Noah Hayes Photography

Moving Day

2009-04-01T20:12:00.003-04:00

I'm excited to share with you my new blog site at http://www.noahhayesphoto.com

I've been working on it for a few weeks now, and as ironic as it is to launch it on April Fools Day, it's not a joke! Hope to see you soon at my new online blogging home!

Fun with the 85 f/1.4

2009-03-11T23:34:00.005-04:00

About two weeks ago I rented a lens I'm considering purchasing, the Nikon 85mm f/1.4 D, and it is a BEAUTY! Gorgeous bokeh, razor thin depth of field, amazingly sharp... however I'm gonna hold out for Nikon to release an AF-S version as it is a little slow to focus in low-light (please, Nikon, pretty please release one soon!) This lens is a more than a decade old design, but is absolutely a legend, which is only matched by Canon's 85 f/1.2. I used this lens on a dual portrait session down in old town Leesburg that weekend with two high-school seniors, best-friends: Regina and Natalia. I figured I should upload some of my favorite images from that session, since I'd been slacking on my updates lately. The fully gallery is up on www.noahhayes.net go check it out!

When they leaned up against the door it gave way, totally throwing them off guard...

I jokingly told Regina to grab the mop and mop the alley, but she did anyway and I'm glad because I love these shots!

The Happiest Place on Earth

2009-03-11T22:05:00.013-04:00

Last week I got a chance to go down to Orlando to visit my sister who recently got a job at Disney World in the Magic Kingdom. I've been to Disney a ton before, but had never brought a decent camera on previous trips, so I had to bring my camera along and take some fun photos while hanging out with the fam. Enjoy!

It was pretty cool getting in gratis through the "Cast Member" entrance... almost like be on the VIP list!

Only in Disney could a grown man be caught dead wearing something like this...

They recently updated the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride to include Johnny Depp look-alike animatronics...

Snapped this immediately after a parade, that little flash of white on the "mountain" is the camera flash from the ride as people go down the hill!

By far the most detailed park is The Animal Kingdom... they have a whole area that looks like they imported a whole Nepalese village!

A different view of "Expedition Everest"...

Epcot, home of the iconic geodesic sphere...

Went on a little safari too at The Animal Kingdom! I've been on that ride soooo many times I can quote the entire dialogue...

This really shows how unafraid the animals are of humans. This was taken with a 105VR with NO CROPPING!

UPDATE: Video Parts One and Two Posted!

WPPI - Part 1 of 4 - Who, What, When, Where, Why?

2009-02-24T22:00:00.011-05:00

So if you have been trying to reach but have been unsuccessful this past week, it's because I was in Vegas. No, I didn't go to try and win big or get in a bunch of trouble (and hope it stays in Vegas). I went to WPPI 2009! Wedding and Portrait Photographers International has a yearly convention and trade show with the best in the industry meeting up to discuss every aspect of the business so we can all improve our own work for our clients. This was my first year going, and I'm definitely going again next year (it's in March for anyone who wants to sneak into my luggage). It's so beneficial to see how other photographers work so you can learn little tricks and techniques that you can adapt from to better your own work! Not one photographer in the world is perfect, and even with an industry as old as photography itself, there's ALWAYS more to learn (I try to learn something new every day). Especially now with digital photography, you not only have the technical aspect of lighting and composition, but also have an unbelievable amount of things to learn once you have downloaded those digital negatives into your computer. There's dozens upon dozens of software packages and plugins to choose from when editing your photos, and there a lot of overlap in what they can do. Some programs may do only one thing you might actually use on a regular basis, but to get that one plugin, you might have to buy a whole package of plugins costing over $500+ (this is a plugin for a $500-$1000 application by the way!) I wish clients could both see the level of work that goes into creating a single completed image...but on the other hand, making it all seem so easy is part of the job I guess. Anyway, this is Part 1 of 4 of my extended post on WPPI 09 (I'm breaking them up into smaller chunks so people might actually read them and get what they want instead of having to weed through it all...I tend to ramble! See?)

Part 1: Into to WPPI (what it is, who was there, why it exists, and what I got out of it)
Part 2: The Highlights and Shadows (awesome cool products and services as well as some things that in my opinion should just go away...)
Part 3: Night photoshoot with Bob Davis and friends (gotta take pictures!)
Part 4: First time in Vegas when I brought my SLR...gotta do the tourist thing!

Anyway onto finish Part 1! So what did I specifically get out of WPPI? In a word ALBUMS! I primarily went to WPPI to look into working with some new vendors for both albums and other cool ways of getting my photos into my clients hands. I had prior to last week offered albums but wasn't thrilled with the vendors I was using. I hadn't gotten a chance to actually get my hands on a huge variety of company's products, so I went with the companies I had experience with and were what I deemed reliable enough for my clients. The problem with this is, although the company's I had been offering products from were good books and durable, they didn't have that je ne sais quoi that I was looking for, that sort of pop! that I wanted to offer my clients. This week changed all that and I'll be ordering all new sample albums in the next few weeks as I get some new designs together! I'm extremely excited to tell you about the vendor's I'll landed on!

Asuka Book

I'd looked at Asuka online before but hadn't actually seen one in person until this past week. I won't use them as a primary wedding album vendor (they are more of a "coffee table book" company), but what I AM going to use them for is engagement session books for couples to use as their "sign-in" book for their weddings. They even have a template just for that! I spent about 45 minutes checking out their products and talking to both their employees as well as Laura about her experience with them before I made up my mind to pick them for this. Their print quality is excellent as is their build quality and durability. This is all great, but what made me absolutely jump on board is this special type of paper that they had in a large number of their samples that was a silky matte finish. It felt soft like silk, but still felt amazingly strong! I can't wait to get my images in one of these to show off to my clients. What's new and cool about Asuka this year is that they're launching a brand new web application that will enable much easier album design uploads. This launches March 3rd, and as soon as I get a chance to play around with it and order my sample, I'll post a little review of their new process.

One of the various album vendor booths. Albums ALL over the place with places to sit and go through the various options you can offer your clients

Thumbdrive/Harddrive Engraving inside DVD-sized Leather Cases

There was a vendor Moshe found the last day that I ran over to go talk to when he told me about them, that sent a lightning bolt to my head and we both got excited about it. Right now I give clients a DVD with a printed cover (no not the nasty sticky labels, I print the label directly on specially made disks) in a DVD case...nothing too exciting, everyone has a DVD drive in their computer, so DVD it is. What really hit me though when looking at this vendor though, is "Everyone has a USB port too!" This company does custom engraving of USB flash drives and they will be partnering with a vendor soon to get a custom made, leather bound DVD sized case for these flash drives and hard drives! Flash drives can't get scratched up (or at least it doesn't matter if they do), and are significantly more portable if a client wants to carry their photos around with them. With many HDTV's included USB ports and also with several laptops now shipping without DVD drives, like the Macbook Air and the Mini 1000, it doesn't limit my clients on where they can display their images! They should have these new cases available sometime toward the middle of the year, and I can't wait (if you steal this idea...just credit give Moshe and I credit for it okay? Just kidding!)! Until then I'm going to have to stick the old school DVD thing...

This is another "spy shot" taken before the show floor opened on Monday...

Kiss Wedding Books

I was thoroughly impressed with Kiss Wedding Books, from cover to cover they are a fantastic product. Beautiful rich leather on the outside, thick colorful pages on the inside. What also was rather unique about them was how flat their pages lay even when brand new. Many album vendors I checked out last week had great print quality, great materials selection, but their pages just wouldn't stay flat, which drove me nuts (and I know would bug my clients after a while too). Some companies products showed signs of wear and tear even after just three days especially regarding color fading or flaking off in the gutter, but not Kiss (and they only brought 8-9 samples while most vendors had 20-30+ to share the abuse)! Three days may seem like a short amount of time but remember there were 10000 photographers handling these in that short period of time, that's a lot of wear and tear! What I like about Kiss though is their clean looks and impeccable quality. Keep It Simple Stupid is their mantra. They offer three sizes in 7 colors. Their pages are thick and strong, and of all the samples I looked at they didn't show any signs of warping in the center. This was a problem I saw that plagued a number of other vendors. Also, for most digital printed books (books without traditional mattes) I really don't like a black or white strip at the center of pages, because it makes panoramic images look bad with a big 'ol black line in the middle of your image. If you like designs that only have an image span one page, its fine, but if you want to spread a great family portrait across a two page spread, its great to have a seamless print which is exactly what Kiss delivers. Just as with Asuka, I'm going to be ordering some new samples from Kiss as soon as I get a design ready...now to pick a color for my sample...red, blue, green, white, black?

This is NOT a Kiss Book. I decided against the vendor whose book I'm holding because of the warping in the center...

PictoBook

PictoBook is my new premium album vendor. I wanted to go with a vendor that had what I liked about Kiss, clean seamless pages, excellent print quality, pages that lay flat and a reputation of fantastic customer service. What I wanted to be different for my premium album offerings though was choice. Kiss offers amazing quality at an excellent price point, but didn't offer a huge variety in materials and sizes. Hadar recommended I check out the PictoBook book, and this recommendation was backed up later by some other photographers I know who have used them in the past and loved them. They offer a huge range of sizes, form factors, as well as a wide range of materials, from carbon fiber to wood! They even have a "Precious Metals" series that can cost well over $10000+! (diamond encrusted monograms on a plate of platinum wrapped in real ostrich leather is what you get for that price range). PictoBook also owns another company called Bijou (pronounced "By You") which produces smaller albums with the same level of quality and a large number of options as their parent company. What sets PictoBook apart from other album makers out there is the presentation. I was extremely impressed with the build quality of their books but what amazed me was that every book ships with a beautiful polished wooden presentation box, which really blew me away. These boxes can have monograms printed onto the top of the box truly making your album an extremely personal and special heirloom for your new family. I spent well over an hour at this booth the first day, went back the second day to reexamine them for about 45 minutes just to make sure I wasn't exaggerating what I liked about them in my head. The coolest part is that they're local (they're based in southern Maryland) so if there's a last minute order, I can save time and go pick it up without having to wait for FedEx or UPS! I'll be working on a design for my samples this upcoming week so I can get these ASAP, I'll just need to decide what materials to use... leather, carbon fiber, wood, metal, or glass?

One of the uber PictoBooks. Gold plating, and diamonds for the monogram on the cover!

Part 2 will discuss some really cool products that I got a chance to check out while I was there and also some stuff that should have just stayed at home...

WPPI - Part 2 of 4 - Highlights and Shadows

2009-02-23T23:49:00.015-05:00

Part 2 of 4 WPPI Post covers the cool new things coming out or that were new to me... and the kinds of things that I believe need to be left in the past or buried in the Nevada desert... (feel free to disagree with me in the comments, these are just my opinions!)

Highlights:

New Pocketwizards!

New FlexTT5 Transceiver

New MiniTT1 Transmitter

Pocketwizard launched a new line of their radio triggers this past week, and I can't wait to get my hands on them! I currently use Pocketwizard PWII's which are great, but have some limitations, especially in your level of control when it comes to adjusting the power of your flashes remotely. With the PWII system, I have to physically walk over to a flash and manually dial down the power I want out of it, then walk back to where I was and check to make sure it's giving me the level of lighting I want now. The other downside of the old system is that due to the very minute delay in the camera sending a signal out to the transmitter and to the receiver, it is near impossible to use a shutterspeed faster than 1/320 of a second and still have the entire image show the flash. With the new Pocketwizards that have now been announced, I can not only adjust the power of my flashes remotely, they now have a sort of ESP, allowing the flashes to fire when I want them to! You can plug the new models into your computer and actually adjust in nanoseconds, when you want your flashes to fire in relation to when your shutter release is pressed! This allows for faster shutter speeds, meaning you can actually dial down the ambient exposure much more easily. Don't want the Sun to be overpowering your flash burst? No problem! These new models will allow you to set your shutter now all the way up to 1/500 with full flash coverage and up to 1/8000 with the right type of flash and settings! Right now they just have Canon compatible models available, but as soon as the Nikon versions are released, you can bet I'll have a set on order!

New Lasolite Triflash bracket

New bracket (image taken from strobist.blogspot.com)

Another flash related accessory that caught my eye was this new tri-bracket from Lasolite. They aren't shipping quite yet, and they're a little pricy (the rep told me about $75) but imagine being able to throw three hotshoe flashes behind an umbrella or a softbox. You can get a ton of power in a very portable package with one of these, I'm probably going to wait for another company to make something similar though, I don't think I need one of these that badly to go blowing $75 on a piece of plastic. Especially when I can use gaffers tape to hold three flashes together if I need to for less than $1's worth of tape. What's funny about this, is I thought I had seen one of these before so I didn't think much of it at first, but then I realized that the last time I'd seen someone (Joe McNally) use so many flashes in an umbrella, it was MacGyver style!

Lasolite Trigrip (not sure if this is new, or just never saw it before)

I'd never seen these before, not exactly sure if they're new, but they really caught my eye when passing by Bogen's booth. They are a great portable diffusion/reflector system that collapses up into a little round sleeve that could fit in any bag. What makes these really unique though is the triangular shape and rubber grip that allows you to easily hold onto them or even prop them up against something. I have a circular reflector and skrim, but never use it because I don't want to hire an assistant just to hold diffusers. Maybe when I start shooting $100,000 weddings, I might hire a "diffusing assistant". Just kidding!

Nik Software Plugins for Aperture and Photoshop

Nik Software is VERY cool... control points are UH-MAZE-ZING!

I've played around with Capture NX (Nikon's RAW processing application) and wasn't a fan of it, but loved the concept of control points. What this is, is a really intelligent system that allows me to select a sky or a dress or a face and it can intelligently figure out where the object starts and ends. From there it allows me to adjust that specific area of an image without having to jump over into Photoshop or another standalone application. I never realized until I happened across the Nik Software booth that they partnered with Nikon in creating the U-point technology, and discovered they are now offering a great package for Apeture that includes the whole suite of plugins! I had been using Aperture since it's launch up until late last year, when I decided to tryout Lightroom and never bothered going through Aperture for my editing anymore. Now that Nik has a great offer as a plugin for Aperture, I just might start using it again...we shall see.

