Found this on Memebase. This guy is both 1) Incredibly calm given the circumstances, and 2) Incredibly stupid for being that close to the action. I think 99% of the time that would have ended the other way. Had a car almost clipped me I don’t think I would calmly take pictures as it went by, id be changing my pants.
Don’t try this at home kids.
A friend of mine recently purchased the new Canon EOS 5D MkIII and gave me a chance to check it out after dinner tonight. While this is not a full review, I wanted to share my initial thoughts. The camera feels absolutely solid, great to hold and the shutter release is extremely snappy. The large LCD panel on the rear of the camera is crisp and bright, photos looked amazing. What really blew me away was its low-light capabilities – I took a quick set of photos and was amazed at the clarity. Shots from ISO 12,000 up to the 25,600 max were clear, and certainly useable.
I really hope to get my hands on one for an extended period so I can do a full review, but for now I wanted to say that I am really impressed. Soon I’ll have a complete review with image and HD video samples, so stay tuned!
Since I am a total space geek I wanted to share an awesome, well-designed Space Shuttle info-graphic that NPR put together. If you love that be sure to check out Ascent – a long slow motion HD breakdown of a shuttle launch from just about every angle possible with explanations of what your seeing.
In February I accepted a design residency at 8th Light in Chicago, so needless to say that has been my primary focus lately. One of my residency requirements is to write weekly blog posts about my experience and what I am learning. I wrote an entirely new Jekyll powered blog hosted on github to share my experiences. You can check it out at cpeak.github.com. It also has a lot of design & development resources. Enjoy!
I got a chance earlier this week to test out my Canon 50mm f/1.8 in the field for a quick headshot session downtown with our friend Allie. Overall it’s a great lens at an absolute bargain that should be in any photographers bag. Amazon has the 1.8 down to $117 as of right now.
We had planned to meet up and shoot around 5:30, about an hour before sunset. However Allie got delayed at work which put us back a bit so we were fighting the sun going down. Despite losing daylight rapidly the little 50mm performed very well – I even grabbed some frames at 1/20th all the way open at f/1.8 handheld. Since it is not packing a USM (Ultra Sonic Motor) low-light focusing did become an issue, however it wasn’t a deal-breaker though I felt it could perform better. I only mis-focused one or two shots due to the low-light (and that was shooting 1.8 with a very limited depth of field). The lens is super light and some reviews complain that it is built cheaply but I couldn’t find any issues with the quality. The manual focus ring is smaller than most lenses so I can see that being a complaint to someone who likes to use manual control often, but I don’t mind it that much.
Here is an un-edited shot taken on my 10D with the 50mm, f/1.8 at 1/20th, hand-held. As you can see even with an extremely shallow depth-of-field it is very sharp where it needs to be. The bokeh is very smooth so shooting in downtown Chicago at dusk made for some beautiful backgrounds. We did a basic one-light strobist shoot. I set my Speedlite paired with a wireless trigger on a lightstand with an umbrella which my wife kept from blowing away. Walking around Millennium Park we found some overhead lights in the amphitheater that acted as beauty lights really highlighting her hair, so technically its a two-light setup in this shot.
Hands down this is almost a must buy for anyone who shoots portraits or wants more performance in low-light situations. It’s a well built lens thats very fast, a great bang for the buck.
A lot of younger and more inexperienced photographers I’ve met over the years have a bad case of gadget envy. I always hear them saying ‘…if I only had this lens’ or ‘if I had this new DSLR body then I would really be so much better’. Repeat with me: Buying new gear does not make you a better photographer. Trust me, I’ve been there – I still get the bug every now and then, but thankfully my experience wins out in the end. I started writing this post because the new Canon EOS 5D MkIII was just announced and is poised to hit the market very soon (update: today).
Just because the 5D MkIII is now on the market that does not make your DSLR any less of a camera. If you have a Rebel T2i or an EOS 60D, the jump to the 5D MkIII is not going to instantly make your photos better. The difference between an 18.1MP photograph from an entry level T2i and a 22.3MP photograph from the new MkIII are going to be negligible at best. Unless you are doing glamour shots for Vogue or full spreads for National Geographic your current camera is up to the task. The new Digic 5+ processor is not going to compose better photographs for you and having a 63-Zone Dual Layer Metering system is not going to magically fix that lighting problem you’ve been having in the photos you’ve taken so far. Practice and experience make the photographer, not the camera.
