The new Doh-Me's are out!
Evil Genius, Mr. Rekers has come up with a new batch of mind-bendingly cool new customizable dolls!
Be sure to be the first on your block to have one!
Go there now or check out more from the man at,
http://www.karmabomb.net/!
So everyone now is caught up in ultra shallow depth of fields, and in the high end wedding and portrait world the Canon 85 mm 1.2 lens seems to be the "big thing" right now, but for $2,200 + tax, is it giving that much more advantage over Sigma's $969 dollar 85 mm 1.4? This whole comparison idea came from my good friend Jessica from B&H when I was talking about buying an 85 mm prime lens.Nationally published automotive photog, OJ Santiago, and I teamed up Friday night to do a comparison! (I hope it's obvious that the portraits of me were taken by Mr. Santiago, and those of him were taken by me.)
Using the high speed shutter method (seen here) Mr. Santiago and I picked out a few different locations and styles to see how the lenses performed.
We first started off shooting full body shots at 1.4 on each camera (with speedlights). The results? Some of these images are shot with the Sigma, some are the Canon, can you tell a difference? I can't. However shooting at this distance made focusing very tricky. I would recommend using a 580's focusing ability to assist to make sure you get it right. 1.4 is very shallow even at 30 feet.
When we tested the lenses on head and shoulders portraits on the Canon 7D the Sigma appeared to have more contrast than the Canon, but the canon had a bit more chromatic aberration and definitely more at 1.2.
Over all, personally, I think both of these lenses are best suited for head and shoulders portraits and low light situations, the long distance focus problem is tough to get over. Having said that, these lenses, in these two scenarios performed pretty identically. Food for thought.
The best part about this review was getting to experiment with a good friend and inspirational photographer! :)
(There was no actual rain, it's all Photoshop, stop sending me hate mail!)
I decided to get a portrait of my ladies before they scampered off to Grandma and Grandpa B's this morning no matter what!
And that got me thinking!
Failure is not an option, whatever you call it, it's a mindset really that can make ordinary people perform extraordinary actions. In psychology it is described as follows: "Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action." And over the course of my career in various situations I have felt like failure wasn't an option, but only in a few situations would the consequences have been bad enough for me to commit to prevailing at all costs.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned in volition happened to me early on working for David Ziser. A man of impenetrable will himself, I was photographing a wedding reception with Mr. Z, shooting the under appreciated "table Shots." There were well over 300 people at the wedding, all seated and eating dinner, some on the balcony of the great Hall of Mirrors in downtown Cincinnati. There were 40 tables or so 8 or 10 to a table. Since there were so many people I photographed the hard to reach places and as much else as I could so Mr. Ziser could focus on the key tables. Just as I had finished about half of the room David asked to see the camera. The result?
And I'll quote, "These are all too close, go re-do them."
Now keep in mind I've just interrupted about 180 or so people from a tasty open bar dinner among friends. Now I have to go do it again. That s@#ks! (Plus now I have to do it before they get up and go mingle. And not just the tables again, everybody has to be there!)
This my friends is where the concept of volition pops back into my mind. Well ok, Here we go camera. No choice. *sigh* I couldn't fail again, I'd look like a real jerk then, so I made up my mind to do whatever it took and be as persistent as possible to get the job finished. Jokes, charm, telling them a magazine wanted a copy after they saw the first one, apologizing profusely, whatever I had to do. It's an interesting feeling that changes (in my head, at least) when there is no impossibility. If it can't "not be," then there must be a way of doing it. If I don't have the option of saying no, all I have to think about is how I can get yes to happen. :) It can be very liberating.
(get ready for my upcoming rain tutorial)
The idea goes... if this is just a mindset then why can't you just treat more situations with a "can't fail" attitude? The Volition wiki page further goes on to say: "Volitional processes can be applied consciously, and they can be automatized as habits over time."
Stop thinking of excuses and think of options. Harder said than done I'm afraid, but it can be done! I'm also not saying that you should apply this strategy to all situations, clearly "Grizzly Man" didn't have it right.
Just something to think about.
Well I finally have a baby to hold! And I couldn't be more happy.
Vivian Elise Viltrakis
I'll tell you all about how the ipad's wireless tethering feature has been ridiculously beneficial in sharing the news of our daughter with friends and family, but first let me tell you about Vivian!
The morning of her birth i got up early and photographed all the spring flowers just blooming in the front yard so we could make prints and canvas wraps to decorate her room. I even photographed the morning dew.
