Happy Halloween!

Buzzing with sugar:

2010 weddings thus far

Here are some of my favorite shots to date, enjoy:

Nikon D7000

It is coming! I placed an order on it, and can't wait for it soon enough. This is a camera aimed at consumers, but the Pro's and Semi pro's like myself will want it to get the jobs done.

I'm hoping it shows up before the next gig I have to shoot in early october.

Bing & RJ

This was a fairly large wedding I had to solo. Approximately 250 guests and all of them want their photos taken with the Bride and Groom. I got to field test the new 85mm 1.4 AFS G at this wedding and it didn't disappoint. I shot with pure confidence, knowing that my pictures will come out as sharp and accurate. The older D lens would have more misses, probably due to the slower AF motor making it less accurate. I was able to track people moving in and away from me, fairly easily.

85mm 1.4 AF-S G at a wedding

I shot my first wedding with it over the weekend. There's probably very little difference, optically between this and the old lens. Purple fringing is better muted, it seems sharper, and AF-S just rocks at tracking subjects.

I had with me the D3x with 24-70 for formals, and the 85 1.4G on my d700 for candids and low light work. Autofocus was accurate, quick and it really bit down to get optimal/critical sharpness, which was my main complain with the older lens. It was quick with autofocusing, but it wasn't very accurate. I yielded a lot of keepers with the new lens.

I'm currently post processing some 2500 images from the 12 hour shoot, and I'm just about done. Pics will be up soon.

This lens is apparently pretty hot, because it's back-ordered everywhere. I'd get mine here: Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S NIKKOR Lens for Nikon Digital SLR

Zeiss 35mm f2 distagon for sale

Having recently re-acquired the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G, I no longer need this portable tank of a lens. Sharp optics wide open, beautiful bokeh at f2.0. This is the non cpu (NOT ZF.2) version where you'd have to enter the lens data yourself, in order for the camera to meter correctly. My tired old eyes needs auto-focus these days.

More pics can be seen on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/38437144@N07/sets/72157624716072397/with/4941307495/

Wide open with ND filters

So you got a 1.4 (or perhaps an even wider aperture lens) and you use it mostly for low light. What about shooting in bright light? Shooting wide open under a bright sunny day will blow everything out. It wouldn't matter if you lowered your ISO down to 50 and sped your shutter speed up to 1/8000th sec. It will be bright, and no amount of raw processing will save your file. The solution, I'm sure others have covered, albeit briefly, is to get a neutral density filter. The above image was shot with the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G with a 3 stop Hoya ND filter. ND filters aren't that expensive and they are quite stackable.

Tripod huggers (landscape photogs) use ND filters to slow everything down a little more even with light still available at the end of the day.

Bye 14-24, welcome back 24-70.

True story: Last month I sold my Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G, locally through craigslist and purchased a mint Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G the very next day, using the same load of cash I received for my wide angle. I've used the ultrawide maybe three times total. It bothers me that there's no filter ring for me to drop my three-stop neutral density filter onto. Also I'm not much of a landscape guy.

As you recall, I traded away my 24-70 and 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II away earlier this year and boy, I regret and miss the versatility of those lenses while I shot my last event, which was a wedding.

I came armed to the teeth with primes all the way up to 200mm! Even though I had two DSLRs on my Blackrapid harness, carrying a wide and tele, it was a pain having to swap lenses so often to get that range I wanted. I "zoomed" a lot more with my feet therefore, exerting more energy than I had to. Granted I lost 30 lbs. in 8 months and in the best shape of my life, ever. After a few hours I was completely exhausted, much like how I felt on my last post.

Re-attaining the 24-70 once again, will indeed make my life a lot easier. I could easily slap this on my D3x as my wide/group portrait lens and my tele of choice on the D700 for high iso candids. It's indeed a game changer. Some of you may wonder 'why not the new 24-120 f4?' It's plain and simple, while I love the extra versatility, I do not like f4. I love shallow depth of field, it's my bread and butter. It's what draws potential clients to my services. The 24-120 f4 would be a wonderful vacation walkaround lens. The 24-70 f2.8 is absolutely sharp corner to corner and since it has a 9 blade aperture, the out of focus areas are incredible. I'm glad to have this lens back in my arsenal.

An eventful day with the 200 f2 aka "chubby"

In the period of 2 years, I purchased a 70-200 VR, sold it and got the 70-200 VRII, traded that plus my 24-70 2.8 for the 200mm f2.0 VR. Shooting at 2.8 still left me wanting more subject isolation as well as better overall sharpness, which was why I opted to jump for the 200 f2.0.

