Manual DSLR Project

New Year = Do Over

2011-12-30T10:13:00.001-06:00

Hi, everyone. If you follow this blog you can see that the Manual DSLR project has been neglected over the past several months. While I did a lot of photography and blogging in 2010, it was much tougher to do so in 2011. A number of factors contributed to this, but the two biggest factors were this:

We closed one business and opened another, which means that we totally changed our business structure, but not much else changed. We still do the same thing, but we now operate as a corporation instead of a sole proprietorship. On April 14, 2011 Kennamer Media Group, Inc. was incorporated. We are currently working on a number of projects that will release in 2012. If you want to check out what we are about, visit our website at www.kennamermediagroup.com.

At just before 7 am on April 27, 2011 our home phone rang. It was the county's Code Red service, which warns you if there is a weather emergency in your specific area. We had heard the day before that we might have some storms that day, but nobody could have predicted what happened. That first call was for a tornado warning. Though we did not know if until days later, a small tornado passed (in the air) at the end of our street and then touched down about a half a mile past our house. We lost a few trees, one of which landed on our son's car. It was parked just outside of the garage and the tree barely missed the house. Trees were down on our (dead end) street so we used our chainsaw to clear the street and then went back to our house to cut the tree off Cody's car. But that was only the beginning of what would be a very rough day. By the time the day was over, our county had been hit by 6 tornadoes and 33 people were killed. The largest tornado was an EF5 which varied from 1/2 to 1 mile wide and cut a path of destruction for 28 miles.

This is one of the sheds we built for tornado victims.

We have done some disaster relief work before. We were in Biloxi, MS three weeks after Katrina hit and went back to help with relief work later on; we also helped with flood relief in Iowa. But it is different when it is your community and your neighbors who are devastated. Through our church and our denomination's Mission to North America Disaster Response organization, we put together a team of people from our church that would organize work and host teams from out of town to help with the recovery work. In the months since the storm, 29 teams have stayed at our church and worked in the community doing debris clean up, chainsaw work, and construction. We had teams visit from as far away as Delaware, Maryland, and Iowa. We even had a group from Delaware that we had met when we were in Iowa to come work with us twice for three weeks at a time. This experience has been a great blessing and we met dozens of great people, but it took a great deal of time.

So photography has been on the back burner this year. Phase two of the Manual DSLR project did not quite get off the ground. But a new year is a great time to start fresh and that is my plan. Look for posts on lighting and manual flash during 2012.

My other photography related activity is writing iPhone and iPad app reviews for www.currentphotographer.com. Since late 2010 I have been writing a weekly review of an app or accessory for the iPhone or iPad. If you have suggestions about apps to review, let me know.

If you are unfamiliar with Current Photographer, check it out. There is a wealth of information regarding the art and business of photography. And be sure to check out my app reviews: http://currentphotographer.com/contributors/mike-kennamer/.

Don't you love do-overs? Sometimes we need them.

Please feel free to interact as I reembark on this journey.

All the best...

Mike

Using Someone Else's Lighting: Shooting a Theatrical Production

2011-07-30T15:34:00.000-05:00

In the last posting, I discussed natural lighting and how to use the light you have to produce the best results. That same day I had shot a The Prince & the Pauper, produced by Blackberry Little Theater in Fort Payne, Alabama. That will be the subject of this post.

I have shot other plays before, both live as they were happening and in a series of staged shots that the director wanted photos of. The latter is, of course, easier. But shooting a play as it happens is always interesting. The main disadvantage is that you don't have an opportunity to move to various locations as you shoot.

My first suggestion is that you see the play before you shoot it. Since our youngest son was in the play, we had the opportunity to see it before I shot it. I decided to shoot the Saturday matinee and opted to shoot from the balcony to assure that I didn't disturb others. Be sure you obtain permission from management in advance, so that you don't break any theater rules.

Second, you should select the right lens. I used a Nikon 80-200 f2.8 to shoot the entire play. If I owned a 24-70 f2.8, I would have used it. But alas, I have not bitten the $2000 bullet yet. Even so, the 24-70 2.8 is very high on my wish list. While the 80-200 was good for some of the close-up shots, a shorter lens would have been handy as well. As is always a good idea in photography, use what you have in your bag to get the job done.

Now for the camera settings...I set the ISO on my Nikon D300 at 3200, to take advantage of the low light performance of the body. Using Shutter Priority, I set the shutter speed at 1/250 sec, which is the slowest speed with which I thought I could handhold this lens. Here are a few of the results.

This shoot yielded 269 useable, non-duplicated images.

I had intended to post a great deal more by now. However, we have been knee deep in tornado relief work, so this project has been pushed to the back burner. As the summer is almost over, I expect that our teams and work will decline and I'll have more time to work on this blog.

Thanks for reading. I always enjoy your comments.

All the best... Mike

Lighting 101: Using What You've Got

2011-06-25T10:44:00.000-05:00

When I first started the Manual DSLR project the first thing I did was to turn my camera to "Manual" and start shooting...experimenting. So where do you start when the subject changes to lighting? I guess the most natural place to start is with natural light, or sunlight. So let's talk about a shot I took recently using natural light and no modifiers (reflectors, diffusers, etc.)

Our youngest son was involved in a children's theater production this summer. Performances were Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights with a matinee thrown in at 2 pm on Saturday. This meant that we had a couple hours of free time between the first and second shows on Saturday. So what do you want to do? I don't know...(repeat, repeat, repeat). But alas, we both had our cameras, so I suggested driving over to the old Davis Mill. This is a great old building that I've been driving by for the past 20 years but haven't ever really stopped and looked at it. Once a booming sock factory, the mill is now an antique mall. They had just closed when we arrived Saturday, but we did get to walk around outside to take some photos.

The first photo you see is my favorite from the afternoon, with Trisha leaning against the frame of an old garage door. I wasn't sure if that was poison ivy at the time, but did caution her against touching it (although I later determined that it did not match the photos of poison ivy that I found on Google Images). With only natural light to play with, I had to make sure that her face would be out of the shadows. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon, so the sun was low in the western sky. However, we had just gotten a pretty good rain shower, so the sky was a little overcast. This door is located on the west side of the building, so what we got was a diffused sunlight coming in from about 30 degrees to her left. If this had been a planned shoot with an assistant I would have likely used a reflector or perhaps some fill light, but for what I had in my hand, I felt pretty good about how it worked.

My goal for this phase of the manual DSLR project is to train my eye to see the light and to learn how to best use the light I have available (whether natural or controlled) to make the picture. I hope you will join me in this journey and let me know what you think.

The other shot is an HDR image of the building. I didn't have a tripod with me so this is 5 shots (2 above, 2 below) taken while sitting on the edge of the railroad track that was just behind me. It gives you a good idea of the layout of the building (that side is facing west), and how cloudy it was, which gave me a nice diffused light.

By the way, I took photos at the theater, using only stage lighting. Look for some of those in the next post and a discussion of how I chose to shoot it. And yes, I'm going to whine that I really need that 24-70 2.8 for just that type of shooting situation. Well I do...

All the best...Mike

Storm Update

2011-06-24T20:30:00.000-05:00


Here a team from Lexington SC is working on electrical and finishing drywall.

Hi, Folks! It has been a crazy past several weeks, and while I have had the chance to shoot and write a bit, I didn't have a chance to bring both together on this blog.

As many of you know, our area was hit by severe storms on April 27. According to the National Weather Service, six confirmed tornadoes touched down in DeKalb County on that day and 33 lives were lost. Hundreds of homes were destroyed.

This is one of the portable showers at our church.

Much of our lives since April 27 has revolved around relief efforts to help our communities recover from the storms. Our church is hosting teams from all across the country who are taking vacation time to visit our area to help with the relief effort. Working with our denomination's Mission to North America organization, I am serving as the initial contact for groups who come to our area and my wife, Trisha, is coordinating the work once the teams get here.

To date, we have hosted teams from Delaware, Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Alabama, Florida, and a couple of full-time RVers whose home is wherever they park their motor home. It has been great to meet these good people who donate their time and expertise to help their fellow man. There is still much work to do and we will be here working and hosting teams as long as there is work to do and volunteers keep coming.

We have made some new friends and renewed some old friendships. For example, we went to Iowa for flood relief in 2008 and met two couples from Delaware. After the tornadoes hit here, these great folks called and let us know that they would be here to work for three weeks. And work they did!

A partial completed Shed For Hope stands among the rubble.

The work has been anything from debris clean up, chainsaw work, house repairs, helping to build houses, and building Sheds for Hope. Sheds for Hope is a project started on the Gulf Coast after Katrina where storage sheds are provided at no cost to those who have lost so much in storms. The sheds provide storage room for those who are living in temporary housing, like FEMA trailers. An 8' x 12' wooden shed costs about $600 and takes 2-3 days to build. While it would be more efficient to prefab these buildings off site, part of the value of working in the storm area for 2-3 days is the contact with the families and their neighbors while the shed is built.

As a rural community, our area has not received a lot of press coverage. Even so, I am heartened by the outpouring of support that we have received by our sister churches across the U.S. The children in Vacation Bible school at Perry Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Perry Georgia raised more than $1,200 to support our Sheds for Hope project. Thanks to these children, two families now have a building to store their belongings.

Enough for now. My next installment will actually be about photography and the most manual of lighting situations: natural light. We will start there and move into reflectors and modifiers, hot lights, and flash. All the best...Mike

After the Storms...

2011-05-03T22:31:00.001-05:00

What a week. Last Wednesday morning we were just waking up when our weather emergency service called to let us know there was a tornado warning for our immediate area. That started a crazy day and week. In the first round of storms a large pine tree in our front yard fell on my middle son's (Cody's) car. Although it will still run, his car is about 6-8 inches shorter than it once was and not safe to drive. Due to strong straight-line winds in our area we lost power from about 7:40 am Wednesday until about 9:30 pm on Saturday.

The rest of Wednesday brought wave after wave of storms with the last two bringing tornadoes both to our northwest (Flat Rock and Pisgah) and east (Rainsville, Sylvania, and Henagar). By the time the day was over, 33 DeKalb County residents had lost their lives.

We were blessed to have lost nothing more valuable than a car. My oldest son Devin, who works with the student weekly at his college, got press credentials for President Obama's visit to Tuscaloosa. After that was over he returned home to visit, shoot some footage for his paper, and to be with his family. During the next couple of days he shot several photos and a good deal of video footage, some of which he compiled into this video. Check it out here, or through this link to YouTube. Click the link to be able to watch it in full-screen, HD mode.

I will post more in the coming days, but wanted to get something out there this week. Thanks for all the kind words and for those who inquired about our well-being. We are truly blessed... MK

One more thing...If you want to see a video of the Rainsville tornado as it formed, check out this eery video. Rainsville, Alabama tornado

Stormy Weather

2011-04-28T16:45:00.001-05:00

Hello all:

Our area was hit hard by storms yesterday. We are fine but without electricity. We lost several trees and my son's car in the storm. I'll post photos later. Sadly, many of our neighbors lost so much more.

For a few storm-related photos please check my Twitter feed @manualdslr. Once we get electricity (which could be as long as two weeks) I'll catch up with blog posts.

All the best...

Sent from my iPhone
Mike Kennamer

Busy, Busy, Busy...

2011-04-23T22:04:00.000-05:00

Hi, gang! You haven't heard much out of me lately because I've been busy with a number of other projects. Here's a quick rundown of what I'm currently working on:

Writing Projects - While I can't divulge the details, I am working on three significant writing projects--all in different stages of completion--related to my background in healthcare. These are the jobs that pay the bills, so you can understand why they have been a top priority. While some of the these projects will be active for a number of months, I hope to get back to The Manual DSLR project very soon.
New Business Structure - After seeing a large percentage of my writing income going to Uncle Sam in the form of income and self-employment taxes, I have worked with a CPA and an attorney to restructure my business from a sole proprietorship to a sub-chapter S corporation. This change should help us to avoid (not evade) excessive taxation while building a business structure that will allow for future growth. It also allows us to combine what we do in photography with our writing business. I took several of the photos in my first book (published in 2002), but because I'm getting paid primarily for the writing, I have never considered myself to be a "professional" photographer. But I guess it's official now.

Our company is called Kennamer Media Group, Inc. Look for more details as we develop it further. Thankfully, most of the leg work in putting together is complete, so I'll be able to get started with manual flash soon.

I'm considering ordering some of Kerry Garrison's Black Belt Lighting products as that would be a good way to learn manual off-camera flash. Look for a review once I get a chance to order it.

Until then, all the best...

Chickamauga Battlefield

2011-04-05T12:52:00.000-05:00

Aiming toward Chattanooga

Here's a shot of a cannon on the hillside.

Last Saturday I went to the Chickamauga Battlefield near Chattanooga Tennessee and took a few shots. There is not much to say about these other than it was a fun day with my son Lane and about 20 other guys from church.

I hope you enjoy!

MK


Signs of Springtime

Looking Back...

2011-04-04T18:49:00.000-05:00

They say that time flies when you are having fun...

I suppose that is true, especially when it comes to the past year during which I have blogging on this site. While I am preparing to move to the next phase of the Manual DSLR Project, I want to take a moment to mention the highlights of the journey.

Since I am both a blog reader and a podcast listener, I was thrilled when Kerry Garrison, of Camera Dojo, posted an encouraging comment on one of my posts. And I was super excited when David Ziser mentioned my blog on his Digital ProTalk blog. I have enjoyed reading comments posted by photographers like me who are working on being the best that they can be.

