Baselineshots.com Blog

New Videos on YouTube

2011-03-31T08:25:00.001-04:00

I've created and posted two new videos on YouTube which are intended to not only walk you through how I shoot certain events/sports, but also to give you a chance to go behind the scenes at the events. The first video was shot during my travels with Florida State University's recent run in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament to the Sweet Sixteen round. While in Chicago for the first two rounds of the tournament, I used my Flip video camera to record what I encounter when shooting an event like this plus some additional behind the scenes stuff.

The second video was shot during the annual Tavistock Cup, a Ryder Cup-styled golf event held in Orlando FL which features a myriad of PGA golfers who rank among the best in the world. This event is like no other golf tournament in the world with a gallery that is limited to less than 4,000 people and an intimate setting which allows patrons to get up close and personal with the golfers. The field includes Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, and a host of other pros who have amassed hundreds of tournament titles and almost 100 Majors. The video includes the usual information along with some gratuitous "interviews" with players and Golf Channel favorites David Feherty and Gary McCord.

I intend to follow this video posting with regular Blog posts as to both of these events so as to provide some greater detail as to my photography of the events along with images to illustrate the information.

Good Stuff !

2011-03-08T20:59:00.000-05:00

Lots of cool stuff has been happening and it just keeps getting better. I picked up a new boom arm for the studio made by RedWing (Right) and it is going to make my life so much easier in terms of positioning my key light. Anyone who has ever used a boom arm for lighting knows what a pain it is to have to loosen the boom ratchet thingy to position, raise or lower the attached light. In a small space like mine, it's an ever bigger pain. This bad boy is worth it's weight in gold. It ain't cheap, but worth every penny.

Tavistock Cup is next week and I leave for Orlando Sunday to shoot this event for the seventh year in a row. Tiger didn't play last year but he's a definite this year along with new additions Tim Clark and Adam Scott. Scott Kelby was supposed to join me on Monday to shoot the day's play but he won't be able to make it due to....

The Grid. Scott's new TV show which airs live Monday through Friday at 12:30 pm. Taped versions of the show are then re-broadcast as video podcasts. Scott has asked if he could fly me down to Tampa to be on the show in the next month or so and I am definitely in. While I'm in Tampa for the show, we're also going to tape a few segments for his DTown TV, the 10-12 minute video podcasts Scott creates. My segments will deal with sports photography and I'll get a chance to check out Scott's new digs, the photo studio and all the other neat stuff at his corporate HQ.

Last but not least, it's time for March Madness and it looks like my FSU boys are in line for an NCAA bid. For the past 2 years, I passed on traveling with the men (Boise ID and Buffalo NY) because of other committments and instead traveled with the women's team as they made their runs (last year to the Elite 8, losing to UConn to just miss going to the Final 4). This year the Gods have smiled on me and if FSU gets a bid, I am hoping for the chance to travel with the men. NCAA men's March Madness is something I hope not to miss.

That's it for now. I may do a video on "How to Shoot a Golf Tournament" while at Tavistock so stay tuned.

My Ring Flash Experience

2011-02-09T08:29:00.005-05:00

Image from ExpoImaging web site

A funny thing happened at the Jimbo Fisher War Party last week...funny if you have a weird sense of humor. The day before the gig, my new ExpoImaging Ray Flash arrived from B&H Photo in NYC, one of my go-to sources for any gear (the other is KEH). The Ray Flash is basically a poor man's ring flash, costing a fraction of what a studio ring flash costs. My initial impression after pouring through reviews, etc. was that it appeared to be much more versatile than a conventional studio ring flash. I wanted a ring flash primarily for occasional use in the studio (to create that "Cosmo" high fashion look in images); but what really sold me on the Ray Flash was ExpoImaging's touting of the product as great for studio use plus the cat's meow for wedding photographers. I read that as suitable for grip & grin events, which are not unlike wedding receptions - people in small and large groups dominating most of the photos.

Images from ExpoImaging web site

When I make reference to "Cosmo" type images, I'm referring to that noticeable but subtle halo shadow surrounding the subject (above, left) by positioning the subject close to the backdrop and using a ring flash. The halo shadow is a style that is either loved or hated - there's no middle ground - but I'm always looking for any way to generate images that are different so I wanted to add this type of image to my arsenal. If you don't want the halo shadow, you pull the subject away from the backdrop and you still get soft, even lighting on the subject. If there is no backdrop (as in a group shot of folks at a reception), there is no shadow - again, just nice, even lighting. The other unique aspect of a ring flash is the telltale catch light in the eyes - a circle of light (above, right) that many people love.

Image from AlienBees web site

There are two issues with studio ring flashes from my perspective. First, cost - most start at $1,000 and go up from there. The AlienBees ABR800 (above) is the exception and goes for $400, but everything I've read about it gives me pause for concern as to the mounting hardware for the camera/flash, reportedly somewhat flimsy and may not withstand repeated tear down/set up. The second issue with a studio ring flash is it forces you to be relatively stationary - if you move forward or backwards, the exposure that you meter will obviously change. The key light (ring flash) is on the camera so the light reaching the subject will change as you move. To ensure good exposure, camera to subject distance has to remain constant after metering - mark a spot on the floor if you're handholding the camera or set up a tripod to position the camera in one place.

Images from ExpoImaging web site

The Ray Flash (above & below) seemed to overcome the issues as an occasional studio ring flash and then some: 1) Cost - $200; 2) Versatility - I could use it in the studio or take it with me for shoots like the War Party; 3) TTL camera functions still work, so you can move forward or backward without affecting exposure (to some extent); and 4) it's a snap to use - you pop it on your portable strobe, mount the strobe to the hot shoe and you're good to go .

I knew from researching the Ray Flash that you lose at least one stop of light, so I tested the unit in my office before taking it to the War Party. Sure enough, there was some light loss, ranging from 1 to as many as 3 stops depending on the distance I tried to illuminate. No big...that's what the exposure compensation button is for on a camera body - to increase or decrease the exposure without changing shutter speed or f stop. But I made a mistake, one that I know better than to make - I did not test the Ray Flash on a person or persons before taking a new piece of equipment on a magazine shoot. I should not have assumed anything but I did -I assumed that since the product was marketed for use in wedding photography and since there were no other issues identified in any of the materials I had reviewed (including the ExpoImaging web site, their marketing videos, their demo videos and the manual that accompanied the product), I was going to take some beautifully lit images that would rock for Unconquered Magazine.

Well, I got evenly lit images. What I never expected was "Exorcist" eyes in almost every shot - the dreaded red eye that usually comes from using an on-camera strobe in a dimly lit room. Pupils become huge to compensate for the low light levels and an on camera flash lights them up - in vivid red. Thank God for Photoshop. I managed to eliminate the red eye from all the photos I processed and turned in to the magazine, but it was a lot of unnecessary additional time and effort.

The next day, I called B&H to return the Ray Flash for a refund. No way I was going to have $200 tied up in a product that performed like this while used in a manner that I thought was intended. The B&H customer service rep was more than accommodating in terms of the return. He even e-mailed me a UPS shipping label so I could ship the product back on their dime (which is why I do business with B&H - impeccable customer service, no questions asked). Another rep followed up by contacting me to provide his thoughts on what had happened. Among other things, he questioned the assumption I had made as to wedding photography use - yes, the Ray Flash was a great tool for wedding photographers, but for wedding photographers wanting to create "Cosmo" type portraits of the bride. The product was never intended for generic, wedding reception images. I had made an incorrect leap of faith in assuming that "wedding" photography meant all types of wedding images.

All this was conveyed in a very professional and respectful manner, as opposed to a "Jane, you ignorant slut" condescending tone. For a B&H rep to take the time to follow up on my return of the product and delve into specific issues as to what caused my dissatisfaction was not expected. Have any of you ever been contacted by a company rep upon return of a product? I haven't. Until now. Kudos to B&H.

I then called ExpoImaging to relate my experience and convey my disappointment with their product performance/marketing information. Two representatives apologized profusely and diplomatically reminded me that whenever you shoot in low light with an on-lens-axis flash, red eye is common, known phenomenon. In a studio setting, they mentioned that you typically have other strobes firing which typically eliminates any red eye. I told them they had marketed this thing as a product suitable for "weddings" (and thus implicitly, receptions, which typically have the same lighting conditions as the War Party). I also asked why in the world they would go to such lengths to caution users about the 1 or more light-stop-loss but not something else of which they were well aware - the red eye issue . They acknowledged that they should have mentioned it and will now include something in their marketing information to address it.

Then they took it an unexpected step further - they want me to really put their product through its paces and review it for them. Cool. They're shipping me a unit to use so I can form a better educated opinion as to the Ray Flash. It should be here in a few days (coming from California) and I'll play with it under various conditions.

It would have been easy for ExpoImaging to blow me off as a disgruntled user but they went way out of their way to generate customer goodwill. So, kudos to ExpoImaging for their approach to the situation. I'll let you know what the final verdict is on the product. At the very least, ExpoImaging gets top marks for customer satisfaction. Stay tuned.

Photography Studio & Lighting on a Budget

2011-02-08T10:26:00.000-05:00

I have been spending some time at my photography studio re-arranging things, setting up a few more strobes, light modifiers and organizing things to facilitate shooting. As you may recall, I embarked on a mission to set up a photo studio this past summer and dove in. After using the equipment in a few shoots, I decided that things needed some re-arranging.

In addition, since studio photography was brand new to me, I wasn't sure what kind of style I would develop in terms of images - I recently posted a blog entry discussing my progress in this context - and now that I have found a style that I enjoy pursuing, I had to set up the lighting a certain way and I had to pick up the things I needed to go forward. Props, costumes, etc. were bought, but with limited space in the studio, I had to figure out how to store all this stuff.

So, after a lot of time and effort, I'm ready to start shooting again in the studio. The video gives you a glimpse of what I have and how I set it up. I know it's not sports photography, but I hope that if any of you have ever had a desire to set up a studio, it will provide some helpful information.

New Video - Photographing an NCAA College Basketball Game

2011-02-04T02:35:00.000-05:00

Just finished creating a new "How To" video which I posted on YouTube. This one is about shooting an NCAA men's basketball game. I took my Flip video camera to the recent FSU-Wake Forest basketball game and shot some clips. The video includes my suggestions as to where to shoot from, what gear to use, camera settings, and other little tidbits you might find useful.

An Old Dog Learning New Tricks

2011-01-29T10:16:00.012-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been trying to learn studio photography by various means, including watching videos, reading books, attending workshops, using past (limited) experience and by trial and error. In my mind, I have made considerable progress in terms of learning how to properly light subjects, posing, use of props, and developing a style.

Just like with sports photography, I think it's important to develop a style that is unique...one that people can recognize and immediately think, "That was taken by Olivella." I developed a certain style after years of sports photography, or at least so I'm told by FSU and other clients. If you've seen my sports images, my style involves more than action shots, it's looking for what most others seem to overlook and using lenses beyond the usual 400mm f2.8 and the 80-200mm f2.8.

I've been trying to do the same in the studio. The first couple of photos posted above were of my female offspring unit, my studio guinea pig if you will, taken shortly after I moved stuff into the studio. I asked her to sit for me so I could test out my lights but I found it difficult to tell her how to pose because I hadn't had to pose anyone in a long, long time. It was a learning experience to say the least and I didn't try to do anything but get a couple of decent portraits, which is what I thought I would be concentrating on as far as studio shoots in the future.

With that run through as an inital test, my next victim was a friend of a friend, the maestra for the Tallahassee Symphony who wanted a new head shot for promotional materials. I was more than happy to oblige, viewing the opportunity as a way of getting some more hands on experience with the lights, backgrounds, posing, props, etc. At the time I thought I did a fairly credible job with the images, but looking at them now I realize I made a huge mistake in the context of a formal portrait - I used the key light on the wrong side of her face. After that shoot, I learned that for formal portraits, the key light should light the left side of the face with the shadow side on the right. Oops.

What I also learned during this shoot is that formal portrait photography did not spin my wheels, so to speak. As I discovered, it's a very technical, follow-the-rules kind of photography. Subjects are posed in certain positions, lighting is set up in a specific manner - I'm just not a follow-the-rules kind of person. I've always believed that when it comes to creativity, rules are good guidelines but they should not be adhered to in all instances. I wanted my images to be more than just portraits and felt a desire to push the envelope.

Next up was Nichole. This is when I began to really see that there were things I could in the studio that went beyond standard portraits. For this shoot, I did very little "posing" of Nichole. I made a few suggestions, such as turn this way, tilt your head a little, try moving your hands to this position and the like, but basically I just told her to move around and have fun as I fired away when I saw something that caught my eye. As far as lighting, I used a 4'X7' softbox on my right and a 2'X3' softbox on my left to create fairly even lighting with a slight relative difference given the different sized softboxes - the right one obviously threw out more light from top to bottom since it was considerably larger and the contours of her face created shadows here and there. So what if her positioning gave way to flat lighting or if the high key lighting was on the wrong side.

Now this was fun. I tried head shots, 3/4 body shots, full length shots...we even cranked up a fan just to try different things. Nichole was fantastic. You'd never know she had never modeled or posed for a shoot. Before we finished, we tried one more thing, something I had thought of before the shoot after I found out she was a professional ballerina - using a little Photoshop and Nichole's dance skills, we came up with...

The shoot, and especially the last shot (above) was like a light switch going on in my head, except I wasn't quite sure where the light was taking me. I just knew that coming up with a concept and executing it was more fun than I ever dreamed. I decided that from then on, I would come up with ideas/concepts before a shoot and try to execute them, as opposed to just going into the studio and doing the same thing over and over again.

And then along came Dyani, an experienced model who wanted to update her portfolio. Dyani can have a very hard edge, but I also saw a softness that could be captured. The bulk of her portfolio shots were hard, tough, a style to which she seems to gravitate while posing. I decided to concentrate on showing her soft side, if only to provide her with a completely different look for her portfolio. I used the same lighting set up as for Nichole as well as the "just move around and have fun" style of posing, but with pre-planned setups.

I learned something different after this shoot...I am not comfortable pushing the envelope in terms of risqueness. Although Dyani was fully clothed for all her shots, I had made an effort to create the illusion that she was nude under the sheets in various images. Although I believe the images are beautiful, a little voice in my head told me that I needed to dial things down some and concentrate more on beauty rather than the illusion of nudity.

Then came Jaimie, a chance to create images sophisticated and senuous without pushing the envelope as far as I had gone with Dyani. Jaimie wanted to have some fun, so we tried different looks and different things. Again, I used the same lighting set up as before as well as the same posing technique - essentially, just move around and have fun. In a manner of speaking, I proved to myself that I could create visually exciting images without feeling uncomfortable.

