendy title, still rare in local media...)


Apologies for the blog posts being very thin on the ground over the last few weeks. I know that all seven of you ;-) miss these words of wisdom (!!) but I tend to write if I have something to write about, rather than thinking “I must post” and looking for a subject. Perhaps that needs to change.

However, here’s a little something that’s been bubbling under for a while...

Those of us in the photographic section of the media know that there’s been much talk about the growth of video and other media in our job specifications. A growing on-line presence - necessary because of the decline in newsprint itself - means that the Powers That Be have latched onto the moving image because of the web’s ability to play such things.

There is evidence about which shows that things aren’t as simple as “shoot a video, people will watch it”, and I speak from personal experience when I say that I’m not a big web news-video watcher. It needs to be REALLY, REALLY eyecatching or a big story to make me hit “play”. It seems that still images can be assimilated quickly whereas, even with short video clips, the viewer is at the mercy of the shooter/editor for the length of time they must watch to get the gist of the information.

And of course, there are the local issues, such as how are the huge files generated by video actually sent around (if you don’t have one of the TV companies’ satellite vans), who is putting these together, who is posting them and who, given the local snapper is frequently covering many jobs a day, is actually shooting the footage? I personally believe that if I’m shooting video, I’m missing out on stills and vice-versa when my days are so busy. You end up covering neither base in a satisfactory manner.

I’m also not sure every stills photographer is a cinematographer, and every movie cameraman a stills snapper either - there are some similarities but many, many differences. I remain unconvinced that grabbing quick clips on an HDSLR will make the grade, quality wise, sufficiently to satisfy the viewer or the shooter too. Much more time needs to be devoted to lighting, for one thing.

But a SLIDESHOW, a multi-media blending of stills and sound (and maybe those short video clips)? Now, that might be worth trying...

More, including a very-much-Mark-One effort, after the break...

FLASH!! AAaaAarghhh!!!

(Sorry...)

One of the things that puzzles non-photographers, and causes much apprehension amongst new photographers, is the deployment of a flashgun or two, even in "bright light". Watch the frowns and head-tilts as you put a Speedlight on your camera when "it's sunny, what's the problem?"

It's one of the things (I'm told) that isn't taught well, if at all, at colleges, and thus becomes a mountain to climb when faced with the real world and its frequent lack of "good" available light. There's often plenty of light washing about, sure, but if you are trying to make an image for a newspaper, the aim is always to think "tight and bright" first. (Even if we might mentally add "and sh*te!" to that...)

Luckily, the 'net can come to the rescue with a wealth of information now on-line, from people who have made a career from doing good lighting. I certainly owe pretty much all I know about Flash; Use Of, to the blogs of David Hobby and Joe McNally. You can do a lot worse, if you are new to the idea of lighting being something you need to manage, of reading Strobist's Lighting 101 and 102.

And you do need to manage it, as a jobbing pro, because you are expected to come back with something satisfactory from every job.

One of the greatest things to learn about flash is that there are always two exposures taking place; one for the flash itself, and one for whatever ambient may be about. Appreciate this for the first time, and you suddenly open up some creative doors...

A London Marathon runner, Jodie Allchin, photographed at The Leas, Minster. There are two exposures in operation here;

One, the ambient, was deliberately underexposed by one stop, which cut down the glare of the concrete and improved the detail in the sky. This left her face and t-shirt (important because of the charity element) a bit dark - though the bright concrete actually gave back some helpful fill-in through reflection - so an SB900 was deployed, feathered off so that it wasn't aimed straight at her, running at +1.0 EV (I think!). The feathering means the light that hits her isn't quite so harsh, as her face is lit by the more diffuse edges of the flash beam. It's only a small difference, but in the absence of, say, a softbox it does help a bit.

More after the break.

D4 Pondering, Part 2, and more...

(Even less sure, now...)

(Usual Disclaimer: No, I still haven't got hands-on with one. This further ramble is based on what I read from sensible pro-users and commentators around the 'net. I think I'd still like one, but...)

A bit more information has come to light since I wrote my first pondering on the new Nikon D4, though the actual launch date has been pushed back into March since I wrote the post. Nikon have possibly discovered something they want to correct when the pre-production samples were getting their work-out here, and here, for example. Or maybe they wish to build up launch stock availability. Either way, I don't think this is any big deal.

However, what seems to be clear (or becoming clearer) is that the overall image quality is a "D3s but with more pixels". I did ponder this and decided that it was a possibility (though I bottled it and plumped for "more like D3"...!!!!), though Nikon still don't say this outright. But various commentators who have seen images side by side from the D3s and D4 say they couldn't be more similar.

Which strongly suggests two things: one; that Nikon have managed to increase the resolution without increasing noise and other issues with their flagship sensor, and two; just how extraordinary the D3s sensor was at launch in 2009, and how good it remains.

Nikon D3s.
I've not much use for Nik Color Efex Pro 3; I have it because it was cheaper to buy the complete set of products than pick the ones I do use (Dfine, Sharpener and Silver Efex) but here I've had a play around to be a little creative with what is, really, a dull image to illustrate the page. Shot on my D3 with 60mm Micro, the raw is processed with the Polaroid Transfer preset, then the Pro Contrast preset, in Color Efex 3. There's a small levels adjustment to lift the whites slightly.

More after the break...

D4 Ponderings...

Talking myself out of one (or not..?)

(Disclaimer 1: yes, I do want one. There are the usual Internet freaks chipping into forums with their usual stupid comments about price-point, resolution, touch-screen and other such nonsense. Ignore them. They aren't photographers.)

(Disclaimer 2: This is based on specs and rational articles published on the web, plus familiarity with the D3 series, but not hands-on experience - as yet*)

*I've used Nikon for over 30 years, but I was first introduced to a modern Pro body by my local camera shop when I was part-time snapping. This was the very excellent F5 and my retailer knew his man. I'd popped in to see about some used lenses and he just put one into my hands. Two weeks later I had one...

That was '98; I added another in 2000, and it was the experience gained making good and full use of them - plus the fact that F5's were far more capable than the typical local press snappers issue - that helped get me the full-time job.  Since then, Digital has matured, and I've had D1, D2 (H, X and XS) and now D3 and 3s. Sadly, the issue kit didn't keep up. After D1, D2X/XS it dried up; although the two D300 I had were nice cameras the D7000 I also have now, as I have mentioned elsewhere, isn't in the same league. Image-wise it's fine. But then, so were the pics out of my F90X back in '98...  The body can make a difference.

More after the break