New Pano form the inside of Motus Digital added to the Gallery.
I am always trying to figure out what is next for me, weather it is career, tech, art, science, or in this case cameras, surprise!
I think this might just be it !
It has pretty much everything I want and nothing I don’t. I do love my D700 and will be using it for a long time to come, but if I needed to put my eye to the future this is where I will be looking. It is of course a cost factor as much as any other factor, it is really pricey for me, but it is interesting to note that the D4 ($5,999.95) is cheaper than Nikon’s other flagship camera the D3X ($7,999.95).
It was a huge commitment, and a big task for me as an enthusiast, to one, switch manufactures and two to step up to the D700, with a healthy price tag of its own. Even used. Took me forever to decide, and I fretted over it for ages. I do this fretting, waffling and delay tactics thing whenever I buy a lens as well. So where does that leave me for a D4?
Well all I can say is one must have goals.
New Image added in the Gallery – “Underpass”
Is it? With the advent of online and digital media is it all doom and gloom for the library, and for that matter for the dead tree format books in general? Probably not. However there is no denying that a great deal of the reading people do is electronic, digital, or online. It is only going to increase.
We do still seem to tend to like a book to read when going to bed, or in the hammock at the lake, or on a plane, or what have you. I still see a lot of people involved in “analog” reading. Yet those numbers seem to be dwindling under the convenient onslaught of digital media.
While at the library which is a rare, and becoming a rarer occurrence, and would not occur at all were it not for the fact I have a teenager who needs to do research papers from time to time. My teenager does not like to go to the Library. He will only go under threat of homework and research papers.
When I was this age and even younger, I would ride my bike 7.5 miles, yes uphill in the snow both ways, to spend my entire Saturday at the library! Most every weekend. I was thinking about all of the above while I was shooting the images in this post.
Well be that as it may this post is more about the image and the process, I had very little time to shoot this image and really only got one go at it. I shot the image as a bracket series, 5 stops, thinking I might do this as an HDR, but after processing it was decidedly a disaster. I hated it. I did however like the Library sign and structure framed against the sky with a leafless trees.
See, terrible, and it seemed that no matter which way I decided to go I was going to dislike it. Even if I grabbed the sky and inserted it into this, which I did try, I just wasn’t going to be happy with this image. Too tonemapped, too gaudy, too ugly. I decided that I might in fact like to try it as a Black & White image. I brought the whole thing (the tonemapped image) into Silver EFX Pro 2.0. I really like most of the products Nik Software makes, with the possible exception of HDR EFX Pro. It is a bit like 7-eleven, not the best or most robust store one could shop at but, very convenient. I like the connivence of having it as an Aperture plugin, but it fails at a few areas every so often. I really prefer Photomatix Pro. I tweaked the image in Silver EFX bringing up the sign and entrance toning down the window to the left and the tree area to the lower right, but still wasn’t quite there. I though of what every good editor will tell you, “Everything you need and nothing you dont” so I cropped it to what you see above. Keeping just the Structure with the sign and some sky and the top of the bare tree.
I defiantly like that better.
Hope you like it.
-Lyn-
Great stop motion, folded paper, motion control, ad for Peugeot
http://fstoppers.com/bts-6878-hours-to-make-one-awesome-30-second-ad
Complete with making of / behind the scenes.
Wish I had done it.
Funny Story -
Today I went out to shoot a specific image I had an idea for
. This was going to be a funny ” take my picture” moment with Sir Bedevere from Terry Gilliham’s ”The Holy Grail” in the foreground and a dragon in the background. Whilst setting this up, the dragon toy I had for this , being cheaply made, plastic, and old, decided to fall completely apart, The leg fell off, I stuck it back on, the arm then fell off, I tried to fix that, NG, not working, well perhaps I can arrange it so that I don’t see the arm, the leg falls off again, can’t repair it anymore, so in frustration I chunk the entire thing into the gully! Fine! I won’t shoot that. So with a ”I wont let this stop me from shooting” attitude I decide to shoot something else “give that one a rest, come back to it later” I am in an area that has an old Train Trestle 
I decide this is what I’ll shoot and I can walk happily away with some kind of image, even if it wasn’t what I wanted originally.
Well in traversing the slope that decends into the creek bottom where this was shot, I had a bit of a time with the mud, which, here in Texas is a smeary, smooth, fine clay, (it’s insidious!) which when wet is the scourge of foundations all over North Texas! No big deal! Muddy shoes, slippery slope, so what I am a Photographer, this is nothing, I am after an image. Think nothing of it. I then plink around shooting the bridge / trestle for a bit, but I am in fact at this point not as inspired as I was earlier. So having at least “some shots in the can” I decide to leave, thinking, well I wil have to be careful ascending the slope out of here as it is muddy, no big deal, right. Wrong!
I try to find a way out that does not involve the way I came down or fording the creek which presently is about six feet deep. I inspect three other avenues out but to no avail, they are either just as bad as the way I came down, or covered in brambles and brush, or just too steep.
So back up the way I came, I can do this it’s just a small slope. I start up, loosing a bit of footing here and there, sliding around a bit, I can still do this, the slope gets a bit steeper, and slicker, oops almost lost it that time, it’s getting more difficult. I can so do this. I attack the steeper part of this slope and slide backwards, my body threatening to do a backflip, as I react to the slick surface, trying to stay upright. Just as I make the step that will transition me onto the worst part, it all goes wrong and I go down, onto hands and knees, well one hand both knees and a tripod, as I was carrying that in my right hand. Allright so I went down into the mud, so what, I’ll just get up and go for it and get out of here. You only ever go down in these instances once right.