(Vivian at 9:00 am!)
Then Terri and I took a few last maternity photos to remember it by and nervously headed to the hospital. :)
Then after a few hours of dazed craziness...
(Vivian 1:45 pm!!!)
We had a perfect baby girl!
Naturally I had my camera and I didn't want to leave Terri and Vivian at all...
But I know how anxious people are about news so, while we were in the recovery room Terri and I used the Ipad and Eye-fi card [LINK] to make a gallery of images for the relatives to crowd around while they wait of their turn to see our little girl in person!
It was a smash! I'm lucky it didn't break from tear damage. Another benefit of the ipad's wireless capabilities with Shutter Snitch (the software that is the "landing pad" and display for the images). It is simple to email single or groups of photos right from the gallery!
Now every time we have guests visit they can see all of the sorted images from the last few days and email the ones they want. It's a brilliant Point of Sale opportunity! The Ipad allows everyone to share in the sharing!
In the mean time I've been photographing her first week like it was a wedding. :)
I've also had some time off to play with these new fangled filtery-doo-hinkeys.
I like to record video of her waking up with the 7D. It's always amazing. :)
Mother Theresa and I had the fortune of attempting a photo shoot on Viv's 5th day (which turned out to be the only nice day since we got home from the hospital). Very fortunate!
Let the embarrassing photo ops used to scare off future boyfriends commence!
Hey everyone, we'll be back next week with "a brand new addition!"
until then, please enjoy this "bundle of joy" from flickr!
(PS- Typing with one hand is hard)
I'm going to Keep this short because even by typing this post I'm neglecting her! But, Today is my darling wife's birthday! Happy 26 baby! And speaking of babies, Vivian will be here Wednesday!
For her birthday Terri's parents took us to The Golden Lamb in "historic" Lebanon Ohio.
Turns out this establishment opened in 1803. Which is pretty cool. Lots of presidents and famous people have been through there because it was one of the only nice places between the railroad and Cincinnati (which used to be cool) or Lexington (for Henry Clay). Many if the rooms have been named for the people who have eaten or stayed there. There's the Charles Dickens dining room, or the James Garfield room, and of course the broom closet Dubbya got stuck in while there.
This room is by far the coolest (+) because it is named for and tells the story of Clement Vanlandingham who was an attorney (-50) who successfully proved that the victim in his murder case could have shot himself (+25). He did so in this room (+60), mortally wounding himself in the process.
In fact, here's the bullet hole! (+100000)
(I poked it)
In other news, Vivian will be here on Wednesday, so please forgive me if I don't post next monday. I have been faithful every Monday for 6 years now. I'm entitled to one! :)
I LOVE YOU TERRI! I LOVE YOU VIVIAN, FAMILIES, AND FRIENDS!
Here we go!
Baby time.
One of the coolest things I got to do recently was go and present 3 hour long presentations for Clermont North Eastern High School's Career Day. It was SO much fun! I tried to keep it real and still make some jokes. Heck it's not normal class for a reason.
So because I'm insane most of the time, I decided to take the kids out of the class and have a group photo taken. I took the normal one, and then we did a cool one.
Outside was awesome, but wet. Sorry 1st period!
I really packed a lot of material into an hour. Thanks for listening!
Friday night was my usual photo jam session with national car photog OJ Santiago and fellow mom-to-be, Kari. Tonight's experiment was long exposure, with speedlights, transmitting to the ipad wirelessly. We were also celebrating the birthday of my wonderful assistant Terri V. :)
(3.2 second exposure with Speedlight +2/3)
Terri chose the opportunity to play her fire pit like a nuclear reactor. It was awe inspiring!
(She was probably thinking about Kasey's Bonfire)
(3.2 second exposure with Speedlight +2/3)
Mr Santiago can't believe how cool the wireless Ipad tethering is... in fact, he shot lasers out his eyes just after this photo. It's that cool.
(10 second exposure with Speedlight +2/3)
Here Terri shoots plasma out of a bottle of plasma we have and ignites a small explosion. :)
(10 second exposure with Speedlight +2/3)
The result of the explosion. Fun.
(2.5 second exposure with Speedlight +2/3)
"The Crew" photographed by Kari!
It was a great celebration for a beautiful woman!
We even got in a vertigo era light show for the birthday girl. The long shutter speed test was a success!
Posts
All Comments
