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PhotoFast 533X CF cards review from SportsPhotoGuy.Com

The PhotoFast 533x was slightly  faster to write than SanDisk Extreme III in both the JPEG and RAW shooting in the D300 Burst shooing test ( 5.5FPS RAW and scoring 89 points in JEPG speed comparing to 86 for SanDisk Extreme III)

Read the complete review:

http://sportsphotoguy.com/new-kid-in-town-photofast/#more-623

CameraCard.Ca matches North American Pricing for PhotoFast CF Cards

To maintain our commitment to make photo memory affordable for Canadians; CameraCard.Ca has recently adjusted our prices on all CF cards to match the newly announced pricing for PhotoFast cards (adjusted for currency) across North America.

We ship from Montreal, to most major Canadian cities in two working days.

Cool links for wedding photographers

In a day I speak to a lot of wedding photographers, and I have decided to put together a set of cool links for wedding photographers to enjoy.

 

Very cool wedding photo site

 In 3 years this photographer Jasmine Star, has generated 4 million hits, by mastering social networking, her site has a very cool look.

http://www.jasminestarblog.com/

 

Wedding Cinema

If your shooting with a Canon 5D Mk II you may be looking to add some video to your stills. These people have taken it to a whole new level, not wedding videos, they make wedding films. Just like your wedding photos these are edited, colored, and a lot of work went into these.

 

This is a film of a wedding by Joe Simon, note they even use cranes to lift and lower the camera and the use of time-lapse. Note how they have used color grading to make the sky purple in the wedding scene.

http://www.joesimonproductions.com/HD_keelykyletrailer.htm

 

This is a wonderful film ” The Heart Knows” starring the actual couple, in a movie about how they met. It was played for a crowd of 700 people at the wedding.  It is done in the Bollywood style (Indian filmmaking style), by Pacific Pictures.  The production values are so good, it could be on TV.  The film is about 10 minutes long.

http://www.pacificpictures.net/

enter the site go to “theater”/  select “Bollywood Concepts” and select the first movie ( the man behind the newspaper at the bottom of page)

 

This is an interview with four wedding filmmakers. Including the ones that made the two movies listed above. It covers how they shoot, and how they market their services. The interviewer is the owner of the Zacuto company, which makes tools for filmmakers and a lot of accessories to make the Canon 5D a better filmmaking tool.

http://www.vimeo.com/6085901

Understanding Exposure Metering Modes

The two above images show the difference switching metering modes can make.

The exposure metering mode selects were the camera will sample the image to determine the exposure. The standard exposure metering mode are, matrix( full screen) , center weighted or spot metering.

If you have read the prior blogs you will see I often suggest using the spot or center-weighted exposure mode.  If you shoot an image that is badly over or under exposed, you could adjust it with exposure compensation, but it may be quicker just to adjust the metering mode. I find that just switching the meter mode will get me closer to a correct exposure. It helps that I have a Nikon D300, (the D90 has it too) that has a selectable meter mode on the back of the camera.

Dialing in a lot of exposure compensation takes time, it take even more time to dial it back out as your subject moves.

I would recommend the selectable meter mode switch as a key feature, for anyone planning to do a lot of outdoor photos, including travel or weddings. It is faster and you will need less exposure compensation, so you can follow the action as your subject moves with and against the sun.

The difference between the Spot mode and the Center Weighted, in the Nikon system the spot is your focus point, center is the center of the image. Center weighted for a portrait, would let you use the eye as a focus point, but the skin for exposure.

Finally there are images where matrix is the correct setting, the images following show a correctly exposed image taken with full frame metering and the image is overexposed as a center weighted exposure. By the focus I can tell that my focus point was on the white horse.  The key take-away is, the right metering mode will get you closer to the right exposure faster.

The new cards are in and the store is open

The new cards are in and the store is open. At this point you may be asking yourself why you would want at 533x 32GB CF card?

I can’t answer for everyone, but I take a lot of photos, up to 12GB in a weekend with a Nikon D300, shooting JEPEG. It’s easy to do shooting wakeboarding and other summer stuff. I am always filling my cards.  A 32GB card is allowing me to finally shoot RAW. I love the difference of RAW over JEPEG, it is subtle, but reflections, transparencies, skin tones and hair are all noticeably better.   The images coming from my 18-200 lens were better than I have ever seen.

A 32BG card lets me shoot without worrying about running out of space.

One of the things people have asked about is Write speed VS Read speed, in these cards from PhotoFast they read twice as fast as they write ( 533x -80mb/s read and write 40mb/s).  The quick answer is everyone can use a quicker download, some people can use a faster write speed.

Who needs a faster write speed?

• People shooting video – a write speed of 150x is recommended for a Canon 5D MkII, according to reps. Any of these cards should do that.
• People shooting sports or other action events who will occasionally fill the cameras buffer, traditionally they have shot JEPEG because the smaller file size writes to the card faster.

As for the download speed, it depends on the computer; my desktop is much faster to download than a friends Mac Air notebook.  Software makes a difference. If you load from the camera or a card reader will influence your download speed as well.

There are some people who have USB 1 CF card readers, these are not recommended as they are much slower than the current generation of cards, go ahead and upgrade to a USB2 CF card reader.

Take the link from the blog and go over to the store and order some cards to try for yourself.

Shooting in the Golden Hour

We have all heard that the best time to take photos is at the beginning and end of  the day. What is less known is that by using flash at this time it is the easiest manipulate the color of the sky.

We can make the sky darker and more dramatic. When we use flash, we light the photo with a combination of available light and light from our flash. When we change the color of the sky we are really adjusting the ratio of available light and added light.