As an experiment, I used Photoshop on some of the images and tried to create an edgy look. Just a way of exploring options in my quest to develop a style. Interestingly, I found that I liked taking a somewhat ordinary image, playing around with it, and coming up with something much different.

I know the images above are not everyone's cup of tea, but I was more interested in creating striking images. Given the reaction that they have gotten, one thing is for sure - they are striking and a far cry from the first efforts in the studio.

Next up was Tarin and another portfolio update. Same lighting technique, same posing direction or lack thereof. Before the shoot, we talked about certain concepts that we would try to execute. I had also seen Tarin's portfolio and noticed a similar pattern as that which I had seen with Dyani - not a lot of soft or sophisticated type images. We tried some themes and also did the sophisticated sensuous thing but without going anywhere near as far as I went with Dyani.

Last but not least, we tried one more thing...something which I have come to find out actually has a name - High Concept Photograhy, the style I have apparently been gravitating towards without knowing it existed.

I posted this image on Facebook shortly after I finished the Photoshop process and I couldn't believe how many people contacted me and asked where they could get a 7-foot martini glass for shoots. I thought it would be assumed by all that it was just a layered image, one image of the martini glass and an image of Tarin, who was able to balance herself on the floor in a "V" shape with her arms positioned in such a way as to simulate how they would be if she were actually sitting in a martini glass. A little playing around with the Transform edit feature of Photoshop, resizing of the martini glass to fit Tarin, selective blending and layering of the two images, and voila.

My last shoot was of Alyssa, a sports broadcaster for a local TV station. As I have been trying to do, I went into the shoot with certain thoughts and ideas as to "looks" and tried to implement them - the very definition of High Concept Photography. One of the things I wanted to try this time was a lighting technique with which I had experimented years ago but which was much more refined by a friend of mine (Scott Kelby) in one of his shoots. Over the Christmas holidays, I picked up a 22" beauty dish to use as a key light for glamour shots and this was the perfect light modifier for the kind of lighting I wanted to use. I set up the backlighting so that the light would wrap around Alyssa's face from the rear and to make sure the white background was blown out.

I positioned the beauty dish directly behind me and over my head at a 45 degree angle downward towards Alyssa. For the first few shots, I tried a silver reflector below her face, angled up, to eliminate the shadow created by the beauty dish on the neck and torso (Scott used a reflector during his shoot to reduce the shadow so I gave it a go) but I was not happy with the results. So, I positioned a third light in place of the reflector (same position) and attached a 2'X2' softbox to it. Much better - shadows were almost gone. We used this lighting for the shots above as well as the one below.

I also went back to my traditional set up using the 4'X7' and 2'X3' softboxes at 45 degrees (on either side) to get some different shots of Alyssa, using various wigs and props to create different beauty-type images.

So there you have it. My transformation in the studio in terms of style and proficiency as of today. As I said, I really enjoy what can be done in the studio and seem to have found a style that is comfortable for me. I have lots more ideas in store for future shoots and I continue to refine my lighting skills. Currently, I am shifting things around in the studio to vary the type of lighting I can create. I've added some backdrops, some more lights, a 5' Octagon softbox, props, etc. and hope to begin shooting again soon. More to come.

Technical Stuff - I have been using my D3 at ISO 100 with the f stops varying between f5.6 and f8. Shutter speed has varied from 1/60th second to 1/250th depending on how bright I want the background to be (the slower the shutter spped the more ambient light is picked up and the brighter the background appears in the image). White balance is set on flash, shutter set to single shots and exposure at Manual. I have a flash meter which I have been using to set the correct exposure, and one mistake I made early on (and repeated until recently) was not trusting the meter. Sometimes it woudl tell me to use f5.6 and I would use something else, depending on what I saw on the back of the camera or on the TV to which I am tethered. Bad mistake. I have learned to trust the meter, not what I am seeing on the displays while shooting.

I am currently setting up my lights/studio as an f8 studio when going the conventional route (classically lit images)). I've debated between f11 and f8 and have decided to go with f8 for the time being. Since I use my gear outdoors most of the time, the sensors and the lenses are exposed to dust and crap all the time. I just don't have the time to constantly remove every speck of crud from the gear. Shooting at f11 exposes every bit of crap in the way of spots, etc., and f8 does so to a lesser degree. I would love to shoot at f11 as it gives me more flexibility in terms of light ratios on the fill side but, I will try f8 for now and see if it is a good compromise - less dramatic lighting options but less cleaning up in Photoshop.

As an f8 studio, the key light on high key images will always be at f8 with the fill light at varying lower settings, depending on the amount of shadow I want on the fill side (using light ratios). For a standard type image, the fill would be at f4 or 2.8. For more dramatic lighting, I can simply turn the fill light off. I have a hair light in place overhead with a 20 degree honeycomb grid and when in use it is set to give me the same f stop setting as the fill light. I now have two background lights (again, for high key shots) which will be set to the same f-stop as the key light (f8). They are positioned on opposite sides to each other slightly angled towards the opposite side of the backdrop (in a slight criss-cross manner. These lights have 5' strip softboxes on them to avoid any light spilling forward onto the subject. I'm still playing with them as I am not finished setting them up, trying to decide whether to use the diffusers.

The key light will primarily have my 22" beauty dish attached but the 2'X3' softbox is another option. So is the 5' Octagon. The beauty dish has a diffuser covering the front and it will be moved around depending on what kind of shadow pattern I want to create on the subjects (butterfly, loop or Rembrandt). At a recent workshop, I learned a trick to avoid having to constantly re-meter the key light - by using a yard stick positioned at the center of the diffuser and extending it so it touches the subject's face, I do not have to change the power setting on the light - just move the light until it is exactly one yard away from the high key cheek.

The above is all intended to be used when the image will be in a sitting/standing stationary pose. If I'm going to do the "move around and have fun" posing, the 5' Octagon softbox stands ready on one side (left) and the 4'X7' softbox will be on the other. I will probably use the octagon as the key light with the rectangular one as the fill, setting the octagon to meter at f8.

All of this is still a work in progress as I have been shuffling things around to try this method out. I'm looking forward to the first shoot to test all of this out.

Busy Weekend...

2010-11-16T16:22:00.002-05:00

Two basketball games Friday night, as in back to back games; throw in a night football game and thoughts about shooting FSU's NCAA Second Round soccer match Sunday afternoon (I passed), and there was a lot on the plate.

The men's season opening game against the University of North Florida was set to start Friday evening, 35 minutes after the conclusion of the women's opening season game against Alabama State. The women's game began promptly at 6:00 pm and I'll talk about the women's game in a bit, but I'll lead off with the men's game.

I used my normal set up for this game with one exception: in lieu of the 35-70mm f2.8 lens that I normally put on my D3 for near basket shots, I went with the new/used 85mm f1.8 that I raved about a couple of posts ago. ISO was 1600; D300 had the 80-200mm f2.8, shutter speed was 1/400th, f2.8 on Manual Exposure; D3 had the 85mm, shutter speed was 1/500th, f2.5 on Manual Exposure. For a few shots, I pulled out the 17-35mm f2.8 and took a few shots from the floor as well as a shot of the arena from up in the stands.

I can't believe that just by opening the lens to f2.5 I can squeeze an extra 100th second shutter speed to get me to the magical 1/500th second I strive for. Still, though, I can't get by without the D300 and the 80-200mm for shots of the far basket, crowd shots and the all important cheerleader/dance team Kodak moments.

For the women's game, I used the same bodies and lenses as I used for the men's game. Camera settings were identical as was the position I shot from on the floor - as close to the basket as I could get to avoid the refs as much as possible.

Because this was the season opener, I devoted a lot of time to trying to get shots of the new players on this year's team (above). There's always a need for those shots for media guide use, promotional material, etc. Nevertheless, I also managed to get some updated images of returning players as well as the usual shots I try to get at any game.

Capping off the weekend was the football game against Clemson Saturday night. It was a long night as TV games typically drag on and on and on due to all the TV timeouts. It seemed like the game would never end and it didn't look good for the home team until the last minute of the game. FSU had taken a 3 point lead with 3-4 minutes left in the game and kicked off to Clemson. Clemson then drove down the field but FSU held them to a field goal with 55 seconds on the clock. I resigned myself to overtime and all that goes with it, expecting FSU to figure out a way to lose the game.

With only one timeout left, FSU marched down the field but time was running out. With 9 seconds left and no timeouts, backup QB E. J. Manuel threw an incomplete sideline out and the clock was stopped with 3 seconds left, ball on the Clemson 38 yard line. FSU's PK Dustin Hopkins, who missed a field goal last week which would have won the game against UNC, stepped up to drill a 55 yard field goal as time expired for the win.

The field goal set off a huge celebration on the field and I was unprepared - I was so thrilled to watch the ball sailing through the upright that I forgot to take the D3 off the 400mm and put a wide angle lens on the body, so as time expired and the players ran out onto the field, all I had was my D300 and the 80-200mm. I did not want to miss getting shots by taking the time to switch lenses at that point, so I ran onto the field with the players and snapped away as best I could. Lesson learned - forget about the outcome of the game and get ready to shoot.

Since the game had such few offensive highlights, there weren't a lot of great action shots to be had. In order to make sure I had something decent to turn in, I took plenty of time to get pageantry type shots as well as some up close/personal shots every chance I got.

I finally get somewhat of a weekend off as both FSU football and basketball are out of town. I am passing on traveling up to Maryland for this week's football game but the FSU soccer team is hosting the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA soccer tournament and I just may get out there Saturday afternoon and shoot.

Facebook - As always, if you would like to see more images from any of the games above, visit my Facebook page (Mike Olivella) where I have posted galleries.

Nichole

2010-11-12T16:01:00.002-05:00

I finally got the chance to put the studio through its paces last week when I did a photo shoot with Nichole (above). Because I'm new to the studio photography thing, I need to develop a portfolio and Nichole wanted some photos of her so she could begin her portfolio. Perfect. She choose the clothes, did her own make up and hair - all I had to do was push a button and help her with posing as she had never posed before. After you see some of her shots, I'll bet you would have never guessed that this was her first photo shoot.

Nichole took to posing like a fish to water. Before we started, I walked her through a few basics in terms of her hands, feet and body positions and after a few shots, she began to relax and have fun. Occasionally I would ask her to lower her chin, turn her head, mover her hands, or bend from the waist but most of all, simply by telling her to just move about as I changed positions and fired was all it took.

The whole shoot was done with a white backdrop that I extended all the way down to the floor and then out towards me. To Nichole's left (my right) at a 45 degree angle I used the Bowen mac daddy monohead with a 4'X7' softbox dialed down to 1/8 power. To Nichole's right (my left) I set up one of the Photogenic 1500's with the 2'X3' softbox at a 45 degree angle, dialing the power down to 1/8. Because of the different watt/s ratings (the Bowens is 1000 W/s and the 1500's are 600 W/s) that gave me the light ratio I wanted. Behind and above Nichole was my hairlight, one of the 160 W/s JTL Versalights with a honeycomb and barn doors pointing at the top of Nichole's head. The other Versalight was my background light. Both of these lights were dialed down to 1/2 power. With this set up, my flash meter gave me a reading of f8 at 1/60th second, ISO 100.

The coup de gras, so to speak, was a shot I had envisioned from the day I found out Nichole was a professional ballerina. Nichole brought her pointe shoes and I asked her to do an arabesque on the white floor. In my head, I marked the spot where she had stood and brought in a white pedestal that I had in the studio as a prop. I then shot the pedestal on the spot where Nichole's toe had been. A little Photoshop layering of the two images and you can see the finished product below.

I knew I would enjoy studio work but I never imagined I would enjoy it as much as I did. Shooting in the studio gives me a way to really explore some creative things that are much easier to do in a controlled environment. If you would like to see other images from Nichole's shoot, visit my Facebook page and look for the gallery. There are well over 40 images from the shoot posted there.

Too Little Time...

2010-11-12T12:28:00.005-05:00

I sit here before you prepared to fall on my sword. My only excuse is that I have been up to my eyeballs over the past couple of weeks and have not had time to update the Blog. Since my last post, I have photographed two FSU football games, two FSU Men's Basketball (exhibition) games, an FSU soccer match, two FSU swim meets, I did my first "real" photo shoot at the studio, and wrote a Guest Blog post for Scott Kelby. The icing ont he cake came yesterday when the new iaaue of Unconquered Magazine came out and I snagged the cover.

As you may know, I recently started a Facebook page and it's all I can do to process photos for FSU's photo galleries immediately after an event, re-process photos (add all the .xmp data which is tedious) to upload to Southcreek Global, and re-re process photos to post as galleries on Facebook (add watermarks and re-size to 72dpi/800px). Add to that a 10-hour RV ride up and 10 hours back with the Road Warriors to the NC State game in North Carolina which killed a weekend; the photo shoot at the studio, which lasted approximately 3 hours but yielded 450 images from which I processed almost 50; and writing a lengthy guest blog post for Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider Blog. Hopefully you will understand why I have slipped up in posting on the Blog. But let's try to kill a bazillion birds with one post.

I will never shoot another night football game at NC State's stadium. I thought the lighting was horrible at Florida Field in Gainesville, but NC State takes horrific lighting to a whole new level. I'm not a stadium light expert by any means, but I know bad lighting when I see images on my camera screen - I would shoot a 4 or 5 shot burst and the first image would have a cyan cast, the next was yellow, the third was magenta and the fourth was green. There is no way to set a white balance for this. What it meant was added hours of processing, trying to correct the colors as best as possible and they still looked like dog poop.

It also didn't help my outlook on the game to have FSU fumble on the 4 yard line with 55 seconds left to play, needing the TD to pull out the game. I was standing on the goal line with my D300/80-200mm f2.8 waiting for the fade pass to my side of the field, all set to record the game winning catch, and as soon as the ball was snapped, FSU fumbled, NC State recovered and that was that. Oh well...head to the photo work room to process images at midnight and then to the RV for a 3 hour ride down to Florence SC for a night's sleep at a motel.

Next was the UNC football game the following weekend. That game was as disappointing as the NC State game as FSU missed a field goal with 4 seconds left to drop its second consecutive game. From a photography standpoint, the game was a challenge to shoot as the game started at 3:30 pm which means shadows - the press box/sky boxes at Doak Campbell Stadium begin to block the sun, which causes a hard shadow to appear late afternoon and it gradually moves all the way across the field. In the first quarter, the shadow was on the sideline but by the end of the first quarter, it was right down the middle of the field (lengthwise).

