Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR test run

Few weeks ago i gave in to temptation and bought a Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR. Since then i have been sick with a upper respiratory tract infection, hence bed ridden.  Then came the rainy days.  Fortunately, the weather wasn't bad this weekend. I brought my new toy out to the park for a test run.  I have chosen rugby players as subjects.  The last time i tried shooting a rugby game i was using Nikon 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 VR. The reach of the 300mm on my crop sensor body was reasonable but that lens was simply too slow for the fast pace of rugby players. 

Comparatively, the 70-200mm f2.8 VR is a lot faster. I shot in shutter priority with shutter speed varying between 1/1250 to 1/2000 of a second, auto ISO. I was quite happy with the outcome. The lens autofocus locks focus on the person a lot faster than my 70-300mm.  This is an expected result considering the price difference between the two lens. But i must say 200mm is still a bit short to cover a big field. 

The photos here were all shot as JPEG, not RAW. Picture control set to vivid mode with 2+ saturation and 1+ sharpening.  These photos were then lightly managed in Aperture 3 with mostly just cropping and slight level adjustment to boost contrast. 

Arriving home, i spotted a few ducks by the creek in front of my house.  I fetched the bag of expired bread from my fridge and fed them to the ducks, with my camera on standby of course.  The ducks were a lot faster than i expected when they fought for the bread. In a few of the shots i had trouble locking focus on their eyes.  Some of these were corrected with Aperture's sharpening brush.

拜天公

On the eighth day of every new year (following the chinese calendar), Chinese from the Hokkien group gather to pray to the Emperor of heaven (天公), also known as the Jade emperor of heaven.  Food and fruits will be used as offerings.  Candles will be burnt, fire cracker will be lit.

My wife is Hokkien.  It's a big day for them. It's also quite an ordeal as there are many things that need to be done prior to the prayer.  They fold golden paper into certain shapes, resembling gold nuggets. These will be burnt later on. It is believed that once burnt, these will become gold in heaven, to be used by the Jade emperor.

The plate of red stuff is a plate of hard boil eggs boiled in red pigment. Red stained eggs are common food in chinese tradition, used as prayer offering and also eaten during birthdays.

After the prayer, we lit firecrackers.
 There was a "secret message" at the end of every bar of firecracker, to be retrieved at the end of the fire action.  Ours says "wealth".

Finally, the burning of the paper gold nuggets.

Chinese New Year 2012

I am happy. People tend to be in better mood when they are on holiday. I got my 3 weeks holiday approved, only after i kicked up a bit of a fuss. Lets not get into that since i am in good mood.  It is Chinese new year. It is a big day for celebration for Chinese all around the world.  Most of us will travel a thousand mile to be home with family.

My trip home from Auckland wasn't perfect. My flight with Malaysia Airline got delayed almost an hour due to air conditioning system malfunction on the air craft. After touching down at KLIA, i had to wait 45 minutes before i could collect my luggage, again due to baggage delivery malfunction! I haven't lived in Malaysia for the past 10 years and i have forgotten how appalling Malaysian efficiency is.  Their so called "Malaysia Boleh" (meaning Malaysia can do) attitude is all talk and nothing more.  It seems like anything that falls into the hands of Malaysian government will be ruined in time, sooner or later. I don't think it is their lack of knowledge to run a business that is the problem.  I think it is the overly relax attitude to life and the over-inflated self content that is becoming the tripping stone. Anyway, i have digressed.  This blog post is not intended for venting my dismay.

Chinese new year celebration starts on New year's Eve, where the whole family (immediate or extended) have a massive feast together at dinner time.  Many people stay up for midnight count down and your ears will be deafened by the sound of fire crackers thundering through the night sky.  Fire crackers are banned by Malaysian government. But few people follow the law here when it comes to trivial things like that. Once in a while you get a visit from police officer threatening to charge you with illegal use of a banned flammable item.  You will quickly learn that there are people who will find ways to evade the charge through various means, bribery being the commonest.

Mum's cooking. The soup in the photo is a classic for any big occasion

Chinese new year is all about family gathering and lots of food. The lots of food is the part i like most. I am blessed with a skinny gene. I can eat a lot and still not worry about excessive weight gain. My female friends get pissed off when i tell them that.  We went from door to door visiting relative. It can be quite a tiring task, especially when you have a lot of relatives. On the second day, i drove to my wife's hometown, 90 minutes drive from mine. There was a big crowd there. Lots of happy kids = lots of happy photographs!

Like Xmas, Chinese new year is also a time for exchanging gifts, in a form of hamper

It has been a long day.....

Of course, a true photographer points a camera at just about anything, not just people....

 

I had a blast this new year. Happy Dragon year to all of you. Til my next blog....take care and have a good one.

Model shoot: Rose Halfpenny

 

I like going to the bookstore, flipping through fashion magazine, mostly the girlie sorts. Not because i am  extremely metrosexual but because of what i can learn from the work of professional photographers there. There are crap photos, good photos and then there are great photos.  You won't get to see the crap photos because they get bin by the editor.  Good photos are the one that demonstrate solid technical skills of the photographer, with perfect exposure and good composition. What sets a great photo apart from the good ones is the mood it carries, the message or story it is telling, the emotions it triggers. I love environmental portraits. They usually tell their stories.


I have always wanted to do a model shoot but never really knew how to get started.  When i incidentally came across Graham Meadows photography workshop advertisement i got excited.  I managed to persuade my friend Peter to come along too. Like me, Peter is a long time trigger happy photography enthusiast.  We signed up, paid up and the rest were history.


Our model for the day was Rose Halfpenny, an experienced model in her twenties.  She was very good in front of the camera.  She told us she races car on the dirt track when she is free.  I thought that was pretty cool.


We were hoping to spend half of our workshop outdoor doing shoots with available light.  Sadly, it rained the whole day. We ended up staying in the studio doing shoots with different strobes set up. It was still a good experience since i have never really used strobes before.

The photos above were shot with available light through a window.  To get this exposure i had to use a fairly slow shutter speed and bump my ISO to 800.  I was surprise to see very little noise at such high ISO.  I am only using a D90, not a full frame.  The window was on Rose's left side.  We had a reflector on her right to bounce light onto her right cheek.  The effect was quite pleasant i thought.

Then we started using the strobes.  Two strobes in front the model, both with soft boxes, one elevated on a light stand, the other at ground level.  Such set up lights up the subject's with only shadows behind her as you can see in the next photo.

Props are important in fashion shoots.  Graham gave us a big rug.  The photo below was shot with us standing at the top of a tall ladder shooting straight down.  This was a four lights set up with two extra lights behind the model to give an even lighting.

It was a fun shoot.  We may do it again.  Time to sign up to Model Mayhem i say.