Shadows:

This is probably where I'll get a couple people to disagree or flat out hate what I'm about to say. Foam posing props (fake brick walls, foam columns to lean against, ect.) and painted muslin backdrops with unicorns or Greek columns belong in Sears or Walmart and/or 1992! I'm not saying you shouldn't use muslin/canvas/whatever backgrounds or that studio shooting is outdated, or that props are evil, but what I am saying is that I believe that professional photographers who do portraits using these types of tools should try to step it up and/or modernize their studios (try to differentiate from the bargin basement photography that Sears does). Backgrounds are critical for a lot of headshot and some portrait work, especially for corporate headshots, and for young children's portraits props are very useful in getting kids to sit still or stay in one place. The issue I have with the vendors (by my count there were AT LEAST 12 different backdrop vendors and 3 or more ugly foam prop vendors) at WPPI selling those types of studio accessories, was that they were trying to push stuff that looked like it came off a 2nd-rate TV show back in the late 80's or early 90's when everyone's hair was feathered and Tears for Fears was still selling out concert arenas. There are new technologies that now allow photographers to use whatever they want as a background (check out Virtual Backgrounds, very cool concept), by either optically or digitally inserting the background the way you want without spending hundreds upon hundreds of bucks on different colors of muslin to get different looks. There are real brick walls everywhere that don't look (and feel) like cardboard. I beg those out there that use those types of tools to look for alternatives that help you grow your business and separate yourself from the outdated competition.

I'm not necessarily recommending their product (still kind of complicated) but VERY cool idea...

Another thing that will probably get some people to disagree with me on is outsourcing of editing. There were quite a few companies (I saw at least 5) that are offering to take your digital files and then edit your images for you. Sounds like a real time saver, but in my opinion, in a digital age, what defines a photographer's style is not only the images he or she shoots through a lens, but also the way those images are edited and processed. I can understand doing outsourcing of photo editing for event or corporate photography where clean, sharp images with minimal artistic flare is what the client usually wants (depending on the type of client of course), but for weddings and portraits, I feel that outsourcing your editing is like buying tickets for a cruise and giving them to some stranger, it takes the fun out of it and you really don't get as much emotionally from the final results. There are times when some photographers might get overbooked and need to ask someone to help out with retouching on a couple select images, but I feel that's different, because the original photographer will already have done their basic edits that bring out their style in their work. Just a quick rant... sorry if it offends. Not trying to step on toes, just trying to give my opinion.

WPPI - Part 3 of 4 - Night Photoshoot

2009-02-23T01:50:00.004-05:00

Bob Davis (go check out his site, great stuff!) organized a photo shoot of three models (locals) and a young couple (WPPI attendees) at night with a large group of us to walk around and get what photos we could while squeezing in with each other to get what we could. I hung out with Katie (who had the most gorgeous blue eyes!) for most of the shoot and wanted to share some of my favorite images from that night.

This is a shot I got while "borrowing" Asim's 200 f/2 lens while he was trying to get his camera working properly again...I really want this lens...but I think I'd have to sell an organ to get one!

I nabbed this shot while standing up on a railing because I couldn't squeeze in between the other photogs, I'm glad I climbed up there

Another "climb up on the railing shot"...

A roaring bus driving by whipping her hair about just screamed to have a little more motion thrown in...

With this one I played a bit around with a new plugin I'm evaluating. I wanted to bring her eyes out a bit and tint them just a tad green (to contrast the now B/W leaves), while pushing all the other color information into oblivion.

This is just a quick shot of how many people we had at the shoot!

To those who are confused about why I've posted part 3 before parts 1 and 2, I started editing some of Katie's images tonight (I'm still on Vegas time!!!) and I just kept going and wanted to post them tonight...I'll finish up Part 1 tomorrow, LOL!

WPPI Teaser

2009-02-22T14:19:00.004-05:00

Not ready to launch the full blogpost yet, but for those who have been interested in getting a taste of the week, here's a dozen or so images from the tradeshow floor! Full post (or several) up later this week. (photos of relatively empty booths were taken before the show opened Monday morning...I slipped in past the guards to get a pre-show preview!)

I had NO idea that Joe McNally was in this shot until I got home and started looking through my images! I didn't even realize he was at the show until two days later when I saw him hanging out at the Nikon booth again!

More to come soon, check back later this week!

iPhlip: Flip Mino HD

2009-02-14T14:00:00.001-05:00

Man these past few weeks have been busy, this time of year is always crazy and I'm always running around trying to get everything I need done in the inadequate amount of time I have to do it in...but anyways, I figured I'd fill you all in on a new toy I picked up called the Flip Mino HD. I'm going to come right out and say it, if you don't already own a video camera and you have kids or are recording important family stuff, don't buy a Flip, get a real camcorder first! I bought the Flip HD because I've was given a Flip Mino (non-HD) to test out for about a week or so to use earlier this year and found it pretty fun to have around, since Apple still doesn't allow me to record video with my iPhone. When the HD version came out I decided to give it a go, but low and behold a couple other similar products came out around the same time so I wanted to give them all a go to see which I liked better. I decided to really test out the Kodak Zi6 and the Flip Mino HD when it came down to it as most of the other similar products just didn't seem to be built all that well. I originally intended to go out and shoot video specifically for this review using both my FX1 and the Flip for a side by side comparison, but I've been just been too busy for that, so what I've decided to do instead is throw up a compilation of various video clips in varied lighting conditions to run the gamet of the situations you might find yourself recording video in. I originally was procrastinating on getting this up online because I originally thought I'd have to edit it all in Final Cut (a awesome app, but a pain to get quick clips edited), but I just got iLife 09, and the new iMovie was able to handle the footage just fine. I threw some clips together, didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, but wanted you to get a broad range of lighting examples... so you'll see that the Flip wouldn't be ideal for spelunking! I didn't use iMovie's stabilization feature, so you'll see a little shake due to the small size and light weight of the Flip. I'm fairly steady, but this video could still make you sea-sick, you've been warned! (just kidding)

(the end of the video alludes to an upcoming blog post...check back very soon)

The Kodak Zi6 has some nice features, such as removable/expandable memory (the Flip has a permanent 4GB built-in...no upgrading later) and the double edged sword of AA batteries...I say this because if you're out camping or just out with friends and your battery kicks out, you need to go find a computer to charge up the Flip, whereas you can just toss in a couple AA's from your local Walmart or convenience store. This however makes the Zi6 a bit larger and heavier, and ultimately I wanted something that was smaller (the Flip is about 1/2" smaller in every dimension) that I would be more likely to take everywhere I go. There are two other aspects of the Zi6 that made me want to keep it too, better contrast in the video as well as a larger LCD screen. The Flip has a 1.5" display, definitely not good for showing to more than 1-2 people at a time, the 2.4" display on the Kodak isn't huge but is definitely nicer for group viewing. The other primary trade-off between the two is the lenses. The Kodak has a slightly slower lens (f/2.8 vs f/2.4) so the Flip performs better in low light (Flip claims down to 1.4 lux) although the Kodak can focus much more closely, all the way down to two inches in macro mode (~28 inches in normal viewing), where the Flip has a fixed focus of about 5 feet (1.5 meters).

As you can probably tell from the above videos, this is not something you would want to record an episode of Lost on, nor would I recommend it for important family events like birthday parties, weddings, family reunions, kid's sports, ect. I would, however, recommend it (or the Zi6) for use as a backup device to always have with you even when you're not expecting to need to record something, it quick to turn on, dead-easy to use and small enough to carry everywhere. It also makes a fantastic gift for kids and teens who want to upload video onto Youtube and share with their friends. The Flip I think will become like the gateway drug for young kids who want to get into video but don't have parents that want to risk buying a $600 camcorder that gets used once or twice and spends the next 4 years collecting dust in the closet. Both products come with really simple software that allows you to do some basic editing (although I find Flip's software far more stable and faster) and do a direct upload to Youtube or Myspace. You'll notice that I've uploaded my videos to Vimeo for this test, and that is because Vimeo supports better image quality so you can get a better feel of the actual results out of these cameras.

What this also means, is now that I don't have to take out and setup all my HD Sony production gear to record things like this (wireless mics, tripods, firewire cables, ect.), I might actually start integrating some video clips into this blog, just maybe though...LOL! BTW, check out Armin's review... he was quicker to write a review than I was :(

Knoll Showroom Opening

2009-02-10T17:00:00.003-05:00

This past week I shot the grand opening of the brand new Knoll Showroom in DC, with the help of Armin and Paul. The place was packed with smiling faces and the atmosphere was electrifying! Their new showroom is absolutely stunning and I had a blast documenting the event for them. I wanted to share a little taste of the evening:

I don't drink on the job, but I heard these "Knolltini's" were fantastic

There were people all over enjoying the inviting spaces in the various workstation areas...

There were definitely a lot of funny photos from the "photobooth", especially later into the evening...

Armin snagged this great shot of Paul through the cutout for the photobooth

Update: just posted the slideshow, check it out!

Flowers in January?

2009-01-25T23:45:00.004-05:00

This past weekend I got a chance to hang out with a TON of other photographers. On Saturday I was with 50 other wedding and portrait photogs as it was time for our monthly get-together (check the archived posts). There's a ton of photos from that on Facebook so I'm not going to post them here. On Sunday I met up with a small group of enthusiasts that met up through DPReview, with whom I've gotten a chance to hang out with last summer at the Dulles Air and Space Museum. This time around we went to the Botanical Gardens in DC right next to the Capital Building. I wanted to share some of my favorites from the day. Also you'll be happy to know I found an excellent use for my Rayflash: as a macro ringlight! So on top of using it as a great fill-light for portraits, I'm now addicted to using it for flowers and other small details (wedding bouquets, shoes, rings, ect.). Now time for the quiz, can you guess what lenses these images were taken with? Some of these images might surprise you if I told you what lens I used, because only one of the lenses I used was designed as a macro. The answer is down at the bottom. Also the gallery with quite a few more from the day are on noahhayes.net (link)!

The two lenses used today were the 105 VR f/2.8 macro (obvious though...) and the 14-24 f/2.8!!!! That's right That lens focuses so close! The images I used the ultra-wide on were #3 and #5!

Hail to the Chief

2009-01-23T22:45:00.002-05:00

This past Tuesday I was there. Yes, I was in the the most crowded place in the world that day, Washington, DC. It was the 56th Presidential Inauguration Ceremony and I was asked to be the person to document an event sponsored by Best Buy at Constitution Hall. This event was offered as a free service to the community: seating for 3700 people to stay out of the cold as they watched the very memorable day on a 60 foot screen (and two smaller side displays). Geek Squad had a booth to burn people's photos onto DVD so they could free up their memory cards and make room for all the photos they wanted to take. Also Best Buy Mobile, Best Buy for Business, HP, Slingbox, Jawbone and Verizon had booths to do everything from hands-on demos of their products, to give away free souvineers to taking photos of guests with a cardboard cutout of Obama and printing it out on a HP printer. Best Buy also set up a charging station so people could charge their phones and cameras if they were running low on juice. All this completely gratis, with no sales pitch... pretty cool!

I was amazed by the huge crowds, you hear a number like 1.4 million and it doesn't mean much to you until you see it and are a part of it. Constitution Hall was packed wall to wall with people trying to get out of the 18 degree weather and avoid standing on their feet without access to restrooms for hours on end. It was simply non-stop all day. It would have been nice to be one of the official photogs for the inauguration itself, but there's always 2013! The full gallery is on noahhayes.net, but here's a little slice of history for you:

This girl was waiting for us to open up the doors at 8AM...

I dare you to count them...there's 3700, def..def...definitely 3700 (a little Rainmain impression if you didn't get that one...)

Mark "Voice of the Washington Redskins" Kessler was the MC for the event...

Slingbox and Jawbone representatives demoing their products (cool stuff too!)

I let Jon hold my D3 for this one...scary thought...LOL

Starbucks' new "grime the planet" campaign...seriously, can't DC keep it's streets clean?

Camera of the Year

2009-01-02T23:28:00.003-05:00

Hope everyone had a great holiday and a happy New Year! I've been absent from updating my presence here on the internet for a LONG time. The past month or so has been total madness, I literally worked every day from the 11th of December until the 30th with the only exception being Christmas, and sometimes Christmas with the family sometimes feels like work, LOL. So I'm realizing the 3 or so posts I started working on about stuff over the past month will probably not get done so I'm starting fresh with this one. I just happened upon this hot camera today and just had to have it, so I took it(no I didn't steal it)... it had been ABANDONED! Thrown away! This will be the camera I use at all of my weddings and events in 2009 (the lens is a little wide for portraits, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and use the D3 for those I guess...) Without further ado, I present the Apple QuickTake 200...

The what? That's right you read it right, the camera no one had ever heard of is now in my poessesion. Apple apparently made three digital camera models over a decade ago in 1994-1997 (the product line was killed when Steve Jobs returned). The one now in my possession is the third model the QuickTake 200 which sports a rockin' .3MP (thats right point-three mega pixels...you know, for those 1/2" by 1/4" prints) and a beautiful 1.5" LCD display. Please don't be jealous, I know you other photogs just bought your 5D Mark II's and D3X's and are now kicking yourselves. LOL! (please note: I'm not seriously going to use this thing...it only takes upto 32 photos with the largest memory card it will support, this will be a new paperweight for me)

Anyway, I didn't get around to doing a proper product shot of these, just a quick shot with my TV as a light source and a lens cloth as a backdrop..maybe if I have some time off this week I'll get around to doing a better shot for your viewing pleasure. In addition I hope to finally go out and field test my customized Flip Mino HD this week and share comparison clips between the Flip and a "real" video camera.

Circle of Light...

2008-11-17T12:40:00.000-05:00

Wow, that title sounds like a cult doesn't it "Circle of Light"...well it's not, it's just a description of my newest lighting modifier, the Ray Flash. This is a product that is distributed by ExpoImaging, which also makes Expodisc, the custom white-balance disc that just seem like a waste of plastic to me, but a few photographers I know swear by it. The Ray Flash is a ring-flash modifier that can attach to any dedicated speedlite from Canon or Nikon. It redirects the light from your speedlite down and around your lens giving you the ability to create a near shadowless splash of light on your subject and giving you a really awesome looking catchlight in the eyes. I decided to blog about this since I got quite a few emails, Facebook messages and "what is that thing?" questions from people I've never even met before, I think all due to Moshe's photos of me (from his blog and Facebook page) from this past week's DC Area Photographer GTG.