The photo above was taken with a 1/15^th second exposure, but the flash was much shorter than that. If we adjust this exposure time we will affect the amount of ambient light coming into the photo. The other way to do this is to play with the aperture, in practice raising the aperture, will tend to block ambient light and make the background darker. While playing with the aperture will affect the depth of field, in this case the subjects were isolated and standing on a dock, so there is not much affect.

Many photographers will take a photo without flash and set the aperture to get the desired background color, then turn on the flash and set up the right level of flash for the person in the shot. Moving closer to the subject and raising and lowering the flash compensation can be used to control the power of the flash.

The fill light was a pop-up flash shooting through a sheet of paper towel to add some softening. It would have been better with an off camera flash, but you shoot with what you have.

Get your lens flare on

All visual mediums have a signature, the stroke of a brush, the line of a pencil. Photos used to have more of them, black and white, grainy images, and slightly odd colors.  Today we correct many of these “defects” to the point where they no longer add character to a photo.  After hearing an interview with the director that filmed the new Star Trek film, and how he intentionally used off camera lights to add lens flare to a scene on the bridge, I was inspired to seek out lens flare and see if I could use it in a photo. Most of us would consider lens flare to be a defect in a photo. While we picture spectacular Hollywood lens flares, the reality is most lenses do not react well to direct or harsh light, many lenses just get soft,( a loss of contrast) and the image just looks foggy or milky without any spectacular halos or sparkles.

This is why you need to try your different lenses and see how they flare, my results, Nikon 18-200mm DX, not great, but 50MM F1.8 did much better, it will soften, but there is a zone that if you get it right, you get a spectacular flare. Often older lenses produce more spectacular lens flares as the lens coating technology was not as advanced.

Try different angles and take lots of shots, know that it is not an exact science; one photo can be a disaster and the next one great. When it is done well there is nothing like a spectacular lens flare to draw in the viewers eye,  or to suggest perfect sunny weather.

Finally if you are shooting into the sun, a flash or other light source, you will need to provide some light for fill, flash or reflected.  In the photo above I have used the cameras pop up flash to provide some fill ( yes it would be better with an off camera flash but I did not have one). Otherwise you will end up with a dark silhouette. It also helps to switch the exposure meter from full frame to center or spot. This will keep your subject properly exposed and let some or all, of the background blowout.

And let the rest fade away

And let the rest fade away

My sister trained as a photographer, she likes to get the entire image in focus.  I trained as an industrial designer, we were taught to show only what was needed and let the rest of the image fade away. I approach photography the same way today. I enjoy shooting with shallow depth of field, or restricting the light to highlight the subject.

To get shallow depth of field I prefer to use a prime lens, typically a Nikon 50mm F1.8, but an 85MM or 105MM would be good choices too. I love the way these lens will soften the background at wide open aperture (lowest F value i.e. — 1.8F).

The only real trick to this is get a colorful background but not too close to the subject. Finally if the background is significantly lighter or darker than you subject make sure the exposure metering is set to spot or center weighted and not the full frame mode. This will help if your subject is backlit as well.

Photographing from a moving car

Taking pictures in China, many of my shots were taken from a moving vehicle, usually the passenger seat of a car.  As much of the traffic  in China moves on bicycles and a lot of electric scooters it is a great way to get people shots, whole families, two kids, parents, a baby riding on a single scooter.  Scooters are used to transports goods for retail, half a pig, construction materials, the ability to load these scooters has to be seen to be believed.

The combination of the VR lenses and fantastically high usable ISO ranges make the Nikon D300 and others in the same series fantastic for shooting from cars. As far as camera set up, I used a Nikon 18-200mm DX VR lens, VR set to on, and in the Active VR mode ( for vehicles). I would typically use ISO 2800 or higher. It is important to realize if you are shooting with or into the light, shoot a test shot and adjust the exposure compensation every time the vehicle goes around a corner. I shoot with the window open and preset the distance on the lens to 50-70mm to save time, and zoom in to frame my subject. I prefer Nikon D300’s single point or multi-point focus to the 3D tracking as the latter will default to nearest object and will mess up your focus, if a tree, light-pole, or another vehicle comes between you and your subject.

The Nikon 18-200mm lens has a great range, to zoom out to 18mm to shoot an office tower in a city, or zoom in to 200mm get someone on a scooter. In the rural areas I rarely needed less than 70mm, and a 70-200mm F2.8 would be ideal.

Finally, roll the window all the way down, to avoid knocking off the lens shade.

My million dollar photo

I am an amateur photographer I got started in photography a few years ago when I worked for a paper company, and needed to take a photo of a huge empty warehouse we were trying to lease. The first photo I took with a little pocket camera with flash and it was unusable. I knew I would need a real camera that I could control the exposure to be several second long and shoot with the natural light, to allow all of area to be equally lit. I bought a Fuji DLSR with a non-interchangeable lens, practiced, took another shot of the warehouse and with that wonderful photo we were able to rent warehouse saving my employer a million dollars a year for the term lease. Thus less than a week after buying the camera I had taken my million dollar photo. Unfortunately I no longer have a copy of the photo.
Since that time I have used a camera extensively to document, locations, changes, set-ups and could not imagine working without it. I also take a lot of photos, especially portraits for fun.
I recently traveled to China for a month, and took more than 10,000 photos. With each photo and situation you learn a little more about what works and what does not, and about the strengths and weakness of the camera and lens you have. Like all photographers we are still trying to take the prefect shot, I’ m not there yet, but I am improving.
In future blogs I will be sharing these tips learned along the way, so check back soon.
We will be opening our online store soon to sell CF cards.