Category: Photography

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Corporate Portraits and a Nikon workflow 

Tuesday saw me shoot a few on location corporate portraits. 

I shot jpg & RAW (NEF) using a Nikon D800 with the jpg’s going to SD card the RAW to CF card. 

While still on site I uploaded the jpg’s to my iPad Pro 9.7 and into Adobe Lightroom. 

I then gave them a quick rating. 

Once home, I imported the RAW’s into the Desktop version and had the import process drop them into a collection and sync with Creative Cloud.   Once imported and backed up I left the desktop to render full sized images and went to bed. 

While in bed I grabbed the iPad and sync’ed the ratings between the jpg’s and RAW files. 

I then chose my selects and picks dropped then to separate collections and set the white balance on them all. 

Tomorrow night I hit my desktop and edit my picks that will be sat there waiting for me. 

Now if only Adobe would let me set meta data on the iPad. 

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Camera Equipment Prep

SB-800

I have a few corporate portraits to shoot next week. I’ll have limited space and want to travel light and be flexible so it will be a couple of Speedlights. One lightstand and one brolly. 

I’ll be charging up my batteries tonight and testing everything as usual. 

It will make a change to studio art nude I have been shooting. 

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Leica 35mm Summilux T Lens

This lens designed for the Leica T has a field of view of about 50mm.  As reviews start to appear it’s made quite a impact.

The T lens do produce great results but many users were upset that Leica had software correction to improve the results and to over come some issues.

Leica built quite a reputation with their M and R lens. Back when we shot film post lens correction was not possible.  Film was more forgiving and people forget that with digital sensors some type of correction is generally required.

So no matter what lens you use there will be some correction going on.

For those who do not like software correction then possibly manufacturers could put options  in their cameras to turn off and to control the strength. Even better go back to real RAW files without correction and have the correction controllable in your RAW processing software.

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Grabbing a camera

At the weekend I grabbed my Nikon V1 a small Compact System Camera rather then my Leica.

Choosing a camera is very personal and today I thought I wanted effortless, autofocus and zoom lens, the lot.  Makes life easier when walking the dog.

Generally though if I am grabbing a camera its the Leica M and its tiny jewel like lens I go for.

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Family Stroll through Whisby Nature Reserve

Whitby Walk with Timmy the GreyhoundThis Saturday we decided to have a family stroll through Whisby Nature Reserve. Normally a trip to Whisby Nature Reserve entails a boot full of Nikon DSLR’s, long fast and heavy glass plus a heavy tripod.

Not exactly a fun walk and we normally stop at a hide and set up for a few hours of bird photography.

This time however the purpose was a fun and enjoyable dog walk.

If recent form is any guide you would think I would be grabbing the Leica but this time I decided to use the Nikon V1 and a standard zoom.  A small quick autofocusing camera which can produce good results is what I was after.

The Nikon V1 produces great results and it was the first mirror less design to offer decent autofocus with dedicated focus points on sensor.  The current V3 has some nice features as well but I have yet to see a compelling reason to upgrade over the V1, as the V3 has some of the same issues I have with the V1 and the EVF is optional.

Nikon V3 Series 1

Now Nikon have a number of DL series compacts with the same CX large sensor and with full compatibity with the Nikon Speedlite system, which is what some Nikon Series 1 users have hoped for. They can also use an optional EVF.

Nikon DL

Its seems Nikon’s compact devision have produced a better competitor and now there is even less reason to invest in the Nikon Series 1 system.

Nikon DL Rear View

While the current top of the range model V series the V3 is good I see no reason to buy it over the DL range of compacts with their better lens and Speedlite compatibility.  If your really set on interchangeable lens in a mirrorless system then while as a Nikon user I hate to say it the Sony, Fuji, Panasonic or Olympus are a better choice.

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Working for Real using DNG RAW and the iPad

Field Track

So we have this new device, what can I do with it.  Well a quick walk through the local countryside with our hound Timmy seemed in order.

I took the Leica and shot RAW DNG only.  Then at the end of the walk I grabbed my iPad and Lightening SD reader and set to work.  A quick edit gave me the image above.  On checking Lightroom on the desktop the edited image was also there on my external Lightroom catalogue.

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iPad Pro Pencil

I’ll apologize now for the iPad posts this week but that’s all your likely to get.

I like drawing even though I am not a great drawer so it’s been fun trying out the pencil.  It’s a very clever device and very much like using a real pencil, allowing you to hold it on the side and shade, and control the flow with how hard you press.  The next step will be using it and the Adobe Apps to edit photographs.

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The iPad Pro 9.7 first impressions

iPadProThe new iPad Pro 9.7 has arrived and I have to admit that I am enjoying it and do not regret it in the least.

Trees

I’m still working on my editing work flow and need a image resizing tool for posting but this post was all produced, including the image processing from my Nikon V1 on my new iPad.

My web content management software crashes and fails to handle large jpegs so while writing this post in the local pub, once I had edited the above image I had to downsize it.  As I do not currently software to downsize images I cheated and used the pub’s wifi to email me a version of the image.  The iPad’s mail client has the ability to resize when you send the image, so that’s how I resized it

 

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April Fool

Orkney Stones - Leica M8It’s the first of April today and the April fool jokes are coming thick and fast.  The funniest I saw today was some quick release chinos, don’t ask but very funny.

No one is claiming 1000 megapixels phone cameras yet but soon I expect that claims like this will not be April fool jokes.

I have cameras from 10 MP full frame to 36 MP full frame and medium format large format and while more megapixels can bring advantages I would personally prefer quality low noise pixels to just lots of pixels.  It’s also quicker to edit and less of a hit on the disk space.