Pros coming back to Nikon

Beijing 2008

Its good to see the pros switching back to Nikon. Once upon a time you would only see a sea of grey lenses at the Olympics. Look at all those beautiful black lenses.

Time Lapsed Photography

I have been meaning to have a go at doing some time lapsed photography for awhile now. Since my Nikon D200 has a built-in intervalometer it should be a piece of cake. I had a quick read of the manual and figured out how to configure the intervalometer, basically you need to tell it the interval between each shot, how many intervals you want and how many shots you want to take per interval, this is, of course, dependant on the size of your CF card. I also set the D200 to basic jpegs to maximise the number of shots.

I copied the files off the CF card onto my PC and imported them into Adobe Lightroom so that I could automatically resize them to 640x428. I then imported them into Windows Movie Maker along with some royalty free music I downloaded from the web. I then synced the music to the length of the video and when I was happy that everything was working properly. I hit the publish movie button, way too easy. Not bad for someone who has never used movie maker before until today.

I noticed that towards the end of it (movie) when it was getting darker the scenes started flashing (going dark, then light and dark again). Perhaps it was because the white balance was set to auto, I will need to do some research on what is causing this.

Overall, I am happy with what I managed to do on my first attempt. The sixty-five seconds long movie consisted of 522 discrete jpeg images which took 43 minutes to capture.

Sydney Olympic Stadium

Haven't been back here since the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. Still very impressive after all these years. I have driven passed it hundreds of times over the years always thinking wouldn't it be great to get a few shots of the Olympic Stadium.

We nearly got kicked out by security as they thought we were professional photographers. We finally managed to convinced them that we were just doing it for personal gratification rather than for profit. They did eject a film crew from China doing some documentary for the Beijing Olympics.

Sydney Olympic Stadium, Homebush, NSW, Australia

It didn't look too promising in the beginning as it was starting to drizzle and it was completely overcast. Anyway, we persevered and finally the sun broke through just before sunset.

Anyway, check-out more of my shots here >>

http://www.lozzmann.com/thumbnails.php?album=60

Infrared Photography

Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney, NSW, Australia

All Saints Anglican Church, Parramatta ,NSW, Australia

Decided to try my hand at some infrared photography. I used my old Nikon D70 with a Hoya R72 infrared filter on a tripod. Did some cross-channel processing, adjusted the levels and curves in Adobe Photoshop. There are alot of tutorials on the web on how to acheive this. I am very happy with the results that I am now seriously considering doing an IR conversion on my Nikon D70 as I don't use it for anything else.

I need to get one of this replacement IR filter from here >>

http://www.lifepixel.com/shop/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=2

It costs USD $179 just for the IR filter and then I have to do the modification myself which is quite scary. Lifepixel can do the conversion for you but it costs USD $399.00 excluding postage. The IR conversion also voids your warranty and you will longer be able to use it for normal photography.

The advantage of doing the IR conversion is that I no longer have to drag my "really" heavy tripod around for long exposure shots. I can just compose and shoot just like normal.

It a real pain in the ass having to compose the shot, screw on the Hoya R72 filter to take the shot and then you have to unscrew the filter to compose the next shot. This whole process is repeated each time you have to take a different shot.

NSW All Holden Day

We were suppose to go out and do some macro photography today but at the last minute decided to go out to Clarendon to attend the NSW All Holden Day.

Unfortunately, we were late and by the time we got there majority of the cars and visitors had started making their way home. There were alot of really nice cars, I particulary liked the old ones.

Anyway, we quickly rushed around taking shots of the cars before the carbon monoxide, from the queues of cars trying to get out of the venue, got to us.

So if you are into Holdens, go here and check-out more of my shots >> http://www.lozzmann.com/thumbnails.php?album=62.

Phottix Cleon Wireless Remote Control

I was tired of using my Nikon MC-36 as it was too large and clunky. After doing some research, for something smaller, I came across this remote trigger, the Phottix Cleon. It consists of a transmitter and a receiver.

The reciever can be mounted on the camera hot shoe which I thought was really cool. I don't use the transmitter often as the receiver also doubles as a remote trigger.

If you want to see one in action go here >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RohStRlXpFY

For a in-depth review go here >> http://www.dpnotes.com/reviews/phottixcleonn8.php

You can buy one on ebay >>

http://search.ebay.com/Phottix-Cleon-N8

I have been using this exclusively for a couple of months now and can report that I am very happy with it and will highly recommend it to anyone looking for a remote control for their dSLR.

Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 AFS

I am in a bit of a dilemma for when I upgrade to the Nikon D700 in the very near future (dependant on funds). I will need an ultra wide angle lens (UWA) to replace my Sigma 10-20mm and the Nikon 18-200mm VR or as my friends refer to it as the "lazy" lens. The problem is I can only afford to only replace one of those lenses for the time being.

Although, I generally use the Sigma 10-20mm for about 90% of my shots which is swaying me towards the 14-24mm f/2.8. The issue is if I choose the UWA option is that I will have nothing between 24mm - 50mm and between 50mm - 70mm so I keep vacillating between the 14-24mm f/2.8 and the 24-70mm f/2.8 as a replacement lens.

Having said that the D700 supports DX lenses and I could keep using my Sigma 10-20mm but that defeats the purpose of having a a full frame dSLR. Still leaning towards the 14-24mm at the moment. Looks like I will have to start saving up for it. From all reports it is the sharpest ultra wide angle lens out there.