As soon as I started the blog I also started a Twitter account (@manualdslr) and have excited to get to know some of the photographers (amateurs and professionals) around the world who love to learn (and teach) more about photography. There are too many to mention them all, but I do want to mention some of those who have encouraged me the most:

Shane Lund @swlund an LA-based wedding photographer
Joakim Berndes @jBerndes_Photo, of Stockholm Sweden
Kelley Young @TheYoungsYall
Roar Engen roarengen, of Norway
4square 5 square Productions @4sq5sq
Mary Jane Sparrow @MaryJaneSparrow of Arkansas
Alex Racanelli @AlexRacanelli of Danbury, CT
Kimberly Logan @Much2Restless of Saratoga, NY
Lensbaby @SeeInANewWay of Portland, OR
PostalPix @PostalPix of California
Trevor Current @TrevorCurrent

As I move into the next phase of the Manual DSLR Project I want to thank everyone who encouraged me, pushed me, retweeted me, #FFed me, or just read the blog, enjoyed my photos, or followed my tweets. One of the greatest lessons learned from this project is that the photography profession has some of the nicest, most supportive people in it that I have ever known. Thank you for letting me be a small part...

All the best... Mike

Original Manual DSLR Project: One Year Later

2011-04-03T18:09:00.000-05:00

Hello all:

Just over one year ago I embarked on a new project called the Manual DSLR Project. Since it is now time to take the project to the next step I wanted to preserve the original purpose of the blog by moving it from the header of the page to a post. The blog description will be revised for the next chapter in the Manual DSLR project.

Thanks for reading and be sure to keep following my progress as I continue to grow as a photographer.

Best...Mike

Original Manual DSLR Project Description:

Hi, and welcome to my blog. I am an amateur photographer who occasionally takes some decent photos. However, most of the time I shoot in Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority. First of all, there is nothing wrong with shooting in "A" or "S" mode. However, I do not feel that I am using my camera to its fullest since I am not at all comfortable using Manual mode. Learning manual mode will also help me to do some artistic things that can't be done in Aperture priority.

So here's the deal...

Inspired in part by the movie Julie and Julia (my wife made me watch it) and professional photographers like David Ziser (who blogs on Digital Pro Talk six days a week), Kerry Garrison (of Camera Dojo fame), Gavin Seim (Pro Photo Show), and others, I am giving myself one year - 365 days - to learn to use manual mode on my Nikon D300. Rather than taking that journey alone, I am inviting you to join me in this journey. Learn from my mistakes. Celebrate with me as my fingers remember which wheel adjusts the shutter speed and which controls the aperture settings.

My goal is that in one year I be more familiar with the features of my camera than I am now. My goal is to be able to look at a scene and know what shutter speed, ISO, aperture setting, etc. to select.

While I am giving myself a year to work through this learning project, I do not expect to post to this blog every day. I work a full-time job and often work late hours. I am not David Ziser (though I would love to have a small portion of the knowledge and skill he possesses). I expect to post to this blog about once a week.

So join me in this journey. Let me hear from you. What I know right now I learned from some of the awesome photographers out there on the web and on podcasts. I am open to hearing your thoughts.

All the best...
Mike

The End is Near!

2011-03-25T12:10:00.003-05:00

Okay, don't panic. Not that end, but...

The first phase of the Manual DSLR Project will end in less than a week. I started this project 360 days ago with the goal of learning how to use my Nikon D300 in manual mode. I had heard others talk about shooting in manual but it seemed like a mystery to me. Wow! What a ride it has been.

I have learned so much in the past year but know that there is so much left to learn. Look for a reveal of the next phase of the Manual DSLR Project in the next few days.

Best...Mike

Candlelight

2011-03-14T21:49:00.000-05:00

Last month I lit a couple of candles and took a few shots, posting the results on this site. Here is one more from that shoot.

This was shot at ISO 200 using natural light; f5.6, 1/5 second. I bumped the black setting in Lightroom to get rid of some of the surrounding ambient light. The result is what I was looking for.

With only 16 days left in the Manual DSLR Project I am still working on what to do for my next project. I'm narrowing it down, but will probably make the decision on a trip that I'll be taking later in the week.

Between taxes, a new writing project, and doing some work on a new business venture, I've been on somewhat of a dry spell in taking photos lately. However, I will have some great opportunities for taking some photos this weekend. Look for some new photos on Twitter and Instagram as early as Thursday. My username on both is manualdslr.

All the best... Mike

Taking Care of Business

2011-03-08T21:02:00.000-06:00

I've been tied up with a couple of other projects lately so the frequency in which I have posted has suffered. So here is a quick post to let you know what I've been up to.

This is a barn that belongs to my sister and her husband.

First, it is tax time and I have been going through the torture of working on my tax return. I will start by saying that this is THE LAST time I will do my own taxes. I have hired a CPA who understands my type of business and who will take care of my business and personal tax returns for what I believe to be a very fair price--the preservation of my sanity. I started preparing my own tax returns several years ago when my tax professional retired due to health reasons. At the time our business was relatively simple and she encouraged me to do it myself. There comes a time, however, when things get so complicated that completing your own tax return is somewhat akin to performing your own appendectomy. Now I'm pretty good at carving the Thanksgiving turkey, but there are some things that amateurs shouldn't do.

Speaking of that a co-worker yesterday asked me if I would be interested in shooting a wedding for her. Again, there are some things that amateurs should not do!

Finally, I am working on a sample chapter of a new book. I can't release details at this point, but I'm excited about the possibilities.

With only 22 days left in the 365-day Manual DSLR Project, I am also thinking about deciding what my next step will be. I'm leaning toward devoting a year focusing on lighting techniques, but am not absolutely sure yet.

I am excited that late next week I'll be taking my wife on a surprise trip. You should understand that I am terrible at surprises. My kids were so good at convincing me to let them open Christmas gifts early that we just started "having Christmas" on December 23. But I have kept this one a secret. Not many people know the secret destination and fewer know the itinerary, so I believe that she will be genuinely surprised. It's funny. I could list the itinerary here and she'd never know. It's not like she ever reads my blog!

Anyway, look for Twitter messages and photos to start next Thursday. I am looking forward to a much-needed break and a break from our schizophrenic weather. Not to mention some quality time with my sweet wife.

Until next time...Mike

PS. Don't forget to check out my weekly posts at CurrentPhotographer.com. I also recently posted an article at Amateur Photographer Magazine.

More Spring Fever!

2011-02-22T12:10:00.002-06:00

We have had such nice weather lately that my case of Spring fever is growing more intense every day. This is the time of year when I really want to hop on an airplane and fly south. That's not going to happen this year, but I do have photos from Thanksgiving 2009 that take me away to a warmer place and time.

On November 23, 2009 after spending the night in Atlanta, we flew from Atlanta, GA to Miami, FL then on to Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, USVI, arriving at approximately 4:40 pm. From there we took the Red Hook Ferry to Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI arriving at approximately 7:00 pm local time.

The weather was perfect as you can see in the first photo, which was taken overlooking Caneel Bay on St John. The second was taken from Little Maho Bay just as the sun started going down.

This was a great trip with plenty of time to lounge on the beach, check out the local scenery, and just to relax. Lunch on Thanksgiving Day was at Little Maho Bay. We sat on the beach and ate grilled cheese sandwiches. Luxury? No. But I'd take it any day.

Think warm thoughts! All the best... Mike

What Are You Doing This Afternoon?

2011-02-21T19:04:00.000-06:00

A couple of Saturdays ago I received a call from a friend who runs a Christian camp just a few miles from my house. He had a group going on a hike to the "Penitentiary", a really cool maze of rocks where kids can crawl through tight spaces, challenge themselves by walking along ledges and developing teamwork by being in situations where they must depend on each other. "So what are you doing this afternoon," he said. "I'd like to get some shots of these kids for our website."

Since I didn't have any plans and my wife and kids were away I took him up on the invitation and shot a few shots. Although this is the Manual DSLR Project, I shot most of these in Aperture Priority. Why? Because I felt that was the best tool for the job. Many of the shots taken were in low light situations. While I used a flash on some of the shots, I tried to limit the use of flash where I might temporarily "blind" the kids when they were trying to balance or walk across a narrow ledge.

It was definitely a different experience as the action was fast, lighting was challenging, and the kids were having a great time. It was fun to share their hike and preserve some memories for them. I did have the advantage of having hiked the same area before so I knew where to catch some of the shots.

I've included a few of the shots here. As you can see, there was a little snow left on the ground, though the temperature was hovering around 45-50 degrees (F), making it a comfortable hike. This was just another opportunity to take some photos, enjoy the great outdoors, and experiment with some interesting lighting situations.

I would like to go back in the early morning with a tripod to take some more "artistic" shots of the rocks and experiment more with the lighting.

I hope you enjoy! MK

Happy Valentine's Day! Thinking Spring!

2011-02-14T18:36:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post today to wish you all a happy Valentine's day and to share springtime thoughts. What a gorgeous day it was today! I am seriously getting Spring fever. To share that Spring fever with you I dug back into the archives to find a photo of a tulip tree in our backyard, taken in March 2009.

This was well before I started the Manual DSLR Project, so I cannot explain why I shot this as I did. It's almost embarrassing. What was I thinking?

Anyway, this was shot at ISO 1600, f18, 1/160 sec. It was shot with a 300mm macro lens. Oh my!

How would I have approached this differently today? It was shot in the afternoon so I might use ISO 320 or 400 and maybe open up the aperture a bit (probably to f 6.3 on that lens) and use an appropriate shutter speed based on those settings. Oh well. That's why I started this journey almost a year ago, so I could learn and be better today than I was then.

I did apply a develop preset in Lightroom 3 called PH Soft and Dreamy with a goal of softening it a little.

So happy Valentine's Day to you. All the best...Mike

A Portland Mailbox

2011-02-13T12:23:00.001-06:00

Hi, everyone. Yesterday I wrote about finding inspiration in something as simple as a mailbox. Today I am posting another mailbox photo--this one from Portland, Oregon--in my continuing series of mailboxes. This one is (I believe) on the corner of Park and Davis in the Pearl District of Portland. Not a great deal of personality on this one, but you can tell that it is a workhorse, having been dented from the inside out. Anyway, I like photographing this utilitarian piece that is also a work of art.

All the best... Mike

What You Can Learn From A Mailbox...

2011-02-12T12:13:00.000-06:00

Little Italy, New York City

During our June 2010 trip to New York City I realized that you can tell a lot about a neighborhood by looking at its mailboxes--not the residential ones--but the big United States Postal Services collection boxes that are so familiar on many of our city streets. That realization first came when my wife and I were sitting on a bench in front of a store in Little Italy, eating a slice of pizza and watching the world go by. I started to notice the personality of these mailboxes and how they reflected that of the community in which they serve. There were stickers and graffiti on this particular box that let us know that it was part of the community.

Spring & Elizabeth Streets

As we wandered throughout the city, I began to see that personality more and more. The second mailbox shown here was on the corner of Spring Street and Elizabeth Street. In a lot of ways it is my favorite, since it is the most "decorated" of any I saw on this trip. As you can see, it has a personality all its own--likely representative of the community in which it lives. If you would like to see another view of it, go to Google Maps. Search Spring Street and Elizabeth Street, New York, NY and select street view. You will see this same mailbox from almost any angle you choose. As you can see, it has been "tagged" so many times that there is graffiti on top of graffiti, stickers on top of stickers, etc. One of its legs is slightly bent, indicating years of service and a rough life on the streets.

Wall Street, NYC

The next shot is of a group of boxes on Wall Street. Interesting that they are relatively clean and free from graffiti. The stack of mail trays next to them provides evidence that these boxes see a great deal of action and are filled each (working) day with stacks of important mail from the financial capital of the U.S. This set of mailboxes scream out efficiency and order in a fast-paced financial district.

Okay, I admit that before I started studying seriously studying photography I would not have waxed poetic about mailboxes. In fact, I might not have even noticed them as I scurried along "sightseeing" in the city. But now I tend to take more time to enjoy where I am at any given time. I look around more. I notice shapes, and lights, and shadows. Is this a moment worth seeing again through the magic of photography? Would anyone else care to see this scene? Would they appreciate what I saw in the scene or would they see it in an entirely different way? A moment in time frozen for us to reflect upon.

The makers of Lensbaby encourage us to "see in a new way" in their advertising materials. I think that is what photography has allowed me to do. What has it done for you?

All the best...Mike

More Jacksonville Photos

2011-02-11T22:35:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone. Here are just a couple more photos from my recent business trip to Jacksonville, Florida. I didn't have much time outside of meetings, so these were shot through the window of my hotel room. As you can see, I had a good view of the river and the bridge.

The first one was shot at ISO 500; f7.1; 1/400 sec. I used my Nikon D300 with an 18-135 Nikon lens. The sky was so bright I did a little tweaking with a graduated filter in Lightroom.

The second one was shot at ISO 500; f7.1; 1/500 sec. It is basically as shot with a black and white preset added in Lightroom.

I hope you enjoy! Mike

Jacksonville FL at Night

2011-02-11T15:47:00.002-06:00

Just a quick post from lovely downtown Jacksonville, Florida. I'm staying at the Hyatt Riverview which, as you might guess, overlooks the St. Johns River. This was a quick trip for business so I did not have time to get out and explore. Though that's not optimal it's hard to beat the view from my room. Im traveling light on this trip with only one body and lens (plus my Lensbaby Composer). Since I am posting this fom my iPhone 4, I'm limited to iPhone photos.

Here is a pic taken with my iPhone.

Enjoy! Mike

Published Photos

2011-02-09T17:00:00.001-06:00

I recently had a couple of photos published in a trade journal along with an article that I co-wrote with my boss. I'll spare you the details of the article, but wanted to share the photos that the editors chose to use in the article.

