Boardom

The reason I haven’t been blogging lately is completely due to my boardation. In the past two and a half weeks that I’ve been home, my board hasn’t spent more than 4 consecutive days locked away in the storage room. So at a minimum, I owe you guys a few shots of my winter break:

More to come.

Rollfest.

ReBlog/Reesers [Family Shoot]

Welcome back folks. It’s been awhile, but I’m finally up and rolling again. Thanks to the lovelies over at State Farm, this Mikerophonity is coming to you straight from my shiny new MacBook Pro’s keyboard. Insurance is by far the best investment I made this year… Err… Last year.

Yup, yup. As you may have noticed, it’s now 2010, which means I should probably look back to this post and give you an update on the resolutions made there [spoiler alert: the results are surprisingly similar to most other people’s]. A new year isn’t all bad news… I’ve got some exciting stuff for your lovely eyes to check out coming up soon. I have my good buddy/Javascript genius Josiah whipping up a spifferific website for me, and a full on rebranding on the way.

I also need to throw up some Scotland shots, the results of my final photo project, and some fun snowboarding action. Needless to say, I’ve been busy.

But for now, I’d like guys to meet the Reesers; a supremely photogenic and fun family that I shot on the day after Christmas. You’ve already seen Brandon and Breanna strut their stuff in their ridiculously cool 30’s shoot. This time, they brought along the rest of the family for the party.

Rollfest.

What Should I Buy?

I feel like that at some point, every photographer has to answer this question. Some of the best photographers I know hate talking about gear. They just don’t like it. I envy them. I constantly wish that I wasn’t naturally such a sucker for shiny things with buttons, but unfortunately for my wallet, I am.

So, moving along…

I get asked multiple times a week questions along the lines of, “What camera do you use?” and “What camera should I buy?” and “What’s your take on the new SuperGlam 5000?” So this is my best attempt to give a broad, general purpose guide to gear (in a completely subjective, Mike-tainted way) that covers as many of those questions as I can.

The first thing you should buy is the new Train album. It’s grand. I personally haven’t bought it yet, but I stream it (Jesus answers prayers through Spotify) at least four times a day. Seriously. It’s glorious.

Warning:
If you don’t want to read any technoblabber, go buy the album and have a nice day. This is where the techie side of me comes out.

My main set up right now consists of a Canon 5DmkII, Canon 35mm f1.4L, and Canon 135 f2L. I could (and probably do) 90% of my work with those three things. The benchwarmers include a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX, a Canon 50mm f1.8 mkI, and a Canon 580EX Speedlite. Memory cards are all of the relatively quick (133x-300x) Sandisk and Lexar variety. I’ve seen far too many cheap cards go bad, so I try and stick to those two brands when loading up on memory. I personally like the Sandisk best; they look prettier.

What’s next on my list? Canon 45mm f2.8 TS-E. I’ll try and scoop one up once I get back to the States.

So now that we got me out of the way, let’s talk about you.

“I don’t currently have a DSLR, but want to pick one up and start taking some better pictures. What should I get?”

Anything. Every camera that Canon and Nikon currently makes will take some absolutely stunning images. You really can’t go wrong choosing any camera between those two companies. While some people are big Pentax and Olympus fans, I generally find that their cameras are a generation or so behind the latest and greatest Canon, Nikon, and Sony equivalents. And while they have a great selection of old-school manual focus lenses, they don’t have the huge range of current autofocusing glass that Canon and Nikon offer. Sony is the new kid on the block, and I think they’re on to something. They’ve come out with some great cameras, superb lenses, and innovative flashes in the past couple years. They’re whole system is still in its beginning stages, and they can’t match Canon and Nikon’s big range of lenses, so I don’t currently recommend them. However, give it a few years and that may change.

Go into a store, and try some cameras out. Go see which camera fits in your hand best. Figure out which one is easiest to operate. Then buy it. For most people’s purposes, any DSLR camera under $800 or so will do just about everything that the one sitting next to it will. Don’t get sold on megapixels. They’re not important. I promise.

If you are really thinking about getting serious about photography, then there are a couple more things to consider. The lower end Nikons (D40, D60, and D3000… maybe even the D5000) don’t autofocus with some lenses, and so I would avoid them. If I were stepping into Nikon and wanting to be serious about my photography, the minimum I’d grab is a D90.

“Ok, I have a DSLR, I’ve been taking photos for awhile now, and I’d really like to step up my game. What now?”

Learn to shoot in manual. Understand what the camera is doing. Be active in determining how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO effect your shot. If you really want to spend money, get a few photography books (I’ve heard that “Understanding Exposure” by Bryan Peterson is a good one).

“Check. Call me the manual master. I’ve got it down.”

Pick up a 50mm f1.8 for around $100. Both Canon and Nikon make them. They are cheap little primes (fixed focal length; they don’t zoom in and out) that are awesome for the price. I still use mine. They are great for teaching you about depth of field, shooting in low-light situations, and forcing you to be creative in your compositions.

“Sweet. I can take good pictures and I now own $918,494,843 worth of photo gear, but my photos still don’t look like yours! What gives?”

You can take great photos, but many times they need a little extra zing to top it off. This is where post processing comes into play. I process all of my photos through Adobe Lightroom and occasionally Adobe Photoshop CS4. Sometimes photos need some extra contrast, more saturation, or some cropping to really make them come to life. For what it’s worth, my “style” of processing usually includes lots of contrast, lots of clarity (or microcontrast), lots of vibrance, and warm colors, sometimes with green and magenta undertones thrown in. Grab a copy of Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, or Adobe Photoshop (either Elements or the real deal) and a good Photoshop book or techie friend and play around a little.

