Playing Games

"Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world. Imagination is the highest kite one can fly" -- Lauren Bacall.

And so, one must move on, that's what i tried to do here, change about every parameter that I used in the past. No more Mr. Softbox and Octabox, but old school stuff, working with small and harsh light sources and using the "on-axis fill" technique to even out distractive shadows that might occur.

The harsher light sources will produce more detailed results where soft light often creates a too low contrast on surfaces making them dull, well it's what your after anyway. Photography is making compromises, always.

The Raw files from the D800 are very high in Dynamic Range so this opens up possibilities in post, it feels a bit like HDR with lots of clarity, a look I tend to use a lot more in the future.

Models: Niels de Jonck & Sara

MUA: MuaDjenien
Styling: http://www.kathyvanlooveren.com/

Afro-Latino 2012

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Photographing musicians while performing on stage is great but in my humble opinion some things are 'a must' to deliver qualitative results, a good camera with a usable range around 800 tot 1600 ISO, good low light auto-focus (no manual focus for me please) and some good glass to put between the artist and your camera.

My chosen setup for the Afro-Latino festival of 2012, including some rented material because a lot of this stuff does not come for free, is The Nikon D800e, the Nikkor AF-s 70-200 f:2.8 Vrii and the AF-s 300mm f:2.8 Vrii.

I'm impressed, really impressed by the quality delivered by the optics regarding the demanding 36Mpix sensor in the 800e, the details are mind blowing, sometimes there's even to much detail ;-)

I'm impressed by the Dynamic range of the D800e, even at ISO 1600 it is super, the conditions on stage are ever changing, dynamic, light changes direction every 2 seconds, etc

I tested the 3D AF-C modus on the D700 last year with mixed results, so i went back to the AF-s and a single AF-point. The 800e being a new generation camera i tried the 3D following mode again and it's "wow", it's so good i used in 90% of the photos. Really great for tracking artists with too much energy.

My camera setup is almost always the same, White-balance is set to sunlight, ISO 1600 (or 3200 if necessary) Shutter speed at 1/125 and Aperture set to full open f:2,8.
I tried automatic modes in the past but they are easily fooled by the constantly changing conditions, the full manual control gives me the best ratio of acceptable results, to give you an idea on the 3 days I made about 1600 pictures and i uploaded 505 out of them which i found to be good pictures, about 30% is not bad. the trick is to not get carried away with some acts and keep photographing after you are sure you already nailed "the shots", also make sure you make the safe pictures of the main artist as soon as possible because it can happen that you are only allowed to photograph the first 3 songs or even less....

This picture was made from about 20meter distance with the 300mm, hand-held, i was standing on a chair to shoot 'over' the public, Mr. alpha Blondy decided to give us just 3 songs of front stage access so we had to move a little further.

Alpha Blondy

I want to place a big thank you to all the people involved who made this possible and friends to make it a good weekend to remember!

Some results after the jump : (make sure you also check the pictures of the Fire breather )

The Nikon dudes.

No really, what is wrong with the Nikon dudes, "Dark to see the logic" would be the words of master Yoda...

I understand that the earthquake, Tsunami and flooding in Thailand caused some problems and delayed the arrival of the nikon D800, but we had great cameras at our disposal for some years, like the D300(s), D700, D3, D3s, D3x,... so it was no problem waiting for the upgrade (not for me anyway)

But a few months ago things started moving, oh-oh-oh big Nikon announcement !!

Nikon D800, D800e and the D4 are announced, D800 with 36Mpix, wow! Nikon D4, the new low-light king, nice job Nikon!

But for me what follows is the weird and illogical part :

I think i can say that Wi-Fi has become a pretty well established standard over the last years, hardware and drivers readily available, to prove this 99% of every laptop, notebook, smart-phone, tablet, ... has on-board Wi-fi and I've seen the chips, they are small, the antenna is another question.

Now the D800 has no networking onboard, if you want to connect it trough Wi-Fi wireless connection you have to purchase the (older) Nikon Wt-4(a), extra cost of about €700 and it's bulky


The D4 has an Ethernet connection, very nice Nikon but if you want to use it trough Wi-Fi, Nikon has the new Wt-5a for you, extra cost about €800, good morning to you sir ...

So if you buy like a D4 and a D800 you got to buy both wireless transmitters because they are not compatible...

But ok, the Wt5 is going to be the new standard? It's smaller and probably faster, so that's a good thing!