The first photo was featured as a full-page spread opposite the title page. It is not terribly exciting, but tells the story of collaboration in using technology that we were trying to get across. Yes, I had to give Apple a little free advertising (like they need it).

The second photo was shown in a smaller format on a later page in the article. Due to the nature of the journal and since I was writing the article I didn't get paid to provide these photos. However, I did get some valuable experience working with the editor and layout person and have a couple more photo credits that I did not have before.

To view the photos in the context of the article, click here.

As this project is about experience and learning, I count this as another experience under my belt. Maybe the next one will be a cover for Vogue...or not. Either way, it was a good learning experience.

All the best...Mike

More Snow Pics

2011-02-08T17:30:00.000-06:00

During our recent snow event (which is pretty rare for us) I took several photos but just realized that I had not posted very many of them. This is one that I took in our front yard. I was trying to capture the starkness of the tree and its shadow against a clear blue sky. As you can see, our dog had created a trail around the left of the tree. Kind of adds an interesting element to it, I think.

Our college was closed all week due to this snow so I had lots of time to take photos. I'll continue to post more from time to time.

Seeing this reminds me how ready I am for summer. I'll be heading out to Jacksonville, Florida for a very quick business trip tomorrow. The trip is so quick that I won't have much of a chance to take any photos. Almost considering not taking a DLSR, but that would just feel wrong. So I'll have it with me and just see what I can find to shoot.

All the best...Mike

Fun with a Lensbaby Composer

2011-02-07T16:00:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago we visited our son who is in college. On the way home we saw an old cemetery and stopped to take a look. I originally planned to use my 35 mm f2.8 Nikkor but I experienced a glitch (aka user error) with it and switched to a Lensbaby Composer. Here is one of the shots that I took of an old iron gate. The fence and gate was really cool with a great patina.

Hope you enjoy! Mike

Creative Ways to Play with Light: Snow Day Edition

2011-02-06T13:00:00.001-06:00

My recent blog posts have revolved around a theme of playing...goofing off with light to see what kind of results I could get. When we had some snow a few weeks ago I had a good opportunity to do just that. We received about 6 inches of snow that Sunday night and by Friday afternoon at sunset, the icicles were starting to slide off the metal roof of our house. This provided a good opportunity to see if I could get the light of the sunset to illuminate the icicles. The result is what you see here. Auto focus was going nuts trying to lock on the semi-transparent icicles, so I had to manually focus this one.

Here is a wider view showing how the sheet of ice-encrusted snow was sliding off the roof. It was fun to experiment with light to see what I could do with it.

Hope you enjoy! Mike

Playing with Fire

2011-02-03T21:21:00.000-06:00

I've been playing a bit more with light tonight, just using candles then adding flashes and gels. The first one is shot very simply at ISO 100, f5.6, 1/2 second. Not much to say here, just using the natural light of the candle and a bit of ambient light from the room.

In this one I shot at ISO 100, f3.5, 1/8 second with the pop up flash set at -3.0 and an SB 600 overhead with a red gel. I applied a PH Edgy Church preset in Lightroom 3.

I shot this one using the same settings, but applied a PH Christmas Tree preset in Lightroom 3.

The last one was shot at ISO 200, f5.6, 1/30 second with an overhead SB600 with a yellow gel. I tweaked the white balance in Lightroom to cool it off a bit as I got it a little too warm for what I was wanting.

Just like the DVD pictures in the last post I don't expect to hang these on the walls, but I did take some time to experiment with light and got a few pretty cool images.

Hope you enjoy...Mike

Goofing off with a Lensbaby Composer and a DVD

2011-02-02T20:52:00.001-06:00

I was sitting here bored the other night during some of our recent cruddy weather and started taking some shots with a Lensbaby Composer catching the light off a DVD. Actually I was taking shots of lots of things, but the DVD shots were my favorite.

Here are the results. The first one was shot at ISO 250; f1.4*; 1/8000 sec with both a 10x and 4x macro lens. The second was with the same settings except for a 1/6400 shutter speed.

Actually, the exact aperture is unknown as I did not have an aperture ring installed in the Lensbaby. I am guessing f1.4, but what do I know?

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Best...Mike

Postal Pix Discount Code

2011-01-31T20:31:00.000-06:00

I recently wrote a review of the Postal Pix iPhone app on the Current Photographer web site. The Postal Pix folks liked the review and offered readers a 25% discount on their first order. Just use the discount code, "current" to receive your discount.

Check out the review here by clicking here.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is not an affiliate agreement and neither Current Photographer.com nor I receive any money if you order from Postal Pix. You simply receive a one-time discount.

Hope you enjoy. I've tried this service and like it. Mike

ZaZa Gallery Canvas Prints

2011-01-19T20:14:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I was offered the opportunity to receive a free 16" x 20" canvas gallery wrap in exchange for a review and link on the blog. Always happy to add to my collection of prints (especially for free), I emailed my image to the ZaZa Gallery folks late in the evening of January 3 and yesterday I received the canvas. The image that I chose is a shot of my son, Lane sitting on the banks of Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains. That photo has been posted here before, but I decided to tone it down a bit by adding a vignette. The result is what you see here.

So how did our friends at ZaZa Gallery do? I should first say that I have only ordered canvas gallery wraps from one other company, so that is the only comparison I can make.

What can I say? It looks just as good as or better than the other canvas wraps we own. Can I honestly say it looks a hundred times better? No. However, I can say that I cannot tell the difference in the quality of this print and any of the others I have had made. With that in mind, it seems to come down to price and service.

It is a little hard to talk about service since I simply emailed my image to ZaZa Gallery and they sent the wrap to me. I didn't use their order entry system although I did walk through an order up to the point of ordering and found it very easy to navigate and use. I was most impressed that on the upload page there is an actual phone number that you can call if you have questions or difficulties in uploading the image. The wrap was packaged well and even though the box was a little crunched on one corner when it arrived, the print was in excellent shape.

So what about prices? I decided to look up prices on what might be a typical order for me and compare the bottom line pricing. For the sake of example, let's assume that we plan to order a 3/4 inch 16" x 20" gallery wrap, and a 1 1/2 inch 20" x 30" gallery wrap of two different images. The entire order from another supplier of canvas gallery wraps (from which I have previously ordered) would cost $254.95, including shipping. The same order from ZaZa Gallery would cost a total of $221.99.

So...what is my recommendation? Based on the quality of the gallery wrap I received from ZaZa Gallery I would not hesitate to entrust them with the printing of my favorite images. In fact, I expect that my next canvas order will go to ZaZa Gallery. I encourage you to check them out. You'll be happy you did.

My thanks to ZaZa Gallery for inviting me to review their product. I am pleased to provide a link to their site and am even more pleased to become a customer.

All the best... Mike

iPhone Photo Apps

2011-01-18T12:15:00.001-06:00

For the past several weeks I have been reviewing iPhone apps for Current Photographer. While I am having some great fun writing the reviews, there is a bonus advantage to writing these reviews...Because I am purposefully looking for new apps that are helpful for photographers, I download a lot of photo apps and take some time to play with them--and many of them are lots of fun.

While I will not republish the reviews here, I will occasionally share examples of what I am doing with the new iPhone apps I am using as a result of this experience.

The first one was taken and edited on Camera+ photo app. It was taken at about 3:30 pm in Scottsboro Alabama as we crossed the Tennessee River. (I wasn't driving, by the way). You can't really call it a sunset, but the sun was low in the sky and there was a layer of fluffy clouds that really filtered the sun. I applied the vibrant effect and the vignette frame in Camera+. I like the results.

The second photo was actually taken by mistake but I liked it so I kept it. I was out in my front yard while we still had a layer of ice over several inches of snow. As I walked across the yard I found that the ice had cracked. I squatted on the ice to try to get a photo but couldn't see the phone screen because my auto-darkening eyeglasses were so dark. The front-facing camera on my phone was active, so instead of taking a shot of the ice, I took a pic of myself. However, once I took my glasses off (ouch! it was bright) I found that the front-facing camera had captured a shot of me with some cool clouds in the background. My hair is a mess, but it had promise.

Enter iPhone apps. I first cropped the image using Camera+ and then added an additional effect with Pic Grunger. The third photo is the final result. Again, this is not exactly what you are going to use for a portrait, but I think it is a fun photo. Did I just reach the top of Everest? (Yeah, right...) Perhaps I just got out of my vintage WWI airplane? (I wish). In reality I just got off my Kubota tractor, but Pic Grunger makes it look like I just did something much cooler.

I hope you have as much fun with these apps as I have. Click here to check out my reviews on Current Photographer.

Best...MK

Workflow Using Lightroom 3 - part 4 File Structure

2011-01-15T12:10:00.003-06:00

We have been talking a lot about digital workflow lately, but realized that I might should have talked about file structure from the start. Oh well, there's no time like the present so let's jump right in.

My file structure is pretty straightforward and makes good sense to me. However, the most important thing about selecting a file structure for your photos is that it makes sense to YOU! This is how I do it.

I start a new folder each year on my hard drive. With the exception of my backup files, all my photos for the year are located within that folder. From there, I create a folder for each month. Under that folder, I create a folder for each photo shoot.

My camera makes the next two folders, one of which is handy when a shoot runs for more than one day. These, of course, could be removed. You find all the RAW files in the main folder and I make export folders (800 pixels or PRINT) to hold my finished images.

I always retain the original file number, which helps me to find the original file later should I need it. For instance, if I want to go back to the original RAW file from Cody's haircut, I can search for 3736 and easily find it. Since hard drive space is not unlimited on my computer, I archive my files about twice a year on a separate hard drive from the original backup.

I hope this has been helpful as you develop your workflow systems. My system is certainly not perfect, but it is a start. Perhaps you can use something we have talked about here.

All the best...Mike

Workflow Using Lightroom 3 - part 3

2011-01-14T12:10:00.003-06:00

If you have been keeping up with recent posts you'll find that we have discussed importing, backing up and initial weeding of photos in part 1; and post processing steps in part 2. In part 3 we will discuss exporting files in JPG format and saving for print and/or web use. Again, there are a number of ways to do this. I am just sharing one way to do it. You may choose to adopt my methods or adapt them to suit your needs.

We have been snowed in all week and my son Cody wanted his mom to trim his hair. So while he was confined with the scissors, I got out my 24mm 2.8 and took a few shots. Let's use this one to discuss exporting.

It is in Lightroom and all I have done with it is to decrease the sharpening and to apply a bit of noise reduction since I shot it at ISO 640 (f2.8, 1/30 sec).

At this point I will export a copy of
this image without applying any presets or effects. Since it will be for web use I will save it at 800 pixels on its longest side. Let's look at how that will look. I go to File and then to Export, which brings up the Export dialog box. I always save the file in the same folder as the original photo and place it in a subfolder labeled "800 pixel" for typical photos that I will post online or "Print" for those that I will print. I will rename using "Custom Name - Original File Number" with the custom name being something descriptive of the photo shoot, perhaps something like "Washington DC", "Miller Family", or "Christmas Lights".

I use JPG format with a quality of about 74 and use the sRGB color space. I will resize the long edge to 800 pixels at 240 pixels per inch for the web. For print, I would save in full size at 100 quality. Here is where I will apply sharpening presets for either screen or print settings and add a watermark, if appropriate.

At this point I am ready to export this one. So what if I want to add a preset in Lightroom and offer another look to this photo? All I do is to select the develop preset I want. In this situation I chose Seim Effects Old Holga BW preset so I exported it as Cody's Haircut Seim Holga BW into the same folder that holds the other exported photos from that shoot. In case you want to see what the photo looks like, here it is.

The preset gives it a vintage haircut vibe, I think, and I can easily find that photo whenever I need it. So how do I find these photos, the original RAW file, or the backup file? Look for that in part 4 of this series.

Until then...All the best...Mike

Workflow Using Lightroom 3 - part 2

2011-01-13T15:06:00.000-06:00

Okay, if you read the previous post (part 1) you know that we have imported our photos, backed them up on an external hard drive, did preliminary ratings, and are now ready to begin to edit in Lightroom 3. I will now share the workflow that I use to get to the finished product. I must say that I have not always been consistent on this process. In fact, part of the purpose for writing these posts is that I will remind myself of my workflow and commit it to (subconscious) memory in the same way that my fingers have learned how to increase shutter speed and change aperture settings without really thinking about it. In addition, there is no perfect way to do post processing. By this time next year I may change my methods considerably. The biggest point is this...

I have a method. It's almost like having a budget. Sometimes you stray from your budget, but without one you would constantly be straying. Think of a post-processing methodology in the same way.

Let's use this photo as an example. It is decidedly not one of my best images. I was drizzling rain, foggy, and cold. But we were determined to see the sights of coastal Oregon on this day and we went out to take some photos.

So here it is...Let's see what we can do with it.

White Balance - I first look at white balance to see if what I shot looks right for the scene. The eyedropper tool is a great place to start. If the color temperature does not look right, simply hover over a white or gray area of the scene to see if the color temperature needs to be changed. If so, click on it to adjust. Though this is not a practical part of your workflow, it is not a bad idea to slide the color temperature slider from one extreme to the other to see the effect of color temperature on your image. Again, not part of workflow, but a good exercise in seeing the extremes of color temperature. Once you see these extremes in your image you are more likely to recognize them in future images. Based on the color of her jacket and hat, I think the white balance on this one is correct as shot.

Exposure - Next I will look at exposure and tweak this where needed. Thanks to the Manual DSLR Project I typically nail the exposure I am looking for, although the image may be purposefully under- or over-exposed. If adjustments are needed, however, they may be made here. More times than not I will add a bit of fill light to bring out detail in a properly exposed image. In this case, we will leave the exposure as shot.