Talk about an exposure nightmare. Exposing for images in the shadows means blownout highlights outside the shadows; exposing for the bright side means anything in the shadows is almost black. You can do one of two things - pick an exposure for the bright side or the shadow side and keep shooting, ignoring photo opportunities on whichever side you can't expose for; or wait until the second half when the shadow completely engulfs the field, maybe getting a few shots of crazy fans. I opted for the latter after my head exploded a couple of times when I got great action shots but the images were unusable due to the wrong exposure.

Then there was soccer. Prior to the NC State game, I shot an FSU soccer match (Senior Day) at the soccer complex and I just finished processing those photos yesterday.

This was a day game so it meant the 200-400mm f4 on the D300 and the 80-200mm f2.8 plus the 1.4X TC on the D3. Manual exposure gave me shutter speeds ranging from 1/640th second to 1/1250th second at ISO 200.

Men's Basketball season kicked off in a sense with two FSU exhibitions, one against Rollins College and the other against Mid-Continent University. I must confess, I enjoy shooting basketball more than any other sport, probably because I grew up in Northern Indiana where basketball is king and I love basketball.

For the first game, I used my typical basketball set up - D3 with my 35-70mm f2.8 & D300 with my 80-200mm f2.8. I also used the 15mm fisheye as I always do for a few artsy shots. ISO was 1600, Manual Exposure got me f2.8 and 1/400th second shutter speeds because the lighting was dimmer than usual - the arena doesn't turn all the lights on - the ones behind the baskets - when the crowd is expected to be small. I pretty much stayed on the floor all game, immediately next to both baskets. That position usually avoids a lot of ref rear ends, but for some reason, these refs decided that they were going to camp out right in front of me almost every time. So, I had to bend and lean around them to get what shots I was able to get.

For the second game, I took a new-used lens I found at KEH.com, the newest addition to the Olivella family - an 85mm f1.8 prime lens that blew me away after using it. I picked up the lens for studio/portrait use but it is now going to replace the 35-70mm f2.8 on the D3 for near basket shots. It focuses instantly and the crispness of the images is astounding. I set it at f2.5 with the ISO at 1600 and I was able to goose the shutter speed to 1/500th second.

Then there was swimming. FSU had two meets over the past couple of weeks and knowing that there would be plenty of opportunities to get images of various swimmers needed for the Media Guide, I had the luxury of being able to concentrate on shooting the divers. Taking photos of the divers is a blast for me as FSU's Morcom Aquatic Center is outdoors (light is good) and there is a set of platforms ranging as high as a 10 meters. When the diving competition uses only the springboards, I can climb all the way to the top of the 10 meter platform and shoot down at the divers. To me, that generates some neat images and I go up there every chance I get.

For variety's sake, I used various platforms below the top platform to get different vantage points. For most of the shots, I used my D300 and the 18-200 f3.5-5.6 so I could zoom in and out as needed. ISO was 200, Manual Exposure set to f5.6 and shutter speeds that varied from 1/500th to 1/800th second. Oh, yeah...I also got some shots of the swimmers.

Last but not least, I had two significant events in terms of publishings. I was flattered to be a second-time Guest Blogger on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider Blog. Those of you who follow my Blog may have seen a couple of posts I created dealing with my recommendations as to Sports Photography equipment. For Scott's Blog, I combined the two into one Blog and it ran last week. The second event was the cover of Unconquered Magazine, the latest issue having been released yesterday. This is the fourth cover I have managed to score (out of 7 since it's a new publication) and as always, it's flattering to see one of my photos gracing the cover.

No Rest For The Weary - Tonight is opening night for both the Men's and Women's Basketball Teams with the women tipping off at 6:00 pm and the Men to follow as soon as the ladies finish. Tomorrow night FSU plays Clemson at 8:00 pm (football) and Sunday FSU's soccer team should be playing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament (if they win their game at 4:30 pm today). I am passing on today's soccer game as it will be all I can do to shoot the two basketball games tonight.

Facebook - Facebook allows me to quickly and easily post large photo galleries for viewing, so if you would like to see more images from any of the events depicted above, please visit my Facebook page (Mike Olivella) and if need be, send me a "Friend" request to access the galleries.

Dodged a Huge Bullet Saturday, Had Fun Friday Night

2010-10-19T15:54:00.002-04:00

Whew! FSU dodged a huge bullet Saturday afternoon on the heels of a very emotional win down in Miami last weekend. The offense was sluggish all day, FSU's QB was having one of those days where timing was nowhere to be found, but the defense bucked up and held BC to nothing but field goals. That keeps FSU in the hunt for a BCS bowl as it heads into a bye week with a 6-1 record and preparations for a Thursday night game against NC State the following week.

I had a decent game photo-wise this past weekend, managing to catch a couple of FSU TD's on "swing over at the last minute, fire away and pray the focus locked in" kind of shots (above) after setting up behind or near the end zone in anticipation of runs up the middle. Gotta hand it to the ol' D300 with the 80-200mm, it managed to make up for my inability to predict what was going to happen and zeroed in on FSU players as they dove into the end zone. It helped that I was able to use my 1.4X TC on the setup (it was a noon game, so shooting at f4 was not an issue this game) so I could get tighter on the shots.

A highlight of the game was meeting Amie Beasley and shooting most of the game next to her as we chatted about all things photography. I thought I was pretty passionate about sports photography but it was really neat to see the passion oozing out of Amie. For many photographers, shooting a game involves going through the motions, same old, same old, just another day. It was a treat to see how much she was enjoying going about her work.

Since it was a noon game, I used my 200-400mm f4 on the D3 and as I mentiond above, the 80-200mm f2.8 w/a 1.4X TC on the D300. Settings were Manual exposure, ISO200, f4 with shutter speeds from 1/1000th to 1/1250th second, although I would dial the shutter speeed dowm, sometimes as slow as 1/400th, for shots into the crowd, etc. During pre-game activities, I used the 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 on the D300, which gave me a great focal range for a variety of photos including the shot of the team taking the field (lead photo- shot from the stands behind the end zone) and of Osceola planting the spear at midfield (below).

Oh, did I mention that I managed not to forget anything this game? That's two games in a row! Maybe I have finally gotten rid of those demons and can just shoot games for a while. Here are a couple of more photos from the game, and if you would like to see more, I have posted a gallery of some 40 images on my Facebook page (Mike Olivella).

JAM WITH COACH HAM - Friday night, FSU opened basketball practice with the annual Jam With Coach Ham festivities at Tully Gym on FSU's campus. Tully is where the FSU Volleyball team plays its home matches and it's always a struggle to shoot there because of the lighting. But, this year's event was a lot of fun with te players putting on a show. They "danced" (I'm using the term loosely) with the Golden Girls to Michael Jackson's "Thriller", there was a scrimmage, a three point contest and a dunk contest.

I've mentioned the challenges of shooting at Tully Gym before when posting volleyball photos. I was at ISO 1600 using nothing but f 2.8 lenses and pretty much avoided shooting anything meaningful with the D300 to minimize the amount of noise in my photos. On the D3, I used my 15mm f2.8 fisheye for a few shots of the cheerleaders and Golden Girls, and the 35-70mm for the action shots (sitting or standing directly next to the basket support). Shutter speed was pushed as much as I could, mostly at 1/320th second, which was barely fast enough.

As with the football game, I have created and posted a gallery of images from the basketball event on my Facebook page, so if you'd like to see more images, you know where to go.

Beatdown in Miami

2010-10-13T17:51:00.000-04:00

If you had told me before I headed down to Miami this weekend that FSU was going to knock off Miami at Miami 45-17, I would have seriously questioned your sanity. But, there I stood at Sun Life Stadium Saturday night watching FSU fans celebrating with players, Jimbo Fisher leaving the field with his family and a bag of turf from the field, and best of all, my cousin (a UM grad) up in the stands shaking his head. Yabba Dabba Doo. Oh, and I also had one of my best games ever in terms of photos.

Sun Life Stadium was sold out for the game and there was no way not to feel the electricity as things got started. Even though I hate all things Miami, I have to hand it to the 'Canes when it comes to making an entrance onto the field - it all starts out with their goofy bird/mascot Sebastian prancing around inside the tunnel (which is made of a giant UM inflatable helmet) followed by at least 8 fire extinguishers being set off to create an incredibly dense wall of white smoke. Sebastian then leads the team onto the field. I must admit it's a pretty neat thing to see, and it makes for great photos.

I'm also jealous of photographers who shoot Miami games on a regular basis. What great lighting. Until now, I had never shot a night game at Sun Life Stadium. Game time was 8:00 pm so I assumed I would be struggling to shoot at ISO 1600 and a fast enough shutter speed to keep from getting blurred balls, hands or feet. Not a problem. The lighting was so good I was able to shoot at ISO 800, 1/500th second and f2.8, and they didn't even have the banks of lights over each end zone turned on. I would bet that with those puppies on, one could drop the ISO to 640 and still shoot at 1/500th second. Sigh.

The sidelines were very crowded as one might expect and it was an ESPN game so there were the usual ESPN camera guys, dish holders and cable guys taking up space and blocking the view so I had to make do. There's nothing more annoying than finding a good spot with a clear view and then having one of the ESPN cameramen or dish holders walk up and plant themselves right in your line of sight. Just part of the challenge, so for the most part, I stayed close to the goal lines on either side of the field and they didn't interfere too much from those spots. A lot of photographers simply set up behind one of the goal lines and let the game come to them, but I'm too obsessive compulsive and I can't stand the thought of being too far away to get a good shot.

I finally made it to a game without forgetting anything. If you've been following my Blog, you know that until this game, I had managed to forget something important for each of the previous games, but not this time. Since I knew it was going to be a night game, I brought the rolling case with the 400mm f2.8, the 80-200mm f2.8, and the usual assortment of smaller lenses. I used the 400mm on the D3 and the 80-200mm on the D300 virtually all night, except that for pre-game and post-game shots I used the 35-70mm f2.8 on the D3. There were a couple of pre-game and post game shots where the 17-35mm f2.8 would have been a better choice on the D3 but I never pulled it out of the case.

When FSU got to or inside the Miami 5 yard line, I made a bee line for the end zone and set up directly facing the center. I figured from there, I would be able to cover either sideline with the 80-200mm and if there was a run up the middle, I'd get some good, tight shots of the running backs breaking through into the end zone. The plan worked out very well and I managed to get most of FSU's TD's with decent images.

I did not dare go into the stands for artsy shots of the stadium/field as I was wearing my garnet "FSU Sports Information" T-shirt. I intentionally wore it so the field staff would not keep me from going out to midfield for warm ups, the coin toss, etc. once they knew I was an official team photographer instead of a media photographer. But, by identifying myself as an FSU person, going into the stands was out of the question. I saw more fights in the stands than I could count, and there was no way I was going into the abyss with thousands of dollars in photo gear.

One of the best photos (in my humble opinion) that I was lucky enough to get was not a great action shot or a great art shot - it was a photo of Coach Jimbo Fisher and QB Christian Ponder just after Fisher finished his on-field interview with ESPN after the game. As Ponder was moving in to be interviewed, Fisher and Ponder suddenly hugged in an amazing display of affection and respect for each other. This was Fisher's first big game as FSU's coach, and on the heels of replacing a legend like Bobby Bowden, the pressure Fisher has been under to succeed has been very intense. It only made it that much better that Saturday was Fisher's 45th birthday. Happy Birthday, Jimbo. It was quite a treat to be a part of your birthday celebration.

If you'd like to see more photos from the game, I have posted two galleries on my Facebook page (Mike Olivella).

I Thought They Were Lost Forever

2010-09-30T13:55:00.002-04:00

Many years ago, we moved from Brevard County back to Tallahassee. In the process of moving, the moving company "lost" a few boxes, including the ones in which I had packed all of my negatives and prints - all the photos I had taken from 1972 until we moved in the mid-1990's. For me, it was a loss that I knew could never be replaced. Then, last night I was going through some bookcases and stumbled across an old scrapbook. The scrapbook contained a few black & white prints I had made, an Ilford 11X14 photo paper envelope with a few test prints, and a yellowed newspaper clipping with a photo I had entered in a photo contest in 1975 which won first prize (above). Oh, the memories. Images that had long since faded from my memory were right in front of me. What a treat.

For the most part, I can't begin to remember any technical information about these images - they could have been taken with any number of different cameras and lenses, from Pentax to Mamiya to Nikon to Olympus. I owned different gear made by all of these companies between 1972 and 1995. For many of these images, I can't even tell you if they were taken with 35mm cameras or a medium format Mamiya I had for a while. Many of the images don't ring any bells as to where they were taken. I'm just thrilled to have a few examples of my very early dabblings in photography.

Included in the stuff I found was one of the first sports photos I ever took as a staff photographer for the FSU student newspaper. I remember making it a point to attend the track meet at which I took the photo because Harvey Glance, a world class sprinter from Auburn University, was going to be featured in a highly publicized showdown with an FSU sprinter (can't remember his name) who was also a world class sprinter. The image was taken with a Nikon F, no clue as to the lens, at ASA 1600 (what we used to call ISO in the day). What we did back then was shoot Kodak Tri-X film, rated at ASA 400, and we "pushed" it to ASA 1600. In other words, we would shoot it at ASA 1600 and then adjust the film development (basically the development time and the developer used) to compensate for the "pushed" ASA. Any prints made from this process were very, very grainy - noise, for those of you who have never shot film. We would develop the film immediately after an event, print a contact sheet from the negatives, use a red grease pen to circle the negative(s) to be printed, and made 5X7 prints which were turned in for publication. The image below is a scanned version of the 5X7 print I made in 1974 or so of the big showdown at the FSU track.

As a photographer for the student paper, I also had to shoot lots of non-sports events. For example, when Seals & Crofts performed at FSU's Homecoming Pow Wow in 1974 or 1975 (can't remember), I was there with my girlfriend (now my spousal unit) partaking in the concert and thoroughly enjoying my backstage credentials. Again, the images were taken with a Nikon F body, probably using my 50mm f1.4 lens, and Tri-X film pushed to ASA 1600.

Naturally, I would love to be able to get my hands on the negatives and scan them instead of 5X7 or even 8X10 prints - the quality is sorely lacking - but on the other hand, I feel like I just found a bunch of long lost relatives. Beggars can't be choosers, and as of yesterday, I never thought I'd see any of this stuff again, so I'll take what I have and be glad for it.

Here are a couple more images. I will be posting all of what I found on my Facebook page in a photo gallery.