Thanks to Moshe for these shots!

Hey Jim Garner...if you're reading this, yeah thats a Boda shoulder strap that's starting to tear...

I gotta say, the thing works as advertised: It creates a virtually shadowless fill on your subject and bathes them/it in smooth diffused even light... however that can be a very good thing or a very bad thing depending on your subject and your artistic intention. In all honestly this thing will probably spend a lot of time in my camera bag, but I think I'll definitely find uses for it in certain circumstances. I don't do the normal "studio" portrait stuff, and those of you reading this who do, should definitely look into trying one of these out yourself. I shoot out in the world and don't have a studio with pull down backgrounds and props, so I was looking for something super-light and ultra portable, and the Rayflash fits the bill. The next best thing is the Alienbees ABR800 which looks like a stellar product (also only $100 more than the Rayflash), but its heavier and doesn't run off a speedlight I'd already have with me anyways. The ABR800 would require me to plug it into a wall or run it off a big external battery pack, which I don't feel like lugging around everywhere.

I see the Rayflash as my go-to lighting modifier for things like macro shots where flash is necessary, full face headshots where I want to smother details (such as a face that has some wrinkles or some significant wear-and tear, where I can eliminate shadows caused by the extruded details) and when I want some on-axis fill but don't want that "snapshot" look that a direct on camera flash give you. So enough talk...here come some samples I snapped last week at the National Harbor.

Kenny wants a Rayflash for Christmas... I'd send him mine if he started using Nikon gear...LOL!

Be careful using on-axis flash with glasses...I was not...

Check out that catch-light...and Hadar's modeling skills...

Flash set to 1/128th power to use as a very light fill to the ambient exposure...probably how I will use the Rayflash most frequently going forward.

Used as a fill, you can see the effect along the wood on the back of the chair...for some reason I love this shot...can't figure out why...

Flash turned off...Megan Beth as our model!

Flash turned on...richer skin tones, less harsh shadows! That white corner is what I mean by "it doesn't fit right on my D3 (shot taken with a 50 f/1.8, a VERY small lens)

Don't photographers make great models? So the bad news? The Rayflash costs about $300 which is quite a lot for a piece of plastic that doesn't actually flash itself, it requires your speedlight to do all the work. That said, if you were to build your own or buy other similar products, the light loss would be far more significant. By some work of incredible engineering or some dark magic they actually were able to build this thing and only lose 1 stop of light!!! That's crazy impressive. That means you can still shoot at smaller apertures at a reasonably fast frame-rate without killing your batteries every ten seconds!

Be sure to try one out before you hand over the cash though, mine doesn't exactly fit my D3 properly, although it fits my flash like a glove. A email to Expoimaging (and less than a 5 minute wait for a reply! AMAZING!) allowed me to discover they have individual models to fit not only specific flashes, but also specific camera bodies. Apparently the place I got it from thought I said D300 when I said D3. I bought mine from Ace Photo (a local photo store) but I'd highly recommend buying your Rayflash - if decide you it fits your style - from either BHPhoto or Adorama, as Ace Photo doesn't let you return it if it's not right for your workflow...not even with a restocking fee! Thankfully Expoimaging is able to exchange my Rayflash out for the proper model! Great customer service!

PS: Whoa, my watermark is doing something weird and I'm not planning on re-exporting these images to fix it...do not attempt to readjust your set, I am controlling the vertical and horizontal! LOL!

Game changer...

2008-11-15T13:03:00.004-05:00

I usually don't like to post about things I haven't actually spent time using or was not present for, but this is too big and most people won't have heard about it (and most won't for a while until this company starts to pick up speed). About a year or so ago a company called RED decided to build a video camera called RED ONE, but this wasn't a regular consumer video camera, it was a fullblown professional digital cinema system that is completely modular. Not only that, this system is able to produce video at 4k resolution at 30fps (4k is around 2X 1080P high definition). The tag line of this company is "making obsolescence obsolete". This is something they have taken to a whole new level with their two new product lines that have been announced only a few days ago. They unveiled the EPIC and SCARLET systems which they refer to as DSMC's which stands for Digital Stills and Motion Camera...yeah that's right, I said Digital Stills (hence why I'm blogging about it). RED has gone and made a modular DSLR. Stop the presses, roll out the red carpet (no pun intended) and alert the media! Now for the really cool stuff!

You buy a "brain" of whichever system you want to go with...then you get to decide what components to buy to do what you want to do! If you want a shoulder mount video camera that shoots at 3K at 120fps, you can do that, if you want a full blown cinema studio over-the-top monster camera...at 28k resolution at 24fps...yeah you can do that too! On the still photo side you get to choose your resolution from 4.6MP (megapixels) all to way to a mind-bottling (like it's so crazy your mind gets trapped in a bottle) 261MP!!!!!!! And the best part of all of this? You won't have to buy new lenses when you decide to move up into the big leagues, that's right you can strap on your best Nikon, Canon, PL and Mayima lenses on and start shooting both photos AND video!

Oh and one more thing...coming soon: 3D!!! Oh yeah...that's why I said GAME CHANGER!

Check out RED.com for more info. As much as I love my Nikons...this is a very good thing for the industry and I hope they sell LOTS and LOTS of cameras!

Fresh Coat of Paint...

2008-11-10T22:21:00.008-05:00

I recently decided my main website was a little bland and I definitely hated not being able to display my images at sizes larger than 800X450 (a non-standard aspect ratio for photographs). I've decided to rebuild my site and it now supports resolutions of 1200X800 (I could set it higher, but right now most visits to the page are screen resolutions of 1280X800 and 1400X900, so most will be able to view at almost full screen!!!). The actual interface design changes a bit, but it's more of an evolution rather than a complete top-to-bottom redesign. A lot of the visual elements and color scheme stays the same, just the content and the resolution of the content changes. Also now when viewing a gallery you have the ability to view a 'thumbnails' view or email a link of any image to friends or family, which is really cool! So if you see a picture on the site you just HAVE to show someone, you can email them a link directly to the one you want them to see! (Tip of the day for Mac users: You can select a portion of the screen for a "screen shot by clicking "command-shift-4", I've been asked about that numerous times...just figured I'd fill in everyone who didn't already know)

Here I've posted a quick screenshot of the before and after, see how much empty space there was around the old one? Keep in mind these images were taken on a monitor with a resolution of 1920X1200, so your display will most likely show less empty space.

Look at all that empty space not being used...so bland!

Complete redesign, menu options on the bottom, larger display, no more boring white background!

Thumbnails view inside of a gallery...

Email pop-up window for emailing images to friends and family!

So what do you think? I hope to be finished getting everything the way I want it by the end of the day (Friday) so I can go ahead and make it live, until I do the old site will still be visible.

Coming soon to a blogspot near you...

2008-11-09T23:55:00.003-05:00

WOW! I just realized I haven't posted anything in almost 3 weeks, whoops. Well I'll have at least 2-3 posts by next week up to make up lost time. I got a new photographic tool(toy) that I'm gonna post some review stuff up, including some sample photos I've taken and some others I expect to take later this week. I've got some other updates as well coming soon that I've been spending a bit of time working on, which I hope to announce by Fri/Sat of this week, well at least I'll tell you about it by then if it hasn't launched by then. 1 billion points to whoever can either guess A) what new tool/toy I picked up or B)what I expect to announce/launch by the upcoming weekend.. first person to 2 billion points wins the prize...which is to be determined. (BTW check the Drobo post, I've added an update to the bottom about the past couple week's experience)

Feeling DROOBY...

2008-10-24T22:45:00.006-04:00

I just received my Drobo 2.0 on Thursday, and let me tell you...I'm excited! I used to use a grand total of 15 external hard-drives (16 if you include both drives in my RAID 1 system...and this doesn't include internal drives I just have laying around) to store all my media on. Why the ridiculous number? Because I was afraid of data loss! So for every 1TB (1TB=1024GB or 1000GB depending on what system you go by) of storage I needed, I had 2TB to make sure if a drive died I'd have it backed up. Since quite a few of those drives were 500GB Western Digital My Books, this means I need 4(FOUR!!!) drives to store 1TB of needed space (2 for storage, 2 for backup). Some of my drives were larger, but I currently have about 8TB of storage total that I am using. So there's two questions that I'm going to answer that you probably would ask me if you were standing in front of me right now...

One of several shelves that hold my storage and battery backups...just in case...

8 internal drives, 2 external and a Dundee award (from "The Office" for the 2 people that don't watch the show)

1st: "You have how many drives? Why?"

The reason why I have so much storage is for keeping all the photos of all of your beautiful faces and the beautiful places I've been to backed up in triplicate, as well as organizing all of my digital media ranging from a huge iTunes music library to old family photos, to about ton of movies and TV episodes. Yes, all of my movies and TV shows on my drives are LEGALLY bought and I own all of them on DVD (some I bought on iTunes) and rip them to my computers so I can watch them over my network on my computers or sync with my iPhone, without having to track down the disc and waiting for it to load in a DVD player. Even with 8TB of storage, I barely have 800GB free across all of my drives. I am a pack-rat of digital media...I have an addiction...

Glossy...SUPERglossy!

Doesn't get much less complicated than this!

FW800 + USB2.0 = Awesome!

2nd: "What on Earth is a Drobo?"

A Drobo is an amazing piece of technology. It is very much like RAID 5 array, but it is self-healing and you can mix and match drives and upgrade your storage at any time. So what's RAID 5? RAID stands for redundant array of independent drives(or disks), which is used in computers and servers to either provide very fast data transfers OR very solid backups of you data. RAID 5 is designed to backup data across 3 or more drives in such a way that allows any one of the drives to completely fail without losing any data (meaning you can recover you data and then replace the drive. This allows for massive amounts of storage with very minimal risk of loss of important data. The downside of RAID 5 is that if one of the drives fail, you have to pull your data off, wipe the drives clean, buy a new drive and rebuild the RAID from scratch...BIG pain! Big waste of time! Not to mention RAID 5 systems are pretty pricey.

What makes the Drobo so unique is that if a drive fails, you can simply pop it out and throw in a different drive (ANY capacity, doesn't have to be the same) and the Drobo will automatically shift the data around to make sure that you data is again backed up across all drives in it and your data is protected. I've had a number of hard drive enclosures and hard drive power supplies die on me, and 1-2 drives fail on me too. Now if TWO drives fail simultaneously (which would be almost impossible...note that I said almost...like finding an unused lottery ticket on the ground that's the billion dollar winner...)that's when you'll lose data. That's why I still plan to use some of my existing externals just as a tertiary backup of really important stuff like my family and my client's photos.

Massive nest of mess...

Another big reason I got one is that I'm sick of having to dig through a GIGIANTIC rats nest of power cables, USB and Firewire cables just to figure out which of them kicked the bucket. With this guy, I have 1 power cable and 1 FireWire cable to worry about...down from 4 of each with my current setup! Drobo can store upto 4 SATA drives and depending on what drives you throw in there can give you up to 4.1TB (usable storage, not including space reserved for backups [as of this post 1.5TB drives were the largest available]) but with hard drive sizes ever increasing, you will eventually be able to throw four 4TB drives in there! I'm starting off with just the one Drobo 2.0 (with Firewire 800...yes Steve! IEEE1394 is still very much needed these days!) and will be dumping a couple of my drives in it to save on space, power outlets, cables and overall headache.

Snapshot of Drobostation software seeing my drives, but also...not seeing my drives?

Also I feel it is fair to say that I definitely had some problems with my unit initially, but I want to blame it on the drives I was using, not the Drobo itself. I found 4 250GB SATA drives I was using as a pair of RAID 0 systems I had in a desktop I built 3-4 years ago, that I was no longer using (back when I was a PC junkie, and 250GB's was HUGE!). I had some wierd formatting issues that I'm working out with Drobo Support, but I bought a couple of new SATA drives to throw into my Drobo to start from sratch and all seems to be functioning perfect...for now. I won't wipe my data off the old drives for a couple weeks just to be on the safe side for now though. If I'm thrilled with Drobo (and I expect to be) I'll order another one to hold another set of drives to further simplify my life! As Leo Laporte would say, "I'm feeling Droooooooby!"

My initial impressions (outside of the formatting/won't mount properly issue...which again I think was a problem with my drives) are extremely positive. I open up boxes of a TON of new electronic devices, and except for Apple products, the experience is very bland. Drobo was packed in a really nice foam enclosure and a "muslin" type wrap and even as unimportant as this may seem, the little extra touches go a loooonnnggg way to making you feel like you just invested in a high-quality product...not a piece of junk. Also very rarely are such high quality power cables and power supplies included. Usually hard drives, PCs, enclosures, ect. all come with cheapo $1 cables that feel like dental floss. I've never seen such a thick FW800 cable in my life! Again, this may seem trivial but it helps ease that buyers remorse syndrome when you've spent $500 on a box to hold hard drives. Build quality of the Drobo is top notch and feels like it could withstand a cannonball. My only complaint is the front cover is extremely glossy and seems to be a bit of a dust magnet, and glossy plastic is kinda hard to get dust off of (it tends to just slide around avoiding your attempts to remove it). I doubt this will become a major concern; after all, it will just be sitting on a shelf next to my computers...it isn't something that needs to be spotless at all times. Check back in a few weeks to this post for a followup on performance and reliability!

Also...I wanted to get this post up quick before I forgot I ever starting typing it, so I haven't gotten around to taking high-quality review photos for this like I did for the SB900/Sony a350 reviews...all these images are just quick snapshots with my iPhone, hopefully if I get time I'll swap out these images for better ones soon.

UPDATE: Well I've had my Drobo up and running for about 2.5 weeks or so, and the thing has been running like a champ. It hasn't dismounted on me even once, keeps up with streaming video over an Apple TV, while watching something else Macbook Pro over the network WHILE watching a yet another movie on the Mac Mini it is connected to. This empirical test was also done during a file transfer to the Drobo in excess of 25GB!!! The only strange thing I've encountered with it is a truly bizzare Scifi type noise when the drives start spinnning up after the computer put itself to sleep. That could be related to something with powerlines with my audio system or battery backup unit, but it's truly odd. The only way I could describe the noise is as what you would expect a ray-gun from a 1960's Scifi movie would sound like if it was charging up to fire, like a bwoooooppp!!! Imagine four separate drives spinning up in unison while a low RPM fan kicks in as well...there you go! I've swapped out drives several times since the inital setup and each time it was able to shift my data around without any problems, I even tried a disk swap while transferring files to the Drobo, although I would recommend avoiding that whenever possible.