Sharpening - I have made it a habit to NOT apply sharpening at this step. Rather, I use sharpening presets when I export. I learned the hard way that if you sharpen a little here and sharpen a little on export you can get some really cruddy looking images. For that reason, I make it a point to turn down the sharpening here, which I have done for this image.

Composition/Layout - Next I look at the composition and layout. Do I need to straighten the scene or crop? If so, this is when I do this. I should note that I rarely crop in this step except to straighten or to remove a distracting element. I usually wait until I upload into my ROES program to send them to my printer. On this image, I will do neither.

Noise Reduction or Grain - Here I may choose to add noise reduction or grain to the image, depending on the image and its future use. I have done neither to this image.

Creative Tweaking - We are almost at the last step in the process. This is where I add any creative effects to the photo. Here is a short list of (many) possibilities:

Develop Presets (my favorite)
Saturation or Color Tools
Vignettes
Spot removal
Graduated Filter Application

On this image I added a preset called Boost by Sarah-Ji Presets. Once I did this I realized that it might look a little better if I crop the image and then add the preset. So a couple of Command Zs later, a crop and the application of the Boost preset, here's what we have.

Again, not one of my favorites, but it's a decent photo to portray what we were doing on this rainy day in Oregon.

To recap, here is my post-processing workflow:

White Balance
Exposure
Sharpening
Composition/Layout
Noise Reduction/Grain
Creative Tweaking

The perfect workflow? No!!! A good guide for my work? I think so. So weigh in... Let me hear about your workflow in Lightroom. Look for part 3 to learn about how I export files from Lightroom.

From the Great White North (Alabama)... MK

Lensbaby Pics in the Snow

2011-01-12T18:16:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I've been snowed in since Monday and there are only so many ways you can organize your sock drawer...But, I'm not griping. We have plenty of food, water, electricity, heat, etc. Much better than the blizzard of '93. So much better. No complaints. It's all good.

Yes, it's Wednesday and the roads are not yet clear. I just got a text that the college where I work is closed again tomorrow. So I have had a good deal of time to do things around the house. I found a rather large piece of plastic in our workshop today and we "sledded" down a slight hill in our yard. Here's the problem. There's not much of a hill in our yard. Oh well. It just made us more creative. I did post videos on my Smugmug site. I must warn you though. They are not very interesting. Mostly just a little sad. I'm fairly certain we would rock if we had an adequate hill. The one of me is after I got bored with jumping on the plastic with my knees so I tried to do it standing up...surfing style. How do you think that went...

Speaking of creative, I also had time today to go outside with my Lensbaby and take a couple of shots. Since the look I was going after was to break a few rules, I added some effects in Lightroom. I know that this is not a style that everyone likes, but I kind of like them. Hope you enjoy...

In the meantime, let it snow...(It is again, by the way). Imagine what would happen if we got a real snow like the Northeast is getting. We would all just go to the Caribbean for the winter. Sounds like a plan to me.

On another note I've added a new domain name: www.manualDSLR.com that points to this blog.
Best...MK

Workflow Using Lightroom 3 - part 1

2011-01-12T12:32:00.000-06:00

We are 288 days into the Manual DSLR Project and I am feeling pretty good about my ability to use my D300 in manual mode. The adjustments are becoming more natural. Muscle memory is taking over and it is almost like the camera is becoming an extension of my body. Okay, that sounds a little weird, but you know what I mean. I am no longer having to think about "increase shutter speed" or whatever. In the true spirit of Nike... I "just do it". Mission accomplished? Yes. To some extent at least.

Like any self-improvement project, overall improvement is the goal. And since I have been shooting more I have fine tuned my editing workflow as well. This process started when I watched a Chase Jarvis video outlining his workflow. Suffice it to say that I am not Chase Jarvis, nor do I have have his budget. So I adapted my own workflow based on my needs and resources. We will take a few minutes to talk about that today.

Once I have images on a card, I use a CF card reader to plug the card directly into a USB port on my MacBook. There is already an external hard drive hooked up to the computer with a Firewire 400 connection. I open Lightroom 3 and tell it to copy the files on the card to my hard drive. In addition, I have it to send a duplicate to a folder on my external hard drive.

Once all the files are imported, I go through my first weeding process. Since I have it set to automatically eject my card after import, am free to remove the card and set it aside. I will format it in the camera later.

I now move from the Library module to the Develop module in Lightroom. I now go through a quick rating of the images. If they are usable, I mark them with a 3. If they are no good at all and I plan to delete them, I do not rate them. If they are part of an HDR series of bracketed shots, I mark them with a 1. While this is different from most rating systems, it works for me. It it is a marginal image that I might use in a pinch, I'll mark it with a 2.

I can now filter for 3 stars for higher and begin to select the best images by upgrading them to a 4 or 5 as appropriate. Once I have the photos that I am going to post process, I will begin to tweak them as needed. More about that in part 2 of this post.

For now here is a photo of our cat, Zeke, who was kind enough to model for me as he took in the sun through the library window. If you look closely in his eye you can see a reflection of me taking the shot. (See photo below).

This image was shot in Aperture priority at f5.6, ISO 400, 1/6 second. After I took a few of these at slow shutter speeds I changed to ISO 1600 to shoot the rest. Again, while this project is about learning manual mode, it does not stop me from using whatever set of tools I feel necessary to get the shot. In this case, a jittery cat calls for Aperture priority.

Hope you enjoy. Look for part 2 coming soon.

All the best...Mike

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 1 - My Dad

2011-01-08T11:20:00.000-06:00

Here it is! I have been posting my ten favorite photos of 2010 and we've come to my favorite. Although I took some good trips this year and got some cool photos, my favorite is little more than a snapshot. It was unplanned with all natural lighting and I just happened to have my camera in my hand.

I had spent the day at my parents' house helping to replace a roof on a workshop that was damaged in a storm. At the end of the day I was at my truck preparing to leave when I noticed one of their kittens playing on a tree that had been downed in the same storm. The tree had been cut but not yet removed from their front yard. As I took that photo I noticed that my dad had walked up to the edge of the carport where the evening sun washed across his face, though he was still very much in the shadows. He was watching the kitten so I turned the lens from the kitten to him. Here is the result.

This photo shows a kind, gentle, hard-working man who dropped out of high school to fight in World War II then returned to complete high school after the war. He retired several years ago but remains very active. At age 84 he and my mom raise cattle, grow a gigantic garden that benefits half of the community and remain very active. You might say that I am prejudiced in selecting this as my favorite of the year. And you would be correct.

I hope you enjoy! MK

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 2 - North Head Lighthouse & Cove

2011-01-07T18:00:00.011-06:00

Continuing with my top ten favorite images of 2010, here is number 2. This one was taken at Cape Disappointment State Park in Washington. I hope you enjoy!

Best...MK

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 3 - Times Square Police

2011-01-06T21:07:00.000-06:00

Continuing with my favorite images of 2010. This one is an HDR image that I took in Times Square during our June trip to New York City. We were on the way back from dinner one night when I saw this line of police motorcycles. I didn't have a tripod with me but was able to steady my camera on a police barrier.

Hope you enjoy. MK

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 4 - North Head Lighthouse

2011-01-06T17:00:00.001-06:00

I am continuing to count down my favorite images of 2010. This is one from our October trip to coastal Oregon and Washington.

Hope you enjoy.

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 5 - Rock City Barn

2011-01-06T13:00:00.001-06:00

This is a continuation of my countdown of my favorite images of 2010. This one was taken at Sequoyah Caverns near Valley Head, Alabama. For many years Rock City has advertised on barns across the Southeast countryside. This one is in better shape than most.

I was at a church picnic when I took a walk and took a pic of this one.

Enjoy! MK

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 6 - Lane in the Smokies

2011-01-05T11:00:00.002-06:00

I am counting my top ten favorite images of 2010. This is number 6, a photo of my 14-year-old son in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Hope you enjoy! MK

My Favorite Photos of 2010 - Number 7 - Lensbaby Flower

2011-01-05T10:00:00.000-06:00

I am counting my top ten favorite images of 2010. This is number 7. I took this photo of a fresh cut flower on our table at dinner with a Lensbaby Composer.

Hope you enjoy! MK

My Favorite Images of 2010 - Number 8 - Little River

2011-01-04T20:00:00.000-06:00

I am counting my top ten favorite images of 2010. This is number 8, a shot I took at Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Hope you enjoy!

My Favorite Images of 2010 - Number 9 - From the Ground Up

2011-01-04T16:00:00.001-06:00

I am counting my top ten favorite images of 2010. This is number 9, an HDR shot taken at Beacon Rock State Park in Washington.

Hope you enjoy!

My Favorite Images of 2010 - Number 10 Midnight Flower

2011-01-04T10:00:00.001-06:00

I am counting down my top ten images of 2010. This is number 10. I call it Midnight Flower.

The date on this one says 2009, but it was actually taken in the Spring of 2010. I just made an error when I exported from Lightroom.

Hope you enjoy! MK

Top Ten Photos of 2010 - Didn't Make The Cut - Buildings

2011-01-03T14:49:00.000-06:00

As we enter the new year I am reviewing some of my favorite pics from 2010. My plan was to select my top ten. However, I found that narrowing to ten was more difficult than I had anticipated. My ten favorites are still coming, but here are a few that didn't make the cut. In fact, they didn't make the top twenty...but I still like them. I hope you do too.

Check out the captions to learn the story behind each. I hope you enjoy! Look for more to come later in the week.

All the best...MK

This is an old schoolhouse in rural Oregon (or perhaps Washington). We were driving from Oregon to Washington when we drove by it.

This is the Steiner Building in Birmingham Alabama. We had just left the Amtrak Station in Birmingham when we stopped at a red light and I took this out the open window.

This is an old church that we stopped to photograph during our October trip to Washington and Oregon. As we drove around to the back to park I found that sunlight was shining through the back window, providing an interesting glow.

This is an old house in downtown Louisville Kentucky. I took this as we were driving by.

This is a barn located at Sequoyah Caverns in Hammondville Alabama. I took this at a church picnic this summer.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T11:36:00.000-06:00

It's official! 2011 is here. Wow, I'm feeling old. This time of year is ripe for football, parades, and resolutions. While I am not making a resolution I am beginning to think about what I'll do when the Manual DSLR Project concludes. I didn't start until April, so I still have a few months left. I'm having so much fun that I plan to continue along a similar vein.

Here are some of my ideas for next year's self-improvement project:

Manual operation of my flash (Nikon SB-600). I could really use this as my knowledge of flash operation is limited. I might even find a reason to get a second flash. :-)
Working through each project outlined in David Ziser's book, Captured by the Light, something along the lines of Julie and Julia, only I can't have dinner parties and eat David's recipes. The tough part of this one is the models. Anyone have a bride and groom manikin you'd like to donate? I don't think my kids or my cats would tolerate being dressed as a bride and groom. I haven't bought the book yet, but have seen it in the stores and it looks like great fun to work through.
Really digging into subtractive lighting techniques. When I was a kid I remember riding by Leon Kennamer's studio oblivious to the genius who worked inside. Frankly, I couldn't afford an SLR so my photography was limited to a Kodak 110 and about a dozen cartridges of film per year, so I wasn't thinking much about photography at that time. (In case you wonder, Leon was not a close relative, but all the Kennamers in our area were related, so I can claim him as a relative.)
A 365 project with specific assignments for different days of the week. For instance, Mondays might be "Outdoor Mondays". Tuesdays might be "Alphabet Tuesday" where I would rotate through the alphabet and photograph something that starts with "A" the first week, "B" the second week...

This is a shot from our October trip to Portland, OR.

If you have other ideas I'd love to hear them. I'm still thinking. Thankfully I have until April to decide.

Though I said I wasn't going to make a resolution I suppose I should resolve to print my photos more often and to back up my images religiously. I use an awesome photo processor called Meridian Pro. They always do a great job, have an excellent selection, and I have received terrific customer service. I am about to try a new canvas print service (Zaza Gallery). The prices look good. I'll let you know more about the quality after I receive my first order.

So, Happy New Year! I look forward to interacting with you on this blog and through Twitter throughout the next year. I might even break down and do a Facebook page. Or not!

All the best...Mike

Happy New Year! and Mapmyfollowers.com

2011-01-01T00:34:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post to say Happy 2011 and to thank those who read this blog and follow me on Twitter. Tonight I captured a screen shot from Mapmyfollowers.com to show where all my Twitter followers live. Here's what it looks like.

This is a cool app and lots of fun to see where your friends are. You can click on any of the dots and it will show the person's details. Somebody sent a message on Twitter earlier asking for a great photographer in Kansas City. I just pulled up this map, clicked on Kansas City and though I didn't have a photographer from KC who follows me (shame on KC photographers) I did find that there was a photo lab and was able to pass that along to the person looking for a photographer. Very cool.

Well, I've made it to the new year and my head is about to drop onto the pillow. Good night all.

All the best in 2011...Mike

One Step Further: Custom White Balance

2010-12-31T19:44:00.000-06:00

My last post was about setting white balance manually. Tonight we take it one step further by discovery the wonders of custom white balance. Okay, "wonders" might be a bit much, but custom white balance on the D300 is pretty cool and easy.

The process is quite easy. But let's first talk about why you would use custom white balance.

If you are in a situation where you want your white balance to be correct in camera and you will be shooting in the same location with the same lighting situation, you may want to use custom white balance. I wouldn't use this feature for shooting an event where the lighting would change from one scene to the next. However, if I were doing a product shoot in a studio where the lighting would be the same, this might be an excellent option.

This photo has nothing to do with the post, but since this is a photo blog...