Wrong, it is so slippery and loose its like the mud doesn’t want me to go up the hill. I try again, attempting to make footing as I go, I go down again, this time having to catch myself on some grassy bits to my left, really having to struggle with it now, try again, bam down again! Grabbing at some small tree shrub thingy this time. Still not making it! It is at this point I remember I watched 127 Hours last night. Momentary thoughts of how silly the situation is. Last ditch effort is somewhat successful but still manages to make me struggle, basically crawling out of it until I get to more level ground.
Thats it I am out. OK. Check. Tripod muddy, caked in fact. It acted as an entrenching tool while climbing out. Pants, Muddy from the knees down, and a few other places as well. Shoes, 10 lbs heavier that when this all started. Rapid strap camera strap, muddy! Jacket Muddy! Hands Muddy Check! I’ll have to get my pocket muddy as well as I have to get the keys to get int the car where at least I have a towel.
Camera, HA! That at least was in my LowePro 200 AWT sling pack, Check , take that Mud!
Takeaway / moral of the story – uhm .. when life gives you lemons , fall in the mud, no no thats no good.
How about – Keep on trying, change gears, preferably to a very low, high torque, mudslinging enabled gear.
-Lyn-
Can’t wait to see this, not just because it is Navy Seals, some of the most badass operators on earth, and all that implies, action, guns, fire,explosions ect. but just as much from a filmmaking perspective. Shooting live fire is just something we don’t do on set, we generally frown on it, we want every opportunity to be safe, because we are usually just doing “make believe”. This however is something else. Wow.
Check it!
Color EFX Pro 4
Love it !
I’ll just start by saying that. I really like the new features which come in three basic areas, the first of which is Layering filters together. The second of which is Recipes. The third is some new or updated filters.
Filter Layering
I, like many, use more than one filter on an image, usually something like Polarizing or Graduated Neutral Density, Tonal Contrast, or Pro Contrast, and perhaps Contrast Color Range or Cross Processing or somesuch. Depends on what kind of imagery your into. You can now accomplish all that in one round trip from host application to ColorEFX Pro and back. This used to be a pain because that would be 4 round trips
Recipes
This is really huge as far as workflow goes, you can now create a “recipe” that is a collection of your favorite filters and have them ready to apply to your images. They are in their own section of the interface, and you have quick one click access to them.
New Filters
The new filters are great because a couple of them really help complete the workflow, fewer round trips through Photoshop for example. Don’t get me wrong , I love Photoshop, but when all I need to do is one single curve adjustment I would rather not have to roundtrip for that one thing.
They are as follows: Dark Contrasts Detail Extractor Levels & Curves Image Borders Lens Vinette and some FimEFX Faded Vintage NostalgicAll in all if you liked ColorEFX Pro 3 then 4 will really make you smile.
http://www.niksoftware.com/colorefexpro/usa/index.php?
Over the years I have owned many cameras, from my first
Fujica ST605, to Pentax to Nikon to Canon to Nikon.
Back in the days of film I shot with a Nikon F3 mostly and loved it. The switch this time was motivated not by brand loyalty, or of some sense of Canon vs Nikon, or only real Photographers shoot Nikon or any such dogmatic thing. It comes down to feature set and “feel” if you will. After having shot for a few years with digital and upgrading along the way, I discovered a slightly different way that I was using the tools, so when it came time to really and firmly set myself into a camera, I had to make some decisions.So it came down to a few basic things.
Full frame sensor – Depth of field being a big consideration here, and experience with 35mm film and the lenses that go with that type of shooting are a consideration.
To this point I only had cropped sensor cameras.
Megapixels – I don’t want more pixels I want better pixels. Using an 18 – 21 megapixel camera is great and you can get some fantastic results and a lot of detail, however I really don’t want to slog around that much data. If I had a shoot I really needed it on I would probably just rent what I felt I needed. For my everyday shooting I really wanted fewer megapixels around 10 was ideal, my current D700 is 12 so I’ll take it.
Low light performance – High ISO is something we film shooters just love, we never had it so good. It is great that a lot of cameras can shoot basically in the dark, but if its a really noisy image then its not all that useful. So it is fantastic to have a higher ISO performance with almost no noise, I did not have this in my earlier digital cameras.
Bracketing – This as it turns out is a really big one for me. I am a Visual Effects Supervisor and Creative Director professionally so I need to shoot HDR for work projects.
Thats only the half of it, as it turns out I like to shoot HDR. I shoot a ton of HDR for artistic reasons. In my old system I had to have an extra remote and cables to enable the kind of range I get with my current camera.
Time lapse – as you can imagine as a former Physical Effects Coordinator a then a VFX Supe and tinkerer and all that goes into those things, this is of great interest to me, besides it just being plain and simple fun. Again I needed a external remote and cables to do this, it is built in to my current camera.
Feel – This is how it sits in your hands, how it “feels” using the equipment, it is also how everything is laid out, where the buttons are ect. As it turns out my brain is wired a bit more Nikon than Canon, I really liked my Canon gear but after using the D700 for as little as three days I never had to think much about where everything is, it just flowed better. This is paramount in design, if the tool you are using gets in the way of what you are dong, it needs work, while my D700 is not perfect it is much much closer to that goal.
So if you consider all of those factors together, it becomes easier to see why I arrived at the Nikon D700. There are of course other considerations, for instance, I have previous experience with Nikon, and I still had some older, but good and useful lenses.
-Lyn-
It does!
but it does not solve my home page problem. hmmmm……