I knew it was going to be big, heavy and downright intimidating to its' subjects. My main concern however, has got to be weight. A little bit about myself, I'm 205lbs, fairly fit in every way and hand holding the d700 with mbd10 and the 200mm f2.0 from 8am to 2pm was a total drain on me. This was on top of carrying my D3x w/35mm zeiss! I need to write a thank you note to New York Sports Club in my building.

I utilized the R-strap attached to the tripod foot for better weight balance, and also taking stress away from the camera lens mount. Yes, that could warp very easily with a lens that big. Heck, it warped with both my 70-200 lenses. Had to send it back to nikon twice to get it fixed. A hard lesson learned, thankfully it's fine now, thanks to the toughness of the R-strap. I may need to order the double strapped harness to hold two bodies.

Here are some pics from that event.
Event link

If you noticed plenty of orange on the presenters, I blame the orange (yes, literally, orange) flood lights for that. I tried to neutralize them with an sb-800 with a gary fong diffuser hidden by those plants. It worked in some shots, not so well when they were further away. I could've balanced my camera out to match those lights, but then my background would be out of whack. So, white balance was all over the place.

Happy 1st Birthday Ellie!

We threw a BBQ and invited a bunch of her little buddies.
I hate shooting during high noon sun so, I opted to wait for golden hour.


Here are the rest of the images from that day. Pics were taken with D3x and 135 f2 DC
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38437144@N07/sets/72157624057124879/

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

On a hot and sunny new york day, with two kids in two, I went light on the gear. I borrowed my friends' D300 Nikon D300s (Sorry, I linked the D300s instead since that is now a better deal than the original). He was also gracious enough to lend me his Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Micro! However, I spent most of my day shooting with the great Nikon 135mm f/2.0D AF DC! On the D300, its' field of view is equivalent to 200mm.

If you've ever shot under the harsh sun lit hours of high noon, you know it's the least flattering of situations for your subjects. With two kids, a double stroller, food, drinks and camera gear, I was about to bring diffuser panels and reflectors. I made the best of the situation by shooting in the shade, with backdrops without too much sun in them. Blowouts are OK as long as your background isn't completely white.

Here are the rest of the images from BBG: Flickr link

iPad update

When I got the iPad last Friday. Apple on 5th avenue were out of their folio cases. Fearing my own clumsiness and also my kids curiosity, I needed something to protect my new toy err... Investment. I bought a belkin sleeve. It was decent as a protective sleeve, but absolutely useless out of it. The iPad is fairly slippery on the back and I'm afraid of letting others handle it without any protection.

I went to the apple store today and they were nice enough to let me exchange it for the apple case. I really like it. It makes the iPad easily accessible as well as presentable. It can sit upright in a picture frame style, which was why I originally wanted the apple case to begin with.

Now on to some of the bugs with this tablet. One glaring issue are the wifi dropouts and inability to reconnect to the same network. Ive done a little digging around and learned that if your iPad wakes up from sleep mode, and t won't reconnect to your network, heres what you do: go into settings > brightness > and bring the slider to the left, then move it back to the right. You'll notice your wifi signal has returned. Yeah, I know it's a pretty stupid bug.

Initially apple tried to blame this on your router, suggesting you upgrade the routers firmware, set G or N and not both. I find all of those excuses ridiculous. All of my other commuters and devices connected to the network have zero issues. Apple hopefully recognizes this issue and will correct it in the next firmware.

iPad: wow was I wrong!

When Apple announced the iPad, with its specifications, I was left a bit unimpressed. I consider myself a power user. I work on two macbooks and a Mac pro at work. My work consists of graphic designs, illustrations and photography. Most of us wanted a tablet with Mac OSX on it, for both productivity and fun. Instead we got a bigger iPod touch. I ignored it for a month after it was released, until my coworker brought his in one day. We were all in a meeting, where for the better half of it, I was on his iPad. All of my hatred for this device faded very quickly, with each passing second I played with it.

I really didn't miss Flash like I thought I would. Actually, good riddance, I say. I don't miss those stupid facebook games, and other flash content which burned through cpu cycles, killing battery life. The only flash related content I'd miss not having was Hulu. But guess what? Hulu app is coming to the iPad! Since we're on the topic of apps, the one app I find to be pretty amazing, is Alias Sketchbook pro. I've used this app on the mac before, and to me, it was always a program better suited for touch screens. I've ignored it until it was available for the iPad. After I grabbed it off the App store, I was blown away by how responsive this was. Being a 10 year photoshop/painter user, this app felt very natural too me. I knew what to do right away. I do find it awkward painting/drawing with my finger, that's why I ordered the Ten One Pogo Sketch stylus pen. I can't wait till it gets here.

