Still packing!

Dragging along.

Packing sucks... you always get nostalgic and want to hang on to everything.

 Got all these for free at my local Wal Mart.. nice

 Got some DVDs packed up

 Hah!

Gotta get this guy organized too!

Monday Comes

Unfortunately I really didn't get much done today.

NFL Playoff action at Third Base!

Spent the day hanging with the best of my friends at Third Base Bar and Grill in Cedar Rapids.  We went to enjoy the Bears game and the Jets game.  Overall it was a lot of fun and I got a few photos from the night.

I am really digging the sepia tone challenge with spot metering.

 Hmmm what "num nums" for lunch?

 Keeping up with the times

 A very awesome Lev

 Brandon enjoying his chicken tenders and the game

 Lots of Bears and Packer fans out tonight

 "Unused"

 "Disappointment"

 Bears fans look on to a sad loss

 "Always next year"

Little something to sweeten the evening with the loss of the Bears

Blue Strawberry

I met up with a friend of mine who shoots Pentax, we met up one time to make a lens sale... but we ended up having a lunch and hung out talking about photography.  Today we met at the Blue Strawberry in downtown Cedar Rapids.  (Great coffee by the way)

We met up this time just for chat and I was itching to check out his new Pentax K-5, which was a real treat.  Seriously if you are at all interested in small DSLRs you NEED to give this one a look, especially if you are not invested into another system of lenses.  Its rugged, small and packs a serious punch in the image quality department.

He had the legendary FA Limited 31 1.8 with him, one I have coveted for so long.  Its a real treat and its got the pixie dust!  I'm serious!  Something about this glass just makes images stand out.  There just is a certain characteristic about that glass.

I only ate a fraction of this very rich treat, but it was delicious.  Also, they have a great mocha.

I took some photos with the K-5 and I will post some as soon as he gets the files into my hands.

Small DoF and new challenge

Here is one of the reasons I love to shoot with a fast prime.  Particularly one faster than 2.8 or even 1.8.  When you stop down a really fast lens like the 50 1.4G to even f/2 the image becomes sharp and contrasty.  You'd have to go to 2.8 or 3.2 to get the same from most 1.8 lenses.  But, the great thing  about shooting at 2 is you get that crazy narrow depth of field along with nice sharpness which "pops" the subject out.  This works on DX/Crop cameras as well, but on FX the DoF is narrower and really gives you a little more play room.

This is one of the reasons why I almost shoot nothing but fast primes, or at least I prefer them over zooms.  2.8 Zooms are nice and ones like the 24-70 and the 14-24 are amazing, but they can't replace the shallow DoF and even lower light performance of a nice 1.8 or 1.4 lens.  Don't get me wrong here sometimes you NEED a zoom, and those two I mentioned have been on my "LL" Lust List for quite sometime.  They are amazing feats of optical performance.  They rival primes in sharpness, contrast and color... they just wont be as fast and sometimes you need fast.  Whether its for creative purposes or because you are just in light that's too low for even 2.8.

So anyway, whew.  As you can see this little heater has a bit of pop to it, as its shot at F/2 on my Nikkor 50 1.4G.  If you look at the carpet carefully you can even see where the DoF starts and stops.  Highly recommend this lens or the Sigma 50 1.4 HSM.  The Sigma I think is sharper wide open than the Nikkor and has better bokeh than the Nikkor until around F/2-3.2  where I believe the bokeh looks the same and the Nikkor actually shines with better sharpness across the frame.  Either of these guys are just amazing.

New challenge!  Since I am moving soon I am going to be getting nostalgic around here, so I am going to switch the D700 into JPEG mode and shoot with Monochrome settings (Zero sharpness setting, I want that nice soft look).  I will list them so if you want to do it for fun you can try it out.  I will also be spot metering all the while to try some creative ideas in that area.  So Saturday to Saturday is going to be the Sepia Challenge.

If you want to try this yourself here are the JPEG Picture settings I will be using.

1. Monochrome
2. Sharpening 0
3. Contrast 2
4. Brightness 0
5. Toning Sepia 4

There you go!  Have a great weekend!

Not so smug, mug.

The end is near!

I have been packing up and getting ready to move out west!  I have to empty my work vehicle and start getting my inventory sorted out by Friday.  I am scheduled to be at the dungeon for three days straight till its all straight and the van is all clean.  This was the first day, but I made some progress.

 "The Dungeon"

 Yikes!  A year does a lot... but its really not as bad as it looks.  Except for the boxes this is all trash that will be tossed.

 All this was stuffed in that van!

Oops!

Something random

Thats some snow!

 Crazy snow today!  The flakes were huge!

Cristine watches you.

 Thought it looked neat.

I tried to capture the size of these things, but it didn't really work.

Sorry no review today

Sorry, I know I promised a 50 1.4G review today, but I just didn't get around to it.  I did some laundry and took my camera with me and just captured a little still life type stuff.

Upgraded the 50!

Some of you had noticed that I have been taking some photos with a 50mm lately, maybe a little more than the 18-35.  Well I took it upon myself to upgrade my Nikkor 50 1.8D to the Nikkor 50 1.4G.  The biggest difference that most people will see is that this newer one is a stop faster with light.  It allows a razor thin depth of field and on FX is like a dream.  Things are ridiculously creamy and very isolated.

Now I don't want to get really deep into this on this post, because I was going to go into a review for Sunday on my thoughts on it.  So guess you'll have to hang in there just one more day!

Little spot metering today.  Mind you it was perfectly lit in the room when I did this.

Yeah, boring day.  This is the last thing I saw.

Hump Day!

Ugh! Never get the cheap cleaning stuff or the cheap micro cloths! I couldn't get this clean!

Just goofin'

A very special lady bought me this for Christmas! Ain't she sweet!?

This is the Nikon MB-D10 Battery Grip it works for the D700 as well as the D300/s.  It allows the D700 and D300 to shoot at 8FPS (with the AA battery tray).  It also gives you all the controls needed to comfortably and quickly shoot portrait style.  ALSO it can more than double your shooting time/frames.  So with this you get the EN-EL3 battery tray and also the AA battery tray that holds 8 AA batteries which will drive your D700/D300 to 8 FPS.  Unfortunately the EN-EL3 will not enhance the FPS at all. You can also use the EN-EL4a which is used in the "pro" bodies of the D series.

She even went and spent the extra to get me the EN-EL4a Battery and BL-3 Battery Cover, unfortunately you need the cover to use this "pro" battery.  The battery allows you to shoot at 8 FPS instead of using 8 AA batteries.