My time with the Canon 1DX

So I may have mentioned before that I am a member of CPS, Canon Professional Services. I highly recommend it to Canon shooters and I am assuming that Nikon has a similar program. Anyway I recently had the chance to "evaluate" a Canon 1DX for a period of 10 days. In that time I was able to use it for two football games and a soccer game. A lot of people will have a love fest over this camera or the D4 from Nikon but this is a practical review and coming from my perspective so take it for what you will.

Right off the bat, it is a heavy beast. I thought that I would be prepared for the size and weight since I have a battery grip on my 7D but I can tell you that this is something all together different. It is the materials used to build it, the larger battery etc. etc. But what I really got spoiled by was the ergonomics of it. The continuity of having the battery grip built in was just awesome. The weight wasn't unappealing, but just something to get used to. Now I shot with this on a monopod so my shoulders didn't have to bear the brunt of carrying the camera but I can imagine that having two of these on rapid straps or regular straps all day would be tiresome.

Next up, I looked at the menus to try and get familiarized with them so I wouldn't be caught off guard while shooting when it mattered. Just like the weight, the menus surprised me, there are about 4 times as many options and bells and whistles as there are with the 7D. I love my 7D, I think it takes great pictures and has a ton of functionality but I was swimming in menus.

Now for actual shooting. The first practical difference is the layout of the buttons. With the 7D pretty much all your controls are on the right hand side of the camera near the shutter button, leaving the shooting mode dial on the left. With the 1DX there is no shooting mode button so control buttons are distributed on the left and ride side of the hot shoe. Learning where they were was a fairly fast process but a learning curve nonetheless. If you are considering making the jump then I would buy the camera well before you need it for an assignment just so you can get acclimated to the new controls.

Along those lines, is the playback functionality. I chimp a lot during football because there is so much down time. When trying to do that on the 1Dx, I got frustrated very easily and here's why. On the 7D, you hit playback and then zoom in or out using the AF buttons located up by the shutter. On the 1DX however there is a specific button located just below the LCD to initiate the zoom and then the aperture wheel by the shutter button controls the zooming in and out. More than once, I went to zoom and using the method I was used to, only to see the LCD go black because the camera thought I was ready to start shooting again. A minor issue, but still one that stuck with me.

As far as images and performance, HOLY HELL this thing is awesome. The AF is fast and has numerous settings to help navigate the type of action you will be shooting. The frame rate was crazy fast and awesome to have for sports. There is just something awesome about a quarterback throwing the ball and being able to fire off several frames to get THE shot.

So here comes my negative review, and it has nothing to do with the camera itself and everything to do with being honest with myself. The high frame rate becomes a crutch, simply laying on the shutter because you can doesn't make me a better photographer. It may save my bacon because I missed the shot, or should have based on my timing, but I need to get better before I buy a camera like this. Along with that is the sensitive shutter button. When shooting a game if I wanted just one candid frame, I found that my heavy touch was firing off three or four frames instead of just one. Overall, not a huge issue, but just a pain when reviewing my images. Next is the file size and format. The raw format of the files from the 1DX are not compatible with Lightroom 3. Yes Yes I know I am on Lightroom 3 still but given the level that I shoot at, I am still a Lightroom 3 guy and it took a while for me to find a way to convert the raw files from the camera. I ended up with a workflow of using Adobe DNG Converter and then importing them into Lightroom. A pain in the butt so this would mean I need to upgrade Lightroom in addition to buying the camera.

Overall, I would love to own this camera. It just looks, feels, and sounds awesome. That being said, I just couldn't justify paying the amount of money for a 1DX given my skill level. Do I think I am better than the parents on the sideline? Absolutely, do I think spending $7,000 for a camera will make me that much better. NOPE. So if you are thinking of upgrading from a 7D or a 60D or something, maybe look at getting a used 1D Mark IV if you can find one, that price point might be a little better.

How it all got started

I thought I would share how I found photography, how I became interested in it and then what I use today.

So it all began back in 2002. I was on a trip with my oldest brother and two of our friends on Cape Cod. I had purchased a 4 megapixel Olympus X200 camera for the trip and general use. One day, we went over to Martha's Vineyard and headed out to these scenic cliffs. The sun was setting and I wanted to take a picture of the intense bronze reflection of the sun on the water. I tried several times and just couldn't capture it the way I was seeing with my own eyes. It finally occurred to me that I was wearing sunglasses. On a whim I took the sunglasses off and placed them in front of the lens. Low and behold it got pretty close and when I saw the image on the back of the camera I was hooked.