Now the process. First you hold down the WB button and turn the wheel to PRE. Then hold the WB balance down until PRE starts to flash. Then take a shot of your scene. If the lighting is adequate and the WB setting worked, you will see Gd at the bottom of your viewfinder and Good spelled out on your LCD display. Your custom white balance is now set and ready to go. What this means is that the white balance is set from a white or gray object in the original scene.

You can actually save more than one custom white balance setting and select them just as you would any preset.

Hope this helps. Have a safe and happy New Year's eve!

White Balance - Working on Getting it Right in Camera

2010-12-28T21:28:00.000-06:00

Today we look at white balance. Like many modern D-SLRs, the Nikon D300 provides an option to select an automatic white balance. Some people like this idea while others suggest that it is better to use a specific white balance setting for the shoot (or portion of a shoot) so that one may batch correct the white balance in post production. While it is beyond the scope of this blog to debate the pros and cons of each, I tend to go for the latter--where I select one white balance setting (as close as I can get in camera) and make necessary corrections in post. So it's time to explore the joys of white balance. My goal here is to learn how to select an appropriate white balance setting for the situation.

So how hard is that? If it's cloudy you select the little cloud...sunny and you pick the sun...

Let's take it a little farther by not only learning what preset to use, but to select the appropriate Kelvin temperature for the situation.

So where to start? I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to consult the camera manual (Yikes!). The manual tells us to "choose a white balance setting that matches the light source before shooting." As I understand it, the white balance setting on our digital cameras is like the filters we might have used on our film cameras. For instance, if you took a photo in fluorescent light you might use a blue filter to "filter" out the blue tint.

This one was shot with a white balance setting of 2500.

The white balance in our digital camera does the same thing. Here's an exercise to illustrate the point. I shot this first photo of Lane (under protest) at a setting of 2500 Kelvin. It appears pretty well balanced with the incandescent overhead lights, but it could use a little more warmth.

So I repeated the photo at a setting of 3500 Kelvin as shown below, which added a bit of warmth.

Could I have added the warmth in post? Sure. In reality, will I probably just adjust in post? Yep! But this project is about experimentation and learning to use the manual controls of the camera and this exercise is one step in that journey. Just like auto focus, white balance presets are great and I plan to use them. But it's good to know how to add warmth in camera.

To add a little warmth I shot this one at 3500 K.

Heck, I might ever break out some gels for my flash to adjust the color temperature. But not tonight...

Until next time...

Mike

FYI. Settings on these photos: ISO 800; f5.6; 1/5 sec.

Contributor for CurrentPhotographer.com

2010-12-10T23:38:00.000-06:00

Through the magic of the connections made on Twitter, I was recently offered the opportunity to become a contributor for CurrentPhotographer. Specifically, I will be writing a regular weekly post reviewing photography-related iPhone and iPad applications. My first post is a review of Pic Grunger, a really cool application that allows you to make your pics look old.

Run by professional photographer Trevor Current, CurrentPhotographer provides "information and resources to help educate and inspire the photo community to make better photos. Our topics include breaking photo industry news, tips, tools, techniques, how-tos and reviews for beginners through professionals." Check it out at www.currentphotographer.com.

I also recently contributed to the FatPhotographer site, which is designed to link photographers worldwide. If you are going on a trip anywhere in the world and want to know (from a local) where to shoot, visit the site to find tips about where to shoot, as well as listings of photo stores, processors, professional photographers and more. I wrote the introduction to the Alabama page. If you find that your state or area has not yet been developed you may get the opportunity to contribute to the site.

Since this is a photo blog, I am including one shot from my recent trip to Louisville, KY. This was shot at a red light looking north toward 4th Street Live.

Until next time, check out my posts on CurrentPhotographer.com and follow me on Twitter (@manualdslr)...Mike

What makes a pro a pro?

2010-11-22T18:30:00.000-06:00

In the short time that I have been following photographers on their blogs and on Twitter, I have learned that there seems to be a categorization related to photographers. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I would like to speak to some of these categories:

Amateur – This is the category in which I find myself considering that I do not make my living from photography. I have, out of need for a particular illustration, had a few photos published in books that I wrote. My employer has used some of my photos in publications. For the most part, however, my photography has been for personal enjoyment. One should note that the skill level in this category varies widely from beginner to expert. I suppose I fall somewhere in between the two.

Professional – Most of the photographers that I run into online tend to be in this category. Some are photography “rock stars” with names like Chase Jarvis, Scott Bourne, Derrick Story, David Ziser, and Tamara Lackey. Others are perhaps equally talented but perhaps less well known. These are people that you have never heard of, but who do beautiful work and make a good living for their families. Still others may have less (or more) skill, but seem to just get by.

Then there is another group. These are the ones who buy a “good camera”. They take a few shots on Automatic mode. (Yes, with the pop-up flash firing on the shots they take from the nosebleed section at the football game.) Someone tells them that they take good pictures. “Look at this portrait that a professional photographer took. The background is all blurry,” they might say. “But the telephone pole lined up just behind Little Johnny’s head is just as clear as the little squirt himself”. You probably know where I am going with this.

So the photographer decides that it is time to go pro. After all, he has a good camera. What else does he need?

I experienced the work of one of these pros recently. I was very nice when the person was shooting the event and, in fact, did not shoot myself since a professional had been hired. I don’t want to be the “Uncle Bob” in this story.

Then I saw the photos. The composition was poor. One group shot chopped off the heads of several; one was chopped at the level of the eyes. I understand artistic creativity, but let’s get real. The images were over processed to the point of being ridiculous. There is one shot where two of us have blue noses. I’m not kidding! Blue noses! Okay. I’m exaggerating. It might be more of a teal color. Maybe aqua. What??

But you know what? There are some pretty good pictures too. One is of a really cute pose of a child. I would have probably approached it differently and opened the aperture to really focus on the subject and let the background blur. But it’s still a good photo. A few good ones and a few bad ones.

Why do I consider these photos to be less than professional? Lack of consistency. They should all be good. Do we all have throw aways where eyes are closed or the lighting wasn’t just right or whatever? Sure. But the customer should never see these. These should NOT be in the album. But when that is all you have…

I would include a copy of some of the botched photos, but will not due to copyright issues. Neither will I include one of my shots on this post since it’s a post about what not to do. Until next time I’ll just assure you that I am not exaggerating about the quality of these shots.

And by the way…the next time someone tells you that you take good pictures because you have a good camera. Set your ISO to 3200. Aperture to the biggest setting that the lens will allow, and the shutter speed on maybe 1 second. Hand it to them and ask them to take your photo. You think maybe Scott Bourne is right when he says that the camera may not be the most important component in the photo? I think so. What does Scott say? “90% of all cameras are better than…”

So do I want to be a pro? Not until I am the best amateur photographer you know. And I'm still working on that. All the best...

SizzlPix Pick of the Month - The Digital Story

2010-11-17T21:04:00.001-06:00

I was thrilled to receive a Twitter message and email from Derrick Story of The Digital Story (web site and podcast) notifying me that I had won the SizzlPix Pick of the Month! For those of you unfamiliar with Derrick Story, he is a renowned photographer, author and workshop leader. A visit to www.thedigitalstory.com and subscribing to his podcast by the same name will be well worth your time and effort. Though I do not know him other than through listening to his podcast, I can tell you that Derrick is one of the most enthusiastic photographers I have come across. I almost can't listen to him early in the morning because my general state of grumpiness is stirred by his wonderful demeanor.

Character flaws (mine, not his) aside, I always enjoy his podcast and have been challenged to submit a photo in one of his monthly contests, sponsored by SizzlPix--a company that prints photos (through some mysterious special process) on a sheet of polished aluminum. This yields a very stable, gorgeous way to display a photo that will outlast any other medium of which I am aware.

The theme of the September contest was "Saturated" so I submitted this shot, which I have shared on this blog before. This was shot on Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains. Shot with a Nikon D300 with a 24-70 kit lens equipped with a ND2 neutral density filter. (This is the only lens that my ND filter will fit). Shot at ISO 100, F11, 1/5 sec. on a tripod. Bracketed at one and two steps above and one and two steps below. Processed with Photomatix Pro.

I can't wait to see how it will look as a SizzlPix!

Here's a link to the announcement: http://thedigitalstory.com/2010/11/mike_kennamer_awarde.html

I encourage you to participate in photo contests like this one. To learn more, go to www.thedigitalstory.com and click on Members.

I'll be sure to let you know when I receive the SizzlPix. Thanks to Derrick Story and SizzlPix!

Measure Twice. Cut Once.

2010-11-13T20:54:00.000-06:00

I enjoy woodworking. While I don't often get out to the shop and build things, I do enjoy it and should do it more often. However, there are always reasons not to get out to the shop: Too hot; too cold; don't have time; don't know what to build; don't have time to finish a project...

Today I decided to go out and start a project. As I walked down to the shop I began to think about the similarities between woodworking and photography. Here are my thoughts:

The right equipment makes all the difference. The project I am building has three main parts. The first of the three required me to cut a gap (or dado) about two inches wide and two inches deep in eight places. A daunting task if you don't have the right tools. However, with a table saw and dado blade, the work is simple, clean, relatively quick, and safe. Does that apply to photography? I think so. While you can improvise with many items, some items are necessary to do a good job. I don't want to make this about equipment, but the right tool does make a difference.
A plan is vitally important. While I didn't draw a written plan for the project I started today I did have a mental image of what each component would look like. As you compose a photograph, you should also have a plan. What story are you trying to tell through the photo? Are there distractions (power lines, garbage, etc.) that you need to remove from the photo through removal or changing perspectives? How is the lighting? Are you shooting for motion blur or freezing action? You may consider these questions and more as you set up for your shot.

There is an old adage in woodworking that says, "measure twice; cut once". As photographers, we probably did that when we were shooting film, due to the cost of film and processing. However, when we shoot digital, we sometimes tend to just click the shutter until we get a good shot. I admit that was my strategy a couple of years ago. Now, however, I am trying to "measure twice" and think before I shoot.

ISO 250, f5.6 1/500 sec.

Since this is a photo blog I suppose I should post a photo. This was taken in August during a trip to Lake Guntersville for a family gathering. These ducks were at the edge of the water doing "duck stuff" and I was walking around doing "photo stuff". I really didn't do anything in post except for RAW conversion and a little sharpening on export.

ISO 250, f5.6, 1/60 sec.

The second shot is the son of one of my nephews. It was shot at the same family gathering under a picnic pavilion. As you can tell he had played hard, but I think this shot fits him well. This is shot using available light. Cropped just a little on the right side and I applied a Seim Preset: Angel Kisses B&W in Lightroom.

Thanks for reading. By the way, I should note that this blog received a nice comment on David Ziser's blog a few months ago. I was flying to New York City when it was published and didn't see it until much later. (That just goes to prove that you should never miss a day of Digital Pro Talk). As Mr. Ziser is one of the inspirations for this blog, I appreciate his kind words and am honored that he would take the time to view my work. A link to the story is here. Digital Pro Talk June 11, 2010

All the best...
Mike

Late Veteran's Day Post

2010-11-12T18:52:00.000-06:00

I should have posted this one yesterday, but didn't get a chance.

This is one of my favorite photos of my Dad. It was taken a few weeks ago after 2 of my sons, my brother, a brother in law and I helped him replace the roof on his workshop that was damaged in a recent storm. We were all tired and dirty but I happened to have my camera in my truck. (Imagine that).

My Dad had just walked through the carport and was still partially in the shadows when I got this shot. To me, it really represents him: hands in pockets, wearing a hat, flannel shirt, pencil in pocket (I inherited that one).

It is fitting on Veteran's Day to recognize the heroes (present and past) who have fought for our freedom. For that reason and more, here's mine.

Kenneth Kennamer, Veteran of WWII, U.S. Army, Pacific Theater.

Please be sure to thank heroes like my Dad and others who sacrificed so much for our country. And not just on Veteran's Day. If you have an Honor Flight program in your area, please consider supporting it. Learn more at www.honorflight.org.

All the best!

Must Print Photos

2010-11-04T22:01:00.000-05:00

I'm really bad about taking loads of photos, spending time in post-processing, and then never printing them. After losing some of my pix to a hard drive crash recently, I vowed that I would not do that again. I recently checked out Blurb Books after hearing about them on The Digital Story -- Derrick Story's podcast. I downloaded the free software and set out to work. The design process was very quick, easy and fun.

I ordered late at night on October 30 and my book shipped today (November 4). Want to see a preview? Click here:http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1686666?ce=blurb_ew&utm_source=widget

To download the software and build a book of your own, go to www.blurb.com.

Can't wait to see the finished product! I'll let you know how it turned out.

North Head Lighthouse, Washington

2010-10-24T17:37:00.000-05:00

While visiting the Pacific Northwest recently, we grew tired of the rain and decided to travel north until we found sunshine. We found that sunshine as we crossed into Washington. As I looked on Google Maps on my iPhone, I found that there was a state park called Cape Disappointment on the southern coast of Washington. Among its many great features, there are two lighthouses that are easily accessible. The first one that we visited is called the North Head Lighthouse.

Construction on this lighthouse began in 1896; it was lit for the first time on May 16, 1898. I really did not expect this to be one of my favorite photos of the lighthouse, but a combination of a "PH Dramatic Ocean" preset and a graduated filter both applied in Lightroom 3 gave me a pleasing result--or at least one that I like.

It had been an overcast day but the sun was starting to come out (for the first time all weekend). I selected an ISO of 100 to lessen the sensitivity of the sensor. I shot with my 18-135 Nikon lens at 18mm with an aperture of 7.1 and a shutter speed of 1/400 second. The result was a somewhat "blah" shot with a dark background and little contrast in the sky. However, there was a really nice cloud pattern in the sky which I thought could "pop" with just a little work in Lightroom. I first applied the preset, "PH Dramatic Ocean" which made the sky pop but toned down the brightness of the foreground. I then added a graduated filter to lighten and brighten the foreground, especially the bottom of the lighthouse. A little luminance smoothing finished it off. I hope you enjoy!