Finally Back From The Trip From Hell

2010-09-29T17:59:00.001-04:00

Business travel. It's supposed to be soooooo glamorous, but that's just what some folks think, as in the ones who don't do it all the time. I'll trade all that supposed "glamor" for my family room, my wife, my daughter, my dog, my recliner, my fridge and my TV any day of the week. I had to fly to/from Cincinnati Sunday/Monday and it started off bad and went downhill from there. Late departure from Tallahassee due to bad weather in Atlanta; mechanical issues with the connecting flight so I sat at the Atlanta airport for an eternity; arrived at my hotel long after all restaurants in the area had closed so no dinner; unable to make my Delta return flight Monday because I was unable to finish what I needed to so in time to make the flight; re-booked on a later USAir (USAir is the pits but no other choice) flight, the last one that would allow me to connect and get home at midnight; that flight was then announced to be delayed such that I was not going to make the connection home in Charlotte; found an earlier flight to Charlotte that was also delayed but which would get me to Charlotte in time to make my connection to Tallahassee; went to that gate to take my chances on standby; made it onto the flight and got to Charlotte but the Tallahassee connection was then delayed; got home at 2:00 am. Glamour, glamour, glamour. So, I haven't had a chance to post on the Blog until now, even though I had football and more swimming photos to share. But, enough of my boo-hooing; here goes.

FSU took on Wake Forest Saturday at Doak Campbell and this game I made it a point to make sure I didn't forget anything. I mean, I went through my rolling case and the extra lens cases several times as I did not want a repeat of the last couple of games, forgetting critical items like a card reader and the power cord for my laptop. I even left for the stadium at 1:00 pm for a 3:30 pm game start, a bit earlier than usual, just so I wouldn't feel rushed this time.

Everything was going according to plan: I set up my laptop in the photo work room; got the wireless up and running so I could upload photos after the game; had plenty of time to head up to the press box to partake of a hot meal; and shot the pre-game from a vantage point I had decided on prior to leaving for the stadium. That's when we heard that bad weather was headed our way and it would probably arrive before the end of the game. Rain? No problem. I had packed my trusty rain gear and the covers for my lenses/camera bodies so I didn't sweat it. The game started, FSU was in control and I managed to find a few acorns in terms of usable photos. Halftime came and it was off to the photo work room to download cards.

As halftime was about to end, we were told that there was lightning in the area and that the game would be delayed at least a half hour. Time to break out the rain gear and get the camera bodies/lenses covered up with the covers, right? Oops. I use two different rain covers, one made by Think Tank for the big lenses and one made by AquaTech for the 80-200mm. In order to use them, you need to remove the camera body eyepieces and replace them with the Think Tank/Aqua Tech eye pieces - they provide the seal to keep the water out while allowing you to see through the eyepieces. I ... forgot ... to ... pack ... them. At least this wasn't the same as forgetting the card reader or laptop power cord - I had some plastic garbage bags and rubber bands in my rolling case. They may not look pretty, but they keep the gear dry, so slits in the garbage bags were cut to create an opening for the lens glass, the bags were secured with the rubber bands and eventually the gear was covered and usable.

Naturally, having gone to the trouble of covering everything and putting my rain gear into my Think Tank 80-200 lens pouch so I would have it handy when it started to rain, that was a virtual guarantee that it would not rain. If I hadn't had the gear covered or if I hadn't taken the rain gear with me onto the field, it would have poured cats and dogs. I shot the second half and it did not rain. The rain started to come down as soon as we headed off the field to upload photos, for which we were grateful. Shooting in the rain is no fun.

Because of the mid-afternoon game time, I knew that shooting this game would involve ISO settings that would begin at 200 and eventually end up at 1600. I also knew that I would not be able to use the 200-400mm f4 lens after halftime unless I wanted to shoot at ISO 3200. So, I used the 200-400mm f4 lens on the D300 in the first half with the 80-200mm f2.8 and the 1.4X TC on the D3. At halftime, I switched out and put the 400mm f2.8 on the D3 and the 80-200mm f2.8 (sans TC) on the D300. ISO was gradually increased as light started to fade. White Balance was set to Auto and I used manual exposures throughout the game, keeping the shutter speed as fast as possible until it dropped to 1/500th, then goosing the ISO bit by bit.

For pre-game shots, I used the D3 with the 200-400mm f4 and the D300 with what is becoming a favorite lens in good light - the 18-200mm f3.5-5.6. The lens is so versatile I am using it more and more, especially when I know I won't need a lens that has lightning quick focus. For pre-game stuff like the coaches' handshake, pageantry shots, etc., the focal range of this bad boy gives me the equivalent of 3 lenses - my 17-35mm, my 35-70mm and my 80-200mm. Instead of spending half my time swapping out lenses, I can just shoot. When we finally get around to night games, I'll have to go back to the lens swapping system, but for day games, you can't beat the convenience of one lens that will do the work of three.

Since this post is longer than I expected, I'll post the swimming and diving photos that I took Friday in a separate post. Here are a few more shots from the game. I have posted a much larger gallery on my Facebook page (Mike Olivella).

Football and Swimming

2010-09-22T09:19:00.002-04:00

You'd think after the issues I had after FSU's first home football game a couple of weeks ago I would have done the Santa thing this time around - making a list and checking it twice - before leaving for the stadium. Since it was a 3:30 pm game this past Saturday, I didn't feel rushed packing up for the game that morning. I had all morning to get everything together.

Card reader - check. 400mm and 200-400mm lenses (towards the end of the game, I figured light would be an issue and I didn't want to have to use the 200-400mm f4 in waning light) - check, check. 300mm to loan to a friend - check (except I completely forgot that he needed the lens this coming week for Wake Forest, not for BYU...duh). 8GB cards - check. On and on, I went through the gear and my mental list, finished up and headed for Doak Campbell early enough to set up my laptop and grab a bite to eat in the press box before the game.

This year I am uploading 10-20 photos immediately after the game to FSU for posting on the athletics website. These photos are also immediately transmitted to Replay Photos for sale. It's a different routine for me as up until now, unless I was shooting for a wire service, I was free to go home right after a game and clean up photos/burn a disc within 2-3 days of the game. Having to process and upload from the stadium is usually not a big deal, but it is when you're not used to the routine and the requisite packing.

So I arrive at the stadium, pull out my laptop, the Huey color monitor corrector, my wireless mouse, the network cable....hey, where's the power cord for the laptop???? Oops, it's at home. Rats! With the laptop's battery at 1/3 charge, this was not good. Two for two. Two games, forgot something important. To make a long story short, I only managed to get 9 photos processed before the battery died. I couldn't use anyone else's power cord because none of them had the correct male plug (leave it to Sony to always go with a unique cord plug). So, I hauled tush to get home ASAP, finished processing and uploaded from my desktop. Photos didn't get downloaded from the FTP site until Monday, though, a two day delay.

Despite the brain fart, I otherwise had a pretty good game, much better than the first game two weeks ago. For some reason, it always takes me a game to really get into a rhythm and get comfortable with anticipating plays, players and action. I also decided to try something new - shooting from the roof on top of the press box to get a whole new perspective in my images. After giving that a whirl for some pre-game stuff and a short portion of the first quarter, I returned at halftime for some band shots and for a a bit of the third quarter. This definitely has possibilities. I am going to do it again at some point later in the year as I like the different perspective.

My thought process was that after so many years, shooting scenes like the players taking the field look virtually the same time and time again because....they are the same. Going up top gave me a totally new look to the scene, which is something I strive to do. So, looking for something different in your images? Change your vantage point and see what you get.

Now for swimming. FSU had its first meet, an intrasquad deal, Friday. Media guide images were needed of the new athletes, so I was given a list which identified which swimmers were needed, which heats they were in and their lane assignments. Off I went to do what I could, but since it was not an official meet, the pool was set up for the swimmers to swim width wise across the pool in 25M distances as opposed to the usual 50M lanes when they configure the lanes lengthwise.

Ever tried shooting a world class swimmer doing the freestyle in a 50M event, swimming short 25M distances at a time? They make take one or two breaths, which is the only time their faces even come close to breaking the surface of the water. Then you also have to hope they turn their faces your way to breathe or else all you get is the back of their heads. All you can do is cross fingers that you are in position for what might be one or too glimpses of their faces and that you're lucky enough to focus on the right spot.

Then there's backstroke - their faces barely break the surface of the water AND there's so much water and limbs flying around the autofocus struggles to lock on the faces. The butterfly stroke is much easier to shoot, and the easiest is the breaststroke. Fortunately, if at first you don't succeed, keep shooting and by the end of an event, hopefully one good image of each individual will result.

After bumbling my way through the various assignments, I had a chance to play around and decided to shoot a few of the divers, even though they were only practicing. I always love to climb up on the 10M platform and take a few shots of the divers. On this particular day, they were practicing on the 3M springboard so they were still jumping up towards my vantage point. Kind of like the football game, shooting from above gave me a chance to capture a different perspective than I normally get shooting from the ground.

I realize that some of you may not have the option of shooting from a 10M platform due to the limitations of a given facility, but if your venue has a 3M springboard (which they typically have at most pools which host diving competitions), you can certainly duplicate the perspective by shooting from the 3M springboard during the 1M springboard competition.

More photos from the game and the meet on Facebook (Mike Olivella). They will also be up soon on the BaselineShots Photography Facebook page.

Don't Leave Home Without It....

2010-09-15T09:13:00.001-04:00

I always follow the American Express commercial's warning and never leave home without my AMEX card when I travel. I wish I could say the same for a camera but from now on I will do my best to transfer the advice. This past week I was in L.A. on business and I just returned from Denver/Colorado Springs. I did not take a camera on either trip, much to my dismay when several opportunities to grab some very special images came and went with nothing but my Blackberry phone camera in tow. I didn't even bother to take the shots in L.A., knowing that the poor little Blackberry produces marginal images at best. In Colorado Springs/Denver, I figured something was better than nothing, so I took a couple of shots of a sunflower field right outside my hotel at the Denver airport (above) and a few shots while at Garden of the Gods park in Colorado Springs. I could kick myself for letting these opportunities go to waste, knowing what I could have gotten had I thrown something, even my Nikon Coolpix 8700, in my suitcase.

Never again. From now on, I'm making space for the Coolpix when I don't have room for anything else, but I'm not going to pass up these kinds of opportunities again. Word to the wise, folks - often, when you least expect to find a great photo op, it will suddenly and unexpectedly appear. Don't be like me and kick yourself for letting these moments go by unprepared.

Gotta Walk A Mile In Another's Shoes....

2010-09-11T23:39:00.000-04:00

Wow. The female offspring unit's high school team was playing its first home game Friday night and I thought, "Hey, I'll shoot the game and give the school a disc for the yearbook!" Wow. Shooting high school football with it's lighting is a gazillion times more challenging than shooting in an NCAA stadium.

I only used one camera body (D3) with my 400mm f2.8 lens. At game time, I was shooting at ISO 400 but light quickly began to fade. In no time, I was at ISO 1600 and even that wasn't enough to get a decent shutter speed. I tried ISO 2500 but had to push it t o ISO 3200. I set the D3 to Manual Exposure, took a few test shots at 1/500th, 1/400th and 1/320th second shutter speeds. I settled on 1/400th and kept it there the rest of the game.

This was no walk in the park. Noise and color balance issues are inherent to ahooting at ISO 3200. Uneven field lighting is an exposure nightmare. As if trying to be in position and focused isn't enough to worry about. Anyway, here are a few more shots, and if you want to see more, they're in my Facebook gallery.

FSU took a tough loss at Oklahoma today, but hopefully the team will bounce back next Saturday at home against BYU.

The Torch Has Been Passed

2010-09-07T08:22:00.003-04:00

FSU clobbered Samford 59-6 on Saturday in what could have been a miserable noon game but turned out to be just a hot, humid day. Fortunately, FSU was on top of it's game Saturday. Unfortunately, I was not.

I had been given a heads up that Coach Fisher and the team would be arriving at 10:00 am outside Gate 3 and Coach Fisher would be interviewed for ESPN Gameday at 10:10 am. I arrived at the stadium at 9:30 am, grabbed my D300 with my 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 and my SB900 plus my D3 with my 80-200 f2.8.

I intended to primarily use the D300 - light was good so the aperture limitations weren't an issue and the 18-200mm gave me great flexibility in terms of focal lengths; plus, I was ready for any lighting issues with the SB900. So, the bus arrives and I start firing away - Coach Fisher and his son getting off the bus; Christian Ponder getting off the bus; Ponder walking into the stadium; and the coup de gras, Coach Fisher and his family inside the Seminole locker room. This was Seminole history, Coach Jimbo Fisher's debut in what could be the start of a new football dynasty. I was sure I had nailed those shots, just never had time to preview any.

Afterwards, I headed down to the Photo Work Room to download the card, get my laptop set up and grab something to eat before pre-game warmups. I get the laptop going, grab a card reader and pop open the back of my D300 and .... no card. In my hurry to pack for the game, I checked the D3 and the D300 for battery levels but did not make sure there were cards in the bodies. The D3 was OK, but the D300's 8GB card that I normally use was still sitting in my desktop computer's card reader from when I downloaded the soccer images last Sunday.

So, no photos. Not one. What a horrendous mistake on my part. Thankfully, other photographers were on hand to record the events so there will be images of what took place. The Fishers also posed for me just before Coach headed into the locker room for the final pre-game pep talk, so at least I have that shot. Moral of the story - don't pack for an important event just before leaving the house. Pack the night before and check even the most insignificant of things (like cards in the camera bodies) before you zip up the case.

A far as the game photos, I used the D3 with the 200-400mm f4 and the D300 with the 80-200mm f2.8 almost exclusively during the game. I used Auto Exposure and set the ISO to 200. Pre-game I had the same set up on the D3 and used the 18-200mm on the D300. I carried the 35-70mm f2.8 and the 17-35mm f2.8 in my belt pouches but they never saw the light of day. Lens choices will be different during night games, but this 18-200mm is rapidly becoming a favorite even for sports.

To view more game photos, please visit my Facebook pages (Mike Olivella or BaselineShots Photography) where I have posted a 56-image gallery.

Keepin' Up With Facebook

2010-09-03T08:38:00.000-04:00

Friday Morning Ramblings - As I mentioned in prior posts, I have created two Facebook pages to give me an easier platform to post photos. The first page is my personal page (Mike Olivella) on which I have been posting a "Photo of the Day" every day. These images are not limited to sports and it's been interesting to read some of the comments left by "friends" who may not have known that sports isn't the only thing I shoot. On the personal page, I have also been posting photo galleries which gives me a chance to post a greater number of photos than that which I can post on this Blog (you can only post so many photos here before I think it starts to get a little tedious scrolling and scrolling and scrolling...). I've also been a busy boy and went through all the photos from the 2009-2010 FSU football season, basketball season, etc. and have created photo galleries highlighting the seasons. I am currently working on the FSU women's basketball season and then will probably do one for baseball, followed by one for non-revenue sports as one gallery. If you so desire, send me a friend request and I will confirm it so you can see what I'm up to.

