I’m not one to post reviews, and I’m certainly not going to get involved with posting all of the techie stuff.
I was able to shoot with a Nikon D800 2 weekends ago, (I had it on loan for the weekend only) and I just thought I would give some overall impressions.
I guess overall what impressed me the most was it’s ease of use. If you’ve used the Nikon D-7000 you will have no problems with this baby. Overall the layout of most of the controls are very similar. If you’re coming over from a D3, D-300, or the like, you’re going to have to get used to a few things, especially the way you control the focus settings. What I like coming over from the D7000 is that it feels like the right sized camera for me in my hands. The D7000 always felt a bit small, but this camera feels just right. Normally I would be first in line to get the battery grip, but I’m not even sure If I would buy it, if and when I actually get to own a D800.
What absolutely blows me away about this camera really is the resolution. Being someone that has shot with a Phase One IQ 140 Back, I would have to say that this comes damn close to that, at a fraction of the cost. Portrait, Commercial, and Landscape photographers are going to be in heaven with this. I haven’t had a chance to test it in the studio yet, and I’m hoping the next time I get to wrap my hands around one that I can get into the studio.
I posted some quick shots below. The first 2 images were just walking around “The Beach” here in Toronto, and I’ve posted a 100% crop after each image, taken with the Nikon 24-120 F-4.0 VR, at 100 ISO.
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1/500f/1.8 /ISO 3200 /85 mm 1.4/NIKON D800
This last image above, I grabbed by taking the Nikon 85mm 1.4, and shooting at ISO 3200. Really seriously, if you looked out the window, it was dusk, and the only light in the room was coming from the large sliding glass window, and it was that ugly blue light, which I warmed up in Lightroom. But it was dark, and I was thinking these shots are not going to come out good. I also wanted to test that lens shooting almost wide open, so here was a good OPP. The long and short of it is that I was really impressed, by the low light capability of the camera. This shot at 3200 is totally useable, and will make a fabulous blowup.
Really I have not much more to say about the Nikon D800, accept that I cannot wait to actually own one, but make sure you get the best glass that Nikon makes, because you’re going to need it.
Posted in For Photographers, Gary's Posts, Misc., Product Reviews
Tags: 24-120 F4 VR, 85mm 1.4G, D-7000, D-800, D7000, D800, Nikon, the beach, toronto
Like many of you I’ve been testing LR Beta 4, and so far I’m quite impressed. One of the coolest features is LR’s new soft proofing option. This will save you the headaches of making multiple prints, or trying to see what an image will look like when uploaded for web use. Anyway this is a very cool new feature. You can watch Julieanne Kost’s tutorial. Don’t forget I offer private Lightroom Tutoring in the Toronto area, e-mail me for further info.
Being Full Time Product Manager for Vistek in Toronto, I get to try out all of the latest equipment, and I have to say although allot of hard work, I do love my job.
On November 2nd, we hosted the Phase One 5 minute Fashion shoot out, at Pink Panther Studios in Toronto. This time I made sure to get a half hour on at least one of the sets before getting started so that we could have a good portfolio of images to share around with potential clients, and show off the great features of the IQ 180 Back . For those of you curious about the lighting, I did a classic clam shell light, consisting of an Elinchrom Octa Lite as my background (300RX), and 44 CM Mini soft Reflector, (600RX) with silver Deflector, as the Key Light, and some Lee Tough Spun as diffusion. The kicker light was a small Chimera soft box at 45 degree angle aimed up, (300RX).
Below are a few examples of the lighting setup, and a few of the finished Phase One Files.
For more info on the shoot, you can see the post on ProPhotoblog.ca
Posted in For Photographers, Portraits and Maternity, Product Reviews, Seminars
Tags: Clam Shell Lighting, Diagram, Fashion photography, gary goldberg, IQ 180, lighting, Phase One, photographer, photography, portrait, portraits, the beach, the beaches, toronto, vistek
Mark called me last week at the last minute, and needed a Corporate Headshot for his job, at Proctor and Gamble. Luckily I had some time on Sunday so I was happy to help him out. I think this final shot came out pretty good, shot with my Nikon D-7000, 50mm 1.4G lens, @ F-8. Lighting used 2 Elinchrom 500 BXRI.
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I haven’t written a review in a long time, but I thought that this was worth it.
I’d heard about Portrait Pro quite a few times, but never thought much of it. Got an e-news the other day that had a link to there website, and thought it’s a great price, maybe I’ll just buy it, and see how well it works. I really didn’t give it much thought. I have to say I was a bit skeptical because I thought personally that some of the photos on there site looked a bit to re touched and I’m not really into that look. I think re touching should be done in a way that it still looks more or less natural. In any event I bought the Portrait Professional Studio version, so I could use the Lightroom Plugin. I installed and was mightily impressed the way the software has a built in tutorial that teaches you how to use it every step of the way. It really doesn’t get much easier as far as software goes. So I grabbed a few shots to try the software with, and thought I would share the results below. The only thing I’ve not done yet, is to make a print. I would give this software 2 big thumbs up, as far as ease of use, and the amount of time it would take to do the same thing in Photoshop, the traditional ways. You really cannot go wrong at this price, on special right now for $59.95 Total time I spent on each image below was about 10 Min.
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Above is un-retouched accept for Lightroom edits.
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‘Above is re-touched with Portrait Pro
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Above is 100% crop of the image.
Left Side above is un-retouched, right side is retouched, one of the other remarkable things that I liked about the software was it’s ability to elongate the face, which made my model above have a bit longer neck, without distorting the image.
Above is 100% crop from re-touched version.
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