BSU Hockey

Last night I went to my first Bemidji State hockey game since they moved into the new event center. I hadn't planned on shooting any of the game but since I hadn't done any sports with the D800 yet it was a great chance to do so. The 4 frames per second fall a little short for sports but I was still able to get some decent shots.

 Not every shot is a winner, as I was tracking this player the camera locked onto the glass along the boards.

With the option of really high ISO people tend to just crank it up and freeze the action but sometimes it's fun to slow things down a bit and get some blurred shots.

Everything was shot with a D800 with a 70-200mm and processed in Lightroom.

Shot a grouse

I shot this image in my front yard a few days ago, I was going through photos when I looked out the window to see this in the brush on the edge of the yard. I put a Nikon 200-400mm on and since I was in a hurry I needed to hand hold this beast so I bumped up the ISO to 800 to give me a shutter speed of 1/1250 of a second. I think this is a great image to put me over the 20,000 hit mark on this blog and it happens to be my 200th post. Hope you have enjoyed.

A new friend.

I shot this yesterday with my new friend Amber.  I had planned on shooting with my Quadra system but when I started pulling gear out I didn't have the radio trigger with so I had to make due with small flash. I shot it with a 70-200mm on the D800. There was an SB-900 on a c-stand camera right with a Honl grid on it and triggered with an SU-800 and processed in Lightroom. 

Sunset with Jasmine

I got to shoot with Jasmine the other night fresh from competing in France. We made this really quick since it was really cold out and we were loosing the light. Shot it with a Nikon D800 and a 28mm, for lighting I used the Quadra in a 39" octa camera right. A few tweaks in Adobe Lightroom and I was done.

A cold day with Sara

Shot this with my friend Sara yesterday. It's a very simple image using natural light with a reflector camera right. I had a 28mm on my D800 and processed it in Lightroom.

Lance and Charlotte

Yesterday my friends Lance and Charlotte got married in a small ceremony at their house and me being who I am had to bring my camera and shot some images.

These were all shot with the 70-200mm on my Nikon D800 and then processed in Adobe Lightroom. The middle image was done with my Quadra setup with a 27" softbox.

Start to the pin up

I have been wanting to do a serious pin up project for a while now and thought trying to do a Kickstarter project would be the best way to fund it. Things have been moving a little slow with it so I decided to do a few images to give people an idea of how it's going to look. I got my new friend Jackie to come out and these are what we were able to come up with.

 For this image I had a VERY large softbox lighting the background and on a boom arm above her. Then camera left I had a 53" octabox and camera right I had a hard light with a 10 degree grid on it to control the way the light spilled on the scene.

For this one I turned off the large overhead light and the big octa became the main light camera left and then I used the flash with the grid to light just the bears head since the dark fur absorbs so much of the softer light. 

If you like what you see here please check out the Kickstarter project and help fund the project or just share this link with your friends that would be a big help as well. Thanks

Details from the renaissance festival.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed at the renaissance festival, especially if you haven't been before. I had been once before and was still overloaded with things to see to the point where I sometimes forgot to shoot. Here are some of the detail images I was able to get while walking around the festival.

The below images are from the secret garden trail.

All images shot with a D800 and a 70-200mm then processed in Adobe Lightroom.

The people of the renaissance.

These are my favorite people shots from the festival. Everything was shot with my D800 and my 70-200mm then processed in Adobe Lightroom

Renaissance Festival

I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival today with my friend Kim and after 5 hours of wandering aroundI got a bunch of photos to sort through. This is one that jumped out at me right away so I thought I would share it. Shot on my D800 with my 70-200mm, which on a side note I saw a lot of those lenses walking around at the festival. I processed it in Lightroom in about 5 minutes and other then the angle I really like this shot.

More with Sam

Here's a fun shot I did earlier this summer with Sam, it was shot with a Nikon D300 and a 16-85mm and I lit the image with my Elinchrom Quadra set up through a 27" softbox camera right. Quick and easy.

Lahnah

Shot this in the studio tonight with my friend Lahnah. It's very rare for me to be able to open up to f/1.4  when shooting with the Elinchrom Quadra but I had to turn the modeling lamp on to focus and the light quality was so nice I had to try shooting with it,  I had the light going through my 53" octabank. I was shooting handheld so I bumped the ISO up to 800 and it allowed a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second. Processed this in Lightroom.

A break in the clouds

There are times where I notice the light or clouds are doing something really cool but I never have anything to put in the foreground or I am running late to where I can't go out of my way to find something to make it work. This was not one of those times. I was on my way home and saw the clouds were doing something dramatic so I headed to a little lake I knew of that was a few miles off the main road and shot this very quickly then the clouds closed back up and the drama was gone. Shot with a 28mm on a D800 and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Untitled

This was shot with a 50mm 1.4  on my D800 and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

In a corn field.

This is one of the first things I shot with my new D800. I only had a 20mm and a 50mm with me at this point and this was done with the 50mm. Shot with natural light and processed in Lightroom.

Just some random characters.

I love finding stuff like this around town. No special lighting here just a couple of quick grab shots but I thought they would be fun to share.

Last shoot with Sam for a bit.

The part that I hate about living in a college town is that it never fails when I find cool people to shoot or even just hang out with they graduate and movie away. That's exactly what is happening with my friend Sam, she is moving away tomorrow off to bigger and better things I am sure. On the bright side we did manage to sneak in one more shoot before she left. For this image I had a small softbox with an SB-800 camera right and slightly behind Sam. I shot wide open at 2.8 on my 70-200mm and with the open end of the alley in the shot my exposure edged past normal sync speed and to 1/800th of a second. I always keep the camera set so it can go into the high speed sync settings and it handle the scene beautifully in TTL. I processed it in Lightroom.

Late night Bemidji

A lot of time when the bar scene is a bust I like to wander the streets and see what kinds of images I can come up with. Most of the time I don't get much but every now and then I get a couple of keepers.

 Sometimes the shadows are more interesting then the subjects casting them. Shot with a 28mm.

I really like the leading lines in this one, shot with a 70-200mm @ the 200mm end. Both images were shot with my D800 and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Another time lapse

I had noticed that the pepper plants in our greenhouse perked up pretty quick once they were watered after missing a few days and thought it would make a great time lapse video kind of like the ones you see on nature shows.  When I saw they were looking rough today I gave the time lapse a try setting the camera to shoot one image every forty seconds for eight hours and this is what I got. It was very interesting to see how much they fluctuated throughout the day.

Walking the dog

I was walking around town the other night after a shoot looking for something to shoot. When the light is good I like to keep shooting as long as possible and a lot of times that means just roaming town looking at where light is falling. I love the lines in this image, all the leading lines in the wall and the sidewalk intersecting with the shadows. I did several shots of this scene but only got one with the guy walking his dog which adds a get element to the image. 

Friday at the Blue Ox

The past Labor Day weekend there were a lot of great bands playing down at the Blue Ox in Bemidji and one of those was this woman, Sarah Krueger out of Duluth so if you get a chance to catch her act I would highly recommend it.  I shot this with my D800 (the ISO cranked to 3200) and a 70-200 wide open at 2.8