hockey day in canada

This unfortunately was not shot today but yesterday. My whole family were in rinks however today as my daughter had a game tonight and we were the cheering section.
This is former nhl player mike danton skating by the unb bench. I wanted to see him play and get a couple shots but more importantly watch unb win.

old image reworked

I guess the photo is not really that old, but i have never really been happy with my initial adjustments i had applied. The image was too yellow in the past for me and that muted down all the other colors. I played with it a bit tonight and was much happier with the results. Basically just did a curve and added some blue. Sometimes a simple curve can make all the difference.
This image is lit by just the setting sun, no flash added. It was taken on a shipyard dock in boston.
This shot competed for tonight post with a photo i actually took tonight of hockey player mike danton.
I will try to get that one up tomorrow night.

boston hdr

I took a sec today to clean up my hard drive a bit and found some images of boston (photoshop world trip) that i have never really taken time to play with. I did a couple corrections to images that i liked but have never been happy with. I did a quick hdr of three images inside a boston uno restaurant. Actually i processed the tonemapped image twice to get this effect. How you do this is hit the process button the first time and when your image pops up all processed, before saving, hit apple (alt) - T, this will reopen the tonemapping window and you can play some more. When your happy just hit process again and then save your image. If you save after the first process and then try to hit apple - T it will not work.
I find i have to do a curve after i open the image in photoshop and sharpen a bit but thats pretty well it.

building on the hill

I was home sick today, stomach flu, and am very bored. I feel like i have been hit with a truck and all i want to do is sleep. I have dragged my butt out of bed to do a quick post on a photo i took last week.
This is a building that is quite difficult to photograph. I was out for a walk and noticed the tracks in the snow leading to the door at the top of the path. I ran three images through photomatix and then did a curve in photoshop.
Ok, back to bed.

cat photo

I really dont know why i am posting this photo, really. My daughter left the dryer door open tonight and the cat made it his bed. This isnt the first time. I didn't notice him in there not too long ago, mabey we were drying darks, and i shut the door before heading to bed. Luckily we always do a cat count before going to sleep so we dont have to get up in the middle of the night to the sound of cat nails against the back of a door. Luckily the dryer was not turned on and he was found shortly after.
I upgraded my camera firmware tonight (nikon d700) and if you have one you should do the same. Improved auto white balance was my main reason. It is already very good on that camera which is why i leave it on that setting but if they say they have improved it than great. I still find that the weakest correction is when shooting under tungsten light. It is still the only time i switch the camera to the tungsten setting.
This photo was shot at iso 3200 f2.8 and 1/20 sec. I used a 24mm lens as i wanted to get in close and show the inside of the dryer. Did you notice the sock that was stuck in the upper right corner. I used that as a fill reflector on the right side (ha). Ok, one light, off the sock, and so on and so on. You would get this joke if you saw the joe mcnally/scott kelby "light ya for it" video.
Thats it for tonight as i have to drive to a 6am hockey practice tomorrow. Off to read and hopefully sleep well.
One cat, two cats, ok, good night.

architecture hdr

I may have mentioned that i was playing with some hdr shots recently. This is the second image from that series out of five i prepared. I have been trying to dig the camera out a bit more this last week and get back in the shooting mode.
I photographed my daughters hockey game tonight but of course missed the shot of her first ever goal. I was in the warm area, but luckily could still see the ice. I did basketball last night, and shot some melting icicles this morning.
This shot was made from three images and ran through photomatix.
Now i am going to finish reading my new hdr book.

basketball stuff

I have a few more hdr images i like in the cue to post but thought i would put up a shot i took tonight of my daughter playing basketball. No, she is not getting in trouble here, she was fouled and getting told she has two shots coming.
I shot this at 2500iso with a 80 - 200 f2.8 nikon lens. I was having a little trouble with it focusing just a bit behind my focus point so for the first time i set the autofocus fine tune to -4. Seemed to help. Nice thing it that it will only apply to that lens. I will now start the process of checking my other lens' and adjusting where necessary.
Zero photoshop work here as i did all my raw adjustments in lightroom.
Looking forward to lightroom 3 coming out.

hdr in the snow

Today was quite snowy and everything was looking white and wonderfull. I took a stroll in hopes of getting some much needed winter stock shots but of course the area was like a ghost town. No one around to harass for a couple minutes of their time to walk through a scene or two. Then i thought, im out here, cold and wet, theres no one to shoot, good time for some hdr stuff.
I bracketed a few scenes through a range of 7 stops and ended up choosing three of the images to send through photomatix. I then played with the image a fair bit in photoshop. I retouched some of the dirty snow out and did a curve layer and a saturation layer. I used the dodge tool set to highlights and hit the overhead light and some of the snow on the walk to create a bit of a highlight line for the eye of a viewer to follow.
I have a few more in the cue so stay tuned.
I tried to use a bit of a slow shutter to get the snow drag more so than having it tack sharp and floating in mid air.
I also used a tripod. I dont usually carry one but i thought i could set up a scene and then wait for people to head in my direction all prepared to model. Oh, and they would be wearing multi colored scarves, cool hats, and be very happy and throwing snow around.

inspiration

The title of this post is not really attached to the photo above. I haven't been blogging for almost a month now as i felt a touch burnt out and really needed a break from shooting, photoshop, and the computer in general. My camera has sat in my bag in its little lens coat pouch and i know it is lonely, longing to be held, ok, i will stop before i get started.
Long story short, i had a break and now its over. I want to shoot again, very much so. Every christmas break i go through the same thing. I reflect on the year before, mainly on what i have done photographically, and i look for new inspiration to start the new year. I am always exhausted by the time christmas comes as i try to stay pretty busy at work not to mention trying to shoot some fun stuff in my spare time. So i recharge my batteries and i reflect.
This year i took a bit more time than usual and to try to reenergize my mojo i looked at a lot of photo web sites, many magazines, and bought a new book on hdr shooting by stuck in customs Trey. I then lost the book and it is being shipped back to me as i write, but thats another story. I still haven't shot much yet, mabey a thousand frames or so but i am due very soon.
I had planned to write much more on this subject but it is one in the morning and i have been home for a total of about 15 minutes today.
About the photo above. I really did not have anything on my hard drive except a wedding i shot on new years eve. I really liked this shot for some reason. The little guy on the left looked up and the camera focus was tack sharp on him and nothing else. I shot ambient light with a 80 - 200 lens at 2.8. This church has windows lining both sides and it was cloudy. Perfect setting for great ambient shots.
Mabey he was looking for some inspiration too.