Pacific Northwest

2010-10-17T18:19:00.000-05:00

This is an HDR shot taken along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

I just returned from Portland, OR on business but had the opportunity to go out the Friday before to enjoy some time on the coast with my wife. It was a great trip--very relaxing--and I am coming to realize how much I love the Pacific Northwest. The scenery there is awesome. Though we were there just a few days we got to enjoy terrific beaches, great lighthouses, and beautiful vistas.

ISO 320, f18, 1/40 sec.

We arrived on a Friday to a very windy and rainy Cannon Beach. The rain and wind (along with the blowing sand) made it a little difficult to take photos, but we still got a few. As you can see in the second photo, the wind was blowing pretty briskly. This is one where Trisha was walking across the beach with the sand blowing by her.

Look for more posts with photos from this trip and follow me on Twitter (manualdslr) to see more photos.

Until next time...

Just Having Fun

2010-09-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

I haven't had much of a chance to take photos recently but I have had some time to think about what I could take pictures of. One of the ideas I had involved my 14-year-old son, Lane, and his sword. What... Your 14-year-old kid doesn't have a sword? Okay, that's a different story. Let's talk about the picture.

I was looking to do something edgy but I didn't have a clear vision for how it would look because I don't spend a lot of time hanging out in the woods. After some really bad poses initiated by me (not sure how we ever got him out of tree without hurting at least one of us), Lane suggested a spot in a thicket next to a tree. It looked good to me so I told him to pretend that he was all alone with only his sword with which to protect himself, and the bad guys are on the way. Here is the result.

Lighting was provided from my pickup truck, parked about 75 feet away with the lights shining in from photo left. I simply asked Lane to step forward until his face came into the light. The dirty looking spots on his face and elsewhere are actually shadows. He isn't wearing a hat of any kind; the darkness is just from being outside the light. This was shot in manual mode at ISO 1600, f5.6 and 1/6 second. What you see here is what we got from the camera. I didn't do anything in post except to convert from RAW to JPG.

We experimented with using a small LED flashlight but found the light to be too white. The lighting from the pickup truck was quite warm, allowing it to look a bit more natural. My goal was to take a creepy-looking picture that is a little edgy. Though I probably won't hang a 60-inch canvas of this over our sofa, I deem the experience a success for five reasons:

I was able to translate a vague vision of what I wanted to do to an actual photo. All too often I take my camera out looking for something to shoot. This time however, I approached it a bit differently.
I got to experiment with light, not in the traditional way of adding strobes or speedlights, but using available light and adjusting the scene.
It was fun!
I got to hang out with Lane.
And most importantly, it almost made the purchase of a sword sound legitimate. (Not really. #4 is by far the most important.)

And who knows, it might make a good Facebook profile picture for Halloween.

Until next time...Mike

Back in the Saddle?

2010-09-20T19:12:00.000-05:00

I'm back after about a three-week hiatus caused by illness in our extended family. This post will be pretty quick, but I hope to be taking more photos in the next few days. In fact, I have some ideas for some edgy nighttime shots. We'll see how those go before I tell you what they are.

This is a recent shot of a barn that is very different from the HDR barn photos that I've taken lately. This was taken at ISO 250, f6.3, 1/320 sec. I applied a Holga effect in Lightroom, giving me the vignette around the edges and overexposing the corn in the foreground. Not my best shot ever, but a fun shot of what was a pretty unexciting barn. I especially like the contrast in the green trees, the golden corn, and the red barn. The Holga preset just raised the bar on the contrast.

Hope you enjoy. It's getting dark, so I'm headed outside to shoot.

A Time for Everything

2010-08-29T20:15:00.000-05:00

The Old Testament book of Ecclesiates tells us that there is a time or a season for everything. That wisdom holds true in photography as well. And while I am getting much more comfortable with using Manual mode on my D300 I came to the realization last week that it was time to use Aperture Priority for something that I was shooting. This was a situation in which there was a lot of action and it wasn't practical to make manual adjustments. It felt strange to use Aperture priority, but I did find that I paid more attention to what I was doing (even in Aperture priority) because of my experience in using Manual mode.

While this shot doesn't have much to do with the subject of this post, it is a close-up of my wife. This was shot at ISO 250, f5.6, 1/20 second handheld with an 18-135 mm zoomed all the way in. I used natural light under a picnic pavilion at the lake.

Until next time...MK

Catching Up

2010-08-25T20:11:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since my last post. I do some writing and had a couple of projects due that I had to get finished. Since my last post I had a bad experience with a hard drive crash, but had an excellent service experience at the Apple Store. One Saturday night I was working on multiple projects on my 3 1/2 year old Macbook when it completely locked up. When I tried to restart it would not boot. I used my iPhone Apple Store app to make an appointment at the Huntsville Apple Store the next afternoon. I arrived at 2 pm fully expecting to have to buy a new Macbook that day. By 2:30 I was out of there with a new hard drive in my computer. No cost.

Here's the amazing part. Several months ago I replaced the 120 GB hard drive that came with my Macbook with a 500 GB Hitachi drive. It was the replacement drive that went bad, but Apple stood behind it. So guess what my next computer (and next and next and next) will be? That is the first time I've ever used the Genius Bar and I must say that I am extremely impressed by the quality of service received.

Did I lose images? Yes. What did I learn? That backup isn't something that should be done monthly or quarterly or... I've now developed a workflow that includes saving an additional copy of all of my raw images to an external hard drive on import. Over the next several weeks I'll be designing a system that will save my images in multiple drives in multiple locations. I just watched a Chase Jarvis video podcast that showed his workflow and backup procedures. While his system is on a very large scale, there is a good possibility that I can do something similar on a smaller scale.

Here's a picture I took Saturday at a church picnic. This is a great old barn and fun to photograph. I don't have any other writing projects cooking for now so I should be back to blogging on a regular basis.

All the best...

IPhone 4 Camera

2010-08-02T19:48:00.000-05:00

I took the plunge and ordered the iPhone 4 a few weeks ago. For all the reported problems I must say that mine is doing great. My favorite part is the new camera. This camera is good enough that when I don't have a "real" camera with me I still feel that this one will do a good job. Here are a few examples of some photos I've taken and edited on the iPhone. The first is a flower that I took using the Hipstamatic app.

The second is a photo that I took through the windshield (I wasn't driving) as we crossed a bridge over the Tennessee River. Not a bad pic considering the speed and shooting through a dirty piece of glass.

The third is a photo taken with my iPhone and modified using the Pic Grunger application. Pretty cool.

While this blog is about DSLRs, it's good to know that the phone on my belt will produce photos of this quality.

More to come...

Shooting at 50 mph

2010-07-15T21:06:00.000-05:00

I took this shot yesterday as we crossed the Tennessee River bridge into Decatur, Alabama. (I wasn't driving by the way). It was shot at ISO 320, f11, 1/500 sec. I added a PH preset in Lightroom.

The water was especially still, giving me a good reflection off the water below. Enjoy!

Another Reason Manual Mode Rocks!

2010-07-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

We had an awesome electrical storm Sunday night. Conditions at my house were not bad but there was a pretty cool storm both to the north and the south of us. I took just a few minutes to go out on our back deck with my Nikon D300 with a Nikon 18-135 zoom. This was mounted on a tripod. The ISO was already set at 320 so I left it there. I set the aperture to 9 and the shutter speed at 6 seconds. I then aimed the camera toward the northeast and focused on a light in the distance. After that, about all I did was press the shutter release.

This first shot was one where you could see the amount of lightning activity. As you can see, the lightning lit up the yard.

The second shot is another one that struck relatively nearby.

The third is similar, but I applied a Lightroom preset to give it a little more impact. I only shot for a few minutes and got about 10 usable shots. So how was it different shooting it in manual than what I would have done a year ago? A year ago I would have probably gone with Aperture priority and opened the aperture to the largest possible setting. While that might work well with a daylight portrait, it doesn't always work best for shots like these.

These are definitely the best lightning shots I've been able to get before. The good part is that I didn't have to torment for minutes over how to set the camera. I set it and started snapping pictures.

I'm loving this personal project. What is your personal project for this year? Camera Dojo just had a good podcast about personal projects. I hope you start yours tomorrow.

All the best...Mike

What Now??? Manual Focus!!!!

2010-07-08T20:02:00.000-05:00

Just when I thought I was getting used to the manual settings on my camera...

I just received a Lensbaby Composer today that I purchased from Outdoor Photo Gear (great purchase experience, by the way). Although I knew very well that this is a manual focus lens I don't want to think about the number of times that I pressed the shutter release half way expecting the image to automatically come into focus. It's amazing how accustomed we become to using the automatic features on our cameras and lenses. Here are a couple of shots that I took after work tonight. Both were shot at f2.8 and ISO 200. The first was shot at 1/320 sec. and the second at 1/400 sec.

Maybe having to use manual focus will make me think more about the actual process of focusing. Do I see myself moving my camera to manual focus all the time? Not a chance. However, it's good to remember that the great photographers of yesteryear did not have the advantage of automatic everything.

On another note, I visited our local Unclaimed Baggage Center on Monday. Though I did not find anything good in the camera section as I wandered through the electronics department, I saw a new, in the original package, BlackRapid RS-4 R Strap hanging on a peg. It was marked as an "electronic accessory" and priced for $25.99. Needless to say, it is now proudly hanging from my D300.

As I trekked through New York City a few weeks ago, I told my wife that I wish I had a camera strap that would hang at my side but easily slide into action when I need it. I was starting to engineer such a strap in my mind when I discovered that someone had already invented that strap. I had planned to order one but had not yet done it. I feel bad for the person who bought this one and promptly lost it when the airline lost his/her luggage. However, I'm glad to have gotten a great deal.

New R-strap (half price), new Lensbaby Composer (great deal on a demo model along with Independence Day discount from Outdoor Photo Gear) and I'm supposed to receive my new iPhone 4 tomorrow (paid full price for that one). It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas... No more goodies for me for a while!

Time and Space Died Yesterday

2010-06-29T21:21:00.000-05:00

Going back to my NYC photos today with a shot of some graffiti from Little Italy. I don't know what any of the rest says, but I thought the subject matter was interesting. Enjoy.

Latino Festival

2010-06-28T22:33:00.000-05:00

Here's another shot of the Latino Festival that I shot on Saturday. It was very hot, but a great crowd and everyone was having a great time. This is held each summer as an outreach to the Latino community by our local community college. It also gives us the opportunity to learn about the culture, enjoy the food, and to share a day of fun.

This is a shot of a group of dancers. You just have to love all the colors--the flags, the dresses, the sky... Shot at ISO 250, f5.6, 1/500 sec using an 18-135 Nikon AFS lens. More to come.

Adios...

Latino Festival: First Look

2010-06-26T22:03:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to shoot my college's Latino Festival today. While I don't have time to post much tonight, here is one shot to give you an idea of the colorful subject matter that I had to work with. Enjoy!

Shot at ISO 250, f5.6, and 1/250 sec.

I will pay attention to my shutter speed. I will pay attention to my...

2010-06-25T18:43:00.000-05:00

Remember back in school when you goofed and your teacher made you "write sentences"? Whether it was, "I will not chew gum in class." or "I will not pull Sally Lou's hair.", the combination of punishment and repetition was supposed to help us to remember to avoid doing that wrong again. I've come to realize that maybe I need to be "writing sentences" to remember to pay attention to what I am doing. Here's the problem...I've become accustomed to using the camera's meter to make adjustments to the shutter speed while looking through the viewfinder. While it's good to be able to make adjustments on the fly, with the camera up to my eye, I have found that I sometimes do not pay attention to the shutter speed setting, but only turn the wheel in the appropriate direction to increase or decrease.

Though I won't be writing sentences, I will work on paying attention to the current shutter speed as I make changes. The photos you see here were taken yesterday afternoon as my wife was watering the flowers. The first was shot at ISO 320, f5.6, 1/20 sec. I used a Quantaray 70-300 macro and shot from a tripod.

The second was shot in the same manner, only with a shutter speed of 1/15. Both were imported directly into Lightroom 3 Beta 2, converted from raw to JPEG. No further adjustments were made.

Speaking of Lightroom 3, I have ordered mine but have not yet received it. I hope it arrives before the end of the month when the beta expires.

I'm shooting an event for my employer tomorrow so look for Latino Festival photos in the next few days. This is the third year that I have shot this festival, but the first time that will shoot it in Manual mode. Though I do not look forward to the scorching heat, I am looking forward to photographing all the bright faces and colorful costumes.

Until next time...Adios!

Shooting in Low Light

2010-06-24T21:13:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to shoot a production of our local children's theatre group. While the kids did a great job writing, directing, performing, and producing the play, their budget was limited and lighting was less than optimal. So I took my spot on the balcony and did the best I could do with what I had to work with.

I used my Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens and shot handheld with my D300. This particular picture was shot at ISO 2000 (that's really pushing the limits of my D300), f3.2 with a shutter speed of 1/160 sec. With that big, heavy (metal) lens, that's about the slowest shutter speed I could use and still get a clear shot. While I certainly won't be making sofa-size enlargements of these shots, I came out with several usable shots and got some good experience in shooting in very low light.

Until next time...

Handheld HDR?

2010-06-23T20:00:00.000-05:00

Here's another quick post with a photo I took of a line of police motorcycles in Times Square. This is an HDR taken handheld by holding the camera at waist level. I took five shots but only used four (original, one above and two below) on this top shot.