To put it simply, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this product and definitely plan on getting at least 1 more in the next 6 months or so. Any photographer, videographer, or really anyone with something to lose (data I mean) should get one of these, even if you only put a couple 250GB drives in to hold you personal photos and videos from vacations and family events...NOTHING in the world is more important than your family and the images you have to remember them by, I learned this first hand about a month ago when my grandfather died and my family had virtually no good photos of him that weren't heavily faded or washed out from the passing of time. My only suggestion is that oyu make sure your drives WORK before you put them in, that was the cause of my frustration the first few days. Also keep in mind that it could easily take several hours for the Drobo to optimize itself again if you replace a small drive with a very large drive. When I replaced my 250GB with a 1TB drive it took about 10 hours since I had another two 500GB drive and a 1TB in it already.

Networking Extreme...

2008-10-21T22:17:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I shot a wedding down in Austin Texas with the beautiful and talented photographer Kim, of Kimberly Brooke Photographic. I met her through a mutual friend Armin Defiesta. Armin was unavailable to shoot with Kim that weekend as he was shooting a wedding that day already, but he forwarded my info to Kim, who I had never met before. After a couple phone calls and emails talking about a myriad of subjects, Kim had me fly down and second shoot with her in one of the nicest venues for one of the nicest couples I've ever met. Kelly and Brett just had so much love for each other, which showed up in every click of my camera (even when they weren't in the picture!). It was a gorgeous outdoor ceremony at Austin71 with a great view of the countryside as a backdrop to a perfectly lit (that always helps) afternoon ceremony, which led directly into some great music from the band "Radiostar" which played the best mix of top songs from the 80's that I'd ever heard. I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking, here's some of my fav's:

Have to add in some detail shots...

Beautiful bride makes the job REAL easy...

Talk about a get-away car!!!

I don't know whose got a goofier face, but at least she was tryin!

We got there kinda early, so Kim and I did a little impromtu photoshoot...even caught her chimpin' in the mirror while the girls were getting their makeup done!

I caught her dancing on the job too! LOL!

I had a blast, and would encourage any photographer reading this to network, network, network (check out [b]ecker's [b]school for example)! You'll never know who you meet, or what you'll learn. Every other photographer (whether they shoot weddings, sports, fashion, product,ect) I've ever talked to has taught me something, even if they weren't trying to! We should all try to help each other out to expand our ability to constantly move the bar up a notch to give our clients a consistent world-class experience!

Also keep a look out on Kim's blog for her post about the wedding!

Trespassing in Georgetown (Aly and Dustin's E-Shoot)

2008-10-12T21:51:00.008-04:00

So we have a [unspoken] trespassing rule in photography... "It's better [read "easier"] to ask for forgiveness than to go and seek out permission..." this rule pertains to trespassing on people's property in areas like Alexandria, DC, Georgetown, Leesburg, well pretty much anywhere in which private property has WAY more character and 'cool-factor' than public places. This past weekend Erin and I had our engagement shoot for Alison and Dustin in Georgetown (therefor the tip-toe trespassing law holds true). We walked all over town on a near-cloudless Sunday afternoon/evening and found some great little alleys and doorsteps to intrude on (even a classic VW Beatle to use as a prop). I'm looking forward to their wedding that Erin and I are shooting for Armin Defiesta Photography in May, it sounds like it will be a blast! Check out Erin's post too! Here are some of my favorites from the day:

...more trespassing, unfortunately the gate had some pretty fresh paint on it...

...had to wait at those stairs for like 5 minutes waiting for people to stop getting in our shot...

...Alison grabbed a camera and chased after the celebrity [Dustin] outside Papa-Razi

...threw in some off-camera flash for a little fill as the Sun was dipping behind the buildings...

New view on the World (Wide Web)

2008-10-10T23:43:00.002-04:00

Just got finished setting up my new 24" LCD. I REALLY wanted to get an S-IPS panel, but I really didn't want to pay 300% more for one. I calibrate all my monitors to prints that I've made on my Epson R1800 and prints I've received from the labs I order from, so if there's a little bit of visual color shift from different angles it doesn't matter to me. I just need it to be accurate from where I'm sitting, so I settled for a mid-range display. This replaces a 4 year old LG L1720P (TN type panel) that I had purchased two of when they first came out for $480 each...it's ridiculous to me how cheap good electronic gear is now.

Here's what my "office" looks like now...a bit like the matrix. (from left to right, 24" Samsung LCD,15.4" Macbook Pro, 17" LG LCD, 40" Samsung LCD) I'm so addicted...I'm even considering picking up a Mac Pro sometime next year after the Nehalm processor refresh and picking uo another 40" LCD to use as my primary system...I need to go to counseling or something!

It's all about the details...

2008-10-06T19:30:00.006-04:00

One of the things I love to capture when shooting a wedding or any other sort of event is the little details and parts of what makes that event special. I find that these small components are what brings back more vivid memories. The only thing I love capturing more than details is pure unbridled enthusiasm (if you don't know the reference, then NO SOUP FOR YOU). Here are some of the details I found unique or interesting at a recent wedding along the North Shore of Maryland that I shot with Armin.

Bill was into his guitars and music...nothing says it better than custom made picks...

Even an ordinary chair bathed in a late afternoon glow from a setting Sun can tell you a little more about the day and how gorgeous the ceremony was...

The florist had set up these very unique candle holders to illuminate the post-ceremony celebration...

You see why I find little details so critical in telling the story of your special day? It's all about the things you may forget about years from now, but just like a familiar song or scent, it brings back such vivid memories of one of the happiest days in your life!

...and then there were three...

2008-09-27T23:30:00.007-04:00

Bet I had you guessing for a second what the shrouded camera above was...I've had the opportunity to test out a Sony alpha 350 for the past week or so, and I've got to say, that this iteration of DSLR from Sony is the first that seems like they're really trying. I've used the alpha 100 and alpha 700 extensively, but they both felt sorta half-finished. They changed a lot with this new version, and if it feels like Sony had dipped their toe into deep end with the a350, then they decided to do a canon-ball dive with the new alpha 900 which will be in stores in a few weeks.

First thing you'd notice about the a350 thats new and improved over the a100 is the big LCD screen on the back that bulges out a bit. It seems a little odd at first, almost as if they couldn't fit the whole LCD inside the camera, but if you look closer there is a little grip on the side of the screen that allows you to pull it out and tilt it up about 140° or down about 45° (these are my estimates, I couldn't find exactly what degree of tilt Sony claims). The screen displays your basic information such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO, flash, white balance, focus, quality, and battery settings fairly simply, however I want to focus on a few things that make this model stand out a bit from the competition.

So why have a flip-out LCD? Well this DSLR was one of the very first to have a functional live-view mode, which allows the photographer to frame up his or her shot by using the LCD instead of the optical viewfinder. While I'm still very much of the mindset that a photo should be taken through the viewfinder for a number of reasons, this feature can be VERY helpful to first time DSLR owners who are very used to using an LCD on their compact cameras in this way. It also allows the photographer to get more interesting perspectives on many different subjects allowing the photographer to get an image they would previously have had to lay in the dirt or dangle off dangerous ledges to try and get the shot they wanted.

What makes the live-view on the Sony so special is that it actually autofocuses quickly, unlike the AF system on the Canons and even my flagship Nikon D3 can do when using live-view. Sony accomplishes this by directing a portion of the light that would normally be hitting your image sensor to a separate AF sensor that focuses the same way you camera does when it's not in live-view, phase detection (explanation of the differences will be saved for another time). That said, the a350 LCD is especially susceptible to glare and is not overly bright, therefore not entirely useful in the environments you'd think it would be the most beneficial in. I found it to be a little off in what appeared to be a proper exposure and even after adjusting the brightness and tone settings on the camera's screen, I was still not impressed with what it was able to produce out in broad daylight. The photos I took however came out fine, however unlike my Nikon gear or my older Canon gear, I couldn't trust the image the screen was showing me at all, I had to rely on my experience and the histograms I could view.

Ergonomics are far improved over the alpha 100, however are still not to my personal liking. The layout of the buttons and controls is a blend of the Olympus E-series DSLRs and the last generation of the Canon Rebels (XT/XTi). Slightly wider grip, which would be great for most guys looking for an SLR, however not very tailored for the average soccer mom looking to take great images of her kids. Of all the control placements, most felt positioned appropriately except for ISO, which was placed on the top of the camera in a place that was very awkward to adjust on the fly with my thumb. Had they moved that one control to the rear panel, I feel that the entire feel of the camera would have been changed for the better. Also I found my pinky curled up on the bottom of the camera frequently as it was shorter than I am used to. On the top left of the camera, you have access to what Sony calls "instant-expert" modes, which I call "don't know how to use my camera, so I'll try this icon" modes (I'm kidding, sometimes those can be useful for beginners). My experience with using these were just like any other DSLR brand, they work...sorta. These modes pick predetermined settings that would get you a great picture in ideal situations, but as any photographer will tell you, there are RARELY any ideal situations, never enough lighting, lighting is bad, lighting is changing too much, ect. I tried out several of those modes, got frustrated with under and over exposures and went back to using full manual, and everything got better.

The two lenses I had access to during my tests were the kit lens which was an 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 and an 18-200 f/3.5-6.3, which were designed for consumer use, being rather slow for indoor use. Both were definitely acceptably sharp for the pricing, my copy of the 18-200 becoming a little mushy in fine details at around 140mm-180mm. Another interesting feature of the Sony while I'm at it, is that EVERY lens you put on the camera is stabilized, which is to say that every picture you take is stabilized. The reason for this, is that Sony has implemented sensor-shift stabilization, which works great, however you won't see the effect of the stabilization until you take the shot which is a little unnerving to me as when the viewfinder blacks out I expect to see exactly what I expect as the result of my picture. If the sensor is still moving around to stabilize itself after you click the shutter, it is possible that what you intended to be in your frame may longer be there. The benefit is obvious however as you do not need to spend more money on a lens that has image stabilization, although we all know higher end lenses have more than just stabilization going for them.

As a side-note, I also was able to test out one of their entry level flashes the F42-AM, which was surprisingly powerful for the price and I was able to fire off a shot outside at 1/2000" and still have the flash show up on my image which was rather impressive for an entry-level system without needing to change things like sync-speed settings.

Last week I was in San Antonio for about 36 hours (long story) and had a chance to go outside for a bit and give the camera a real world spin. Below are a couple of the images I took at around 2PM-4PM on a nice sunny Texas afternoon to show off the dynamic range and image quality out of this model.

One new feature that works only 50% as advertised (but that 50% works great) is DRO+, or Dynamic Range Optimizer. What this mode is designed to do is automatically adjust your over and under exposed parts of your image to compress the dynamic range to bring out details in the shadows and control blown out highlights. In my experience with this, the a350 was able to hold its own against highlights, but it didn't seem to bring out any additional detail in shadows at all. This mode however if great for using in all sorts of outdoor environments, especially for getting better detail in bright white clouds (and there were some great ones last week in TX).

An example of some mushy details at around 180mm, not the sharpest feathers in the bunch, but still good for an entry-level lens

Apparently there was some sort of "chemical scare" at the courthouse...HAZMAT suits are never a good sign...

Had to throw this image in the mix. I used a timer and the F42-AM Sony flash bounced off the ceiling which remotely fired two SB-800's set in SU-4 mode. I was getting a lot of looks at the conference I was at because I was the only nut who would haul around 3 flashes for 1 camera (even more crazy since two of the flashes were from a different brand).

In conclusion:

Sony has built this camera from the ground up to appeal to NEW DSLR users. If you're currently a Nikon or Canon user, there is NO incentive for you to switch over or consider getting a Sony as a second system [you folks know who you are :) ]. However for a first time buyer, there are some great benefits to this system and Sony is showing no signs of slowing down the innovations they put out there. I doubt that Nikon or Canon would have EVER put live-view into their cameras if it wasn't for Sony or Olympus to do it first. This competition is good for us as photographers...it's what is giving us HD video in cameras like the D90 and 5D MrkII. If a friend or family member is looking into buying a camera and doesn't need/want a bunch of expensive and heavy f/2.8 glass, I wouldn't hesitate telling them to play around with a Sony and see how they like it. I'm not saying it's going to be the best for them, but it certainly is a viable alternative now and looks like Sony will just be pushing more and more to take more marketshare from Nikon and Canon.

Nikon SB-900 Review

2008-09-24T01:00:00.001-04:00

Well I've been playing around with Nikon's latest Speedlite for the past few days, and it's definately got some great features and updates over it's predecessor the SB-800. I have two SB-800's that I've used fairly extensively on and off the camera, and originally thought there would be no reason for me to upgrade to the new flashes as I usually set my flashes manually and don't use the CLS system (more on that a little further down) as I prefer the capabilities of my Pocketwizards (more on that later too).

Some of the obvious changes with the new model is the size and the removal of the side carriage for a 5th AA battery as well as a new interface for controlling the flash on the back. The SB-800 had the 5th battery carriage as a way to keep the flash refreshing faster (meaning allowing you to use the flash again more quickly) and it really was necessary for anyone who needed to take more than 1 picture every 1-2 seconds (which is just about everyone, except maybe...no everyone needs that). The new SB-900 has completely new electronics inside which allowed Nikon to eliminate the 5th battery and still increase refresh time between flashes. This is great for me as I hated having to have so many extra batterys with me all the time and have three leftovers from a pack of eight instead of being able to use a pack of eight to power two whole flashes. The Nikon flashes also have always been a step above the Canon flash system in being able to quickly change settings and setting up a wireless link between the flashes for off-camera lighting. This new model puts a quantum leap between the two, usually very comparable brands. (Also: the SB-900 is still compatible with external battery packs, although I don't use them, and therefore can't comment if there have been any significant changes to the way this works...looks like the same port though)

The wireless system from Nikon is called CLS for: Creative Lighting System. The two primary reasons why off-camera lighting is important: 1) On camera flashes can cause red-eye in photos and 2) On-camera lighting usually looks very bland, and creates very flat shadows with no dimension to your images. The way CLS works is by having a "Master Unit", which can be a SB-800 or SB-900 or even a DSLR's built-in flash in the D80,D200, D300, or D700 and using several "slave units" which can be a SB-600,SB-800, or SB-900. The master unit sends out a pulse of light that tells the slave units how powerful they need to flash and when, which can be set manually from the master unit or can be set to TTL (through-the-lens) which means that the camera will automatically adjust each flash to what the camera thinks will give it a good exposure.

