Shamless Self Promotion Alert - f/2.8

An Essential For Any Photographer's Car !!

I know you've seen the bumper stickers that say "26.2" on them, right?  I always wondered what they meant. Then one day I learned it was the distance of a marathon (and to think I ran one before, and it hadn't clicked).  Anyway, get it, there is a marathon runner in this car.

I thought it would be fun for photographers to have an equivalent, so a light popped on.  I'll create my own.  I went online, found a site, and played around with several ideas and found a simple design I liked.  Here you have it, "f/2.8".  Only a photographer will know, that car has a photo enthusiast on board.

The shameless promotion part, I'll sell them, and I put my blog URL on it as well. 

I decided to go ahead and have a bunch of the bumper stickers made up.  I figured I could put one on my car or on my photo notebook.  And, hey, if anyone wanted purchase one to trick-out their car, I'd have a few available.

So, if anyone wants to buy one, shoot me an email at sebrokaw@yahoo.com and we can work out the details.  I'll charge the low price of $3.50, and you can pay me via PayPal.  Operators are standing by!

Be the first one on your block to have a www.brokawimages.com, f/2.8 bumper sticker!  You can thank me later :)

Dirty car not included

Indianapolis XLVI

1.6 seconds, f/10, ISO 200, 12mm using Tokina's 12-24mm f/4

People, it's Super Bowl 46 time in Indianapolis.  You know what that means - photo opportunity! We are talking about tons of people, challenging lighting and LOTS of color and action.  Picture Perfecto. 

I headed down the day before the formal activities started to try to capture some views before the party begins.  The challenge was that although it's winter the weather is more late fall like.  Cold and rainy, and it had been raining most of the day.  It just so happened as soon as I parked it stopped raining.  That gave me an opportunity to walk around and shoot some images around Monument Circle which is in the core of Indianapolis.

This time I wanted to capture LOTS of the image so I brought my Tokina AT-X 107 AF DX Fisheye – 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 and a Tokina AF 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX.  I am a Nikon guy, and prefer to use Nikkor lenses exclusively.  However, I've found that Tokina lenses are as good as my Nikkor lenses.  The only problem is that I don't shoot wide angle that much so I figured this was going to be fun.

2 seconds, f/7, ISO 200, 11.5mm using Tokina's 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5

It was pretty dark outside, and very overcast, so light reflected off the low lying clouds.  This made for some really cool effects when long exposures was done.  For these shoots I simply used my Manfrotto tripod.  I set my Nikon D300s to the lowest ISO so I could minimize as much noise as possible.  Therefore all shots were set at ISO 200.  I also shot all images at F/7 or smaller.  I wanted to get long DOF & light starbursts. 

There were lots of people downtown, but not enough for me to be a bother while standing on the edge of the road with a tripod.  It was fun and the vibe of the city was growing.  You could tell a BIG party was coming. 

I only shot about 50 images, about 50 % with the fisheye and the rest with the wide angle.  Both lens focus smartly and are tack sharp.   The also focus very well in low light, which tends to be a large percentage of my shots.  Bottomline, great lenses.  When I go back out to shoot the event as a run up to the Super Bowl, I will definitely bring these lenses.

0.4 seconds, f/7.1, ISO 200, 10mm using Tokina's 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5

After action comments:

• On weather like this keep a rag or small towel in your bag.  Even though it was not raining buckets it did start to sprinkle, and I didn't have anything handy to clean off my lens.
• Watch out for blowing out portions of the image.  These were fairly long exposures and there was some pretty bright lights.  I had several images that had significant areas blown out.  Post processing can only correct areas of an image if there are pixels.  Check your histogram.
• If you want starbursts keep your aperture at f/9 or higher
• Take advantage of wet pavement.  Try to capture unusual light patterns or shadows. It's pretty cool.

New York City Boy

The day before New Year’s Eve I visited New York City and walked around the streets for about 8 hours.  Big city, people in the street, colors, darkness, camera – you guessed it, I had a blast.  I didn’t go specifically to take photographs, but I did tote my camera and a couple of lenses.  I ended up walking in a 1 mile radius around Time Square shooting while walking.  I simply wanted to capture the hustle and bustle of NYC.

It started out grey and overcast turning dark quickly.  Therefore, during the daylight hours I had a huge softbox.  Shadows were not a problem.  At night the lights of the city were alive with color.  On top of this the number of people in the city was HUGE all day.  It was absolutely no place for a tripod.  I simply set my camera on aperture priority, set the aperture as small as I could for the light (I wanted to get maximum DOF) and the shutter speed ended in the 1/100 range.  As it got dark I had to crank up my ISO from 400 during the daytime to 2500 at night.  I wanted to keep my speed no slower than 1/100 so I took lots of high ISO shots.  I was using my trusty AF-SNikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED most of the day, switching out of my AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mmf/3.5-5.6G ED VR II early in the day.  I sacrificed a wider focal length on the short end for a couple of stops of aperture.  Good choice.

Almost all of my shots were taken while walking or stopping just briefly enough to steady my camera and get off my shot.  I was walking with my two 20+ year old boys so I decided not to stop to chat up people to take more formalized street portraits.  Anyway, in NYC from experience taking street portraits can be hit and miss. 

When I got home and looked through my photos I was very happy but noticed the colors tended to dominate the image.  Therefore in my post processing I converted several to B&W, which I think worked out well.

Next time I plan taking my tripod and going solo, although being with my boys was a blast.  Oh, by the way I did end up hitting B&H Camera as well.  Icing on the cake.

After action tips: 

·         Be respectful but don’t be afraid to take candid street shots in a city.  OK, some people will give you the evil eye, but people are moving so fast and in their own little word it passes quickly

·         In a street shoot like this it would have been better with a smaller profile prime lens.  Not only does a D300s Nikon with a batter grip stand out, but add a 20-70mm f/2.8 lens and you have a big camera setup.  I probably would have been better bringing my AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G prime or my AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G prime.  Faster glass with smaller profile.

·         If you can avoid it don’t take a backpack.  Note to myself, people don’t like getting hit by a backpack when you turn around suddenly.

·         Be careful shooting in some venues or buildings.  Not surprising very few office buildings and museums let you take photos in their facility.  No worries, that’s when my iPhone 4S came in handy.

·         Take every opportunity to shoot photographs.  In a city of any size there are hundreds of photo opportunities.