I have another shot that is a little brighter (using two above and two below), but I think this one better shows that it is completely dark (after midnight). The lighter one is a little might be a little over the top. While I like HDRs, I am not a big fan of the super bright shots that look more like a painting than a photo. Oh well, I'll include the other one and let you decide.

Later...MK

Mailboxes, Etc.

2010-06-22T22:10:00.000-05:00

Here's another in my series of mailbox photos taken in New York City. This one is on Wall Street. Enjoy!

Lens Selection

2010-06-21T19:16:00.000-05:00

I must admit that there is no rhyme or reason to the collection of lenses that I own. Many have been purchased used at the local Unclaimed Baggage Center (the place that your lost luggage ends up when the airlines give up on getting it back to its rightful owner). http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/

So here is the list of what I have at this point:

Nikkor 28-80 AF 3.3-5.6
Quantaray AF 70-300 4-5.6 Macro
Nikkor 24 mm f2.8 AF
Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 AF
Nikkor 18-135 3.5-5.6 AFS

So....it might be time to start thinking a little more purposefully about lens selection. First of all, I really like my 18-135 as a good "walking around" lens. It is good for when I travel light with only one lens. It focuses quickly and is a pretty good lens for when I can only carry one lens. However, it does not have VR, so I am thinking of upgrading to something like the Nikon 18-200 AFS VR2.

The 24 mm prime lens is a good little lens but I find that I don't use it that often.

The Quantaray is the only Macro lens I own, but the zoom is sluggish and the lens quality is marginal. I would like to have a good quality macro prime lens. I'm thinking an 80 or 85mm.

From there, I am thinking of maybe a 24-70 2.8. It's an expensive lens, but I'm thinking that I would use that one a lot. Another lens that I want is a Lensbaby Composer. I purchased a Lensbaby Macro kit at Unclaimed Baggage a couple of weeks ago for a steal ($6), so now I just need a Lensbaby to go with it. Isn't that the same kind of logic that got me this eclectic collection of mismatched lenses? Oh well...no need to worry too much about going too deep on that list until I have the fund to do so.

This photo is another one from New York. It was shot with my 18-135 Nikon lens at ISO 320; f7.1, 1/250 sec. This particular mailbox is located on the corner of Spring and Elizabeth.

Until next time...

Common Objects as Art

2010-06-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

Recently my wife and I sat on a bench outside a store in Little Italy, New York City, eating a slice of cheese pizza from Ray's Pizza (on Prince Street). We had no place to be so we did a little people watching. Part of "people watching" is paying attention to the surroundings. One of the things that I started to notice was all the mailboxes on the streets of New York. (Frankly, I noticed this one since this was directly in front of me as I sat on the bench). This one was shot at ISO 320, f7.1, 1/200 sec.

Over the next few days I'll be posting additional scenes from NYC, including more mailboxes. Subscribe to this blog to see new posts and/or follow me on Twitter @manualdslr. Thanks for reading... Mike

Advantages of Using Manual Mode

2010-06-19T22:43:00.000-05:00

It has been a few days since I blogged. We took a quick trip to New York City last weekend, which gave me the opportunity to shoot in NYC for the first time. There are so many iconic locations there that it was difficult to know where to start. You'll probably see several photos posted here and on Twitter over the next few weeks.

While walking around the city on the first day we were there, we went by the iconic Apple Store on 5th Avenue. You've probably seen the typical view of the storefront--all glass with the silver Apple logo. While waiting outside, I took a few minutes to experiment by taking a photo of the Apple Store from a different point of view. This is shot from the FAO Schwartz side of the store shooting toward East 59th Street. (ISO 320, f11, 1/500) In shooting it, I realized how I could use manual mode on my camera to make the photo look the way I want it to. An any of the automatic modes, the camera looks at the setting you choose (aperture or shutter speed) and attempts to equalize the light for a nice bell-shaped histogram. While that is desirable in some circumstances, in cases like this where I wanted the building just across the street to pop a little more, it was not optimal.

My solution to this was to change the shutter speed to 1/125 second, giving me 2 more stops of light and allowing for a better view through the Apple Store to the building beyond. It also gave me more detail on the glass and provided a nicer image. By adding a preset in Lightroom 3, I was able to create a cool effect. The one of the left here is called "Jake Likes the Sky".

So, should I never use the automatic settings on my camera? Of course not! To ignore these features would be almost like refusing to use autofocus because "I can focus better than the camera". However, there are times when the photographer needs to use manual controls to bring out the vision that the computer within your camera is unable to see.

Having said that, the more I use manual mode the more I am becoming a "Manual Snob" and finding that I am not satisfied with the results when I shoot in Aperture Priority mode.

While in NYC I was able to visit the B&H Superstore and J&R Music World. No major purchases, but it was fun to browse. Until next time...

Forming Habits & Thinking Before You Click

2010-06-06T16:04:00.000-05:00

Sixty-eight days into this project and time to reflect on what I've learned so far. The first thing I've learned, I suppose, is that operating a camera in manual mode is NOT as mysterious or as difficult as I had led myself to believe before I started this project. Wow! You shoot in manual mode!!! It really seemed that elusive to me.

It is really not as difficult as I had imagined, though it does require a couple of things--both of which are reflected in the title of this post: forming habits and thinking before you click. Let's look at each individually.

Forming habits - How do we form habits (good or bad)? We practice. Good habits are formed while practicing good techniques. Bad habits, as you might guess, are formed while practicing bad techniques. A former music teacher taught me that "Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect".

Another old adage is true: "The more I practice the better I get." Photography is something that is best learned by doing. If you have been doing this all your life and have all the principles down then it is likely that you can pick up the camera after six months of not taking any photos and nail the exposure. However, if you are like me--just learning--then you need to be shooting every day or two to develop that technique that will make you consistently good. That seems to be the greatest value of this project. It makes me remember to practice and to practice well. Another value of this project is to make me think before I click.

Thinking Before You Click - This one is also important. I have learned that I am a better photographer when I think before I start activating the shutter release button. What do I think about?

Is the camera ready? Check the ISO, white balance, and other settings to assure that I don't shoot an outdoor shot in full sun using the same settings used when I shot that indoor party last week. Think about the settings.
Think about composition. I was listening to a podcast last week (forgive me as I do not remember which one) when I heard this great piece of advice: As you start to take a shot, as yourself, "What is my subject?". "Just over there" is not a satisfactory answer. For instance, my subject for the photo above was the barn and the background was the mountains. (ISO 200, F8, 1/640) Sometimes, the subject is very prominent while the background is less obvious. A macro or portrait is an example of when you might see a clear subject with the background being less important. Here is a shot of my son, Lane, in the foreground with a blurred stream in the background. (ISO 160, F8, 1/15, ND2 filter) The goal here was a tack sharp subject (Lane) and a nice background that is somewhat out of focus. Since I want the viewer to focus on Lane, I purposefully put the stream slightly out of focus.
Think about what you are going to do with the photo. In the film days, we would take 24-36 shots of what we hoped would be good and would send off the film to have 4 x 6 prints made. Only then would be know if we got a great shot. Today, we know very quickly if we have a winner, but sometimes we don't do anything with them. I know people who actually leave all their photos on the memory card in their camera. What a waste! Photos are meant to be enjoyed, and it's hard to enjoy them while they are sitting on a memory card in the camera. So when you take that shot, you might imagine what you'll do with the print. For instance, I would love to have the Little River shot shown on an earlier posting printed on aluminum. (Still trying to decide which vendor). I have taken some shots that I knew would make a good note card or greeting card. By having an idea of the use of the photo, it becomes easier to know how to compose the shot.

Well, that's all for this post. I'm off to New York City on Friday, so expect to see some NYC shots soon. Maybe I'll get another chance to post before I leave Thursday night. Until then...MK

Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains in HDR

2010-05-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

Spending the weekend with extended family in the Great Smoky Mountains. This was taken using a Nikon D300 with a 24-70 kit lens equipped with a ND2 neutral density filter. (This is the only lens that my ND filter will fit). Shot at ISO 160, F11, 1/5 sec. on a tripod. Bracketed at one and two steps above and one and two steps below. Processed with Photomatix Pro.

This is the first time I've used a neutral density filter to try to "slow down" the action of the water. Yesterday was overcast (as it is much of the time in the Smokies), so light and lens flare was not much of an issue.

Headed home tonight to spend Memorial Day at home. More from the Smokies later. Hard to believe it's less than 2 weeks til our NYC trip.

Adios.

Dumbest Photography Mistakes I'll Admit

2010-05-25T21:50:00.000-05:00

It has been nice to receive a couple of words of encouragement this week--especially so since one was from Kerry Garrison of Camera Dojo--one of the pros that inspired me (through his podcast and blog) to begin this project. Thanks for the words of wisdom. I can sure use them.

Regardless of what we know, we sometimes still make mistakes. Have you ever made a really stupid mistake and wondered how you could mess up that badly? I certainly have. Even so, remember that our stupidest mistakes are only stupid if we continue to repeat them and/or if we learn nothing from them.

Here are my stupidest photo mistakes (that I care to admit).

1. A little over a year ago I discovered the world of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography and learned that with my D300 I could easily bracket exposures at normal and 1, 2, 3 stops above and 1, 2, 3 and 3 stops below. Very cool feature and very easy to do. Unfortunately, you have to remember to "undo" that feature. You can guess what I did. After using my camera to shoot HDR one day I went to a family get together the next day and couldn't figure out why I couldn't nail the exposure--even in aperture priority. Some shots were underexposed; some were overexposed. Imagine that. Anyway, I was able to salvage some shots, including this one of my oldest son, Devin. This was shot at ISO 200, F5.6, 1/160 sec. I could have toned this one down a bit, but like the effect.

2. Exposure compensation is fun to play with, and as part of this project, I took some shots with exposure dialed down to -3. Again, however, I took some photos the next day and didn't check exposure compensation (though I did check to see that I wasn't bracketing), and guess what. I shot everything 3 stops down. Everything turned out okay, but I couldn't quite understand why the settings I was using just weren't working like I thought they should. Lesson number two: If something seems amiss it probably is. The family portrait shown earlier on this blog was one of the victims of my -3 EV error.

3. Then there was that time that I just shot everything (for about a month) at ISO 1600. Enough said.

I don't know if you have noticed, but there seems to be a common theme here. So what did I learn from these mistakes and what have I done to assure they do not happen in the future? Before I start shooting, I always check the ISO, make sure I am not bracketing, etc...

Another mistake:
4. Didn't charge my batteries the night before a shoot and left my spare and charger in another bag. Thankfully, I made it through the shoot, but I was a bit nervous about it.

I suppose I could do an entire blog about this. So what are your biggest mistakes?

Also a shout out to Greg Peck, who is also considering learning how to use his D300 better in manual mode. Thanks for the comment!

This photo is of the Steiner Building in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. I took this out the window of my wife's jeep. This is as shot, but I did apply an effect in Lightroom 3. ISO 320; F5.6; 1/1000 sec.

All the best... Mike

Two Important Lessons

2010-05-22T00:23:00.000-05:00

So we took a quick trip to New Orleans this week via Amtrak. Our train was delayed leaving Birmingham and flooding in Mississippi and Louisiana resulting in our going very slow on the way down. That was okay, since we had a nice quiet room and free meals in the dining car.

Lesson # 1 - On the way down, my wife (who usually shoots in Aperture priority or Automatic with her D80) asked how manual mode works. Of course the teacher in me came out so I explained how to use manual mode and the relationship between ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. Good news: She caught on very quickly. Bad news: By Tuesday she was shooting mostly in manual mode and nailing her exposures. Lesson learned: My wife is awesome and can kick my butt at almost anything. (Did I say almost?)

Lesson # 2 - I did get an opportunity to shoot a lot on this trip, so I started learning to adjust the camera on the fly without having to take it down from my eye. One little memory tool that I used was to decrease shutter speed turn the wheel toward the center of the camera body and to increase shutter speed I turn it away from the body. An easy way to remember that is to increase the amount of light (by slowing the shutter speed) you turn the wheel toward the hot shoe. To decrease light (by increasing shutter speed), you turn the wheel away from the hot shoe (away from the light). Okay, it's cheesy but just cheesy enough that it might just work. If you don't believe me, sing along with me as we sing "Conjunction Junction, what's your function" or "Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas..." or any of the memory tips that we used when we were kids.

Here are a couple of shots from this week. This first shot is an example of some of the great detail in the architecture in New Orleans. I thought this house (which was next door to the B&B where we stayed) told the story of New Orleans: The city has endured some rough times, but there is a beauty there--a sense of class--a city with a clear identity.

This was shot in manual mode at ISO 320, F7.1 and 1/800 sec.

The second shot is a bear (duh!) taken at the Audubon Zoo. It was shot at ISO 200, F5.6 at 1/40 sec. Both were shot with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 18-135 f3.5-6.3 AFS lens.

I was trying to travel light on this trip so I took only the D300, the 18-135 lens and an SB600 speedlight. I'll post more photos on this site and on Twitter as I get a chance.

The more I shoot in manual mode the more I see that it is not rocket science, but it does take practice, practice, practice until the adjustments become second nature. Look for a new post soon.

All the best...Mike

One from the archive

2010-05-14T22:16:00.000-05:00

It has been a busy week so I haven't had much time to shoot. However, I did pull this one out of the archive when I imported some older photos into Lightroom 3 Beta. This was shot at dusk on my back deck using a Nikon D50 and an SB600 flash.

I'm going on a quick trip to New Orleans on Sunday so expect to see some shots from there.

Until next time...