The second Facebook page is "BaselineShots Photography", on which I have been posting nothing but photo galleries. There is some overlap between the two pages, but the BaselineShots Photography page is a way for folks to view the galleries without the logistics of friending people, etc. Since I am a newbie to Facebook, I do not believe you need to do anything except search for BaselineShots Photography and go to the page in order to view the galleries - no friending necessary. I'm told there is a "Like" feature, and if you "Like" the page, as a Facebook member you receive some kind of notification when I post a new gallery.

Football Season Begins - Yep, football is finally here. My contract with FSU has changed a bit and as a part of the new deal I must upload 20 photos to an FSU site within an hour after a game so FSU can create and post a photo gallery. This gallery is also picked up by Replay Photos so the photos are instantly put up for sale. While uploading for FSU, I will also upload the images to Southcreek Global Media for distribution by that wire service. Fingers crossed that through Southcreek, I can finally get an image into Sports Illustrated. With FSU QB Christian Ponder in the Heisman hunt, a boy can dream, can't he?

Thanks To All Who Have E-mailed Me News Of Your Successes - Every now and then, I receive e-mails from some who read my Blog on Scott Kelby's site on breaking into sports photography and persevered to the point where many of you are out there doing what you love to do. I thoroughly enjoy knowing that you took the bull by the horns, refused to let the idiots dictate what you can do and can't do, and are out there shooting sports at venues throughout the U.S. Muchas gracias, amigos.

That's it for today. Keep those cards and letters coming. Football pics will be up in the near future.

New Seasons Have Started

2010-08-30T22:11:00.000-04:00

With the start of a new school year, sports are in full swing at Florida State. On Saturday, I shot the FSU-FIU volleyball match and on Sunday I shot the FSU-Stetson soccer match. For me, the so-called minor sports are great to shoot for various reasons. For one, I just love shooting sports, especially after a summer of sports withdrawl. More importantly, shooting any sport gives me a chance to improve my skills - the more you shoot, the better you invariably get.

Volleyball is a challenge because of the venue. FSU plays its matches in Tully Gym, the very place where FSU played its home basketball games when I was a student athlete in the early to mid seventies. The facility is a campus landmark and the lighting is horrible for photography - the light fixtures have some kind of yellow tinted incandescent bulbs in use and when all is said and done, the best I have been able to do is shoot at 1/320th of a second, f2.8 and ISO 1600.

This match, I tried changing the White Balance from Auto to several of the various presets made available on my camera bodies. The results were worse than leaving the camera bodies in Auto WB so I went with the Auto setting. I don't shoot volleyball that often so I have never made an effort to fine tune the presets with a gray card or any of the bazillion white balance toys one can buy to do so. I simply resign myself to the fact that my images are going to be color challenged and then do the best I can to correct the color in Photoshop.

I refuse to open the RAW images and correct the White Balance (which next to having the correct WB set is the best way to do so) because I (typically) don't have the time or the luxury of opening 300 images in Photoshop as I go through the images to select the ones I am going to clean up. I also made it impossible to open RAW images after this shoot because like an idiot, I adjusted the ISO without wearing my reading glasses and accidentally changed the Image Quality setting from RAW to TIFF. So, I had no RAW images to adjust even if I had wanted to go through the exercise. So, I settled for images that are very warm and/or have a cyan tinge to them. You do the best you can and live with what you get.

Since this was my first volleyball match of the season, I varied the locations that I used to shot from as well as lenses. I started with the D300 and an 80-200mm along with the D3 and a 35-70mm. My plan was to go through a few different lens/body combinations during the initial games and then settle in along a sideline with the D3 and the 80-200 for some tight shots of the net play from a low/side vantage point.

After a few shots from the side with the initial combos, I switched the D3 to my 15mm fisheye and wandered around taking various images. I then switched to the 17-35mm and eventually brought out the 300mm f2.8, shooting from directly behind the court as high up in the bleachers as I could get. By the time I felt like I had gotten enough of these images, the match was over and FSU had its home opener in the bag.

I was not going to shoot soccer this weekend but gave in to the urge to head over to FSU's soccer stadium when I went outside at noon on Sunday and it was 89 degrees with lots of cloud cover. Light was good, but no direct sunlight which meant no heat and no shadows on the players' faces. I couldn't have asked for a better chance to give the long lenses a good run through before next Saturday's football game so I went.

Since it was a 2:00 pm game start, I knew light would hold throughout the game so the 200-400mm f4 was the long lens of choice. Also, I went to the game to have some fun so I did not load up with gear. I took my D3 with the 80-200mm f2.8 and the D300 with the 200-400mm f4. My Think Tank belt had but one pouch, and I used it to keep my car keys, cell phone, extra battery and a lens brush. No camera bag, no rolling case, just 2 camera bodies and 2 lenses.

I set both camera bodies to Manual Exposure after taking a few test shots and decided on ISO200 on the D300 and the D3. I set the D3 to a 1/2000th second shutter speed and the D300 at 1/1250th second, opened the lenses to max aperture, and occasionally adjusted the shutter speeds if light changed dramatically.

Since FSU dominated the match (6-0), I stayed on the FSU side of the field the whole match shooting mostly from a sideline but occasionally drifting behind the goal line every now and then. I believe you get the best shots when your team is playing offense and they're coming towards you, assuming that the goal is to catch the ball and a face (or faces) in view.

I wasn't lucky enough to get any clean goals but several plays which led to scores. Right place, sideline ref moved in front on one; Wrong place, got the back of the player as she headed the ball on another; and so on. But overall, I enjoyed the match and the chance to shoot some good soccer.

Facebook Stuff - Aside from the personal Facebook page I created a couple of weeks ago (Mike Olivella, not to be confused with the other Mike Olivella who is my son), I have now created a second one for BaselineShots - BaselineShots Photography. I created a page for BaselineShots so I could post a greater quantity of photos than I can post on this Blog in a slide show format. So if you would like to see additional images from any of the things I write about, I'll be posting them there.

Coming Soon - FSU opens the football season Saturday at noon. Fingers crossed - no rain.

2010 Seminiolle Uprising

2010-08-28T10:27:00.002-04:00

Football season is now a week away and FSU got things going Thursday night with the annual Seminole Uprising pep rally. This year, it was held at Doak Campbell Stadium and the festivities kicked off with a fireworks burst over the large scoreboard at the opposite end of the stadium (below).

Given the nature of the event, what I look for are certain Kodak moments that document the pageantry of college sports. Armed with my D3/35-70mm f2.8 combo and my D300/80-200mm f2.8, I primarily used the D3 for most shots. The event started at 7:00 pm, so light was somewhat of an issue but at ISO400, Aperture Priority and lenses at f2.8, there was enough light so as to allow me to shoot without a strobe.

I missed a couple of shots because the shutter speed was too slow and some of those images were soft (either I moved or my subjects moved), but I will gladly sacrifice a few shots in order to avoid lugging the strobe around in 95 degree heat and almost 100% humidity.

I set up many of the shots by asking groups or individuals to do this or that. For example, in the shot above, I asked the Cheer Squads and the Golden Girls to pose for me in a "V" and then asked Head Coach Jimbo Fisher and his family to join the group in the center. Apologies for the stupid watermark on these photos, but since I'm also posting them on Facebook, I am compelled to include a watermark on them so the photos are less likely to be downloaded and used by less than scrupulous folks who have no regard for things like respecting the ownership of things.

I probably shouldn't say anything but I was a little ticked off that every time I would set up a shot, other photographers would come running over and duplicate my shot even though they did not have the foresight to create the image. It's one thing to be standing in the same place and see a shot develop right in front of you, but it's irritating to envision an image, create it and then have others take advantage of one's diligence and work effort. In the end, there's nothing you can do about it except taking comfort from the fact that you created images that they didn't have the energy or vision to do so.

One of the best shots I got was actually taken after the event was over and I was headed for the car. I parked outside the stadium, and as I walked out, I saw the Unconquered statue. This is a landmark that is frequently photographed and with light starting to fade, I saw it as an opportunity to capture an image I had thought about trying to catch but never got around to it - the statue as a silhouette. Exposing for the sky, the image you see above is what turned out, which was exactly what I hoped to get.

Here are a few more random images from the event.

To view all of the images that I will be turning in to Unconquered Magazine, visit my Facebook page (Mike Olivella) or the new Facebook page that I created for BaselineShots Photography. Feel free to send me a friend request or click "Like" on the BaselineShots Photography page if you use Facebook to view the slide show from this shoot as well as other slide shows I have been posting.

Coming Up - I'm shooting volleyball today at noon, so I'll finally get a chance to shoot some sports after a long summer of sports-less shooting. Images will be up in the near future. Football season kicks off next Saturday at noon (ugh! - noon) and there's a lot of antsi-ness as the season gets ready to start. Expectations for FSU are high and the team has a Heisman Trophy hopeful at QB which opens up new possibilities for images making their way to national media. I'll be uploading photos to Southcreek Global Media's wire service after games, so fingers crossed that I finally manage to get something in SI this year.

Sometimes You Gotta Wonder...

2010-08-23T21:28:00.000-04:00

Sunday, I drove all the way to FSU intending to shoot an FSU soccer game between FSU and Gonzaga, which was not reflected on the schedule as an away match. Arrival at the stadium was my first clue there was no home match - it was empty. Duh. Then my office's telephone and internet service were down all day today and at 5:30 pm, everything was restored and a slew of e-mails appeared. Why?

On the bright side, on Saturday morning, the spousal unit convinced me to visit Mission San Luis de Appalachee, a nearby historical site which was recently completed. Not planning on doing any serious shooting, I brought my D300 and the 18-200mm f4.5-5.6, plus my SB900 just in case.

I would like to go back again (when it's not 97 degrees and 95% humidity) and spend more time with a wider variety of equipment because the site deserves much more attention to detail than that which I was prepared to devote this time out. Here are some examples of what I was able to get.

Definitely more to follow....

Cool! Another Cover....

2010-08-17T09:30:00.002-04:00

On the heels of scoring the Unonquered Magazine cover this week, I just realized that another of my photos was selected for a cover - the Yellow Pages phone book published by AT&T. This is a shot taken during one of FSU's games last season as the team came out of the tunnel and onto the field. FSU used it in the new Football Media Guide but it's pretty cool seing on the front of the phone book.

Football Season is Coming - Spent some time cleaning lenses and sensors on the equipment last night. Getting everything ready for football, which opens Labor Day weekend with a noontime start on Saturday. Oh yeah, 95 degrees and 95% humidity with field temps certain to hit 100 or more. Can't wait.

Facebook - Starting to work my way around the Facebook site and learning how to do stuff there. If you would like to keep up with my stuff on a more informal basis, send me a friend request.

Unconquered Cover Fall 2010

2010-08-16T11:29:00.000-04:00

The new issue of Unconquered Magazine is out and subscribers will be receiving their mailed copies soon. I have been fortunate to score the cover shot for the third time, which is always a nice feather in the ol' cap.

I'm Now on Facebook! - Finally got around to creating a Facebook page after resisting the urge to do so all this time. I created it as "Mike Olivella" - not to be confused with my son, the other Mike Olivella, so if you are a Facebook user and want to be "Friends", send me a friend request so we can stay connected.

Along Came A Spider, Part Deux

2010-08-10T22:46:00.000-04:00

What were the chances? We're done with dinner, we visited some friends that live in a cabin below us and it's nightime. I'm locking up the shed so I can scratch that off the list of things to do tomorrow morning before heading for home, I'm ready to go inside and I see this huge spider building a web across the entire span of our gravel driveway - that's 15 feet or so - using trees on opposite sides of the driveway. Sizewise, the body of this spider was half the size of my thumb; total "leg" span was at least 3 inches. I ran inside, grabbed the same gear I used for the shots posted this afternoon (including the ladder), and added a flashlight to the mix.

Technical Stuff - I remembered to drop the ISO down from ISO 400 to ISO 100 and used Manual Exposure. I compromised a bit to make sure I had enough light by opening the lens up to f14; shutter speed was 1/125. I turned the D300's built-in flash "on" in the camera's Commander Mode settings, again to make sure I had enough light. Remember, I'm shooting in the dark and the strobes have to hit the spider. I'm hand-holding the SB900 off camera with my left hand, which also has the flashlight. I use the flashlight to light up the spider well enough to allow the camera's auto-focus to lock in. Meanwhile, I'm looking through the viewfinder of the camera body, which I'm holding with my right hand. So, basically I'm pointing the SB900 "blind".

The spider was also moving as it was building the web. Fortunately, every now and then, it would stop to take a break that would sometimes last several minutes. That's when I fired.

In hindsight, I wish I hadn't opened the lens so much. The image would have been better if every part of the spider was in sharp focus. Would-a, could-a, should-a.

Along Came A Spider...

2010-08-10T19:21:00.004-04:00

With school getting ready to start this time of year, we always head up to the cabin in North Georgia for one last hurrah - some kayaking, whitewater rafting and fly fishing for me, trips to nearby waterfalls for the spousal unit, and shopping for the female offspring unit. I came very close to leaving my camera gear at home this trip but threw some stuff in my Think Tank Airport Antidote at the last minute just in case. I really wanted to get away from photography for a bit with football season just around the corner but I just didn't feel right coming up here "naked".

So, I'm wandering around the cabin this morning looking for mud daubers to swat, spray and kill. Mud daubers and I do this dance every year where they try to build their mud dauber nests in nooks and crannies on the rock walls of the cabin. They lay their eggs in mud tubes they fabricate and produce more mud daubers, which I hate because they can quickly become a swarm, buzzing around and scaring the crap out of friends, guests and kids who mistake them for aggressive wasps. They are not aggressive despite the fact that they can sting and seem content to live and let live, but when there's fifty of them buzzing around it can be intimidating. My dance with them includes a badminton racket and a can of wasp spray - I smack 'em with the racket which knocks them down and then spray them. Last trip up I must have killed 50 or 60. This time around, there weren't anywhere near as many and as of right now, we seem to be mud dauber free.

While waiting for unsuspecting daubers to dare to fly under our deck, I saw a small brown spider working furiously on building its egg sack (lead photo) and watched it for a bit before going inside to grab my D300, my 105mm f2.8 macro lens and my SB900 strobe. I used the D300 instead of the D3 because I did not bring my SU800 Commander unit and I wanted to use the strobe off camera. The D300 has a commander mode built in so it became the body of choice. I grabbed a step ladder and climbed up to spider level, fired off a few shots of the spider building its egg sack when out of nowhere, some kind of large flying wasp-like thing (not a mud dauber) flew straight into the spider's web and was immediately attacked by the spider. In a matter of seconds, the spider covered it with silk and then went in for the kill, all in front of me as I thankfully remembered I had a camera in my hands. Click, click and voila, the image you see above. Nothing to write home about but still a cool way of memorializing nature being nature right in front of my eyes.