But, but, but I want that shiny new camera that was just released, its soooo much better! Guess what – I still shoot to this day with an 6.1MP EOS 10D, which is now almost 10 years old. Technology wise most people categorize this as a ‘dinosaur’, heck, most cell phones have higher megapixel counts. Every photo in my gallery was shot with the 10D. When I first got it I experienced a lot of growing pains – I was exploring night photography, taking long exposures of the city and I found myself constantly looking at the pro level EOS SLRs thinking they would take me to the next level. I was frustrated about the quality of photographs I was taking. Would a pro level camera back then make my photos any better? Nope. I would have made the same mistakes in composition and lighting and been just as frustrated and my wallet would have been a lot lighter. I took my time to learn my craft, discussing my work with other photographers, learning as much as I could. Now shooting with that same camera I am getting photos that I am truly proud of, and the only thing I upgraded was my experience.
My favorite blog post from them in a long time, which is saying something because SVN is one of my favorite feeds.
So next time you hear something, or someone, talk about an idea, pitch an idea, or suggest an idea, give it five minutes. Think about it a little bit before pushing back, before saying it’s too hard or it’s too much work. Those things may be true, but there may be another truth in there too: It may be worth it.
I am the exact opposite of how Jason was – I take a lot of time when people pitch ideas and express opinions. I deliberately wait and think about it, working out my thoughts clearly first. I let the first round of counter-arguments and crap fly before I open my mouth, that way I can tell who is worth discussing the issue with.
Via PetaPixel – watch straight down the inside of a Canon 60D as the shutter button is pressed. For beginners this is a great way to understand the whole process of how your DSLR actually takes a photo. When you press the shutter release the mirror flips up and the shutter blades then open to expose the sensor to the light coming in from the lens. After a set time – your shutter speed – the blades snap back into place and the mirror drops down again. What is really amazing is how fast this process happens – a typical exposure during the day may be around 1/250th to 1/500th of a second. My old camera can go all the way up to 1/4000th!
This is also a great example why why for long exposures I like to use my Mirror Lockup function built into my camera. As you can see there is an awful lot of vibration as the mirror slams up into place before the shutter opens. To avoid any of this shake you can ‘lock the mirror’ in place before the actual exposure. Using my cable release I press the button once to lock the mirror up into place, then press it again to take the actual exposure and release the mirror, avoiding any vibrations that may compromise my photograph. More on that later.
One tool I use quite a bit but never think about is SynergyKM, an open-source app that lets you control multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse without a physical KVM switch.
My primary setup is a PowerMac G5 workstation which I do all my photography editing on, but for coding and work I have a PowerBook that travels with me. When I am home I enjoy being able to use both but I don’t want the hassle of switching back and forth between the two. Synergy solves the problem very simply. The application installs as a preference pane on both machines and setup is easy.
Here I have my PowerMac G5 ‘Ogden’ setup as the server, and my PowerBook ‘Asana-2′ (why did I name it -2?) setup to the left of my displays. On the PowerBook I just tell it to look for Ogden and since they are on the same network they connect to each other. Now I can just swing my mouse over to the left and just like with multiple displays it transfers mouse and keyboard control over to the PowerBook. When you leave the current computer it takes the mouse cursor and just drops it dead center on the primary screen indicating that its in a kind of ‘idle’ state. Mac’s and PC’s work seamlessly, and you can setup multiple locations as well – I have profiles setup for home and work so when I’m at the office I just switch profiles and it connects to my work PC.
Its open-source so its free, and it removes the clutter of a second keyboard and mouse from the desk which is huge for me since I enjoy a clean work area. The biggest benefit is that it removes the confusion or mental jump between machines – when you’re in a workflow you don’t even think about it, it’s seamless. Be sure to head over to the Source-Forge project page and check it out.