CLS is a great system for using off-camera flash, however has some severe limitations, such as requiring line of sight and having a somewhat limited range due to it being a infared system. Because of this limitation, I've always used a device called a Pocketwizard to remotely fire my flashes as this device is a RF (radio-frequency) triggering system than doesn't have the limitations of CLS. The downside of Pocketwizards however is that each flash must be set manually on the flash itself, so if after looking at my photo I decided I want a particular flash to be a bit more powerful and light up a little more of what I have it pointing at, I need to walk over to that flash and adjust it. I don't have to tell you that this could be a non-optional thing when shooting an important event that is underway, you can't just say "Hold on everybody! I need to adjust my flash!" While this would be fine in a studio type environment or a commercial shoot, a wedding or corporate event would not be the time to experiment and be running back and forth. The product that is out there as the 'best of both worlds' would be a product called a RadioPopper, although I have not actually tested one of those out personally.

I've always found the SB-800 interface to be great, really fast to change settings, and very intuitive (except when making the flash a master or slave...you have to hold down a button for a couple seconds...BUT WAIT! There's an instruction chart built right into the bounce card! AWESOME!). The crazy thing is that Nikon, when designing the SB-900 completely changed the entire layout and design of their old model and came up with a whole new way of accessing and changing those often needed settings. The cool part is that what they changed made a great system even better. Instead of having to hold down the center button for 2-3 seconds, all you have to do now if flip the power switch to the "master" or "slave" setting, and presto...you're on your way. Also they now have a much quicker "Canon-esque (see the SX-100/SX110 series)" click-wheel for going between power settings and adjustments on the fly as well as having individual buttons for each different component of the changes you need to make. One button dedicated for power adjustments, another button to adjust modes, another button to adjust wht your intended aperture will be and another button for the zoom on your flash.

For those of you who haven't used a Speedlite extensively, flashes can zoom just (well sorta) like a lens can. The new SB-900 has a range from 24mm-200mm, which means you can have a very wide spread on your beam to illuminate a whole group of people or create a great fill-light, or you can have a very narrow beam that's great for isolating a small portion of your image with a little splash of light to make that person or object jump right out of the picture. This increased range, when used with lighting modifiers such as snoots, umbrellas, softboxes and gridspots will allow you you keep light as loose and soft or as tight and hard as you want, which just opens up creative control all the more.

Also improved on the SB-900 is the filter holder. Anyone who has used a SB-800, knows how big of a pain it is to fit the included gels into the little hole to hold the gel in place when running around with the flash. The new gel holder actually is a separate piece which goes between the plastic over the flash tube and the diffusion dome, which allows it to be held in place much more securely and not hamper ease of use. I usually set most of my gear manually, so I have no hands-on experience with this, but according to what I've read, the code printed on the gel itself will tell your camera what to change your white balance to, however the second you want to get creative with color, I could imagine that become a big pain to go through and change everytime you change a gel.

Overall the SB-900 is a massive evolution of the SB-800 that is improved in every way except portability, as the SB-900 is quite a bit larger than its predecessor. The only problem I have had with it at all in the few weeks I've been using it, is during a wedding, it stopped firing as it became overheated because we were firing about 15 full-power shots in a row with virtually no wait between shots.

This caused a rapid build up of heat from the flash tube and the flash actually started beeping at me and wouldn't fire for a few minutes until it cooled down a bit. I discovered later I can turn off this built-in safety although it will still beep at you, it will allow you to continue burning the bulb out until you destroy your flash and need to drop another $500 for a new one...but I'd recommend listening when it starts complaining to you about the heat...

Get out there and start flashing! Photography wise I mean...

iPhone Firmware 2.1

2008-09-16T23:30:00.003-04:00

This will be a very short post, as I have to get to sleep soon, so I can wake up in time for my flight tomorrow to San Antonio (I'll be there a whopping 36 hours). I downloaded the new iPhone firmware two Fridays ago (the day it was released...what can I say, I'm an early adopter...gotta have the latest) and it has fixed nearly all my little complaints about the new 3G iPhone (I have the first iPhone too, but I waited a full 24 hours after it came out to buy it).

Before:

You could watch you battery life drain down as you used GPS on the road

With 3G turned on, the phone could barely last a full day in my pocket with frequent mail updates and txt messages constantly streaming data (not to mention twitter)

Txting was painfully slow for the first few seconds (I discovered I could type three-four sentences before the phone would input the text I typed)

Safari crashed on a regular basis if I put the phone to sleep and tried to resume reading the webpage at a later time.

Now:

I can drive for over 3 hours using the GPS AND 3G with the phone using less than 25% of the battery life on my phone. Texting is rapid and speedy just like the 1st gen hardware and software. Improved signal strength at my house (the only place I didn't have 4-5 bars before). Safari has yet to crash since the past weekend and I've only had one app crash so far.

The long and short of this all is: If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch: DOWNLOAD IT NOW, your life will be better for it. (There have been a few people online who claim this update has caused problems for them, however this is a miniscule minority and are most likely just upset the iPhone still doesn't have cut and paste)

9/11

2008-09-11T23:59:00.002-04:00

Today was the 7th anniversary of one of the most infamous days in recent US history, 9/11. It's hard to believe that it has been so long, when it seems it happened just last year. I was in Alexandria on 9/11/08 and took some photos of the ceremony they were having that day:

I promise to start working on things to blog about...

2008-09-03T22:11:00.004-04:00

Wow, so I keep neglecting to update this page, but I'm going to start working on that. I'm going to try to have an update at least once a week from now on (fortunately I've got something cool going on at least once of a week for the next month or so, I'll just need to find time to write stuff here). I've been really busy with work lately and the only time I've had to type up anything recently has been for another project I'm working on.

UPDATE!!!

Well I have about 4 blog posts I'm working on right now, and hope to post 1-2 by this weekend and the the other 2 next week. I'm writing a review on my first two weeks of experience with the SB-900, a review on the Sony a350 (Sony's first real shot at a mainstream DSLR). Anyone interested in other product/equipment reviews? I've still yet to do any real reviews on most of the gear I own, probably should work on that I guess. Check back this weekend for the update!

Vacation to Hilton Head

2008-08-23T09:48:00.011-04:00

I just got back from my vacation around midnight. We went to Hilton Head South Carolina, and even during the 'dry season' the place is essentially a swamp with a beach. We happened to choose a week to go during which tropical storm "Fay" was moving up the coast, soaking the south-eastern shores of the country in violent spurts. It would be nice and sunny outside, and then all of a sudden a huge mass of clouds would come pouring in to drench the island again. We explored the various sections of the island during our first full day there, and happened upon a nice little harbor with a lighthouse on the south side of the island.

The view of the harbor...where you have to pay $5 just to get in...yeah it was unusual

Of all the views from the top of the lighthouse...the "viewing machine" was the most interesting to me

My dad and sister sitting on a crate at the end of the pier

Self portrait in the window at the top of the lighthouse...

On Monday, it actually didn't rain at all until late in the evening, so that was our first day to hit the beach. I applied quite a bit of sunscreen, but in the infinite wisdom of my family, we only had SPF 6 with us...yeah that's SPF 6 as in a SINGLE digit. The next morning I woke up to incredible shooting pains like being covered by dry ice. I was Lobster Boy! I was essentially grounded for the next 36 hours, unable to walk as my knees were so badly burned it hurt to stand up, much less walk. Fortunately I decided to bring my Gamecube along in my Boda bag (my Nikon gear was in the beach proof Lowepro Vertex 300) so I kept myself entertained all day between that and various reality shows in syndication on Bravo and VH1 (hey, there wasn't anything good to watch, what else could I do?) However later that evening we did check out ANOTHER harbor and it sort of reminded me Shanty Town (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) outside of Ocean City, MD.

The Gamecube fit suprisingly perfectly in the Boda...I didn't bring my 360 because it was too heavy and I didn't feel like unhooking the crazy mass of wires I had jumbled together under my TV

I personally wouldn't want to buy anything that had been in a Pelican's Pouch, but to each his own I guess...

With all the stormy weather it was kind of nice to see calm waters...

Also to occupy my time as Lobster Boy, I observed some fauna that happened to congregate outside our little villa (I'm not much of a bird guy, so I have no idea what species they were, but if any of you reading this know what they are, let me know in the comments) including several birds and a plethora of turtles. On the bike ride I chose to pass up, my family claims to have seen an alligator, however I never encountered one during my stay.

This bird let me get like 10 feet from it without moving (Photogs: this is at 200mm with no crop!)

Lunch time!

Down the hatch...yeah that's a WHOLE FISH!

My sister decided to feed the turtles and she had like 10 of them at one time climbing up to get the food she had... this is the only one who got completely out of the water though...

On our final day, my sister wanted to go see Savannah, Georgia for some reason, so we all had to pile up in the car and head TOWARDS the tropical storm, something no other fools on the eastern shore would have done. The truth came out when we got there, that she just wanted to see the birthplace of the woman who created the Girl Scouts (my sister is going to be 21 in 2.5 weeks...yeah definitely no longer a girl scout). My mom and my sister explored that building for about an hour while my dad and I drove around the city looking for anything interesting...there wasn't much there, but I did happen to notice a really cool path with these overgrown trees and had to stop to take a couple photos.

I really liked the canopy the trees created over the sidewalk

A lighthouse we stopped at on the drive home...I took this shot about 5 seconds before torrential rains started to soak me... I'm glad my gear is weather sealed!

Here's my obligatory 'beach' family photo... my family is very self-conscious about pictures of them... my dad kept asking me to completely redo his hairline... I tweaked some stray hairs and told him he'd look like Fabio and left it at that... he never comes to this site, so that will be our little secret :)

The shot is taken at 7AM in the morning with the rising sun lighting up one side of us and a remote SB-800 filling in the rest.

If you like to check out the rest of the photos I took during the trip, you can see them all at noahhayes.net

BTW: What's up with everyone taking vacation this week? Armin and ErinChris took vacation this week too!

FINALLY!!!

2008-08-01T13:08:00.001-04:00

Finally!!! (the image speaks for itself if you knew about my car troubles over the past few weeks)

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the Dulles Air and Space Museum!

2008-07-29T13:48:00.003-04:00

Two weekends ago (yeah, I've been busy, hence the few and far between posts lately) I met up with some photographers from DPReview.com at the Dulles Air and Space Museum to hang out and talk about our weapons of choice (Nikons...not aircraft based machine guns and rockets). It's funny, I've lived 15/20 minutes away from this place since it opened, but I had never been. The museum is very nice, although VERY crowded and they plan to cram even more aircraft/spacecraft over the next few years. It's a challenge to only get 1-2 objects in a image since they are litterally stacked on top of each other, there are no less than THREE levels of aircraft stacked!

Exterior of the museum...looks like an airport, but then again it is a stone's throw from Dulles Airport...

This is what I mean by crammed...I'm trying to get a picture of ONE helicopter, and to get the whole helicopter in the shot, I have to have 3 planes and another helicopter in the shot too!

There's a really cool section of the museum (it's actually kinda hidden, because it's behind the stairs) that has a bunch of engines pulled out where you can see all the VERY different designs

Another engine removed from it's aricraft

Yes, even unmanned "aircraft" are displayed here (although they all have the warhead removed).

They have aircraft from all generations, from early Wright-style planes, to modern jets...

In the far end of the museum, there is a huge room dedicated to spacecraft, including the Space Shuttle Enterprise and a number of satellites and sections of rockets... I have no idea what this ring is, but it looked kinda interesting to me...

This is an exhaust from a rocket that I used a blue gel on a flash to give it a "spacy" look...

Self-portrait in a space helmet...

I didn't like how this photo came out, but posted it here to show how cool using a red gel on your flash can be... kinda gives the Blackbird's engine a "I'm about to fire, you should probably move away...unless you wanna get toasted" kinda look...

If you live in the Northern VA area or are visiting, I'd definitely recommend checking this place out, it only take about 2-3 hours to wander the whole place, and is free to get in (well parking is $12, so carpool with some friends).

The Sun is no match for the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8!

2008-07-05T10:05:00.005-04:00

This past week I was up in Minnesota for a business trip, and I took my D3 and some glass (why wouldn't I?) and we took a cruise on the beautiful Lake Minnetonka which left right around golden hour, and before we left the dock I decided to test out the flare control of my newest addition to my lens collection, the amazing Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 Ultra-wide Angle lens. It has a nanocrystal coat and a bunch of ED (enhanced dispersion) glass in it to reduce flare and ghosting, and let me tell you...it works like a dream. The picture below is a picture of a ship next to the one we one SHOOTING STRAIGHT INTO THE SUN! The incredible part is there is only a VERY slim strip of flaring at the bottom left of the image!

Click this link to view a larger version

Incredible control of flare for shooting directly into the sun at Lake Minnetonka, MN!

Another test using the same lens with absolutely no flare (also no water to reflect the sun from a different angle...) from rural western VA

Video Project in 3 days = No sleep

2008-06-27T11:45:00.005-04:00

James and I on our first day of shooting...prior to sleep deprivation...

So those of you who don't know...I have had all of 8 hours of sleep over the past week. I got approached by a GM in my district about creating a video project around customer acquisition and innovation in our local stores last week. I agreed to work on it without knowing when he needed it by (he made it sound like their was plenty of time). The next day he calls to tell me a little more about the project. This is a video which is to be made to show to our Executive Vice President of Retail and our CFO who would be coming to our territory office on the 27th. I said "The 27th of July? Okay." No...it was the 27th of June. This conversation was last Friday the 20th.