Technical Stuff - I set the camera to Aperture Priority and cranked the f stop to the greatest depth of field I could get, which is something like f45 on this lens. Shutter speed was 1/250th, ISO was 400 (I forgot to dial it down to 200 - duh). I held the strobe in my left hand and positioned it below the spider pointing up, using the diffuser to soften the light. The underside of the deck served as a bounce source.

Studio Shoot #2

2010-08-05T22:43:00.001-04:00

My second victim in the studio was none other than my beautiful female offspring unit. She had her Senior Class portrait taken last week and she curled her normally straight hair. I had previously asked her if she would like to pose for some portraits sometime so I could experiment with some lighting. She thought that particular evening was perfect as she wanted some photos of her with her hair in curls.

A dad can't possibly have more fun, having his baby girl get all gussied up. posing for a memorable 3-hour shoot. I experimented with a three light setup for the first, third and fourth photo posted: JTL160 Strobe @ 1/4 power with 12" X 30" as a hairlight hung above and just behind the head; JTL160 Strobe @ 1/4 power as a background light; Photogenic 1500 Strobe @ 1/4 power with a 2' X 3' softbox positioned at a 60 degree angle to the right of her face; 40" X 60" white foam core reflector @ 90 degree angle on left; and a 30" X 40" white foam core reflector near her lap reflecting upward.

For the other two images, I used my Bowens Prolite 120 @ 1/4 power with a beauty dish positioned above, just behind me and a couple of feet to my right. I also used the two reflectors that I used for the other setup in the same positions for these shots.

I used my D3 with my 105mm f2.8 Macro lens; ISO 100; my Minolta flash meter gave me readings of 1/250th second @ f4.5. I adjusted the strobes in terms of strength to get the depth of field somewhat limited and to achieve the fastest shutter speed possible. The background I was using needs some ironing and I wanted to blur it as much as possible.

A couple of the images still need a little tweaking, but they will make for some nice prints. She liked her shots and is even using one on her Facebook page. She had fun, I had fun and we had a great time sharing this time together.

Cover Shot

2010-07-28T17:06:00.001-04:00

I paid a visit to my contact at Unconquered Magazine to drop off some images from a photo shoot I did yesterday for them and got some unexpected but great news - the image I took of Coach Jimbo Fisher and his family on the balcony overlooking Doak Campbell Stadium (below) has been selected as the cover shot for the new issue of the magazine.

The new issue will be out in the next couple of weeks, and this will be my third cover, which is very cool. From what I've been told, the other photos taken during the shoot (http://baselineshots.blogspot.com/2010/07/200-posts-and-stiil-going.html) will be used inside the magazine, as part of the story being run about Coach Fisher.

Photowalk Follow Up - Just a reminder to those who went on the Photowalk with me to upload the images you wish to enter in the contest as soon as you can. The deadline is approaching and I want to make sure that anyone who wants to enter the contest does so. Go to Scott Kelby's Blog or use the links I've posted on previous Blogs here to enter.

New Studio Business Card

2010-07-28T10:59:00.002-04:00

With the advent of the new look to the Blog, I'm liking the look so much that I decided to create some business cards for the studio. Using the same background photo that I used for the Blog, I used CS4 to layer in the typical kind of information that I wanted to disseminate about the studio using Fonts that created the look I wanted. Feel free to weigh in on what you think.

Portraits of a Maestra

2010-07-26T15:44:00.004-04:00

I had my first photo shoot at the studio Friday morning when I had the pleasure of photographing the new conductor/Music Director of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Miriam Burns. Ms. Burns was selected after the organization's exhaustive two-year international search. She is also the Music Director/Conductor of the Orchestra of the Redeemer in New York City and was formerly Music Director of the Lawton Philharmonic (OK), from 2000-2005. During the summers, she is the Conductor of the C.W. Post Music Festival in Long Island. Previously active on operatic stages as well, Ms. Burns was Associate Music Director of the Bronx Opera Company -- conducting opening night performances -- for nine years.

Increasingly in demand as a guest conductor throughout the United States and abroad, Ms. Burns' international debut occurred with the Bournemouth Symphony in 1999, in three concerts throughout the south of England. Her debut in Germany in 2003 involved conducting at the Stadthalle in Wuppertal, the First Ladies Symphony Orchestra of Poland, and in September 2006, Ms. Burns will conduct two performances with the YinQi Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.

For this shoot, I used four strobes and two reflectors. As you can see in the image above, I set up a posing stool approximately three feet in front of a gray, mottled background and positioned the key light at a 45 degree angle to the right of the frame. The key light consisted of one of my Photogenic 1250 strobes with a 2' X 3' softbox set at 1/4 power. Directly above and slightly back I positioned my Photogenic 1000 strobe on a boom stand and attached my 1' X 3' softbox which I picked up for use as a hairlight. This light was angled down and slightly forward to drape the top of Ms. Burns' head and her shoulders with highlights. The other two lights were my two JTL160 strobes which I used as background lights. For a few of the photos, I used blue gels and then green gels on these lights just to see what the images would look like.

The small table/vase/flowers were put to use during the last portion of the shoot just to add a feminine touch to the images. It's strictly up to Ms. Burns as to whether she prefers the images with or without the flowers. It's also up to her as to whether she prefers the music score layer I added to the lead photo over just the mottled backdrop, but I wanted to experiment with adding the layer to see how it looked.

In the image depicting the set up, you can see the two reflectors I used to soften the shadows on Ms. Burns' face. One reflector was a 40" X 60" white foam core board held in place by a stand designed to support reflectors. This reflector was placed on the opposite side of the softbox so it would reflect light on the right side of Ms. Burns' face. The other reflector was a 2' X 3' foam core board mounted placed almost directly under Ms. Burns' face, angled upward to soften the shadows under her face.

All images were shot at ISO 100 with my D3 set to Manual Exposure, f8 and 1/250th second shutter speed. I used my 105mm f2.8 Macro lens for all images. All of my equipment functioned exactly the way I had hoped, and to that extent, the shoot was a success for me. I finally got a chance to actually use all the stuff I acquired, and after a couple of months of painting, moving stuff in and setting everything up, it was very rewarding to actually use the equipment and have it perform as I had hoped. Now I just have to wait to see what Ms. Burns thinks of the images....

2010 Worldwide Photowalk Tallahassee

2010-07-25T17:15:00.008-04:00

The Tallahassee version of Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk is in the books after a 2 1/2 hour trek around downtown Tallahassee yesterday morning. Thirteen hearty souls met up with me at Andrew's Capital Grill & Bar at 10:00 am and we were off to various sites and places around the Capitol City.

We first headed towards Park Avenue where we found the Downtown Market in full swing. The market is comprised of numerous stands where locals sell fruits, veggies, crafts and art. Entertainment is provided by various musicians and due to the eclectic nature of the Market, the area is ripe for Kodak moments. I especially found the various kids roaming around of photographic interest as they hovered near a cool fountain or were absorbed by toys and trinkets that caught their attention while members of the group dispersed to capture their own photographic compositions.

From the Market we headed west on Park and made our way to the Old City Cemetery where old gravestones abound. The group spread out and we spent approximately 1/2 hour taking in the graves that date back to the 1800's. One of my favorite parts of the cemetery is the section dedicated to a handful of Civil War tombstones that identify Confederate soldier graves. I'm not a fan of the Confederacy by any stretch of the imagination, but history is history and I can't help but get drawn in by the significance of these markers - men/boys who died in battle for a cause that made their loss of life such a waste. Whether anyone agrees or chooses to disagree, no doubt the deaths of these individuals caused much heartbreak and sorrow for the respective families and so I headed over for a few photos.

From the cemetery, we strolled over to Kleman Plaza which is on the way to the Capitol Building. Kleman offers some interesting architectural photo ops and also has a number of fountains and sculptures which can be photographed from various angles and perspectives. One of the sculptures in Kleman Plaza made a good backdrop for a photo of the group (lead photo), so we paused so I could take a quick photo before we made our way across the street to the Capitol.

While the group assembled on the steps of the back side of the Capitol, I ran across the street for a photo I've been wanting to take for a long time but have never gotten around to it. Our Supreme Court building underwent a major face lift and I brought along my 15mm fisheye just for this shot.

After getting my shot, it was time to work the dolphin fountain and other architectural features of the New Capitol building. I spent most of my time on the dolphins and the water cascades while the group explored the area and experimented with different ideas.

For me, the icing on the cake was our last stop, the Vietnam War memorial across the street from the Capitol Complex. The Memorial consists of two large marble columns between which hangs a huge American flag. I have photographed this site from different angles, but today I was after something completely different and I was very pleased with the results. By standing in just the right spot while holding the camera just so, one of the marble columns created a mirror image of the Capitol across the street. I shot the images both from a wide angle perspective (below) and then by zooming in on just the Old Capitol dome (second photo below).

I chose to convert the image above to Black & White but the color version is just as pleasing to me.

So, another July and another Photowalk is done. If anyone from my group finds their way to this Blog, thanks for coming and I hope you enjoyed the experience. Don't forget to enter your contest photos here. Also, the Flickr! group I created can be found here, where anyone from the group can post their photos for everyone to see and provide comments.

Playing Around With Water

2010-07-23T06:00:00.003-04:00

Summer is my off season in terms of sports photography. In a way, it's kind of a blessing in disguise although I do miss roaming the sidelines or running around the basketball court trying to get shots. The off season does give me a chance to experiment with some things that I normally wouldn't have time to try out and last night was a good example.

For some time now I've wanted to try to shoot some images of a water droplet landing in a pool of water while playing around with different colored gels to alter the color of the images. I'm posting the results of my playtime above and below. I'll now describe how I went about doing it.

I started with a large mixing bowl (and thanks go to the spousal unit for letting me borrow her favorite mixing bowl with the promise that I wouldn't break it) which has a white surface inside. I also tried a clear glass bowl, but I found that the one with the white interior surface reflected light better without any hot spots. I filled the bowl half full of water and placed it on a table directly under a celing fan which has a pull chain that hangs down. I then half filled a 1 quart ziplog bag, tied some string to a corner and tied the other end of the string to the pull chain of the ceiling fan. With the water bag suspended 3 1/2 feet or so above the bowl, I used a pin to prick a tiny hole in the bottom corner of the bag and the water began to drip, drip, drip into the bowl at a very steady rate.

I then set up a 16" X 20" piece of white foam core directly behind the bowl to serve as a reflector for a strobe. I braced the foam core with a few books so it was positioned directly against the back of the bowl. I mounted my SB900 strobe on a tripod using an attachment that has a shoe mount and positioned the strobe so it was approximately 2 feet from the foam core and about a foot and a half above the top lip of the bowl. The strobe was pointed directly at the foam core.

On a second tripod, I mounted my D3 with the SU-800 Commander unit, powered everything up and set the SU-800 to trigger the SB900 remotely after setting the SB900 to remote mode. Now came the tricky part - making sure the water drops would be in focus. I attached my 105mm macro f2.8 lens to the camera and positioned the tripod to the right of the strobe with the tip of the lens hood approximately a foot from the surface of the water, pointed at a 45 degree downward angle. With some minor adjustments to the tripod ball head, I was able to get the water drops positioned in the frame. Setiing the camera to Manual Focus, I grabbed a pencil and moved it around on the surface of the water until the water drops were landing right on the point of the pencil lead and focused on the pencil lead. The rest was easy. With the water drops dropping at a steady cadence, I fired the shutter when I expected the drops to hit the surface of the water. It's somewhat hit or miss, but after some 75 shots, I got plenty of shots like the ones I've posted.

The only difference between the various photos was the use of different colored gels and some minor adjustments to the SU-800 in terms of strobe power. With the lighter gels, less power created the right exposures; the darker colored gels needed a small boost in power. I used Manual Exposure and settled on a shutter speed of 1/125 and f11. These settings were determined after some test shots and after I settled on these settings, the only adjustments made were to the strobe power.

Blog Look - I'm still tweaking the new template for the Blog. I have changed the banner twice now after suggestions by mtpeke and pol. This is the latest change in the banner. Let me know what you think....

Banana Spider Part II

2010-07-22T08:53:00.006-04:00

As I had hoped, Mr. Spider was still in his web when I got home from work Tuesday afternoon and the web was nice and dry after the dew had evaporated. As you may recall, Tuesday morning I stumbled across this bad boy (or girl) as I walked out my front door to head into work. I ran back inside the house, grabbed some equipment and got a few shots of the spider but the dew was so heavy that it concealed a lot of the spider's body. Determined to get a better/different image, I set up and took a few macro shots of it, one of which is posted above. Because the spider was now in the shade, the exposure was one second at f11 with the ISO at 100. The spider was very cooperative in remaining motionless for the slow exposures but he/she just wouldn't smile....

New Look To The Blog - I did a little tweaking to the Blog in terms of appearance with a new template I found on the Blogger dashboard. It's a lot busier so I'm not sure it's a keeper. If you have any thoughts, fire away.

Worldwide Photowalk Saturday - More folks are signing up as Saturday draws near. For those of you who are planning on taking part, Scott Kelby has posted tips and suggestions for participants on his blog (http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2010/archives/11352). There are some 28,000 people signed up worldwide so far which means this year's shindig

will be bigger than last year's record setting event.

A Little Nature

2010-07-20T09:33:00.002-04:00

I walked out my front door this morning and was greeted by heat and 95% humidity. The humidity in Tallahassee is so thick it grabs you by the throat and slaps you in the face, leaving no doubt you're in Northwest Florida and its summer. A I stumbled to my car I noticed a large spider web with one of my favorite anachrids - a huge banana spider had spun its web on some shrubs, perfectly positioned so the sun made the morning dew's water droplets shine like the chrome on my '47 Ford.

Work could wait. I ran inside, grabbed my D3, my 105mm f2.8 macro and a tripod and 15 minutes later I had my shot. I used Auto Exposure and settled on a 20 second exposure at f11 and the ISO at 100. No flash. Hopefully, when I get home from work this afternoon Mr. Spider will be waiting for me so I can get a shot without the water on the web. I'm hoping to get tighter and not have the water between the lens and the spider so I can get more detail of the spider's underside.

Worldwide Photowalk is Saturday- Don't forget about Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk this coming Saturday. My group will be leaving Andrew's Capitol Grill & Bar in downtown Tallahassee at 10:00 am. We've had a lot more folks sign up this year compared to last, and I'm looking forward to leading the walk. Looks like we're going to dodge any rain, but it is going to be hot so be prepared.