From the Olympus I bought a Sony but I was less than pleased with it's overall performance and by 2006 I had purchased a Canon Rebel XT for a trip to Ireland for my sister's wedding. We spent a week in Ireland and it rained for 5 of those days. The last full day I had in the country I had gorgeous weather to drive down along the Dingle Peninsula. If you ever think of going to Ireland, be sure to see the Cliffs of Moher and Dingle Peninsula, you won't be disappointed. After returning from Ireland though I tried shooting an ice hockey game with my Rebel and just wasn't satisfied so from there I bought a Canon 40D for a higher frame rate. This was great until the 7D came out and had much better high ISO performance, so I bought a 7D.

As it stands today my kit consists of the following:

Canon 7D
Canon 40D
100mm f/2.8
50mm f/1.8
17-40mm f/4 L
70-200mm f/2.8 L

My two favorites out of the bunch are the 70-200 and the 50mm. For the price (@ $100), the 50mm gives me just great results. Some of my favorite photos of my son, I used the 50mm and it is tack sharp. As for the 70-200, since I knew I was going to be shooting sports with the lens and would be employing a high shutter speed to freeze action, I elected to skip out on the IS version of the lens.

I use Adobe Lightroom on a MacBook Pro for importing and basic editing of images. Shooting sports though I have found the import speed to be extremely slow for my needs and I am seriously considering  buying a copy of Photo Mechanic. A lot of sports shooters use it, and I have seen it in action and it absolutely flies and it is only $100 which is cheap for a solid application.

As for lighting, I have 3 speedlights that I trigger with Ebay triggers and then I also have a set of 3 AlienBee strobes.

2 - AB400
1 - AB800
1 - Octabank
2 - strip lights

I really enjoy them and for the money they have been great. If I could get one more accessory it would be a battery pack for the strobes so I am not reliant on wall outlets for the strobes.

Anyway, that is what I use currently. Not so much an informational post this week but maybe this will spark a discussion or some questions. Enjoy and have a great Mother's Day Weekend.

Just get out and shoot

So I have decided that Thursdays will be my posting days. Not going to happen every week but I shall do my best. Hopefully people begin to follow the blog, and they can expect a regular stream of articles.

With that piece of administrative business out of the way, my advice for this installment kind of echoes the theme of the previous post, and that is just get out and shoot. I know I feel like there are so many barriers to getting out and making neat images but the truth is, the biggest barrier might just be behind the camera.

We all have friends that have interesting hobbies or jobs. Ask them to do a shoot and plan something. Sometimes if you are really lucky, you have friends that have really cool jobs. I am one of those people. I went to high school with a member of the band Ludo. If you haven't listened to them, I strongly urge you to check them out on Spotify or visit the Ludo website.

Anyway, a few years back I kept asking him when he would be back in town from touring and if they had anything going on. Finally it paid off, he said he was heading into a local studio to help another artist Hector Anchondo start recording his album. He asked if I would be interested in coming down to the studio for a couple hours and hanging out and getting some pictures. I jumped at the chance without even knowing anything else. So I spent several hours in the studio with the guys just soaking it all in.

Musicians are like photographers, they sat around and talked about their craft using lingo that only they understood and they could pick out chords and riffs after hearing a piece of music one time. The lighting in the studio and the control room were less than ideal and when I looked at the back of my camera, instead of lamenting the fact, it got the creative juices flowing. In the studio atmosphere and with the camera in my hand I suddenly felt like I was shooting for Rolling Stone or Billboard and was in the studio with U2 or The Rolling Stones. So I switched to black and white and just had fun with it. Is the lighting perfect? Not by a long shot, but to me I think the shots give kind of a cool glimpse into the afternoon.

We started shooting as guys were recording their own individual pieces for the track. As they got deeper and deeper into the track I had to leave the studio so that my shutter clicks wouldn't be picked up on the mics.

Musicians huh. Playing drums barefoot with a stuffed cow on his kit. Had to get a shot of this.

Once I moved into the control room, there were just too many knobs and buttons to comprehend what they did, but they looked cool. Don't know why this one reminds me of the opening of Star Wars. A long time ago in a studio far far away...

Once the guys all came into the control room to listen to the tracks, Hector sat down in this chair and just kept stroking his goatee and nodding in time to the music. I thought it just looked cool. In my mind I have a similar idea for the cover of an album. Who knows maybe they will call me!

Anyway, the moral or the story/post is that there are opportunities to shoot, you just have to take advantage of them and be creative. I struggle with this myself as I progress through my evolution as a photographer. But until you "make it" people aren't going to come knocking with photo jobs, so you have to make your own luck and give them reason to come knocking.

Enjoy and keep shooting!

Car Photos

So for me, one of the biggest obstacles with photography is myself. I have neat ideas for shots, things I really want to photograph but always come up with an excuse for why they don't come to pass. The reason can be anything as complex as I don't have a large studio, I don't have strobes or I don't have models. The truth is, that if it is important enough to you, you will make it happen. No one is going to just call out of the blue and ask you if you like photography and want to shoot for them. So recently I tackled this obstacle and did a car shoot.

