Thursday, December 17, 2015
Test
As a pro photographer, I've enjoyed many amazing opportunities to photograph a variety of subjects and sports, but this past May I got a chance to do something that was even a first for me.
My friend, Gavin Gear over at UltimateReloader.com put together an sporting event called the Rock Chuck Olympics where I got to follow along behind five YouTubers as they particpated in an event that would take each of them out of their comfort zone. They were:
- Erik Cortina - F-Class World Champion and Precision Shooting Parts
- Jim Harmer - Founder of BackFire TV
- Nils Jonasson - Pro USPSA, IPSC, IDPA, 3-Gun and Steel Challenge style matches shooter who has won US Nationals and World Championships
- Pieter Milan - PRS Competitor and Hunter in South Africa
- Adam Weis - Better known as Who Tee Who on YouTube
The Shot - 245 Yards - First Try
When you grow up in a rural town like I did as a boy, shooting (back then) was just like any other sport. I wasn't any good, but I enjoyed it with my friends along with numerous other activities.
However, during 2020 there I was looking for something still open that I could enjoy. What I found was a local range and it became a sanctuary for my son and I to enjoy a sport together. While everything else was closed, the range was open, and surpisingly nobody got sick (or hurt). As such, we had plenty of time to become good at this sport, and thanks to many of the featured YouTubers, we actually got quite good. In fact, my son even was on a National Championship squad two years in a row!
While photographing the Pistol ELR event, I finally got my first chance to participate in the competition. It was tough to watch and miss out on all the fun, so I'm happy to report that for my 1 shot for the entire event, I did ok:
More fun on Instagram
It was fun to get back in the saddle again and be a photojournalist again. While it wasn't like the good old days where there was a large financial reward on the end, I got to have plenty of laughs in an amazing place. I also like to think I have a larger circle of new friends as a result, as well.
On the final evening, we had to take a ride back down from the mountain and I had the pleasure of riding with the man behind the design of my Canik Rival - Nils Jonasson and Backfire TV founder Jim Harmer:
.Thursday, March 26, 2015
testwe
Unedited Photos*
Here’s a gallery of unedited photos, but I say that with an asterisks. This camera isn’t your traditional camera so post processing does require you to make a final choice on a starting focus point and aperture. Some come straight out of the camera just fine, but others need some tweaking.
NOTE: You can stop the videos and just click around the image to see the focus change. You can also click and drag in circles to see a 3D effect on some images.
If you show the info bar in the slideshow below you’ll see more info about the shot and what I did to it after the fact:
Here’s some others that I’d like to say a few words about:
This one looked great on the LCD but a little soft on the nearby flower on the computer. I was really bummed out as my wife really wanted to print it but that won’t be worthwhile. Nevertheless, it still is a fun online image for changing the focus and it does have a nice 3D effect.
I couldn’t help but enhance the color on this one a little bit more despite the fact that I wasn’t able to position myself in a better spot to get a more interesting shot. I left the aperture at f/2 so you can play with focus shifting, but I’d probably change it to f/11+ and clean up the distractions if it weren’t for the review.
I was frustrated that this image from a bracketed set looks so bad despite its 1/800 sec shutter speed. I tapped the tree and did a bracketed shot, but none from the set came out. I also couldn’t fix the focus after the fact so it was a total fail. Sadly I had about 20 photos like this that were a complete loss.
I took this shot of my ugly feet as a joke but surprisingly it was one of the sharpest foreground images I had. It’s also a great example of focus shifting, so I’m sad I didn’t get someone with better feet for this shot!
As a 3D image, this is probably my favorite thanks to the leaves at the top of the orange flowers. When you shift the image around they appear to jump out of the screen.
This shot suffers from what seems to be a minimum focus distance issue despite me being far enough away to get my desired results with a typical DSLR and a 70-200mm lens. This was a common problem that plagued a bunch of the 300+ photos I took.
This is what happens when you try too hard to get the perfect orange blue histogram when the camera will have none of it. You start with a blurry picture but you can click on something and things come into focus. I could have fixed this before uploading but I included it an a couple other examples to illustrate this issue.
Here’s a 30mm shot that can take in a lot of scenery, but compare that to the 250mm zoom below…
You can get close with a full 250mm zoom, but the lens doesn’t appear to be up to the task as 1/3200 at ISO 100 results in a very soft image
On the rear LCD, I thought I had nailed this shot as a good focus shifting example, but I was sad to see that the foreground flamingo never really gets crisp sharp. At 1/1600 sec, it should have been!
Don’t use Shade White Balance – it’s pretty hideous!
It should be noted that the for the overly yellow forest shots that I was using the Shade white balance – I regretted that. While I could have fixed that in post-processing, I uploaded what I had taken without any modifications – exactly as they came out of the camera unless otherwise noted. These were the first shots I took so my experience with this camera was as good which is why the shots are overall pretty bad.
The only place I could get high ISO shots on my trip was in this church, but even at ISO 640 here there are lots of chromatic aberrations and noise that left me very disappointed in this camera and lens combo
My apologies that the online viewer doesn’t show the EXIF for the images. Sadly it will only allow minimal captions. There’s also no mechanism for rearranging the order so you are out of luck if you make changes as I did. As a result, it’s important for you to do your upload all at once.
Click here to see a full gallery of images that are way better than mine, or visit https://pictures.lytro.com/lyt-45716874648267/albums/178268 for a full gallery of my images in a web browser. If possible, use the advanced viewer for the best experience.
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