200 Posts And Still Going....

2010-07-12T17:38:00.003-04:00

I can't believe this is the 200th post since I started this Blog. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I decided to create the Blog. It's sort of fitting that I get a chance to reach this minor milestone by posting some images I took today - portraits of new head football coach Jimbo Fisher and his family.

I did a photo shoot of the Fisher family today at the FSU football offices for the cover of Unconquered Magazine. The next issue is set to be published and all that is needed is a cover photo and this shoot was set as one cover photo concept. We shot in different locations, including outside Coach Fisher's office overlooking the football field. My favorite location was the one depicted in the lead photo above, though.

For this particular shot, I used two umbrellas mounted on two light stands and I used my SB800 and SB900 strobes as remotes (one on each stand) triggered by my D300 camera body set to Commander Mode. I turned off the internal camera flash and positioned the two umbrellas/strobes on each side of the family at approximately 45 degrees to each side. I had the light to my left elevated higher than the one on the right by a couple of feet. I used the 28-200mm lens in Aperture Priority for a test shot and then tweaked the shutter speeds and f stops as I felt necessary.

For the shots taken outside, I grabbed the umbrella/stand with the SB900 and used it as a fill light. The portability of this equipment was the key to the shoot as I was able to move the stands/umbrellas easily from spot to spot without any power issues (finding outlets, lugging extension cords around, etc.). I didn't have very much time for any of the shots as when you're dealing with little guys like Coach Fisher's sons you have to work fast. Much more beyond 10 minutes and you're pushing the envelope in terms of keeping the little guys' interest. It's even worse when you have to shoot outside in 95 degree heat and 95% humidity, as we had to do for the outdoor shots.

I did the entire shoot in 45 minutes and got 67 total images. Talk about working fast. I have submitted 6 to the magazine, one of each pose at each location. Now I just wait to see if one gets picked for the cover.

Waterfalls of the Cullasaja Gorge

2010-07-07T21:46:00.003-04:00

For the July 4 holiday, we drove up to the cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia for a family get together that included two of the spousal unit's brothers and their families. I forced myself to put the cameras away for some fireworks viewing, whitewater rafting, sporting clays shooting, and some pontoon boat/jet ski action earlier in the week. Today we took a road trip to the Cullasaja Gorge just west of Highlands, North Carolina to show them some of the waterfalls in the area and I couldn't resist bringing some camera gear along. The rugged gorge is home to three major waterfalls and dozens of smaller cascades, but the main reason we picked this area is because the falls/cascades are easily viewed from the main road. One of my sisters-in-law is scheduled for some knee surgery after returning home to Florida and she has to get around with crutches for the time being, so any hiking to see waterfalls was out of the question. Fortunately, she was able to take in some pretty spectacular water shows despite the limitations. It also gave me a chance to take the 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 on the excursion and put it through yet another test of its versatility.

The lead photo is the second of the three major falls we visited - Dry Falls. It isn't the tallest falls of the three with an 80-foot drop, but it's the most interesting. My sister-in-law was able to see it from an observation deck located in the parking area right off the road. The rest of us were able to use the short, 200 yard trail that not only leads down to the base of the falls, but goes underneath the overhanging cliff that serves as the top of the falls. The trail then exits on the opposite side of the falls so you can literally walk under the falls and out the other side to get a view from both sides - and get soaked in the process by the mist.

The king of the three falls is Cullasaja Falls (above), a 250-foot majestic monster that plunges down a rugged cliff into a foreboding, mist laden gorge. Since it is mid-summer, the amount of water flowing through the gorge is not the same as during the spring rainy season, but Cullasaja Falls is still an impressive sight.

Last but not least was Bridal Veil Falls, pictured above. Though not as large or impressive as the other falls, Bridal Veil is one of the nation's best known cascades. The reason for this is obvious once you visit it - the waterfall is located just off the main road and the old portion of the road is still intact, allowing one to drive behind/under the falls. This is a most unusual driving experience, and with the falls being so accessible, it is one of the most photographed features in this part of the Appalachian mountains.

Technical Stuff - My D300 with my 18-200mm was the only equipment I brought along on the trip to the falls, along with an inexpensive Sunpack tripod I keep at the cabin. ISO was set at 100 and the lens was set at the smallest possible aperture to give me the slowest shutter speed I could get. I used Manual Exposure after taking a couple of test shots at each waterfall in the Auto exposure setting. After memorizing the Auto exposure settings, I would check the image on the screen and then flip to Manual and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. Depending on the focal length, f stops varied slightly but always at the max. Shutter speeds ranged from 2.5 seconds to 1/4th second.

I then took a series of shots at varying shutter speeds/f stops so I could possibly try creating some HDR images at some point in the future, if I can ever find the time to do it. I still have a boatload of images from Yosemite that I took last summer with the same idea, but they're still sitting on a portable hard drive untouched.

Salzburg Finale

2010-07-06T13:28:00.003-04:00

Long overdue, I'm finally getting around to posting some of the photos from our last day in Salzburg. Both the lead photo above and the one to the left were taken from the Fortress which is located on a massive rock outcropping that overlooks the city. There are several vantage points that provide great views of the city below, including an observation point perched on top. The Fortress is one of the many can't-miss sites when visiting the city, from both a historical and aesthetic standpoint. Unfortunately, most of our visit to Salzburg was marred by a constant drizzle and I can only imagine what the panoramic views from the many vantage points would have looked like on a clear, sunny day. Still, you get an idea of just how picturesque this city is in spite of the weather. I hope to return someday and give it another go.

If you haven't guessed by now, the spousal unit loves to visit cathedrals and churches, which is fine by me as I get to walk around and experiment with different angles and photo compositions as I make my way around these structures. No matter how many churches or cathedrals we visit, you never really know what kinds of images you can come up with unless you shoot, experiment, and play around with different perspectives. The workmanship details are amazing and I always try to take images from as many different perspectives and with as many focal lengths as I can dream up.

I find it almost as interesting to see the looks on others' faces as I'm crawling on the floor or pointing my camera at things which puzzles the folks with the cell phone cameras. Sometimes they'll walk up and ask me what I'm looking at or what I'm trying to do and when I show them the screen on the back of my camera, the response is typically, "Wow, I never noticed that." I get a lot of satisfaction from opening their eyes to what they might typically overlook simply because they're rushing through a site and not seeing things that may be right in front of their noses.

Like Vienna, Salzburg is a very marionette-y city. Marionettes are everywhere. I must apologize for my ignorance of the Austrian entertainment genres but it's pretty obvious that marionette shows play a large role in Austrian entertainment. Operas and musicals are performed everywhere with marionettes as the "actors" using very elaborate sets. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre was founded in 1913 by Professor Anton Aicher. Aicher was heavily influenced by Count Franz Pocci who founded the Munich Marionette Theatre in Germany in 1855. Today, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre is under the artistic direction of his granddaughter. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre performs mainly operas such as Die Fledermaus and The Magic Flute and a small number of ballets such as The Nutcracker. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre productions are aimed for adults although children are welcome. There is another marionette theatre at Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna.

The marionettes are works of art in and of themselves, a combination of woodworking and sculpting strings attached. Combined with the talent of the puppeteers who bring these inanimate objects to life, it's easy to forget that you're watching what were once lifeless pieces of wood prancing and dancing around.

Technical Stuff - All of the photos posted on this blog entry were taken with a D3 and the 18-200mm f3.5-5.6. Having had almost ten days of putting this lens through its paces, it is definitely one that will find its way into my travel bag on future trips. The D3 allows me the luxury of pushing the ISO to whatever ISO is needed to get a fast enought shutter speed to get sharp images. The VR feature makes handheld shots a snap, even down to 1/8 of a second when necessary (with some bracing or using whatever is convenient to serve as a makeshift support). The photos here were taken at various ISO settings, from ISO 400 to 1600.

With a D300, the image sizes are larger but the focal length becomes 27mm-300mm, which can be a good thing or a slight drawback, depending on what I anticipated I would be shooting on any given day (not as wide, but greater reach). When I knew I was going to be outdoors (good light), I could walk around all day long with one camera body and just this one lens and it was a great compromise. On vacation, that's a nice option - there are times when I just don't feel like getting weighed down with multiple, fast lenses.

I hope you enjoyed visiting Austria vicariously through my cameras. Now I have to put the finishing touches on the studio and get ready for football season.

The Hills Are Alive...But With The Sound Of Mozart

2010-06-20T00:11:00.011-04:00

Vienna was great, but Salzburg is every bit as interesting in a different way. No subways are necessary to get from place to place as everything is within walking distance. That's not to say we didn't do a lot of waling in Vienna, but in Salzburg we simply step outside our apartment, walk through a tunnel that cuts through a huge rock outcropping and we're in the Old City. To get to the New City, you then walk a few blocks, cross the river and you're there. The Old City has much to offer visually.

As you can see from the lead photo, churches dominate the skyline in Salzburg. A fortress atop the rock outcropping (above) is prominent as well. I read somewhere that there are over 25 Catholic churches within a fairly compact area in the city and you can't miss all the domes, spires and steeples.

Saturday was our first full day in Salzburg after Friday's train ride from Vienna which got us to Salzburg Friday evening. A little grocery shopping and dinner topped off the evening. We had hoped to take a stroll through the Old City after dinner but it was drizzling so we stayed in and rested up for Saturday.

Saturday is the busiest Market Day in Salzburg and as soon as we made it to the Old City we came across a huge group of open air stands with all kinds of meats, cheese, bread, vegetables, fruits and flowers sold by vendors in a square. It didn't take much to succumb to the temptation of savoring the fresh fruit and tempting delicacies all around us.

There are something like 25 Catholic churches in the city. The largest and most impressive is the Dome, as the call it, which is the Salzburg Cathedral (above and left), but all of the churches are impressive in their own right with lavish, elaborate interiors. It would be easy to spend several hours in each one taking photos of the detailed interiors, ceilings and art pieces, ranging from frescoes to sculptures. Near the Cathedral is St. Peter's in which there happened to be a wedding as we went inside (above right). Later, while walking around the city, the bride and groom passed us by in a horse drawn carriage (below). A memorable wedding indeed.

I had a chance to spend some time in St. Peter's Saturday night after we attended a thoroughly enjoyable Mozart piano concert at the church. I probably shot 75 photos inside of 30 minutes and could have taken twice that many if I had had more time. The ceiling fresco was beautiful as were the statues and altar fixtures, some of which are depicted below.

Church cemeteries were not to be outdone by the churches themselves. But for the graves, you would think they were beautiful gardens and the combination of the two made for some interesting images.

Squares were around every corner as were shops. Mozart Square was one of my favorites with a bronze sculpture of Salzburg's most famous resident located in its middle (above). As its signature resident, Mozart has spawned all manner of commercialism, from Mozart chocolate to, yes, Mozart cologne. Brittany Spears and Michael Jordan have nothing on this guy. It's not all Mozart, though, when it comes to souvenirs. Trinkets and all manner of items are hawked in shops and on the street. Ornate beer steins (below) are common as are Marionettes which are sold everywhere. These string figures are very popular in Austria and gobs of kids could be seen playing with them. Marionettes are also used in performances that pack people in, from operas to plays.

If you are a choc-a-holic like me, you'll think you're in heaven when visiting Austria. Austrians take great pride in their chocolate and look down their noses at Swiss chocolate. Just ask any Austrian how their chocolate rates in comparison to the Swiss version and see the reaction. If you're a shop-a-holic, every conceivable kind of shopping is possible, from the upper crust of name brands to the more touristy offerings like traditional Austrian garments which can be found on dolls or for wearing if the Fraulein look is your cup of tea (for a mere 199 Euro, which right now translates to right at $250.00). I wish I had been able to find a clothing store outside the Old City just to compare prices for these outfits in a store that caters to locals instead of tourists. Of course, that presupposes that local women actually buy these kind of outfits, something about which I have some doubt.

Technical Stuff - Almost all of the photos in this post were taken with my D3 and my 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 at many different focal lengths depending on the circumstances. The only exception are the ones inside St. Peter's after the piano concert which were taken with the D3 and the 50mm f1.4. Because of the constantly changing light, I started off with Auto exposure but upon checking the images as I shot them, if the exposure was off, I switched to Manual and made whatever exposure changes were necessary, usually by adjusting the ISO which ranged from 400 to 1600. Shutter speeds were as slow as 1/15th of a second and with the VR feature on the 18-200mm, I had no problem hand holding the camera and shooting at this shutter speed.

This morning, we're attending mass at the Cathedral in the morning and then we're heading to the Fortress. More to come.

So Long, Vienna...Hello Salzburg

2010-06-19T02:37:00.008-04:00

Our last full day in Vienna happened to coincide with my birthday and we packed a lot in. We all wanted to see the zoo located at the Schoenbrunn Palace grounds so we made a beeline in the morning to take advantage of an overcast day with no rain. The zoo was well worth every minute we could spend there as the animals were housed in ultra photo friendly settings and the variety of animals was humongous. But for wanting to visit a couple of other sites before leaving for Salzburg, I could have spent the entire day there but alas there was more to do around the city which meant that we had to pick and choose among the many animals we could see and limit the amount of time we spent at each setting.

Simians are my favorites but at most zoos that I have visited, it is borderline impossible to photograph them in such a way that looks natural. This zoo was an exception and had just about everything one could want for photographing them, both in terms of the variety of simians and the way they were kept.

We found various species of penguins, including the Humbolt variety (also known as the Peruvian - shown above and below) who don't need to be kept in typical refrigerated environments. It was special to see and shoot them as reportedly there are less than 10,000 of the little critters in the wild. Aside from the Emperor Penguin, my favorite is the Macaroni Penguins which perpetually look like they are having bad hair days (right) but like most penguin species they need very cold surroundings. That means zoos that have them (and Emperor penguins) keep them in huge aquarium-like enclosures and that doesn't lend itself to good photos. Having a chance to watch penguins swimming and frolicking around without having to look through glass (the Humbolt penguins) was neat and I came back to this exhibit several times for more photos.

We saw lions and tigers and bears, mongoose and beavers and giraffes, elephants and lynx and all kinds of fowl. Rather than bore you with more commentary, here are a few photos that I especially liked, all taken with a D3 and my 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 at various ISO's and a variety of shutter speeds (Manual exposure, depending on the light). FYI, I took well over 300 photos that I did not delete, and I was shooting single exposures instead of having the D3 set on Continuous, so at the risk of overdoing this post with photos, here they are.

