I’ve been planning some night car shoots over the past few months, and I finally got the weather and my schedule to coincide so I could test out some ideas. So I fired up my Subaru STI ‘Abbey’ and went up to the North Georgia mountains to do some star gazing.
Well spring 2012 is in full swing, and so is wedding season. This year I am fortunate to be working with one of my best friends, the very talented Kunal Mehta, owner/photographer of Event’s by SPL. It’s been great challenging myself photographically and a lot of fun meeting new people and working with them on one of their most important days in their lives.
Here’s a few shots from Adam and Rosanna’s E-session where we shot in the Georgia Aquarium, Centennial Park, and even at a helipad on the roof of a building.
Also, as a nice warm up to the season, I got to do a E-Session for an old co-worker of mine Audrey. We really lucked out that morning in Piedmont Park, the overcast sky opened up to provide great light to work with.
Just some portraits of my co-worker….
It’s been a while since I had gotten in a good lunch photo walk, and with the new cam, I’m always itching to take some shots. As usual a co-worker and I wandered out to grab some food, we didn’t have much time so our photo walk turned into just getting lunch. But, it was definitely a tasty lunch at Woody’s Cheesesteaks on Monroe Drive by Piedmont park. I had heard about that place a year or two ago, and it is by far the best cheesesteak I’ve ever had.
Now on to some pics of some serious ‘NOM’ action, and my usual random environmental shots…..
It’s been a great week of opportunities to break in my new d800. I was doing some lighting and general assisting on a photo shoot at Atlanta Rocks for work, and brought my camera to tinker with and take some behind the scene shots of the whole production. Most of the shots were done in ambient light which metered fairly dark, so I got to see how the d800 did at ISO 1600-3200 to stay around 1/100th minimum of a shutter speed. The images are noise cleaned and re-sized for web, and they look fine to me. YES, at full resolution there was plenty of noise, but hey, I achieved my goal of getting some candid shots that are clean for web view, and honestly they’re clean enough for a 8×10 print.
Below are some highlights, and the full set can be viewed HERE
Ok so I’ve gone out of chronological order, but I’ve been really excited about having the d800, I forgot to make a posting about this.
Anyhow, I went down to Piedmont last Saturday, March 31st to support some friends doing the run, and of course to snap some pictures since it’s been a while that I’ve done the run and gun event. The event was amazing to experience, and despite getting hit with some of the colored powder, it was a lot of fun just shooting it. So much so, that I’m planning to participate in it next year.
Here are some highlight shots, and a link to the full set on flickr, HERE
After a fair bit of a wait, my d800 arrived in my hands this past monday. I could go on about all the gritty technical aspects, but there are dozens of resources about that. The basics are that its currently the highest megapixel full frame 35mm DSLR out. This resolution is similar to some of the medium format Hasselblads and Mamiya’s out there, so lately it’s been compared to that along with the pretty badass Canon 5d mkIII.
So far, I’m really happy with going this route over the d4 (saving a lot of money is playing a huuge factor). Yes, the images do get somewhat noisy at high ISO’s. However to me, it’s got a really nice film-like grain to it, and Adobe Lightroom seems to be able to reduce it very easily as there isn’t too much color noise. Sure it doesn’t have the crazy ISO ability of the d4, but it by far outperforms my old d300 in low light, so I’m very happy.
The greatest change in workflow is the shear size of the images, they take a pretty powerful machine to efficiently process and view the raw files, Lightroom4 is doing it fairly well, much faster than the bridge to ACR to Photoshop route. All that massive file size does amount to something though, the detail and sharpness of the images is amazing! Especially at low iso’s, it only took my first ‘studio’ shot at ISO 100 to understand why its being compared to medium format for studio situations. Also the shear pixel resolution (7360×4912), makes it a retoucher’s dream 
All said and done, yes, I’ve given up low-light ability compared to the d4, but honestly I seldom get into terrible light conditions lately. So for me, right now, the trade for more resolution is worth it, it’s just going to take some time getting used to the increase in file size and time to copy to my file server.
Ok, enough jibber jabber…. The following are shots of my friend Kunal, and of myself, just a quick and dirty softboxed AB800. Login to flickr and you can view the full resolution in all of its 14megabyte jpg glory. The shots are unedited so its nothing pretty, but I think it shows the amazing resolving power of the d800′s sensor.
As always, click the image for larger view on flickr
I finally got around to looking at the snap shots I took of my friends from the Asheville trip I took. It was a great time up there, and it’s definitely a place I plan to visit again. Now on to some pictures to look at….
(as always, click image for larger view from flickr)
(click image for lager view on flickr)
I got to spend the weekend in Asheville, NC to celebrate a dear friends birthday, and me being me, I managed to find a windy road route up there 
. The highlight of the driving was in Pisgah State Park, where state road 276 is located. It’s a nice winding, sweeper of a road that goes through a good bit of elevation change, and the Subie just ate it up, maybe with a little bouncing about because a portion of it was potted from rock falls, but nothing tire puncture worthy.
However, this shot I captured when I detoured off of 276 and wandered about the Blue Ridge Parkway to check out some of the scenic overlook spots it has. I shot well over a dozen different angles, but after reviewing I felt this nice simple profile shot was the strongest.
The big day is nearing, my sister will be all married and stuff come this saturday . My close friend Kunal Mehta, owner of Events by SPL will be taking care of the photography for my sister on the big day. However, I ran assist for her official engagement session, and took the above shot as night settled in.
(click image for lager view on flickr)