The weather here is crazy..

I woke up around 8:30am and was greeted with a beautiful sunshine. I decided to take a random photo from my window view. I had my breakfast and watched some TV. I looked at the window again and spoof, it became dark, so i decided to shoot it again from the same perspective.. then it snowed later in the afternoon followed by another beautiful sunshine. Its really crazy weather around here. I tied all the four pictures that I got and came up with this:

Flashing lights...

Just got my SB-600 today and guess what, I'm hooked. I fired flashes for the whole day and the effect that I got was just awesome. Its very handy, not too big and not too small. It delivers a lot of power and runs on 4 AAs. I already got past 200 flashes fired for the day and thats a lot for 1 day. Will give it a rest for now. Hopefully, after work tomorrow, I will be back to practice again. Will be posting pictures soon.

High ISO Test on D90

    We were on our way home, and I just took random shots along the way. I did only had the 16-85 VR on my D90, and the rest of my fast lenses were at home. I decided to test the d90's ISO edge over other cameras, so i kicked in the ISO to about 1000 and got this image. Does it have that much noise? What do you think?

iPhone practice shots

Just got my iPhone 4 the other day. This gadget is handy for places where bringing a dslr just draws much attention. Although I use it more as a phone rather than a camera. I did some practice shots with it and here is what I got:

Sun, Sun and More Sun.

Photos that I took today while heading out.

Overload..

    The past few days has been really tiresome. I became really busy at work, that I don't even get to go out with my dslr anymore. The weather this past few days were nice between 2 to -6 degrees figuratively. Snow still covers most of the roads and houses. When my schedule loosens up a bit, I'll be going out for some shooting frenzy.


Edit: ..even my blog feels the snowy weather.

What makes a good photographer?

   There you go showing off your new Nikon D3x with a new $10,000 ultra-sharp lens, coupled with your $500 ultra-light tripod. You take a dozen pictures only to find out that your next door neighbor sold more of his photos than you while he only uses his $67 point and shoot camera that he got from a yard sale.

   You wonder how and why. Does he use black magic? Does he just copy them from some web source? Does he force people to buy them? To feed your curiosity, you go to his exhibit, which at this time, is his small garage which is nothing when compared to your living room size gallery. You go in and the first thing you see is his wooden tripod. You can see that it is made of smooth wood, with some duct tape at the points to prevent slip and a D-I-Y mount,way too uncomparable to your $500 tripod. You look to your right and you see his camera hanging on the wall, with its cheaply built strap. You look to the left, you see his bike, some small print pictures and a mini umbrella designed to mount on top of his camera to prevent it from getting wet.

  Suddenly, something caught your eye. Something that you have never seen before. It made you stare at it some time. You feel blood rush through your veins and your heart pumps faster than it usually does. You close your eyes for 5 seconds just to make sure that its real then "snap"., your neighbor just snapped you out of what seemed to be and endless void of staring. What did you see? It was his photographs. The composition, the exposure, the subjects all blended perfectly together to form an image which makes you want to be in it.

   This story of course, is an exaggeration. I hope I didn't drag you too deep. The main point of this story is that having the best gear in the world doesn't make you the best photographer. Having the right knowledge and technique is what counts more. To be a good photographer, to be even called one, you have to understand the some basic concepts in photography; understanding exposure perhaps, knowing the right use of light and creative compositions.

   The difference between the two characters here is that the other one has some of the best gear in the world and shoots with it without considering the composition of the shot, angle and exposure. The other character however, inspite of lacking the better gear, used his basic knowledge and creative composition to capture the image that would certainly please anyone's taste. Learning the techniques in photography isn't that hard. When you get a good understanding of the basics, you can further experiment more on the gear that you have before deciding to buy the better gear. One common mistake that most photographers make is that they start in a reverse order, that is; Gear - Experiment - Basic, which should be the other way around.

   So when you try think about it, are you the guy who has $20,000 worth of gear but getting not so much feedback for your images? Or are you the guy who has that technique, backed by the knowledge to capture that great shot? That is for you to find out.