( The fact that the D800 uses the older Wt-4 solution proves that this camera should have been released at least 6 month earlier, if it was developed by the same team as the D-4 it would also make use of the newer Wt-5 )

And than a few days ago Nikon announced their new entry-level Dslr, the Nikon D3200.

Oh yes and they did it again... the Nikon D3200 can be connected by Wi-Fi using an EXTERNAL connector, wtf? And logic would assume that it's going to be compatible with the rest, but no, again it's a new design, the Wu-1a, sold for about €50.

I guess the dudes in Sendai just think "oh those clazy plofessional photoglaphels make enough money to spend mole on geal"

Wtf, logic this Mr Spock!

upgrading co$ts

After working for 3 years on the same Windows based system i finally decided to upgrade my system and went for an "Apple".

My first idea was to go for a MacBook pro because i wanted a system i could move to the studio for tethered shooting, after doing some research i found that the MacBook screens are not IPS based technology (almost no laptop has an IPS screen), so if i wanted to get the most out of it i had to buy an additional screen like an Eizo or something = additional costs + more cumbersome setup but easy if i wanted to take the MacBook only..

My second idea was to go for an iMac 21'5 and this is what i finally bought, I ordered a big carrying case at Bigsoso to take the system with me between my working place and the studio, maybe i'll add a MacBook pro next year or so, but for now i got a pretty good solution that went easy on my bank account. (Well easy...)

But (there's always a but) at the studio i used to work tethered on my Windows Machine, for this i bought 2 simple 3meter long USB cables that i connected together (one cable was male -female, second cable was male - male, usb B ).

A perfect 6 meter long connection between the Windows computer with Lightroom and my Nikon D700 :-)

So i tried the same, 2x3m USB cable between the iMAC and the D700 = no connection

hmmm... maybe i should add a powered USB hub?

So i tried = iMac -> powered USB hub -> 2x3m USB cable -> D700 = no connection

hmmm... €20,00 spend on a useless USB hub...

So i tried = iMac -> 1x3m USB cable  -> original Nikon USB cable -> = Hallelujah! Connected, but only a working radius of 4 meter :-(

Then i tried connecting this to the USB connector in the Mac Keyboard to win 0,5m but this again resulted in a "no connection".

I'll try using an active USB cable in a future setup but thought i'll put this online, maybe it's useful for somebody or maybe somebody can explain me why the 6meter solution works on a Windows machine but not on the iMac machine ...

EDIT:

I received a 10 meter active USB cable, works like a charm on the Windows PC, but on the iMAC i can not make a connection, the camera is detected by the system as you can see here :

Edit 2. (18-April-2012)

I was in contact with TetherTools.com about this problem and according to their experiences one should never attempt to use passive USB cables longer than 5 meters on the iMAC.

I ordered pretty expensive USB 3.0 cables, 2 x 16 ft with 2 activators, these shoud do the trick for the D700 and the D800.

At this moment i'm pretty sure my next laptop will not be a Macbook but probably a simple Windows machine with USB 3.0 support, time will tell...

Edit 3 (06-June-2012)

Today I received 2 brand new USB3.0 gold plated active cables from Tethertools.com

1)
Imac <-> usb 2.0 port <-> nikon usb 2.0 cable <-> Nikon D700

Import Works
Tethering Works

2)
Imac <-> usb 2.0 port <-> Tethertools 5meter USB 3.0 cable <-> nikon usb 2.0 cable <-> Nikon D700

Import Works
Tethering Works

3)
Imac <-> usb 2.0 port <-> Tethertools 5meter USB 3.0 cable <-> Tethertools 5meter USB 3.0 cable <-> nikon usb 2.0 cable <-> Nikon D700

No Camera detected

4)
Imac <-> usb 2.0 port <-> nikon usb 2.0 cable <-> Nikon D800e

Import Works
Tethering not yet supported bij Adobe Lightroom

5)
Imac <-> usb 2.0 port <-> Tethertools 5meter USB 3.0 cable <-> nikon usb 2.0 cable <-> Nikon D800e

Import = Camera appears for 1 or 2 seconds in the Lightroom interface and than it disappears = No Camera detected (very weird)
Tethering not yet supported bij Adobe Lightroom

6)
Imac <-> usb 2.0 port <-> Tethertools 5meter USB 3.0cable <-> Tethertools 5meter USB 3.0 cable <-> nikon usb 2.0 cable <-> Nikon D800e

No Camera detected



To be continued ...