It's great as a ebook/PDF magazine reader. As a matter of fact, I'm having the best experience reading my PDFs with this device. It's incredibly fast. I Have PDFs as large as 150mb and yet, it manages to load and go through them very quick. All thanks to the quick cpu architecture of the iPad. The ebook experience is good, though not as good as e-ink found in the Kindle and Sony Reader. E-ink looks just like a real printed page, offering less eye strain and better legibility under sunlit conditions. The iPad isn't terrible under similar conditions, it's just not as good. It's essentially a computer screen, it will cause eye strain if you're not careful.

Another thing I will use this device for, is a presentation tool.

I'm in the business of selling my creative services. Everything ranging from design, art direction, illustration, retouching and photography. I used to lug around my 13" macbook to present to clients. But now, I have an even more portable, sleeker and impressive way to present my work. It's the iPad. Now, I didn't get this device solely for the purpose of presentation, I got it because I'm a tech geek, parent, movie buff and a heavy iPhone user. If you love your iPhone and/or iPod Touch, the iPad is for you.

My iPad was purchased a week before the 3G version is released. I got the 64gb wifi model. I am already paying for data service on my iPhone, I'll be damned if my mobile carrier gets more money from me to have data on another device. So, what did I do? I used MyWi app for my iPhone as a wifi hotspot. It's been flawless so far. 3G is faster on the iPad then it is on the iPhone. The iPhone3G's main bottleneck being the processor itself. The 3Gs I'm hearing is significantly quicker. Anyway, Mywi is only available through the cydia store, which can only be installed after you Jailbreak the device.

Shooting against the sun

It's very easy... for nikon CLS at least. I used my zeiss 35mm f2, at f5.6 aperture and let the camera decide how much fill light is needed, in TTL.

New additions: 14-24 2.8 and 135 f2 DC

It's been a while since i posted anything. Some of the reasons have been work load and not knowing if anyone is even reading this blog hehe.

I'll keep trying anyway.

Here is a three shot bracket HDR with the D3x and Nikon 14-24mm f2.8.


I absolutely love this lens. Having been an owner of the 17-35, which is pretty good, the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 is in another league. The lens is sharp, wide open, corner to corner. Based on all of the reviews out there, this lens outdoes other zooms and primes in its range, from any lens maker.



As for the Nikon 135mm f/2.0D DC, it's a superb portrait lens. I'm currently in the middle of shooting around the office with it, so images won't be available till later. I will say this, from my observations off the LCD screen, it appears to be sharp and magical. This is amongst the elite with bokeh render.

I believe the Nikon 135mm f/2.0D DC is discontinued or in limited supply. Rumor has it nikon is planning on refreshing it with nanocoating and VR.

Maybe I'm going blind

I can't seem to improve my keeper rate when shooting with manual focus lenses. Especially the 100 f2 makro. Despite improvements I've made to the viewfinder and focusing screen, It is less than 50% when trying to get the eyes in focus. I could use live-view if my subjects are absolutely still, which is fine for portraiture and objects, but when trying to stuff that's sorta stop and go, live view isn't the quickest solution, so I tend to bracket my shots whilst focusing at the same time.

The vision in my left eye is perfect while the right(shooting eye) is a but blurry. The diopter adjustments are missing maybe one more click to perfectly calibrate my right eye. I may have to try adjusting so I could shoot with my left.

The bits of negative manual focus experience I've had was just enough to make me miss my autofocus lenses, in particular the 85 f1.4 and to some extent the 105 micro vr. The 100 f2 zeiss however replaces both them for what they specialize in, portraits and macro, respectively. I can live without AF on this lens so long as I'm not attempting to shoot sports or kids running around. I have a couple of other primes to meet those needs.

Crossing fingers

Sometimes, I wonder if it's even worth it to put all the time and effort that goes into a pic for stock photo submissions.



This one image took around an hours' worth of retouching alone. Nothing special was done, I had to comb through many pixels at a time to clone out anything and everything that's copyrighted. Such as logos or recognizable man made objects, like cars. The yellow BMW doesn't look so much like a BMW anymore, thanks to some modifications. That really is the only thing I worry about. Cars can be so tricky, it's such a gray area, because even when removing a logo or emblem off a car isn't nearly enough these days.

Anyway, I just uploaded that pic and hopefully they won't spit on it. So, wish me luck.

You can view the full image here, just remember, you can download it and make prints for your home, I probably wouldn't use it in an AD, because iStock lawyers will come knockin'

Spring is here!