Testing out a new lens - Tamron 18-270

2010-05-05T20:11:00.000-05:00

I bought my wife the popular Tamron 18-270 f3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical IF Macro Zoom Lens for Mother's Day. She received it yesterday. She wanted a good "walking around" lens so that she can travel light and still have a lot of flexibility. She even let me try it out this afternoon and I'm impressed. If I could only choose one lens with which to travel, this would be a great pick. The 18mm wide angle part of the lens makes it easy to shoot a good landscape. This is similar to the Nikon 18-135 that I carry, so I've grown accustomed to having the wide angle option.

What sets this lens apart, though, is the ability to zoom in to 270 mm. Not only is it a decent zoom, it is also a nice macro lens, allowing the user to get in very close. The vibration compensation on the lens seems to work well, and it seems to focus quickly with my Nikon D300. I've never used a VC lens before, but found it to be sharp as I walked around the back yard.

So when is Father's Day?

Automatic ISO

2010-05-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

I got the opportunity to "second shoot" (or actually third or fourth shoot) the "picture night" for our community college's production of Little Shop of Horrors earlier this week. This theater does such an excellent job and I usually see the shows several times.

Since there was such a variety of lighting situations I opted for using the automatic ISO selection on my D300. Though it helped me to quickly adjust to all kinds of lighting situations, it did tend to overexpose everything, which meant that I had to bump down the exposure in Lightroom. This first shot shows the guy who did the voice of the "Audrey II" (the plant) and the puppeteer, who happens to be my son, Cody, posing in a simulation of the curtain call. ISO 3200, f4.8, 1/160 sec.

The second shot is during one of the songs in which the dentist pulls the head off the little girl's doll. Very funny scene, but difficult to capture due to the fast movement and low light. This was shot at ISO 3200, f4.8 at 1/100 sec. Due to the high ISO, I applied some noise reduction to these shots. I enjoy being afforded the opportunity to shoot these since they really make me think about where the light is coming from. There are usually 100 or more scenes to be shot, which means that is is quite fast paced and you must think fast about how to make sure the light works for you.

So, what did I learn from this shooting situation? First of all, it taught me to be prepared as I grabbed my camera bag and headed out the door without checking to see if I had everything. I got to the shoot to find that I only had one battery (which was at 27%). Thankfully the battery lasted me the entire shoot, which netted about 215 usable shots. What are the dumbest mistakes you've ever made in photography? I have a bunch of them. Maybe I'll save that for another day's blog post. Ciao!

Space Needle just before a rain shower

2010-04-24T17:07:00.002-05:00

Here's a shot of the Space Needle just before a rain shower. Shot at f8, ISO 320, 1/160.

4 hour flight = an opportunity for experimentation

2010-04-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

I went to Seattle on business last week and took my office notebook (a PC) thinking that I could at least convert raw files to JPG in Photoshop and post them to this blog. Unfortunately, the raw conversion in Photoshop was not working, so I was unable to post anything. I also traveled very light photographically speaking. All that I carried was my Nikon D300 body with a Nikkor 18-135 lens--no tripod, no additional lenses, no speedlight, and no Macbook.

On the trip to Seattle (via Chicago) I left my camera in my backpack in the overhead compartment. However, on the way home (Seattle to Dallas/Fort Worth to Huntsville) I decided to keep my camera nearby so I could take photos and spend the four hours in flight learning more about my camera. There was a retired couple from Seattle sitting in the row with me and we had a good time talking photography, computers, and taking photos. Here are some of the shots I took. To see more, visit www.kennamer.net and click on the "Seattle" link.

Again, there is no magic bullet to learning to use a DSLR in manual mode, but practice like I got in this four-hour flight is most helpful. The first photo was taken at ISO 320, F14, 1/200 sec. I also applied a preset in Lightroom from Seim Effects.

Here's another photo taken from my hotel room after a rain shower. It was shot at ISO 320, F9, 1/80 sec.

Until next time...

Shooting in Seattle

2010-04-16T22:16:00.000-05:00

Here's a shot from the Pike Street Market in Seattle. ISO 320, f6.3, 1/250.

Two weeks into the project...Feeling gutsy?

2010-04-13T21:23:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am two weeks into the project and I must say that the past two weeks has been great because it's almost like I have a homework assignment--something to shoot most every day. Repetition--it's the mother of learning. And while I haven't turned into an awesome photographer overnight, I am feeling more at home with the camera in my hand.

Yesterday a friend called and asked if I would shoot a family portrait for them this afternoon. I'm happy to do so since it is good practice for me and they are patient as I try to get things right. So am I ready to shoot in manual mode with someone besides the trees watching? I bit the bullet. I used the Nikon D300, Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 and shot from a tripod. On some shots I used an SB600 Speedlight off camera while most were done with available light. I used a diffuser on some of the first shots when the sun was a bit harsh, but didn't need it once the sun went behind the trees.

I can't say this is my best work, but I'm pleased with the results especially since I was brave and shot it all in manual mode. I hope they are equally pleased. So even though nobody is reading this blog, it has been good to write my thoughts and use this as a way to discipline myself into shooting most every day.

I didn't post yesterday, but took this shot of one of the fruit trees in our yard. It was shot with my Quantaray 70-300. In Lightroom, I applied the Seim Effects Criss Cross preset.

On another topic, Lightroom keeps reverting to the "2009 Mike Kennamer" indicia even though I have changed it to 2010 a dozen or more times. Argh! I don't know why it keeps doing that. Nevertheless, that is why many of my images taken this month have shown a 2009 date.

All the best...MK

Aperture Setting as a Guide

2010-04-10T21:41:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I was listening to the Photo Focus podcast, hosted by Scott Bourne, when I heard Jules Bianchi tell that when she gets ready to shoot she'll shoot the first frame in Aperture priority, look at the histogram, then change to Manual control and adjust accordingly. It was refreshing to learn that a seasoned professional doesn't just magically know where to set her camera. If you have seen her work, it is clear that her method works.

Staying true to the intent of this project, I did something a little different this afternoon. Instead of shooting the first shot in manual, I shot the first one in manual (using my best guess of where to start), then turned the knob to aperture priority to see where the camera automatically set it. I must admit, I had mixed results. The first try was a winner with me picking the same shutter speed (1/250) that the camera selected (at ISO 200; f5.6). However subsequent attempts were a bust.

It was nice to get out today and shoot some nature. I'm including a shot of some dogwood blooms. These were shot in manual mode but I did apply a Lightroom preset (Morning Coffee by Gavin Seim). I love Lightroom presets.

Until next time...

Seeing the Light: One Stop at a Time

2010-04-08T18:14:00.002-05:00

Okay, I've been listening to several podcasts for about two years now and I keep hearing things like, "Nikon's VR II system will give you the equivalent of 4 stops faster" or "Exposure compensation of 1EV will give you one stop..."

So what does that all mean? Good question. I am a visual learner, which means that I learn best when I can see the relationship between objects. With this in mind, I put together this table, which shows 'one stop increments' in terms of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and exposure compensation (EV). Let's look at each individually.

Since ISO is one of the first things I determine when I am shooting, let's look at it first. The lower the ISO, the less grain you will have in your photo. At higher ISO settings, the photo will show more grain. Granted, I am no expert in determining which ISO setting to use. That being said, here's what I usually do: Most of what I shoot is between 200 and 400 ISO. If I am shooting in bright sunlight or under studio lights, I may use ISO 100 or 200. In lower light settings, I'll go to a higher ISO.

Next, I think about depth of field, which is determined by the aperture setting. For landscapes with a deeper depth of field, I might use an aperture of f8 or higher. When shooting portraits or macro photos, I might select a larger aperture setting of f1.4, f2.8, or f4. An excellent tool to determine the depth of field may be found at http://www.dofmaster.com/.

Next is shutter speed. If I am using my Sekonic L758-DR light meter, selecting the shutter speed is easy. However, this project is all about me being able to select an ISO, aperture, and shutter speed without having to use the meter.

So let’s talk about a couple of situations and how I use the table above to guide me in determining settings.

Recently I was shooting in hotel banquet hall (which always seem to have terrible lighting). Because the room lighting was somewhat dim and I was unable to use flash, I set the ISO to 1600. Let’s think about what that means in relation to shutter speed and aperture: An ISO of 1600 means that we can use a faster shutter speed and a smaller aperture. Since I was shooting from about 35 feet away, I wanted to make sure my aperture setting provided enough depth of field to provide sharp focus on all my subjects. Using www.dofmaster.com, I could see that using an aperture of F8 with a focal length of 100 mm gives me a depth of field of about 12.2 feet (5 feet in front of the subject and 7 feet behind), which is plenty to assure that the five people on stage would be in focus. But what if I had used my faster Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens? At an aperture of 2.8, the total depth of field would have only been about 4 feet (2 in front and 2 behind). This means that some of my subjects would have been in focus and others would have been out of focus. If I had the DOF Master application on my iPhone, I could have figured the depth of field on the spot. However, I erred a little on the side of making sure I had adequate depth of field so that I could assure sharp focus across all the subjects on stage.

Here’s another scenario. I am shooting a portrait of one person under studio lights. Because the lighting is excellent and controlled, I set my ISO for 100. I want to have a shallow depth of field so that the subject stands out from the background so I set the aperture to a large setting, perhaps f2.8. In this situation, I could use a light meter (which was impractical in the last scenario). In the absence of a light meter, I would use my camera meter to find a starting point for shutter speed.

So what about the graphic? This just helps me to see that if I need more light I have a variety of options: I can decrease the shutter speed (not always practical), select a larger aperture (which impacts the depth of field), increase the sensitivity of the sensor by increasing the ISO setting (which may cause more grain), or I could add one stop of exposure compensation by adding 1 EV.

Clear as mud? Almost.

Remember that I am the student and I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who can share how they do things. Let me hear from you. Until then,

All the best…

In Camera Metering

2010-04-05T19:48:00.007-05:00

Hi, folks. Here's the April 5 edition of the Manual DSLR Project. There was still some sunlight available this afternoon when I got home so I took the opportunity to turn the knob to "M" and use another tool that I must admit I don't use like I should: the in-camera metering feature. The first shot you see is shot from my back deck with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 80-200 F2.8 AF lens with hood. I set the ISO to 200, and the aperture to 9. Using the in-camera meter as a visual guide of correct exposure, I dialed the shutter speed in at 1/200 sec and snapped the photo. As you can see, it was a little dark. Perhaps the exposure locked in on the bricks (which seem to be about right) instead of the flowers. On the photo on the right, I dialed the shutter speed down to 1/50 sec., which brightened up the flowers, but rendered the bricks a little bright. Next time, I should probably use AE lock to focus on the flowers for my exposure (another feature that I need to learn to use automatically.

Oh well, that's why this project is a year-long one and not just a week long. There is plenty for me to learn and remember. An excellent teacher one time told me that sometimes we don't suffer from a lack of education, but from a lack of application. That's what I hope to change in the next 359 days.

On a side note you'll see that I figured out how to change the copyright indicia on my images from 2009 to 2010. Also, you should know how I prepare these images for posting. I shoot in RAW, so I simply import the images into Lightroom, select the ones I want to use, and export them to another folder as JPEG files (70% quality, sRGB, 300 dpi, and 800 pixels along the longest edge). To maintain the integrity of this project, I will not make any adjustments in Lightroom unless I'm just posting a photo for fun and then I'll tell you what I did with it.

Until next time...MK

April 3, 2010 - Another flower photo

2010-04-03T19:05:00.004-05:00

Here's another flower photo. Taken on a Nikon D300 with a Quantaray 70-300 Tele-macro at ISO 320, F5.6, 1/250 second.

April 3, 2010 - It's okay to cheat a little at first isn't it?

2010-04-03T18:05:00.006-05:00

This is my first blog post and I must say it is difficult to know where to start...After a good deal of consideration, I decided to cheat, um.. I mean use all the resources available to me. In July, 2009 I was thinking of buying a light meter and visited Sekonic's web site. While there, I entered a contest and voila, I won a Sekonic L758-DR and an Exposure Profile Target II. http://www.sekonic.com/classroom/histogram_winners.asp
So, since the folks at Sekonic were kind enough to give me a great light meter, why shouldn't I start there?

So here's what I did. I went out in the front yard with my camera, tripod, and Quantaray 70-300 macro F4-5.6, along with my trusty Sekonic L758-DR and Portaflash 5 in 1 reflector system. I placed the black diffuser behind the subject, then took a reading at F5.6 and shot it at 1/250 sec. at ISO 320. It is sunny this afternoon, but the front of the house where I was shooting is in shade at this time of day. The result is shown in this photo.

So what did I learn? First, use all the tools that are available to me. The light meter made taking this photo very easy. The black diffuser gave me a good background so that attention is drawn to the subject. I also learned something about lens selection here. I also shot the same image with a Nikon 80-200 F2.8 lens and the result was not as good. This Quantaray lens was very inexpensive, takes forever to focus, and is not the best quality glass in my bag. However, it did a nice job with the extreme close-up--better than the much faster Nikon lens that cost much more.

Lesson number 1 - Use the right tool for the job. Your most expensive or "best" lens isn't always the best lens for the job. Think about what you are shooting then select the best lens and accessories for the job. As for using my D300 in manual mode...I'm working on remembering that the front dial changes aperture settings and the back one changes shutter speed. I think the biggest part of this project will be that repetition is the mother of learning. The more I use manual mode the more comfortable I'll be with it. At some point, I hope, I'll be able to look at a shot (sans light meter) and say, "I think I'll shoot this at ISO 320, F5.6 and set my shutter at 1/250 sec." Until then, thank you Sekonic.

Until next time...

MK

P.S. I may post some photos from time to time without any narrative. Also, I guess I have Lightroom set to mark exported photos with a copyright, but it looks like I need to change the date to 2010. I'll see if I can figure that out.