After the zoo we had to go to the train station to buy our tickets to Salzburg and headed over to a nearby museum for a last peek at some things the ladies wanted to see before dinner. We stopped at the Imperial Treasury, a museum located in the royal family's city palace. Among the many historical items displayed there that boggle the mind -Charlemagne's sword (and a couple of other items belonging to him - shown below), the ceremonial mantle worn by every single emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at their coronation (shown below Charlemagne's sword), Napoleon's son's ceremonial crib (above, left), and the piece de resistance - the nail which was used on Jesus Christ's right hand on the cross. Just the thought of being within arm's reach of these things leaves me shaking my head.

After the museum we walked to the shopping district for dinner and to stroll through the area one last time. On our walk to the subway station, we passed by the Opera House and noticed another performance was underway. This one was written by Strauss and sitting outside on lawn chairs and blankets were 100 or so people watching the performance on a huge jumbotron.

As I post this, we have arrived in Salzburg and have spent our first day tromping around. I have not had a chance to download the cards from my camera but we spent a very Mozart day. Everything is Mozart here - Mozart T-shirts, chocolate, hats, pencils, yadda yadda. He's bigger than Elvis and The Beatles combined. It's funny - most Americans associate Salzburg with The Von Trapp family and The Sound of Music but the locals pretend like the Sound of Music was never filmed or performed on Broadway (except the savvy ones who conduct "Sound of Music" tours). Mozart rules.

More to come.

Raindrops Kept Falling On My Head...

2010-06-17T15:26:00.004-04:00

Tannhauser. I must admit, I've never been a big fan of opera, but I appreciate talent when I see it. It was opening night for this Wagner piece last night and it was spectacular. The Opera House in Vienna is beyond description. The cast was first rate, the orchestra was amazing and the fat lady (and the fat guy) sang like I've never heard in person before. Photos were verboten and I didn't want to embarrass my wife by getting tossed out for taking some so I waited until the curtain call and took one shot with the D3 and the 50mm f1.4 (above). That was the compromise I negotiated with myself and she appreciated it.

Nothing is apparently sacred when it comes to tourists in Vienna, not even toilets. Just before the stairs that lead up to the street at the Opera House subway stop is the Opera Toilet. As the sign says, "Mit Music". One must pay just shy of a US dollar for the privilege of answering nature's call surrounded by a reasonable facsimile of the Opera House and being regaled by operatic recordings. I couldn't bring myself to get suckered into shelling out the buck; the female offspring unit just had to see it for herself so they got my buck.

It rained all day but there was still lots that we were able to do and see. First thing on the agenda were two museums, the Natural History and the Art Museums. Both were incredible. The Natural History Museum had the largest collection of minerals, gems and fossils I have ever seen. Room after room after room of things that were found in archaeological digs were overwhelming, supplemented by stuffed specimens of practically every animal species known to man. If you combine the Smithsonian's version of this museum with that of New York City's museum, you might equal what is housed in this one building. One of the key pieces is a "Venus" sculpture, all of 4"-5" tall (shown above) which is some 25,000 years old and is supposed to be the oldest discovered "sculpture" representing the Goddess of fertility. It took me several tries to get a decent exposure as the room was almost pitch black and I didn't have a tripod with me. That's where the 50mm f1.4 earns its keep. ISO 1600, f1.4 and a hope/prayer that I could hand hold the D3 still for a 1/15th second exposure.

The Art Museum was every bit as impressive as the Louvre and then some. Granted, there's no Mona Lisa, but what it lacked in Mona or Venus de Milo it more than made up for it with a splendid building and an amazing quantity of other works. When you first enter, you are treated to an immense collection of Egyptian, Roman and Greek sculptures. The Museum's art gallery was developed from the art collections of the House of Hapsburg and is one of the largest and most important of its kind in the world. The foundations of the collection were laid and its main emphasis set in the 17th century: 16th-century Venetian painting (Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto), 17th-century Flemish painting (Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Anthony Van Dyck), Early Netherlandish painting (Jan van Eyck, Roger van der Weyden) and German Renaissance painting (Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach). Among the other highlights in the Picture Gallery are its holdings of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which are unique worldwide, as well as masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Raphael, Caravaggio, Velázquez and Italian Baroque painters. We're not talking one or two; we're talking rooms with nothing but Rapahels, Titians, Van Dycks and Rubens.

As with many things in Europe, maintenance and restoration is the order of every day. In the case of the Art Museum, pieces are being restored, cleaned or otherwise maintained and as we were walking through, one sculpture (below) was getting the "treatment" - a detailed, high pressure steam cleaning (kind of like a pressure wash but without as much juice). It was cool to watch the individual work on the sculpture and she was only too willing to explain what she was doing and how she was doing it.

All photos were taken with the D3 and the 50mm f1.4. Exposures varied wildly depending upon light. More often than not, I had to go from Auto to Manual and overexpose to get the right exposures. Poor little meter, it tried but it seems a little overexposure got it right. More to come as we've just returned from a morning/early afternoon at the zoo (it's my birthday and I love taking photos of animals). We're off in a minute for a trek to another museum and the train station to buy our tickets to Salzburg.

Mozart Has Left The Building

2010-06-16T14:04:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was our first full day without travel, and we took advantage of what was supposed to be a rainy day but was actually a very nice morning and afternoon. We spent a good bit of time at the Schoenbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburg royal family who pretty much were all that and a bag of chips in terms of Austrian and European history. The Hapsburg's ruled for many years until Austria decided that royalty was passe'. In the early 1900's, the royals were basically booted out and no longer ran the empire, so to speak. But, their palaces still remain and this one rivals Versailles outside Paris.

The photo above is of the backside of the palace and includes just a small part of the gardens. I took it from a hilltop upon which a large memorial for some obscure Austrian battle was built. The main portion of the palace entrance is shown below.

As a "summer" palace, this is where the Austrian royal family would spend their summers hunting, escaping from the hub bub of the city. You could spend an entire day walking around the gardens and you probably wouldn't be able to see all of it. The grounds cover that much area.

Above is a view of the memorial built on top of the hill (the structure at the top of the photo). Just past the main gardens is a fountain which looks very similar to the Trevi Fountain in Rome. All but a couple of the gardens were created by the Hapsburg's for the public to enjoy. To this day, anyone is free to walk around and visit the gardens for free. Admission is only charged to visit the interior of the palace, the zoo, and the private gardens.

During World War II, this palace remained unscathed except for one bomb which crashed through a part of the main palace and went through three floors before coming to rest. It was a dud and did not detonate. Given the age of the place and the pride Austrians have for it, renovations and maintenance are non-stop. Portions of buildings were scaffolded and work was ongoing but not so as to detract from the experience. Work ranged from plaster (or whatever kind of substance was applied to create the outside of the walls) being hammered off the walls and replaced by fresh material; garden statues being cleaned, grouted and a marble mix being applied to seal cracks, etc; and trees, grass, foliage and flowers being pruned, cut and/or manicured. The workers were very friendly and seemed to enjoy explaining what they were doing.

Children were everywhere on the grounds, joggers ran through the gardens and elderly residents strolled around hand in hand. It wasn't hard to take time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak, but for some locals, even that was a bit taxing and naps were the order of the mid day.

I took the D300 with me instead of the D3 so I could finish putting the 18-200mm lens through its paces and determine what size images I was going to get without the cropping that I noticed when I used it on the D3. I had guessed that I would end up with standard size images and that the lens would essentially become a 28-300mm and I was happy to see that I guessed right. So, the lens is exactly what I had hoped to have - a good lens to take on vacations with a very useful focal distance, a compact size, and functional aperture. Throw in VR, and short of extremes, I can easily walk around on vacation with just this lens and make it work for almost anything. Every image above was shot with the 18-200mm and the D300.

As versatile as the lens is, I'm too obsessive about wanting to shoot everything and being afraid that I might not be able to do so with just one lens. But, I know now that if I toss the 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 and the 50mm f1.4 into a bag for any extremes, I can travel with virtually everything I need for travel photos. I proved this to myself while at a concert, shooting up close and personal, mid range and wide angle, all in natural light. I was thrilled with what I was able to get, from the image above to the ones below.

Handheld nighttime shooting while walking to and from our apartment also presented no problem, especially with the 50mm f1.4 at my disposal. The two photos below were taken long after dark on our way back to the apartment after the musical festivities were over.

In a pinch, for example if weight was a critical consideration or if for whatever reason I could only travel with two lenses and one camera body, I would have to go with the D3, the 18-200mm and the 50mm. But as a sports photographer, being so accustomed to trying to shoot tight, the 80-400mm would be hard to leave behind. Same goes for the D300.

As I put the finishing touches on this post, we have returned from our daytime excursion and are getting ready to leave for...the opera. Wagner. Four and a half hours' worth. Not my call, but I'm just one person and there are two ladies calling the shots. We visited a couple of museums today and I haven't had a chance to download the cards yet. If I survive Wagner, I'll take a peek tonight.

Guten Abend From Vienna

2010-06-14T19:43:00.015-04:00

That's "Good Evening" from Vienna (I used Google to translate it for me). What a long trip. We left Tallahassee at 8:30 am Sunday and drove to Atlanta for our departure at 3:25 pm. We were through security in Atlanta by 1:30 pm and at the gate without having to hurry. We arrived in Paris at 6:00 am and made our connection to Vienna, arriving here at 9:15 am. That was 3:15 am EDST. Then we had to collect our luggage and take a train to the middle of the city. After switching to the subway for the second leg of our local transportation, we got to our apartment at 11:30 am. That was 5:30 am for my brain, body and stomach. After a quick trip to the local market for the essentials (mine included cookies, German candy bars, coffee, sugar, Coke, peanut butter, jam and Pringles), a nice nap and a shower was just the ticket. At 6:30 pm, my wife and I headed out to see some of the city and grab some dinner. The female offspring unit decided to stay in bed and sleep, so we brought her some dinner back (Burger King chicken fingers and fries- her favorite).

My first impression of Vienna is mixed. on the one hand, it's very chic and cosmopolitan, at least what I've seen so far. On the other hand, in many ways, if I didn't know I was in Vienna and had my iPod ear buds firmly in place, it would be hard to tell I was in Austria as opposed to New York or Boston. It is definitely a very wealthy city. The dress is either shabby chic or just plain chic. It's hard not to giggle under one's breath to see the lengths some go to look shabby, but a far cry from Goodwill shabby. We're talking Gucci and Versace shabby. The food is out of this world. Restaurants and sidewalk cafes are everywhere and the prices are surprisingly reasonable. The people are ultra friendly and very helpful to those of us who are German impaired. Virtually everyone speaks English and many signs, especially at the airport, train and subway stations, are in both German and English.

One somewhat surprising thing I noticed was how early the city winds down. At 8:00 pm, most cafes were closed or closing, stores were shuttering up and pedestrian traffic was noticeably less. It is Monday evening, but I expected things to still be hopping well past 8:00 pm. Not everything shuts down, though, and many folks still found decadent treats to top off their evenings - and photograph what they were about to consume. A picture is still worth a thousand words, and how better to describe the scrumptious ice cream dessert you ate?

Before things wound down, there was a lot to take in just by taking a walk around the main shopping district. It was cool to see the many ways some of the locals have dreamed up to entice strollers, tourists and fellow locals into coughing up a couple of Euros. From piano playing, singing puppets to clowns and balloons to sign wearing hawkers for various cafes, I could spend several evenings taking photos that I wouldn't find in many places. There's still lots to see and we're just getting warmed up. On this particular trip, though, I promised myself (and the spousal unit) I wouldn't weigh myself down with a gaggle of camera bodies and lenses so I purposely limited what I brought along on this trip.

Everything I brought came packed in my Think Tank Airport Airport Antidote backpack. I also packed my Think Tank belt with the small hip belt-like pouch in my suitcase for miscellaneous accessories like spare battery, lens blower/brush, cell phone, etc. Three small lens pouches also came in my suitcase so I would have something to carry the stuff around as we visited the sights. My Domke vest was worn onto the planes so I would have a second option in terms of carrying stuff around if I didn't want to wear the Think Tank belt. The vest is great (when it's not too hot) to carry things I want to keep from getting pick pocketed (like passport, money, wallet) plus it's a great place to carry my Gorillapod SLR tripod, maps, snacks, water, jacket, etc.

I debated whether to bring 2 camera bodies but thought it prudent just in case something happened to one. So, the D3 and D300 came with me. Instead of going with a lot of fast, big, heavy lenses, I decided to experiment this trip and brought the following: 15mm f2.8 fisheye, 17-35mm f2.8, 35-70mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, 105mm f2.8 Macro, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6, and 80-400mm f4.5-5.6. The 18-200mm is a lens I have not had a chance to use since I bought it "used" a few weeks ago for backpacking. I must admit that I didn't do my homework when I bought it - I did not realize it was one of Nikon's DX lenses, i.e. it is not meant for full frame bodies. Duh. I thought that given the reviews it got as to exceptional performance, it would be a great lens to take along backpacking with my ultralight D50 and it would serve as a great vacation lens to compliment the 80-400mm which usually comes along on vacations.

I was so blown away by the reviews of the 18-200mm that I didn't notice the "DX" designation. When I popped it on the D3 just before we left and looked through the viewfinder, I noticed the greyed out area around the image which reminded me of what I would see when I would set my old D2X on High Speed Crop Mode.

Not knowing what to expect, I took this guy out tonight along with the 50mm f1.4 (just in cases I wanted to take a very low light photo) and forced myself to use it. FYI, every photo on this blog post was taken with the 18-200mm on the D3. The VR feature made taking iffy light photos a snap - even down to 1/8th of a second when I braced myself well. The Gorillapod never saw the light of day.

The down side is that the large JPEG images are sized at just over 6" X 9" at 300 dpi instead of the usual 9" X 14", so obviously the cropping results in smaller image sizes. In the end, it's not a big deal unless I need to severely crop something, and with Genuine Fractals, I can resize the images just fine. Tomorrow I will give it a go with the D300 and see what size images I get. I expect to essentially have a 28-300mm lens with 9" X 14", 300 dpi images, but we'll see.

Most of the images posted were shot with Auto Exposure unless the scene had huge light differences (shade/bright highlights) that threw the autometering off, at which point I switched to Manual and tried a couple of different exposures. I also switched from the fast fps setting to single shots. Despite the surprise of the lens being a DX lens, I was very pleased with the versatility that it gives me. In a pinch, I could easily bring this lens along with the 80-400mm on a vacation and I would have an incredible focal range to work with. I would never consider them as replacements to the fast lenses for sports, but for travel, I can make them work. If I want, I can add the 50mm f1.4 (which weighs nothing and is very compact) and a travel tripod to the mix and feel like there's not a whole lot I can't shoot. I'll weigh in tomorrow after I use the 18-200mm with the D300. Time for bed....