I got up before the sun rose, grabbed my gear then headed over to Marine Park's Salt Marsh yet again. I had only my D3x with 200mm f2.0, hoping to score some more birds. Being a city boy, I was blown away and surprised at how rich of a wildlife we have here in Brooklyn. There are plenty of spots you can go if you care to look it up.

I spent an hour walking around and caught plenty of ducks and swans as the sun was rising over the horizon. Today was also the first time I utilized Blackrapids' R-Strap. Mounted to the 200mm f2's lens foot. I feel this is much more comfortable than using the provided straps, attached to the lens lugs. The reliability is somewhat suspect, which has more to do with the lens foot itself. It has four small screws keeping the foot in place, I'm a bit worried by this. The R-strap itself was tough. I believe If I shot an event with this setup, the strap would be a safe and comfortable solution.

D3x with 200mm f2 VR

I really didn't think I'd get an opportunity to test this lens out this weekend. We got hit with 70mph monsoon weather yesterday and some intermittent rain today. The rain did stop at one point, and the sun did poke its bright butt out for an hour or so. That was the only window I had.



I've only spent an hour with the lens. It is heavy, hard to carry via the strap attached to the lens lug. Thought about attaching a security strap or R-strap to the tripod foot, but the weight would then be too biased towards the camera. Trying to find out a viable, comfortable solution as far as straps are concerned.

The results from my shoot were impressive. Shot wide open on the D3x yielded bitingly sharp results. Stopped down obviously sharpens things up even more. Though the main reason I got this lens, was to shoot it wide open, like my zeiss glass, I wanted beautiful blur with sharp subject isolation.




100% crop here

C'mon spring!

This week in NYC, we've had pretty decent weather. A first in several months. I was looking forward to the weekend ever since I've been inspired to shoot some wildlife. Since my last post about photography and wildlife, I've had pretty positive feedback as well as tips on where to go for natural wildlife, right here in Brooklyn! Unfortunately, the weather will dip a bit due to rain, the entire weekend =(

Anyway, I've been told these spots contain plenty of wildlife for me to photograph:
-Jamaica Bay
-Floyd Bennett Field
-Governors Island
-Central Park
-Brooklyn or Bronx Botanical Garden

And to think the only wildlife in brooklyn existed on the streets of Flatbush ave.

Photography at the zoo is not considered wildlife photography.

I'm not much of a wildlife photographer. The longest lens I own is 200mm f2.0 and with that still, I would need to be within a few feet of any wild animals. I could get that new 2x teleconverter from nikon, extending my lens to 400mm, maybe then I will have enough reach.

I enjoy taking my kids to the zoo, I also enjoy photographing the animals there. I don't however, consider that to be wildlife photography. It's not even close, people who try to pass their zoo pics off as wildlife are only cheating themselves out of a very real life experience. Viewing images on flickr, from other photogs, it's easy to differentiate shots taken at the zoo from those taken by real photographers who risk their neck in the wild to shoot bears in a salmon stream.

Wildlife photography is one field where I wish I could experience more of. It's extremely expensive as well as time consuming. It's plenty expensive however, I feel I'm almost there with my current gear. A D3X with 200mm plus 2.0x teleconverter could do the job. Even that setup is no easy task to acquire for most people. My problem has been time and locale. I live in brooklyn and commute to manhattan to work. Little to no wildlife close by except for the zoo and aquarium. Again, those do not count. Shooting pics of your Husky doesn't count either.

I would have to travel out to the country and far away from the city, which to me, is a problem as anyone with a family will tell you. Unless I take them all with me, but then I likely won't have a chance to shoot if I'm watching kids at the same time. Maybe when they are old enough to shoot on their own, that could be fun, but not when they are an infant and two years old. There will be plenty of Zoo trips for a while for us.

Some will argue that new york city is full of wild life, just not the sort I'm interested in. Being a lifer here in NY, things are starting to look a little bland as well as boring for me.

iPad raised the value of my Hackintosh netbook

Thanks Apple. For making a sucky device called the iPad. Before the iPad keynote, I was somewhat excited and threatened at the same time, that the iPad would become a great device — A tablet-based Mac OS X. A device that would've made my Dell Mini 9 hackintosh obsolete, relegating it to toddler toy duties for my daughters. Not the case as it turned out, my Dell mini just got more valuable.


I took my mini9 to work because during my lunch break, I needed to do my taxes, update my iWeb page and update this blog =). I accomplished all of the above, as well as spend the rest of my break catching up with family guy on hulu. Perhaps the iPad would've been capable of updating this blog, as my iPhone is capable of doing it, albeit slow and imperfect but, nonetheless capable.

