Head Shots – Nikon D300

Head Shot

Sitting in the 5th row or so of a church means you’re going to get some heads in your photos unless you stand up and block the view of the people behind you. So what’s a guy to do? I used the “vignette” option for an “artsy” shot while simultaneously eliminating the 3 or 4 heads at the bottom of the frame. I also did some color adjusting to make it boarder-line sepia.

So, in addition to capturing the two heads I wanted, I eliminated several I didn’t. Hence, the title – Head Shots.

My First Outing with the Nikon D300 Camera

Before spending thousands of dollars on underwater gear, I thought it would be prudent to shoot with my new camera on the surface and see how I liked it.  Fortunately, I was invited to a wedding this past weekend, and it let me put the camera through the paces.  Unfortunately, I was still too new to SLR photography to figure out how to tweak critical settings such as aperture and shutter speed.  I also lack an external flash at this time. Nevertheless, and for what it may be worth, I was impressed with the camera.  It is by no means magic (i.e., it does not let you shoot in low light on the dance floor, without a flash and get pictures that look well lit), but the 18-200mm lens that I purchased witht he camera had remarkable range, allowing for some excellent portrait shots and a decent telphoto shot (from my eye, I shot the church pipe organ, from the front of the church to the back of the church, on the balcony, and it was only when I “zoomed” in on the picture that I noticed the player was sitting up there behind the organ. I thought what I saw with my naked eye was a photograph of a head, but in the picture it was quite clear that there was a person up there).

Anyhow, while I may not be putting wedding photographers out of business just yet, I think I captured some very nice shots, burried in the hundreds of photographs taken.  I had fun shooting “high speed” which helped make sure that some pictures came out with eyes open rather than blinked closed.  I just learned how to set the aperture and shutter speed, so my next event that I attend I’ll see if I can be a bit more artistic.

Nikon D300 Arrives from Costco

Well, my camera arrived yesterday. I managed to get the neck strap attached as well as the 18mm-200mm lens, inserted the battery and set up the time, date, etc. Even managed to snap a few pictures. But its not the sort of thing I can hope to learn in the hours between coming home from work and going to sleep!

I was hoping it would come with the full version of Capture/NX but it only gives a 30 day trial of the program. I am a little disappointed because I’ve heard enough good things about it to believe it would carry me over until the next version of Photoshop CS came out for the Mac, but not enough good things to actually make me think I want to buy it.

Of course, first things first. I haven’t yet shot a RAW photo so the software is not exactly the limiting factor in my workflow. There are great hopes pinned to this camera. Its big. Its heavy. And its going to get “bigger and heavier” with the underwater housing I plan to buy for it (once I am convinced I will learn to use the camera).

For now, I am shooting with the supplied 2GB card. I will probably boost that to an 8GB model before I take it underwater. I figure at 8 GB, I’ll probabyl need to change the battery before I run out of memory. As I understand it, its not a great idea to have to open the underwater housing more than necessary during the dive day, so the less often I need to open it the better.

Iron Man Review

In the interest of full disclosure, I have loved movies such as August Rush, the Princess Bride, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the last Batman movie a few  years ago.  I’ve hated at least one of the Spiderman Sequals and thought the various X-men films were okay. The last Superman movie was awful, IMHO.

With that said, Iron Man is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. I highly recommend it! Action-packed adventure the whole way through with a decent story line that holds the movie together. There is very little that seemed “gratuitous” or dumb, although there is of course some need to suspend reality, but that is half the fun of going to the movies!

I have no intention of ruining the movie for anybody. I just wanted to let anybody know who might be interested, that if I had an extra hand, I’d give this film 3 thumbs up.  It was very very enjoyable. Can’t actually say enough good things about it.  You will love the movie if you’ve liked any adventure action movie before.  The theater was filled with little kids as well, and for the most part, they behaved themselves. Whether they loved the movie as much as I did, I cannot say. But I was sure glad they were quiet!

There are very funny moments in the movie, such as… No, I’m not going to say. But you’ll have to trust me on this, you will burst out laughing at least once and probably several times during the film. I guarantee it.