DJO

This blog has moved

On to greener pastures: www.DanCanada.ca

I leave town this afternoon. I'm heading to Ontario to visit family for Christmas.

I've been in an absolute mad rush trying to edit pictures from the last wedding I shot. And it now appears that I might just not have enough time to get them all done before I leave in a few hours. Such a disappointment. I hope the bride and groom are forgiving.

Here's a sampling.

Merry Christmas!

Habitat for Mmmmmanity

Merry Christmas!

It's the time of year for charity. It's the time of year when we should put others before ourselves. And in that spirit, my Girlfriend and I worked hard to build a house.

It's true. Our hearts go out to the homeless and those less fortunate than ourselves, so we decided to spend time and effort to erect a home. Construction both began and finished last night. It was an intense evening, with lots of sweat, and just a few tears.

We looked on our completed effort with a good deal of pride. Knowing that the solid roof, hardened walls and sweetened foliage would make one gingerbread man incredibly happy It makes me feel like I truly understand the meaning of this holiday.

Merry Christmas!

exif: sketchy nokia camera phone

Blogger has been causing me lots of grief lately. Ever since they instituted this Beta nonsense, I've had serious issues trying to login. :S

I had to do some crazy work-arounds to login this time, and I'm afraid when I logout I won't be able to get back in again.

So far, blogger customer support has been silent.

Cue tumbleweed.

I don't typically shoot many flowers, largely because I don't have a macro lens. And lets be real, shooting flowers is like cheating. It's pretty hard to not make a flower shot look good.

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 28-70mm ED, 1/6000, f/3.2, ISO 200

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 28-70mm ED, 1/2000, f/3.2, ISO 200

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 28-70mm ED, 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 200

I was impressed at the number of artists in the Public Gardens today. So I stole a quick shot of one at work.

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 28-70mm ED, 1/6400, f/2.8, ISO 200

And finally, here's one from yesterday. I wasn't close enough to get a good shot, and I really only had a moment. This photo is hugely cropped (it represents about 1/4th of the original image):

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 28-70mm ED, 1/640, f/2.8, ISO 200

I gotta say, I'm consistently blown away by the performance of my D2H. The images are so incredibly impressive. That LBCAST sensor is pure magic!

So I've been quite busy doing Post work from the wedding last weekend. I'm not going to share any of the photos at this point. However, I must say I thought the wedding itself was beautiful, and that the bride looked fantastic.

I'm looking forward to the weekend so I can sit down and process just a ton of the pics. It's hard to make enough time but I think there are some really nice ones.

Okay...so maybe I'll share just one pic. Here's one of the super-cute flower girl:

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 28-70mm ED, 1/60, f/2.8, ISO 400

So on Thursday, not only did I get my new camera but I got a visit from this guy!!

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 18-70mm dx, 1/10, f/3.5, ISO 200

It's Nate! Nate's been working out in Flin Flon. (did I spell that right?)

So he and I haven't really spent any length of time together since being in Australia. It was great to catch up and to try and plot ways to convince Jeff and Jane to move back to Canada.

...and we played pool.

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 18-70mm dx, 1/50, f/4.5, ISO 1600 (photo by Nate)

exif: Nikon D2H, Nikkor 18-70mm dx, 1/50, f/3.8, ISO 800

I really like the noise characteristics of my D2H at ISO 800. But at ISO 1600 quite a bit of grain develops. It's actually a nicer looking grain than the stuff my D50 puts out, but there's quite a bit of it. It doesn't matter much to me, as I rarely shoot over 800 anyhow. Though I took my older (slower!) glass to meet up with Nate, which made for some interesting exposure settings.

I'm off to tidy my apartment and prepare myself for a wedding shoot.

(All colour correction on the pics was done in Lightroom again...its nice and quick...but I find I often miss the power of Photoshop)

IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! And it's so friggen AWESOME!

Following another Fed Ex shipment delay, my new camera has arrived!

Let me preface this by saying I love the Nikon D50 that I've been using for the last year. It's a great camera. The images out of it are fantastic and it has proved itself over and over again all around the world.

So why'd I buy a second camera? Well, when I do an event like a Wedding, I need to have a "backup" camera. If my primary camera goes down, malfunctions or just decides to simply die, I don't want to be explaining to the Bride and Groom why they have no wedding photos.

Thankfully I have a close friend who owns a D50 which I'm able to borrow. HOWEVER, the dork forgot I needed it for a wedding this Saturday and lent it to his Dad to take to Alaska. Ouch.

So I had to take action quickly. I needed to buy a new camera body. I was torn between a new D200 or a used D2H.

My final decision? A Nikon D2H.

(Not my Pic...and for the record I'm not a Ken Rockwell fan)

It's a thing of beauty! The D2H uses a JFET 4.1 Megapixel LBCAST sensor. The D2H is the only DSLR model that uses a Nikon-made sensor. And it truly is a fantastic piece of technology. The body itself is amazing to hold and use. The controls are intuitive, autofocus is blazingly fast, low-light focus is spot on, and I simply couldn't be happier.

With my old 6 Megapixel D50 I've never felt like I needed more Megapixels. Infact, I wasn't really interested in more Megapixels. For the way I shoot, it just wasn't something I was looking for. And frankly the added Hard Drive space and memory card costs seemed like something I wanted to avoid.

Having shot with my D2H for a handful of hours now, I'm honestly so incredibly pleased. I'm still learning the controls, but I feel like this camera and I are set to have a long and happy relationship. Here's some random shots off my new badboy (colour-correction done in Lightroom instead of Photoshop for a change).