Blue Pixel

Last weekend I was in Lake Tahoe to teach another Popular Photography Mentor Series workshop. This one had a bit of a twist to it – we were going to teach video too. The Nikon D90 was the first DSLR to offer video, and now it’s a given that any new DSLR will have that capability. And that can be quite impressive. TV shows, commercials, music videos and movies are all being shot on DSLRs today. And I’ve been shooting video with them since the start too. But this was the first workshop I’ve taught where that was part of the schedule.
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Nikon made a big splash a while back with the announcement of a new entry-level DSLR, the D3200. The biggest news about it was that they were packing 24 million pixels (24MP) onto a DX sized-sensor. And, at $699, it would be the highest resolution camera in their current line-up, behind the D800 (which costs around $3000). And, more resolution than their current flagship, the D4 (16MP).
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One thing I love about digital photography is how our opportunities to be creative have grown. For instance, there’s a fairly new category of cameras now, called either CSC (compact system cameras) or ILC (interchangeable lens compacts). They have larger sensors than point-and-shoot cameras (meaning better image quality) and interchangeable lenses (meaning better optics). So we can get better pictures from small cameras. But there are other ways to look at them as well.
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I’ve had a D800 for about a month now, and I’ve got to say, I’m loving it. As a lifelong Nikon shooter, I expected the camera to be good. But I also figured that with such high resolution (36MP) it would be slow to shoot, not good at high ISOs, have to work on a tripod or use high shutter speeds (to avoid seeing motion blur from hand-holding the camera) and that the file sizes would kill me.
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I recently started using a different type of lens, which meant a number of good things for my photography. But first a little history…
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Recently I went to one of my nephew’s track meets to shoot some photos of him competing in pole vault. Not only did that give me a chance to get some nice photos of Jeffrey, but it let me work on some good/bad examples of different photo techniques. And that, of course, led me to write this blog post.
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Most of what I do these days is teach photography. Which means I often find myself in front of a bunch of people, doing a demo where I hope everything goes right. Occasionally, though, things go wrong, and that’s when life gets interesting.
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Last week I shot senior portraits for a friend’s daughter. As always, the three words “Subject, Light, Background” ruled what I did during the shoot. I already had my subject, so I needed to find good backgrounds and think about how I would use the light.
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I was on the road teaching a workshop last week, and part of it involved giving a little how-to on the basics of off-camera flash. The group was amazed at how easy it is. That’s true now, but it wasn’t always that way.
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I received an email from a friend who's headed to Iceland and hoping to photograph the northern lights (aka the aurora borealis). He was looking for tips on how to be successful, and after responding to him, I thought this might make for a nice blog post. Whether you're shooting northern lights, a starry sky or New Year's eve fireworks, the basics are the same.
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