A friend I work with owns a 2012 Camaro ZL1. Now I don't know a ton about cars but I know what looks cool and what sounds impressive and this thing looks cool and has over 600 hp. So we agreed to do a shoot and we met up in downtown St. Louis near the Riverfront. There were a couple of challenges for this shoot. 1) We started shooting around 10:30 in the morning which made for almost overhead sunshine. 2) Shooting a car meant a lot of reflective surfaces and also meant I would be getting a portrait of myself in the car's paint. In the end, I opted for a lot of multiple exposures and HDR type shots.

We started under an overpass where a friend of the car owner had previously taken some shots and he liked the background. We tried a couple of different looks and angles but the wide range of light made it tough. Even this was HDR.

In post I decided to get kind of creative and make a hyper-real image.

 After the overpass we moved on to an empty lot near some old abandoned warehouses and a powerplant I started to also look at taking some detail shots as well. This guy has put a lot of time an money into upgrading and modifying his car so I figured why not showcase it.

The same pic just some more touches added in photoshop.

I also climbed onto the roof of my SUV to get this one, it helped take care of the glare.

We then moved to another abandoned area that had some cargo bays and some good shade. This was near a casino downtown and several times the security guard drove by. We were by no means on their property but apparently they saw us on their security cameras. Finally he got out of the car to check out what we were doing. Once he saw the engine on the car he had to go and get some of the other guys from the security office and bring them by for a look.

To wrap up, we went back to the overpass and wanted to get a shot of the custom designed trunk. The limited edition badge was pretty cool. This is a compilation image and you can see where I will need to make sure the specular highlights continuous and clean.

All in all, I am pretty happy with my first car shoot, especially considering it was outdoors at mid-day. I am hoping to get some more shots of the car on an infinity wall but we will have to see how that pans outs. The important thing is that I made the connection and got the motivation to make it happen. Here's hoping that this leads to more motivation and adding more to the portfolio.

Photo Journalism and Voyeurism

After the horrible events in Boston yesterday, images began flooding the television and internet. I quickly found myself feeling so conflicted. Here I was looking online for any information about the attacks, wanting to know what was going while at the same time, as details emerged I felt as though I was violating the privacy of those most directly affected.

In particular there was one very graphic photo of an individual that had lost a limb being rushed to an ambulance. It was a horrific image that caused me to cringe at the site and the imagined pain that the victim was enduring at that moment. Their face had been blurred out, and it occurred to me that it is only a matter of time before the blurring is removed and the victims identity will be known. Not only will he have to live with the physical scars from this day, but this horrific image of his injuries will forever be out in cyberspace. Millions of people around the world will now be privy to one of the most vulnerable and raw moments of his existence, and as he struggles to comes to grips with what happened to him, this photo will serve as a constant grizzly reminder of exactly what happened.

Then I saw video of photographers snapping photos of the injured almost immediately after the explosions. One moment they were there to photograph something great about the human body and human spirit, people pushing themselves to run 26.2 miles and the next moment they were thrust into a role of reporting the news and a key event in our nations history. But then I saw as they lifted their cameras over barriers and started photographing the injured and I started to wondering how much is too much.

I will add this disclaimer: Since I do not derive my entire income from photography, I do not consider myself a professional photographer. That being said, I have covered professional sports and other important events and injuries are always something I struggle with. Yes capturing those images is important as it pertains to the storyline of the game but at a certain point I feel as though I am prying into these players lives. I liken it to standing on the field or ice right next to them, staring at them yet providing no assistance or comfort and so I feel uncomfortable in that space. I refuse to pontificate about what those photographers should have done, or what I would have done in their place, because any attempt to do so would be complete and utter BS. From 1,000 miles away I have no idea what I would have done when the bomb went off or when I saw the extent of the injuries. This is merely a hypothetical question that I will throw out to readers and friends.

How much information is too much information. At what point do we cross the line from covering the event and enter into the sensationalism of it all. I think we all know when we see something that crosses the line, but would we know in the heat of the moment? Please chime in...all thoughts are welcome as long as they are respectful.

Finally, to all those affected in Boston and around the world, my heart goes out to you and your loved ones. Certainly there are those killed and physically injured by the events of 4-15-2013 but watching news reports and hearing tales of those that were there, this is something that is going to affect a huge number of people for a very long time.

Hi Everyone,

Brand new to blogging but wanted to get out there in the blogosphere as it were and talk about one of the things that I am most passionate about and that is photography. I love photography of all varieties...sports, fashion, products you name it. I love the challenges that photography presents in trying to take a picture or scene I have in my head and then producing that same image through the camera.

I am still relatively new to photography when I consider how long some of my mentors and favorite shooters have been at this profession but that being said, I am always trying to learn new things, hone my skills and improve as a photographer. So that is what I plan for my blog...news, notes and advice that I have learned through my travels and career to this point and hopefully it will help other people just getting into photography.

Hope you all enjoy.