I freak out as I had to work all weekend and was scheduled to work all this week. I managed to get my employees to work a bunch of extra shifts to cover me, and grabbed James ( a friend at the company who I've done several video projects before...also a fellow contributer to Tech Tuesdays at Sillyman.org) and filled him in on the details. We began shooting Monday morning and found out Tuesday afternoon after shooting the last bit that this video needed to have a rough draft (90% complete) by 3PM Wednesday...

To make a long story short, this project took about 50 hours of actual work and James and I were sitting in front of a camera or a computer for close to 65 hours (waiting for things to render, import, ect) over the course of 3.5 days. We found out Thursday EVENING that the time for the presentation has been cut back, and due to time constraints they won't have time to show the video (it's only 7.5 minutes long!)

I wasn't going to blog this, but I emailed the video to a couple friends in the industry and they wanted me to post this up just to show everyone exactly how (to put in Armin's words) "...this really shows how much TIME and EFFORT goes into a freakin’ 7 minute video!"

Sorry I am not willing to link or post this video as it is does contain proprietary company information, but just rest assured that it came out great.

At least I got out of a blue shirt for a few days...

Softball 08

2008-06-18T01:06:00.003-04:00

Today I was shooting a softball game for Best Buy's D91 annual tournament. They usually don't take it seriously as to go out and make uniforms specifically for the event, but this year the Gainesville store went all out and got jerseys made. Sterling VA completely dominated every round they played, with the first game being the biggest landslide with Sterling aat 28 runs OVER what Gainesville had. I took about 1700 shots and boiled it down to the top 250ish and uploaded the lot onto noahhayes.net under events if you'd like to view the events from the whole day, but I decided to post a couple of my personal favorites here for you.

You usually don't see baseball/softball games from the angle of the field in photos, but here's one...

Stu = failure Kyle = hero

Kyle's pretty fast too

Stu warming up

Zach's would-be hilarious shirt if 1022 (Leesburg VA) had more than three people show up to play...those three got stuck on Rick's team

George sporting his Julbo shades...

These were some pro-quality burgers and dogs, many thanks to Helen for feeding everyone...

Jermaine decided to play a little basketball while on a break between going up to bat...

Leanna and Kat(below) both decided to slide head first into the muddy expanse between 2nd and 3rd base...

Hope you enjoyed these, I've got some new photo toys I'll be testing out this week and putting a full review (or at least some sample photos) later this week when I get some more time. (BTW I usually don't shoot JPEG, but I did today expecting to take more photos than normal...I used up nearly 11 GB of cards using JPEG alone, which was mind boggling to me. Fortunately nearly all the shots were great straight out of the camera and the only post-processing I had to do was a little cropping here and there)

All in the Cards

2008-06-16T18:23:00.002-04:00

Well I just my new business cards in an hour ago, and they look and feel great! I got them through a company called Plastic Printers (original name...) and they were very friendly and easy to deal with. I do suggest if you order from them to not waste your time or your money having them design a card for you though. I had them send me about 3-4 proofs before giving up on their design team and just designing my own. I had made about 3 different designs and emailed copies to a couple friends and this design is the unianimous decision among them. Hope you like them! I know I do (I hope potential clients do too!).

A couple of my new cards in the Boda Card holder (courtesy of Jim Garner and Boda Bags)

A card resting against my 14-24 f/2.8 lens to show you the translucency

Used a lens as a card holder...yes that's my site in the background

Facebook

2008-06-12T09:59:00.002-04:00

Yes that's right ladies and gentleman...I have a MyFace now. I've really haven't checked my Myspace page in over 2 years except when people try to add me and I get an email, but I've had quite a few people ask me "Do you have a Facebook?" recently and I guess I finally caved into the pressure and got a Facebook...I haven't uploaded anything to it yet, and I guess I really don't understand why everyone gets addicted to those social networking sites, but maybe I'll get addicted too. I'll probably get a couple photos up there later this week and tweak it to make it as crowded and overwhelmingly busy as possible and never remember to check it again...but so is the world of SNS (social networking sites) I guess.

More Nostalgia

2008-06-06T14:43:00.005-04:00

As I was posting my "Where's Waldo" post, I was listening to some of Joe Satriani's "Strange Beautiful Music" Album, and I was thinking "This music would make a perfect soundtrack if they ever made a Mega Man movie!" Then it hit me, you all have been there before. Nostalgia. You smell a familiar scent, hear a riff from a song you loved, but haven't heard in years, or see a familiar feature in the face of a stranger and it hit you like a ton of bricks. It hit me in an unusual way...I become temporarily obsessed with tracking down my old NES from the boxes in my basement and playing some 8-bit goodness. I found my NES, but alas I was missing the power supply, so I opened every box I could find. When I finally tracked down the original power supply and plug it in...nothing. The supply was dead.

There was only one thing to do, I scavenged the house looking for a 9V 1.3a power supply with the proper sized plug...it took about an hour, but I found a generic supply that worked great! I popped in Mega Man 3 and I was up until 1AM last night trying to beat Snakeman and Hardman while grooving to that awesome music I remembered! I'm finding the game SOOO much harder than I remembered it.

That's one happy guy there!

I dare not try to plug the NES into my Samsung 1080p LCD for fear it would spoil that nostalgic feeling...

Edit: for those of you out there who were either too old or too young to understand what I'm all excited about... the NES is Nintendo's (the company that makes the Wii) Nintendo Entertainment System, it was originally released in 1985, and the game I'm all psyched about is Mega Man 3 which was released in 1990.

Where's Waldo?

2008-06-04T10:27:00.003-04:00

A few years ago I found this on someone's website and downloaded it onto my computer. The picture is of me back in high school. I have NO idea how the person found the picture to even put online, as they lived in California and I don't think they went to my school, but I was just cleaning out one of my hard drives and came across it again, and thought some of you out there might enjoy a picture of me from back in the day.

This picture was a crop from my senior yearbook panoramic. They had everyone go into the gym and sit on the bleachers for a HUGE group shot. I decided to dress up for the occasion, but I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt over top of my outfit as to not cause suspicion (or suspension LOL). The glasses by the way were made out of black pipecleaners. The funny thing is I discovered after the photos had been taken that the Yearbook Committee had joked about putting a cartoon insert of Waldo into the photo using Photoshop 7.0 (yeah it was that long ago, LOL).

...and no I do NOT still have this costume!

Running around Reston

2008-05-30T23:48:00.006-04:00

This past Thursday, I got a chance to hang out with quite a few other photogs, and we had a blast. Armin set the whole thing up, and we had Kenny Kim from Chicago, as well as Paul Price (of PSquared Photographic), Peter Bang, and Troy Woods (of ClarkBailey Company) all hanging around Reston Town Center. Also Laura of Soiree Events and Jaime and Stuart of E2 Events came too!. Jaime and Stuart got married about a year ago, but we had them pose for a "engagement shoot" anyway.

Snagged this shot from Armin's blog -

From left to right: Me, Armin, Peter, Paul, Kenny (Laura took the shot)

The fountains at Reston Town Center

Laura posing with ALL of our Boda bags...take THAT Shootsac people! LOL...

A SUPERWIDE angle shot (14mm) of Kenny shooting Laura

Jaime and Stuart were fun to work with and were definitely not shy of the camera...make that cameras...

Kenny asked a passerby if we could borrow his dog...it was a cute one!

Surprisingly even with all the buildings, we were able to get some really fantastic lighting...

Someone (I think Peter) made a joke about shooting inside the UPS Truck...Jaime took him seriously...

Paul "PSquared" Price and Armin Defiesta shooting back...

Later at dinner, I got in trouble for taking pictures at this restaurant...

I usually don't detract from reality too much in photoshop, but decided to play a bit...

I think jumping shots are going to just start showing up more frequently in my blog...Armin's ninja shot really set the bar high though...

Virginia Tech Graduation

2008-05-13T20:52:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I went down to Virginia Tech to visit and go to one of my best friend's graduation. I had only been down the Blacksburg 3 times over the past four years, so I wanted to get some good shots this time around, but it wound up raining one of the days I was there, so I only took a few...hundred...these are my favorite from the weekend.

My friend Jon was thrilled to be graduating

Sometimes you just can't wait to say it (this was taken the day before Mom's Day)

Jon and his Mom playing some tetherball

Jon's brother and I played some checker's...he kicked my butt, he was quite the master...

Jon likes to drive fast, 3X the speedlimit on a dark mountain road fast...

Jon's brother and I played gigantic chess later, it was a close game but he STILL won...the guy's a champion...

A ton of graduates put messages on their caps, these were the last to graduate that day...

We went to a outdoor pinic/barbaque later in the mountains, the sky was just SOOO perfect!

Mike and Maggie's portrait turned engagement shoot

2008-05-09T15:28:00.004-04:00

So we knew this going into it, but Armin and I were shooting a lifestyle portrait session with Maggie and Mike yesterday, and about halfway through Mike popped the question. Maggie was so surprised when he dropped down to one knee, and was laughing when a guy in a car passing by shouted out "Don't do it, just say no!" as Maggie raised her fist and shook it at the guy retorting "You're ruining the moment!" Enjoy the photos!

Postprocessed for Armin...tried to be 'moody'

Maggie wanted a shot of her rather shiny shoes

Wait for it...wait for it...

Maggie laughing at the guy who drove by shouting "Don't do it, just say no!"

Showing off the new bling

It takes two to tango

Notice the sign says Church St...

Hope you enjoyed the photos. I'm down in Blacksburg right now, and will be taking some photos around town today and tomorrow and will post them up early next week, also with some updates on the website. If you haven't noticed I've changed the color scheme and design of this page as well as noahhayes.net to match the new site which will launch soon.

Photoshoot 1 with Maggie and Mike (and Armin and Erin J)

2008-05-07T01:20:00.002-04:00

Tonight I was hanging out with Armin and Erin J as we played with light (that is what photography is all about after all anyway, right?) as we took some photos of Maggie and Mike. We met up in Tysons Corner and trekked to a couple different locations. Armin and I will also be shooting a portrait/lifestyle session with them later this week, I'll be sure to post those pictures this weekend, they should be pretty good, we'll be in old Leesburg. These are just some of my favorites from the day, the rest are available for your viewing at noahhayes.net!

The 'crew' at Chili's in Tysons grabbing some grub waiting for the light to begin to fade into the horizon... (when the sun is really low in the sky you get a really nice tone to the light)

Maggie posing in front of the painted American flah outside of Chilis

Armin going for different angles for the shot

Erin J and Armin shooting Maggie from both sides

Shooting into the sun, using it for a really nice backlight

Once it started getting dark we pulled out our flashes and got a little "creative"...I think Maggie was frustrated...LOL

After dark we used a continuous light to get some nice warm (color, not heat) light

Armin pulled a Jet Li pose while we played around with high-speed sync flash, a la Nikon SB-800 and Pocket Wizards...sorry Armin no Canon flashes were harmed in the making of this shot :)

These two are gonna take crime into their own hands...literally, he's a cop and she just graduated with a degree in criminal justice! Watch out!

More fun with high-speed sync...well at least I had fun taking it!

Armin had an idea to use his car's headlights as a way to illuminate the "model", I think it worked out well...

Hope you enjoyed the images, there's a few more on noahhayes.net! Also I'll be heading down to VT for graduation this weekend, so I may not get a chance to post anything until I get back, but rest assured that by Mon/Tues next week you'll see a couple more posts up here.

Tag!!! I'm It!

2008-04-27T00:02:00.002-04:00

Well I guess I deserve it, since I haven't had much of an opportunity to update my blog recently, but Armin tagged my blog and so I am forced by the Creed of the Blog to comply. Anyway the way this works is:

1) You tag someone by commenting that they have been tagged on their blog

2) You must post 5 songs you are embarrassed to admit you love

3) You must tag 7 other blogs (which will be a stretch for me as I read like 5 blogs...one of which is Armin's, one of which is Erin's who has already been tagged and Strobist...and David wouldn't even notice that he'd been tagged and is in Dubai right now anyway)

So here it goes...some of these will date me a little...so those of you who don't know my age will probably be able to guess after this post...

1) A recent favorite, only technically a song as it was created as a gag for the TV show "How I Met Your Mother", but wonderful nevertheless. It's "Let's Go to the Mall" by Robin Sparkles...

2) By far one of the most addictive songs and to this day use this song when I feel like blasting all 1500+ watts out of my subwoofers in my car..."Ninja Rap" by Vanilla Ice as seen in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Secret of the Ooze, and YES I know all the lyrics, but NO I will not be pulling an Armin on this one!

3) A rather strange song for me to enjoy, as I had never even heard of the performer until way past the prime of his career..."It's not Unusual" by Tom Jones

4) Apache by the Sugarhill Gang takes the number 4 spot...amazing song...play it and no matter what mood you're in you will start to dance around and do the cowboy dance move (I played it at work realllllyyyy loud as a joke once, no one could resist- kinda like Dave Chappelle's experiment on getting white people to dance when they hear an electric guitar)

5) The Final Countdown by Europe...this song, while amazingly awesome by itself, is made even more inspirational if you have seen a few episodes of Arrested Development...yet I would be embarrased to no end to play this in public.

So who am I tagging?

Ian Cozens at thekarmapolicearecoming.blogspot.com

Matt Schrader at sillyman.org

Peter Bang at Peterbang.blogspot.com

If I can think of anyone else...I'll add them to the list...maybe I should start reading some more blogs?

edit: Since sillyman.org has multiple authors (and technically I'm one of those too, although I've only made one post there) I'm tagging Matt Maddox and Patrick "Matt" Schrader as well!

A Sea of Blueshirts

2008-04-23T23:18:00.004-04:00

So a few weeks ago I was at the Gaylord Waterfront Hotel near DC for a event for my company, and WOW! I'd never even heard of this place before but it was huge! There were about three-four companies having events simultaneously and still had plenty of room left over. Imagine 700-800 employees in blue shirts and kahkis, with room for at least 200 more to sit down with only 75% of the room having tables and chairs!!! The meeting was our annual territory Tech/Leadership Tour where they talk about all the new exciting technologies rolling out this year and announce big changes in the way the business operates or markets itself. It was pretty informative and I always have a blast hanging out with people that have similar interests...a room full of hundreds of electronic gizmo junkies is definitely my kinda place! This all happened a few weeks ago, but I hadn't got a chance yet to even download my photos, let alone post some up on my blog. I've been running DSLR trainings it seems like everyday since up until this past week, and next week I've got another training I'm running, then there will be a little break for Noah...he needs one. Some of these photos are from the Tech tour, the rest are from some of the trainings I was running.