Look Steve! Flash on a small mac!

I really wanted to like the iPad. Who knows? maybe it'll grow on me... but not for $900 for hardware similar to what I have in my hackintosh, valued at $500 (1.6ghz, 2gb, 64gb runcore ssd, 32gb SD card slot, and 3 USB ports to boot). I may lack a touch screen, but I have a real Mac OS that lets me multitask, run just about any productive app as well as Flash content! That's right, greedy Apples worst nightmare is Flash. What would be the point of paying a dollar per episode when you can watch them on Hulu for free?

You see, I can forgive the iPad for not being able to multitask if it allowed Flash on the device. Since it doesn't and likely never will, I'm going to keep lugging my little Dell Mini 9 around... oh yeah I can also run World of Warcraft on this sucker.

New arrivals!

I took delivery of not one, but two lenses yesterday. A few days ago I posted about my trade for the 200mm f/2G and also how I needed to fill in that gap between my 35 and 100mm lenses. A void needed filling due to the departure of my Nikon 24-70mm. I also received the 50mm f/1.4G from a nikonian who made an offer I simply could not pass up.


I'm going to post more images soon, testing them both on the D700 and D3x. Initial impressions of the 200mm f/2G is that it balances well on both my nikons. It's pretty friggin' heavy. I have a gym membership, workout fairly regularly and yet, I got a little tired after shooting around for a short moment. I have a toddler and an infant so, that sort of parental training helps me in carrying the beast around.

My coworkers "ooh'd" and "ahh'd" at my new addition. Some accused me of compensating, haha. Despite all of the attention, a few quick shots around the office left all of us fairly impressed. When you are able to count eyelashes of people from a shot taken at f2.0, high iso, you can't help but feel impressed. I am impressed and very happy with my 200mm f/2G. Thanks to a fellow nikonian, who is also happy with my offerings, my old/new Nikon 24-70mm and 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II found a good home.

Why Nikonians is worth it.

Oddly, I joined nikonians.org shortly after it become a paid only site. Mainly, I signed up for a silver membership ($25/year) to surf its' marketplace. To buy and sell with an air of confidence that I won't get ripped off.

The fact that nikonians, being a paid site, weeds out all of the scumbag scammers out there. The same scumbags who bait and prey on the largely innocent, honest and hard working visitor on craigslist. Even if scammers decide to sign up and pay their way into nikonians, they probably won't get much bite with 0 posts. Members sort of need to earn their trust amongst others in the community before they can buy, sell or trade.

I have purchased as well as sold over a dozen lenses via nikonians. The deals are incredible with every transaction being very smooth. Prices very often beat anything else out there on the used market, even craigslist.

On top of having a great used marketplace, the community itself is full of knowledgeable members, weeding out the trolls you usually find on flickr, nikoncafe and dpreview. Those sites are good too but, I find myself asking more questions on nikonians and often get a solid answer in return.

In the field, one light.

Meant to post this sooner. This is one of my favorite shots of my older daughter, Madelyn. This was shot with a one light setup, with the sun setting behind her. Taken at Floyd Bennett Field, in Brooklyn. The mosquitos were swarming us bigtime, luckily for Maddie, the little buggers prefer my blood.

Happy 2nd birthday, Maddie!

Today is my older daughters' 2nd birthday. We threw a party for her at the Little Gym in College Point, NY, over the weekend. Lots of kids showed up and had a blast. Thanks to all who showed up with their cameras, gifts and kids =)


Visit link for more images: Mobileme Gallery

Farewell 24-70 and 70-200 VR II

Hello 200mm f/2G! Me and another nikonian agreed to trade lenses over the internet. A first for both of us where no money is exchanged, just gear. This effectively leaves me with a huge hole in terms of range. My lens collection is down to only three lenses, the two zeiss primes (35 and 100mm) and now, the 200 f2.0. I'm thinking I need at least a 50mm prime to fill in that gap, and preferably it should be of autofocus variety since, I'm going to need something in that range for events.

I probably won't miss my Nikon 24-70mm or 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, especially after getting into zeiss primes. I have a bigger appreciation for primes now that I'm shooting at 24mp. The good primes offer more than enough resolving power for the D3X, at least the elite ones do.

I am looking forward to the chubby lens on my desk in three days time. Let the countdown begin before it spends some time on the D700 and D3x.

This marks the point in my photographic career where to me, image quality has surpassed my need for versatility and convenience.