Gel my Flash

Usually I don't shoot with flash in the temple.

This is shot bounced flash to the ceiling.  The ambient is always too yellow and red.  There is no way I can shut out the ambient.

I gelled my SB-800 with a 1/2 CTO.  Manually set the white balance to 2900 or there about.

I am sure the front and the back or the center of the hall has different WB as the left has sunlight streaming from the windows, while the back of the room has more tungsten light from the ceiling.  Then the middle has some fluorescent tubes.  The red lanterns add some orange to the mix as well.  I think gelling the flash is a must if you use flash in this setting otherwise the WB is even more difficult to correct in post.

This is shot with my 16-35 f/4 with the Nikon D700.  IS0640, f/5.6, 1/100, WB2900, flash CTO gel.  Light room adjusted.  I am quite happy with the skin tone overall.

Portrait

This has no production value whatsoever.
Light between him and the wall.  Light in front of him slightly to the right and above the camera.
The lens is an oldie, Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 manual focus lens set at f/11 and shutter at 1/100s.

2015 Kissena Twilight Series Week 14

This is done with pan.  The yield should be higher if only I remember to stay very focus, and just follow and predict where the movement is going to be.

UPDATE:  If you feel like you haven't suffered enough, you can check our the About Me page, My Instagram and Facebook account has the full collection.

Watermark

Finally I sat myself down to do some watermark script using ImageMagic.  Again it was some hack job, I didn't know what I was doing, just to make it work.  Being a no talent self important least necessary photographer, some watermarking is absolutely essential for my ego.  I don't know why I waited all these years to actually watermark my images.

Almost all of my images were taken at ISO800.  I found this ISO very much usable or usable without involving any Photoshop wizardry which I have none and in turn I can save on my flash power.  High ISO upto 800 doesn't cost me anything.  I loaded my SB-600 with fresh batteries before going to the event.  I think after some three hundred shots in iTTL, the recycling time became a bit of a problem if I were to shoot consecutively in less than 3 seconds.  The SB-600 performed admirably.  This was the only time I shot the entire event in iTTL, almost exclusively.  Not to miss any shot, I took the fresh batteries from the Metz I brought with me but didn't use, and put them into my SB-600.

... to be continued.

I used a CB min bracket, SC-17 cable for my SB-600, my usual setup.  There isn't really any empirical evidence that the lighting is better this way but I just feel like this is a cooler way to shoot on camera flash.  So psychologically it works for me.

And I don't put any, in my mind, silly dome to cover the flash head to make the light softer.  And I certainly didn't bounce my flash as the ceiling was like 50 feet above.  I just don't understand why some people chose to tilt their flashhead when the ceiling was 50 feet above.  There are so many things I don't understand.  The flashhead as it was, in my bare naked eye, didn't produce any hotspot on the face.  Though I must say I in most cases, tuned down the the camera and flash exposure and power to minus -0.7.  I always prefer under to over exposure.

A Portrait of the Cyclist as a Young Man

This is my rather lame attempt to create a black background in the outdoor by using some external flash.
Nikon D700, Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR, Nikon SB-600 as slave on TTL, on-camera flash as command.
The flash has the channel on 3 while the flash had it on 1, or the other way round.  Anyway, it wasn't working initially because of that.  On location trouble-shooting is always stupid and challenging.  You or I become extra stupid when trouble shoot on location.  And you are always tight on time or running out of it.  Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  Basically I got a minute or two or three to make it work.  It was after the race when the kids were leaving already.  Billy is a good kid and unlike my own, doesn't mind to have his picture taken by me.  I guess with some diffuser put on the flash will make the light more pleasing or add another one to the right.

Nikon D700

The Nikon D700 is slowly getting into the hands of most amateur users. The D700 has a circular viewfinder with light curtain, I think having a circular viewfinder is impressive. It's a buy if it's $1,000 like roughly what I paid for my D70. Or when my D70 bites the dust, I will get a FX D700. Or if at craigslist, some wife is dumping his husband's D700 at $1,000. (note: It's virtually impossible for a D700 to sell for $1,000, maybe in the used market.)

Nikon D700

First it's the Chinese, then the German then the French, the leaks were all over the place. The French got a video, even. It's July 1, all Nikon's guerrilla marketing came to be end. Now back to official marketing. Finally, straight from the horse's mouth, the Nikon D700 is for real. Well the flash SB-900 too, but when you have noiseless high ISO performance, who cares about the flash anyway, except maybe I don't know, Joe McNally. The trusty dpreview gives us a timely hands-on preview on the D700. Of course, nothing is complete without Mr. Rockwell's opinion.

D700, More Details Leaking

There are now more leaks streaming from some Chinese forum and culled by Nikon Rumors.

The price tag is said to be $2,999. That's $999 more than my comfort level.... I take it back, I am not comfortable spending $2000 on a camera body but.... Realistically speaking, I don't expect Nikon to give away the D700 for free but you always hope or dream for the best. $2,999 is actually about right considering the D3 is a whopping $5,000 and the D300 is $1,649 by one reputable dealer in New Jersey (just price checked).

As to the leaks, I think it's just good marketing. You don't need to spend a sizable chunks of cash and you get your souped up to be released product to your target audience at no cost. I think that's guerrilla marketing at its very best. The Nikon fans are just now going nuts over any putative good leaks. Ashton Kutcher does a good job for D60 but hey a good leak of this nature doesn't hurt either. And I bet it's much cheaper than hiring Mr. Kutcher. What Nikon saved can definitely pour back into its R&D to make more camera and more lenses.

Nikon D700

As far as rumors go, this one comes pretty close to real. Maybe after all, the naming makes sense. The D70 was a major success for Nikon, ushering it into the consumer DSLR market. It's a success, because even a cheapskate like me, bought one. Now with the Nikon D700, it might break in the consumer FX DSLR market. The burning question is how much is Nikon going to price this puppy? Canon's 3-year old 5D is selling around $1,900, and Nikon's only FX or otherwise known as full frame is D3 which sells for an exorbitant price (for some at least) of $5,000.

Sourced from the rumor mongers at Nikon Rumors.

UPDATE:

Once the D700 was leaked, living web legend Ken Rockwell wasted no time to get his up here. Mr. Rockwell even has a believe-it-or-not D3X prototype here.