HUGE Auditorium

The gate can see you!

This was the CHECK-IN COUNTER!!! It was bigger than some hotels I've stayed at!

You know a place is crazy nice when they have digital maps that update what conference is in what room and when every hour!

George and his reflector...sorry George, couldn't resist!

The view from the dock outside

Yes it's true...I'm well versed in the Sony's too...

Joey was confused for a while...

Brittany and Aki from Tysons playing around with a 40D

Cesar being a wise guy covering up the flash on the Oly E-510

I had a blast being out of the store for a week and a half doing nothing but talking about DSLR's and other technologies... I wish I could do that all the time...oh wait I do!

P.S. Sorry to everyone for taking so long to update this page. I will try to find time over the next few weeks to keep it interesting...

noahhayes.net

2008-04-14T19:55:00.004-04:00

Well it's not a fullblown website with pricing and everything, but it sure is a step in the right direction. Don't have any idea what I'm talking about? I'm talking about NoahHayes.net which is a portfolio site for me and a way for me to sell images to my clients and anyone who wants a print of one of my images. You can actually click on ANY of the images and order anything from wallet sized prints to full 20X30" metallic prints with fine grained walnut frames! You can even order photos imprinted on T-Shirts and coffee cups! This just launched today and I'm very excited. My plans are to have a full blown website by mid-June which will be found by going through noahhayesphotography.com or noahhayesphoto.com!!!

I wanted to use noahhayes.com as my main site, but apparently some bizzare company bought noahhayes.com for a male pattern baldness medication site. The truly bizzare thing? The guy who owns the site is named Rob or Larry or something like that...and his last name isn't Hayes. His registration of that site though expires in July and I have placed a preorder on the domain as soon as it frees up.

Goin' Bonkers for Bonzai

2008-04-08T21:15:00.006-04:00

I was hanging out with two fellow photogs (Armin Defiesta and Peter Bang) the other day down in DC at the National Arboretum, and although it was a drizzly, overcast day, we still all had quite a bit of fun. After taking some shots out in the weather near the columns, we headed on into the Bonsai exhibit, which had some truly remarkable pieces of this amazing art form.

I noticed some flowers growing along the base of some of the columns. Those out of focus dark spots are Peter and Armin. This shot also goes to show why sometimes LiveView on a DSLR is a nice thing to have.

I have no idea what it says, but it sure looked important

The Bonsai lineup along one side of the building

Most of the flowers have yet to bloom, April showers bring May flowers!

I told you it was wet!

This little rock had all kinds of miniature buildings and boats all around it.

This was a VERY small house right under those grass like leaves near the bottom of the rock pictured above.

Peter and Armin rocking out with the 24-70 f/2.8L, Peter is also rocking a Boda lens bag!!!

Some cherry blossoms...so difficult to figure out what you want to get out of a picture like this...literally thousands of subject to chose from!

This was the only dead, or at least leafless Bonsai that I saw. It was right there when you walk in, kinda caught me by surprise.

Outside there were quite a few little fountains, this was a shot of water shooting out at 1/8000 of a second! What's crazy about that is that I still see motion blur!

This was the last Bonsai I saw of the day, I thought it was cool how it looked like a whole forest in a clay pot. All the other bonsai looked just like one mini-tree.

This was my favorite picture of the day for some reason, maybe its the stone cutout in the background..I don't know, I just love it.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. I look forward to spring, when all those flowers bloom!

Bowling is NOT my best sport...

2008-04-02T09:57:00.002-04:00

So my friend Noman talked me into going bowling with him the other day and we invited a couple other people from work. (He also accidentally invited someone who used to work with us when he meant to call someone else... the person who showed up thought he was invited by someone else...huge case of mistaken identity)

Noman was the culprit

James and John (the other John, LOL) were the masters of the lanes, but it was John truly wiped the floor with us. Noman kept getting gutter balls until he found a technique that suited him well (pictured below)

James knocking 'em down

John had the spin move down, that ball was sliding all over the place!

Noman's "Grandma" strategy

Strategy pays off!!!

Your's truly actually managed to get a spare and then two strikes in a row! (That was the first time in my life I've bowled past a 110 score! I got a 124!

Stylish 'huh?

On a slighty different subject, it seems golf season is starting back up. I had to walk my sister's boyfriend's dog (long story) and saw this bright neon yellow golf ball some 4.5 feet from a support beam for our deck. (The golf course is 50 feet from my backyard)

You know you're a camera nerd when... (part one of many more to come)

2008-04-02T00:16:00.005-04:00

...you spend hours (literally) taking long exposures in a friends backyard painting images in the air with you iPhones.

I was hanging out with my friend Matt at his place taking some pictures of his fish and took a picture of him sitting in virtually no light in his living room (the lights were off as he was watching a movie when I got there) and he was like "$@#$@ where's all that light coming from it looks like day!?!?" So after doing a photo op for him and his various fish we stepped outside into his backyard where the closest light was a 60W tungsten bulb from inside his kitchen about 30 feet away and took some long exposures.

Matt smiling at his fish through the glass

To get good focus I asked him to hold his phone near his face to get more light so I (the camera could focus just fine, but I am used to not trusting focus in lowlight so I needed to check) could even see what I was focusing on, and I took a test shot at about 1/2 a second. From this test image we got the idea to start drawing stuff in the air with our phones on long timed exposures and illuminate our faces in various parts of the image. (Matt is DEFINATELY better at this than I am)

Show me that logo!

As you can see...Matt is quite the sailor (he pulled this off himself in 30")

This shot (yes, a remake of Harry Potter) was the result of a slow evolution of "fighting light phones" images...

In our version the kid with the glasses (me) loses...

San Antonio, the city so nice, I stayed an extra day! (WARNING...HUGE POST!)

2008-03-27T17:31:00.001-04:00

NOTE: If you just want a summary of my experience with the Nikon D3 , just skip to the last 2 paragraphs... enjoy and let me know what you think down in the comments section!!

I got sent to San Antonio for a training for work this past week, and let me tell you... this city is awesome!!! This was my first time in Texas, and it was great to be in 85 degrees weather away from the 40 degrees it was in VA when I left. It was WAY off what I was expecting. South Texas, I was thinking I'd see stetsons and cowboy boots and every bar would be a bunch of line dancing, I couldn't be further off!

I had to climb through a construction site to get this shot without obstructing the tower

There were about 20 of us sent from all over the country for a DSLR "Train the Trainer" session. We will be in charge of giving an in-depth DSLR training to the rest of our districts (there's about 80 districts in the company with about 11-15 stores per district). They supplied anyone without a camera with a Nikon D80 or a Canon 40D and an assortment of gear such as tripods, flashes and lenses and let us loose on the city. Apparently quite a few people were curious about the army of photogs running around the hot spot in town, and I was asked by at least 20 people if we were with the newspaper, magazines, or paparazzi. I usually told people what was REALLY going on but decided to get some fellow tourists and some of the locals excited by telling them "I can't tell you who's in town due to a NDA, but they're definitely big. You didn't hear it from me, but they're staying on the fifth floor of the Hyatt Regency" (guess what room I was referring to... LOL). I was asked so frequently because, although a decent number of tourists had SLRs... none of them were walking around in their "Photo Ninja" uniform (black shirt, black pants, black shoes, no ninja mask if you're wondering), carrying a D3 with a SB-800 and 17-55 attached, a 80-200 in the other hand, an extra SB-800 in one pocket, a 105VR Micro in another pocket, so I definitely looked quite conspicuous compared to the 40 year-old guys walking around with Rebel XT's and their families.

Jessica, Ann, and Kris all outside with their SLR's for the first photo assignment

Jermaine enjoying his extra day at the hotel

I took this opportunity to full test out my brand new Nikon D3, and let me tell you, this thing is absolutely AMAZING! It is truly a low light king. This image was taken in a very dark area under a bridge on what is known as the River Walk (which is similar to the Boardwalk in Atlantic City/Ocean City - virtually every place you'd want to be is along it) right across from our hotel. This image was taken handheld at 11PM!!!

1/2" Exposure ISO 4000 (yeah, I said .5 seconds at ISO 4000!!!)

The river walk had some beautiful locations (engagement shoot anyone?)

Saw this guy up on street level just chillin' and thought he had an interesting story to tell.

The first night I was there I hung out with my roommate James Brooks and we were just walking along the River Walk and happened to pass by three guys around our age who were carrying cameras too, about 15 feet after passing them, as almost as if on cue we turned around (as did they) and said, "You work for Best Buy I'm guessing?" and sure enough they were there for the training too. James and I wound up going to a bar called Mad Dogs British Pub right next to the hotel before going out and taking some night photography. That place was so cool (unfortunately I didn't have my camera at the time)! They have half a Mini Cooper, a British phone booth, a mini-Big Ben, a fake Royal guard and a ton of waitresses running around in short plaid kilts (an interesting spin on a mainstay of any good British Pub :) and had a really fun atmosphere. Immediately next to Mad Dogs was a cool, yet dark Jazz Lounge that had some good live music, however I completely am blanking on the band's name (sorry guys).

Would you like to hear Mr. Ron Burgundy play the jazz flute? (yes, I know it's an oboe, but I had to make the Anchorman reference)

Afterwards we wound up exploring the immediate area around the hotel and bumped into some interesting characters. We were joking about how many people must have fallen into the river as they were leaving the pub, as there were RARELY any railings of any kind keeping anyone from dropping into the drink.

This is an example of intentional vignetting by forcing full-frame mode on a DX lens)

This was near a part of the river walk where you actually have large stepping stones to get across (the gap is only like 2 inches between stones though)

The second night there quite a few, (and by that I mean all of us) went out to hit the town and experience all that San Antonio had to offer. We started out the night at Joe's Crabshack (which had easily the worst service any of us had ever had) and about every 15 minutes the ENTIRE staff starts dancing around the place. Don't remember how the food was but I remember the crazy hair-do the guy at the front of the conga line had! Afterwards we headed over to Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar, which we stayed at for all of 30 minutes after hearing horrible music from 30-40 years ago (and when I mean bad...I mean stuff you've tried to forget). We tried finding a nice place to go along the Riverwalk, but it all seemed the same, so we asked some locals about where to go and headed over to The Texan based on their recommendations. Nice little pool bar just about 2-3 blocks away that was a ton of fun. My favorite memory from there is this 50+ Mexican local all dressed up in a basketball jersey and cap dancing to some Bon Jovi. This guy must be seen or described in person (I left my camera back in my room for safekeeping from my self) the gyrations and hand motions and facial expressions were reminiscent of Michael Jackson's Thriller album but done by a lunatic who escaped the ward and forgot his pills. After a few hours there, we headed over to Coyote Ugly. I've seen about 10 minutes of the show on TV about this chain, but have never been to one before. If there is a "Worst Coyote Location in the World" award, this would be it. They must have sent all their rejects from around the country here...'nuff said. After leaving there, it was about 2:30AM which gave me about 5 hours to get back to my room before I needed to be up the next morning...I did not feel so hot the next day.

Aeron tested out my camera by taking a shot at 6400 at Joes' Crabshack...this is a 100% crop

Noisy, yes...but definately usable and still sharp!!!

If the yellow stripe in his hair isn't distracting, that expression sure is!

Our 'work day' was over by 5PM every day so we had ample time to go out on our own and do what we wanted, and even though I had planned to go inside the Alamo and look for the basement to find my missing bike (if you don't know the reference...look up some of Paul Reuban's work) I completely forgot by the time I got there. I walked by it several times and the fewest number of people outside I ever saw was about 20 (this includes midnight), so unfortunately I was never able to get a nice human-free shot. The Alamo was significantly different than I had imagined it, smaller, more serene and smack in the middle of everything. To the right of it was the local mall ( which the river ran right through), to the left was a stone skyscraper, and it was right across the street from a wax museum (weird location right?).

Emerald green grass, azure skies and old brick are a gorgeous combination!

Coming from the 40 degree weather in the frozen tundra that in Northern VA this time of year, I was happy to see green trees again. This particular one stood out to me for some reason and was adjacent to the Alamo.

I was stunned, however by the vast diversity in the architecture. In most cities I've visited, most buildings are boring metal and glass duplicates of each other and don't have any sort of character or any real style of their own. This city is truly diverse, yet not to the point it looked slapped together. It had a strange cohesiveness that was unusual due to the varied design.

I got as far back as a I could without standing in the middle of the busy street (I was already about a foot into one lane), without a full-frame body (and I'm talking about my D3, not me :) this would have been an impossible shot.

This was the view from my room, taken at ISO 6400 for 1/6 second

While I was hanging out taking a few pictures near the Alamo I bumped into Jermaine (from NC) and we went exploring a new section of town and happened upon one of the oldest buildings in the city, Saint Joseph's Cathedral (circa 1719AD). After taking some exterior photos, Jermaine and I had to go inside and take a look. It was dead quiet and since some people were praying, we both decided to take 1 and only 1 shot a piece and leave without disturbing anyone. We later found out from David (one of the corporate trainers) that photography inside that particular church is forbidden and we lucked out that no one saw us.

Quite ominous for a church

Beautiful interior, wish I could have taken even 1 more shot

I wanted to save my favorite for last. This is a shot of Anna (from CO) achieved with a gelled diffused flash held my trusty voice-activated light stand (I mean Jermaine) and a looonnggg shutter to suck in the background ambiance. We were holding up a massive amount of foot traffic to get this shot along the river, as Matt was redirecting people behind us and I was shooting about 3.5 feet from where a couple had just sat down for a nice quiet evening meal. We got so many people wondering who we were taking pictures of, was it a supermodel, was it a celebrity (sure was!)? Anna wound up playing model all week as we used her for a 'light painting' demonstration the final day where she had about 24 cameras on tripods pointing at her from about 10 feet away and it didn't faze her in the least.

I loved this city and was supposed to be home in about 15 minutes from when I'm typing this...if you haven't guessed I decided to stick around for another night, and when I say I decided I mean my flight was cancelled. Apparently about 3000 flights (oh, yes that's 3 zeros) were cancelled today due to negligence of about 5-6 airlines who decided NOT to perform required maintenance on the hydraulic and electrical systems on their planes. So I've had an extra day to hang out around town, but as I had no vehicle and the hotel the airline put me in was about a 20 minute drive from anything but the airport and an Applebees...I've been relaxing in my room all day and going through all my photos. I took about 700 shots (that I KEPT before downloading my cards) over a 3.5 day period and needed to pair those down to a point I could manage.

SAN ANTONIO PART TWO: THE NIKON D3 - REAL WORLD USAGE TESTS

Hands-on D3 experience: The Good

Amazing detail from ISO 200 through ISO 12800!!! (25600 looses a tad) and throughout the ISO range, noise levels (or lack thereof) are astounding!!!

Compared to my D200 at ISO 1600, I can crank the D3 past 6400 and have LESS noise, not to mention most of it is luminance and more closely resembles film.

I love wide angles for buildings and I love getting tight for shots of unsuspecting citizens from a distance so I don't disturb them, with one click of the wheel I can instantly switch between FX and DX mode to get a 1.5X extension on any of my lenses when necessary.

Color rendition and saturation is amazing, as is the Active-D Lighting modes. Unlike D-Lighting on other consumer class Nikons, this processing is done before the image is recorded and can very effectively preserve what would otherwise be blown out highlights or crushed shadows.

Panning exposure with subject, kept from blowing out highlights using normal Active D-Lighting -- 1/50 of a second

Hands-on D3 experience: The Bad

Never had a problem with dust on my D200, 1-2 small specs after a year of use. 4-5 specs are on my D3 after a week, and I neglected to bring my Giottos Rocketblower. This is really on noticeable at f./14 and smaller. I like to shoot wide open or just a stop or two down when possible to get that nice shallow DOF, when I get home a quick squeeze of air will clean that all right out.

Had 1 time when my Pocketwizards refused to fire when trying to sync through the hot shoe, but when plugged into the PC Sync connection...flawless, might have a dirty connection on the shoe mount for my PW II.

Still trying to get used to the new focus system, I wish they had spread out the points a little more to cover more of the sensor in FX mode, but whenever my subject is approaching the thirds of the image or even partially passes through the center, focus is spot on!

Yep, this pidgeon only has one leg...no I don't know the background story, just loved the lighting, and he was willing to pose for me...no I don't really know if it's a him...

Summary:

The Nikon D3 simply allows me to capture images that would simply have been IMPOSSIBLE with any other camera that has been released to date. What other camera can literally go into a windowless room with the lights off, and at 1/20 of a second get a nice bright exposure from a small amount of light creeping from under a door? What other camera would allow you to, without fail, KNOW that you captured the exact moment or expression you wanted instead of just giving you 3 to 6 versions, it gives you 9 to 11 versions in that second to pick EXACTLY the shot you want and at a click of a switch zoom in an additional 50% without changing lenses, perfect for capturing the moment you weren't able to swap lenses in time for. This kind of tool allows me to be fully creative and no more am I frustrated by the inability of my equipment to get the image I see in my head, if I can't get the shot now, I don't have a 600mm f./2.8 lens or I screwed up.

Yeah...the D3 is definately nice...

2008-03-21T18:49:00.002-04:00

Well I haven't had a whole lot of time to go to any fun destinations with my new D3 yet, (I'll be in San Antonio most of next week, so I should get some good "test" shots there) but thought I might post this shot today. My sister came home for the weekend, and she was sitting in the kitchen when I popped around the corner, paparazzi style with my 105VR (my favorite lens but I hardly ever use it) and squeezed off a couple photos. Very little PP (post-processing for non-photogs) just some slight unsharp mask on the eyes and a slight exposure adjust in Aperture. Thanks to Armin for the tip about Photobucket to get large images on Blogspot!

Today is the day!!!

2008-03-18T23:17:00.000-04:00

Well after quite a bit of waiting and trying to talk myself out of it. I finally got a Nikon D3, it came today through UPS, and I couldn't be more excited. I haven't gotten a chance to shoot with it yet as I'm still waiting for the batteries to fully charge. Enjoy the shots. I took these with my D200, and I can't wait to start being able using ISO's up in the 3200+ range and not have my images looking like mosaics. Stay tuned, as I'll be posting some images over the next few days as I experiment before my trip to San Antonio next week.

As you can see, I have quite a bit of reading to do...actually I don't as I've been browsing the PDF manual off Nikon's website for the past few weeks (I DEFINATELY prefer reading a computer screen over printed text)

My bag is now full and nearly complete (I will probably replace my 17-55 with a 24-70 in the future) D200 w/grip attached to 80-200 f/2.8, two SB-800's, 50mm f/1.8, 105mm VR f/2.8, D3 attached to 17-55 f/2.8, three Pocket Wizard II's, assorted batteries,filters, chargers and an Optech Pro strap (that I hardly ever use as ANY strap get's in the way when holding a camera vertically)

The Pillowman at JMU

2008-03-10T12:55:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately this didn't come out the way I wanted as I have somehow misplaced my serial number for Final Cut Studio, and had recently wiped my harddrive. So I had to put this together using iPhoto, but it still turned out pretty good. This is a slideshow of some shots I took during a dress rehearsal of The Pillowman down in Harrisonburg,VA. The show is DEFINATELY not for kids, but it was extremely well done. Easily the best show I've seen put on at any school or any community theater. If you get a chance you should definately check it out they're opening show is tomorrow night (Tuesday the 11th) and they have shows running all week long.

Lighting is fantastic, great mood. Acting is really top notch and really gets to you. I won't spoil the show for you though. If I get a chance I'll be going down Friday to actually sit back and watch it without a camera in my hand, as hard as that may be for me :) Let me know what you think!

These are some of my favorite shots from the show. I wanted to post these, as the compression on the video will make most of the shots look like they were taken with cell phone...(seriously, who takes pictures with a cellphone?)

Harrisonburg Day Two

2008-03-07T15:22:00.000-05:00

Well the plan was to go out early and take some shots of some models around downtown Harrisonburg, but these college students decided to sleep in (the nerve of them :P ). Anyway it was a nasty rainy day anyway, so I decided to play around with some lighting effects today. Using my newly made Pringsnoot I took some shots of the cast members and crew of The Pillowman before their rehearsal today. (I took a bunch of photos during the rehearsal which I'll upload in a slideshow tomorrow or Sunday).

Jesi, quite creepy as a ragdoll/puppet...

Speedy, aka Foofa, is quite the mannquine. He even threw himself down a short flight of stairs to get into character (or maybe he just said that after he tripped)
Kristen has a fantastic smile that just doesn't go away.

After rehearsal, back at my sisters place I wanted to take it up a notch and forced Jon to be my model, while he was tweaking some shots he got during the show on my laptop. The first shot shows how tight the snoot would be restricting the light. The second shot shows the 'lighting modifier' I used to get the nice stripes across Jon's face. The third image shows the snooted flash with the amber gel, acting as a hair/fill light to give the image a little extra.

1 BILLION points to whoever can guess what time of day this was taken at.

I can't decide which of these two images I like better. The top one seems more environmental with the filled in background with the various gear I had out of my bag at the time. The second seems more personable showing some personality in the subject. Any opinions?

I had to throw in this last shot. My sister has this bright red pot on her stove and I thought it really stood out. A gelled SB-800 at 1/32 power in a pitch black dark room, made it pop a little more I think...I was amazed at how well this came out. Manual focus with absolutely no constant light, total luck.

Harrisonburg Day One

2008-03-07T10:35:00.000-05:00

Well it's 10:30AM and I've been up for 2 hours waiting for my sister and Jon to wake up so we can go do something, while I'm waiting I perused some shots I took yesterday. Jesi was suppossed to have call for her rehearsal yesterday at 1PM which got changed to 2PM, then when we arrive at her theater...it turns out they won't be starting until 6PM! So Jon and I went exploring Harrisonburg and found an old burned out building that looked like something out of a horror movie, I was just imagining some deranged lunatic jumping out of dark closets and climbing out through holes in the walls. Fortunately (as you can tell since I'm writing this the next day) that no such thing happened. What can I say we had 4 hours to kill and since it was spring break for the school a lot of places were closed!

Told you it was a fire!

Quite a skylight

I was telling Jon how sharp the 50mm f/1.8 is and I held up my finger a did a 100% crop...you could give that image to the police and get an arrest with that much detail...if I was guilty of anything that is.

When we got back to Jesi's place with about 1.5 hours left to kill we found a bottle of acai extract juice something or other. It had some sort of substance floating in it, probably acai seeds right?

I noticed a little warning sign on the bottle that said "WARNING: Shellfish" and decided to check the contents in total disbelief...sure enough, whichever of Jesi's roommates owns this bottle is DRINKING shrimp. I'm definitely a fan of shrimp, but I prefer mine separate from my beverage.
When we arrived back at the theater we found out they were not going to start until 7:30/8PM now(they finally started at 9PM and finished at 2AM). Later we went to Subway for dinner, which happened to be connected to a convenience store and saw some tubes of Pringles chips. (How convenient for me!) I remembered reading a post on strobist.blogspot.com about a snoot made out of a Pringles can. For those of you who have never been to Strobist, go now. David Hobby (owner of Strobist and a Speedlite Guru) is a genius when it comes to off camera lighting.

For those of you who don't know what a 'snoot' is, a snoot is a tube designed to restrict the spread of light from a flash or continuous light source. The idea is to get a nice tight circle of light that you can either isolate a feature on a model or item you are shooting to create an interesting lighting effect for a background. Normally these are used on flashes that are on stands off camera, giving some truly stunning images, but I couldn't wait to snap a few pictures with my new Pringsnoot and threw it and my 17-55 on Jon's D40 and fired away at the actors and actresses and stagehands that were looking at me like I was crazy when I was wrapping an empty Pringles tube in gaffers tape.

This is the effect a snoot has on a blank wall as a background. Cool huh?

Jon is snapping off some serious snoot action. It may look ridiculous but the results make it worth the effort and possible embarrassment.

We're going back today to watch yet another rehearsal so I'll be taking quite a few more images today and will post them up tomorrow. Got some awesome shots of the cast in their creepy puppet like makeup. Enjoy!

Hanging out with Chris, Brittney, Ian and little Joshua.

2008-03-05T00:36:00.000-05:00

My friend Ian was home from school for spring break and we decided to stop by our friends Chris and Brittney's place and I brought along my camera to take pictures of their 6 week old baby Joshua. I went the night Josh was born to visit Chris and Brit at Loudoun County Hospital, but never got a chance to see him. He looks so much like Chris, except when he cries (which happened frequently...I guess he didn't like my flash, which I found out after two pictures) his forehead wrinkled up and looked like a little old bald guy that lost his teeth. After hanging out for a while watching some TV we all went to get some Milwaukee Frozen Custard, unfortunately mine decided to melt like an icecube in the desert and it was a struggle just trying to keep the ice cream in the cone and off the table.

Had to bust out the micro lens to get some pictures of Josh's feet.
It took nearly an hour of Ian and I being there before Josh opened his eyes.
Chris and Ian seemed very interested in the results of tonight's primaries...or so the claimed.

The second mom picked him up, he fell asleep.
This is their dog, wearing what I like to call the Hannibal Lector muzzle...hello Clarice
Chris still engrossed in the primaries...no one else was paying attention...

Ian demolished his frozen desert before I even got a chance to sit down, they were training a new employee tonight and it took twice as long as you could possibly imagine it to take to scoop frozen custard out of a tub and put it in a cone.

Josh was asleep, so he didn't get any...and Chris wound up finding a out of the box way of mounting the car seat at our table. The flipped upside down booster seat was a perfect fit for it.

If that's not unique, I must just need to get started having kids to learn this stuff.

White Castle or McD's? Choose your heartattack!

2008-03-03T22:48:00.000-05:00

Upon arriving at work today, I was suprised to see a monument errected in our break room. Apparently an employee decided to devour his own weight in White Castle burgers over the weekend and brought a small number of the leftover boxes to work and decided to play around with his creative side. I asked him where he got all of the boxes, he then told me how he drove 4 hours to the closest location... must have been a Harold/Kumar type of urge, but I didn't ask.

Having never seen/been to White Castle (I have no idea where the closest one even is) I do not know if White Castle also has arches prominately displayed in their locations, but I know that these arches look more like a tribute to McD's! These were the only boxes to be displayed there were EASILY 15 more in trash cans all around the building.

I unfortunately left my Nikon at home, so I had to take these with my iPhone and brighten/sharpen them a little in PS. Hungry?

What's, plastic, 8 feet tall and communicates with whistles and beeps?

2008-03-01T23:07:00.001-05:00

A gigantic R2-D2 made out of Legos!

Driving home from Alexandria I saw a sign outside of Tysons Corner Mall claiming they were building an eight-foot tall R2-D2 out of Legos. Since I had my D200 and 17-55 f/2.8 riding shotgun, I decided to hop out real quick and take a couple shots.

These guys have also made other things out of Legos, I flipped through a book they had lying on the table...these guys are truly masters of turning a tub full of plastic bricks into complex works of art.

Kids (and their parents) were ALL OVER the place making little things out of the ridiculous number of Legos that covered all the tables around the main attraction.

They plan on being finished with the whole construction tomorrow, unfortunately I have to work, so I'll miss seeing the final result, but I think I know what R2-D2 looks like...

First Post...I'll make it short

2008-03-01T22:35:00.001-05:00

Well after reading other blogs for quite a while, I decided to start my own (now if only I'd get around to creating a full website...) Well anyway today I met up with Armin of Armin Defiesta Photography and Erin and Chris Harvey of Erin and Chris Photography down in Alexandria for Erin and Chris's second day of the Armin School of Photography. The two new photogs were doing an engagement portrait session for some friends and potential clients, while Armin was giving them tips and hints out of his own bag of tricks.

Speaking of bags, I got a chance to try out the Boda Lens bag Armin has been raving about over at his blog , and I gotta say, I definitely see what he like about it! After the fun was over, I decided to hang out around Alexandria and take a couple photos, thought I might post a few.

Quite a to do list...now where to start?

Don't ask me why they have a plastic horse in the back of the pickup...I didn't ask either...

Check out their blogs for photos (I'm sure they'll be posting some up online tonight - don't fault them because they chose Canon as a weapon of choice : ) ) and leave some comments to let me know you stopped by!