It’s worth noting that shooting photos in RAW format will make a big difference when you process your images. You will be able to tweak the colors, exposure, and noise reduction even more than if you shoot in JPEG format. However, RAW files look much worse straight out of the camera, so I recommend shooting in RAW if you’re going to post process the images. I nearly always process my photos, so I nearly always shoot RAW.

“Gear: Check. Taking good pictures: Check. Knowing how to process: Check. My photos still don’t look like yours. What the heck?”

Duh. I’m me. You’re not. Your photos shouldn’t look like mine! Take photos that know one else sees, and process them in ways that people don’t think of. We call this style. Go get your own.

 

If you guys have more photo questions, email me, comment, text me, face my book, flik my r, twit my ter… Just ask.

Look for Scotland pics tomorrow, they’re all exported and ready to roll.

Peace.

Scotlanding [teaser]

Still traveling through Scotland. Currently on the Isle of Sky. Sick sights, but bad weather, limited daylight and 13+ hours of traveling have left photo ops few and far between. Tomorrow’s our first (and only) full day to just go get lost in Scottishness, so that’ll be fun.

Roll.

Hello, Beautiful

Something came in the mail… err… “post” today.

Things were going really well between us until I opened the battery compartment to put in a battery and found this:

Ah! Knife through the heart! I put the battery in anyway, hoping it would just ignore the ridiculous amount of corrosion that surrounded it, but no such luck. The camera simply doesn’t want anything to do with electricity at the moment.

Even if it had power, it would be a serious pain to focus. The rangefinder (focusing eyepiece) is way too fogged up to notice anything resembling an in-focus shot. Bah. Such is life. I’ll have to dig around and see if I can find anywhere that could give it a good cleaning and replace the crapped-out electronics, but I’m not entirely hopeful at the moment.

Besides those two issues, this thing is a beautiful little camera. It was made sometime between 1966 and 1968, so it’s a little on the old side. Everything about it is super smooth, even being 40 years old. It’s relatively small, but very solid. It feels just as good as it looks. I wouldn’t mind if Canon added a few pounds to its cameras to give them the same solidness that this little sucker has.

But of course, none of that changes the fact that right now, it doesn’t take pictures. Apparently film and I just weren’t meant to be…

Peace.

Life at 24mm

Today was a good day.

Kelsey, Lee, Taylor, and I all roadtripped, err… traintripped (?) it out to Salisbury and Stonehenge. It’s awesome being 20 minutes away from Central London, which is a very cool place in its own right, but man the English countryside here is like a set out of a movie. You just expect a horde of kilted Bravehearts to come barreling down the grassy hills any second. It’s just about exactly how you would imagine it.

I’m also still waiting for some “terrible” UK weather that I keeping hearing about. It’s sprinkled on and off in the mornings and evenings, but other than that there’s been nothing but deep blue skies, huge puffy clouds, and brisk 60’s temperatures. Tough life.

Due to my broken 35L, I busted out my old and not-so-trusty Sigma 24-70 to drag along the countryside with me. I definitely need to send this puppy in to be re-calibrated, but I rediscovered my love for 24mm. So it looks like the 24L will be going on my to buy list. Along with the 45 ts-e. And 7D. And 70-200 2.8L IS. Oy. I hate that list. Anyways… On with the show:

And Salisbury Cathedral:

Rollout.

Fording the Ox

Class field trip. Yay.

Two things you should note about this pictures above:

Oxford looks (and feels) like it came out of a Harry Potter movie. They did draw a lot of inspiration in the movies from it, and even recreated Oxford University’s Great Hall for the dining hall in the movies. But even the people, country, other buildings, it all feels like a fantasy land. The whole trip (for our class) was about C.S. Lewis, and it’s easy to see how much inspiration that he, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien, were able to draw from this crazy little college city.

The other thing you should note about my photos is that anything that is in focus past 10 ft was shot with my 135L telephoto lens. Why? Because I dropped my 35L (wide) lens. Now it refuses to focus past 10 ft. Grand. We’ll have to see what Canon UK has to say about that. It made for an interesting shooting day, that’s for sure.

Peace.

Camden

These photos have been chillin’ on my hard drive for about a week now. I couldn’t let them be neglected any longer.

Oxford visuals = up and coming.

Rollout.

Will the Real London Please Stand Up?

Oh. There it is.

Peace.

Go Time

London has brought out the beast in us.

Something has changed. Something is definitely different about us than before. It’s like someone stuck some steroids in us when we weren’t looking. Beth, Kelsey, and I have all been suddenly hit with a huge desire to improve. I’m not talking about making little baby steps by taking a few pictures every week. I mean we all have this sudden, extreme craving to take our photography, our journalism, our entire lives to the next level. Kelsey hasn’t said anything about it (at least to me), and Beth has started to touch on it on her blog, but it doesn’t need to be put into words to see what’s going through everybody’s heads.

I’ve traveled around Biola, California, the US, and Europe with these two, taking thousands of pictures along the way. But when we ventured on our photo assault in Central London today, something was noticeably different. We weren’t just documenting our lives anymore; we were challenging ourselves with every photo we took. We were pouring every ounce of talent into our cameras, trying to make Every. Frame. Count.

I mean it wasn’t all a photo commando op. We had a blast. Goofed around. Made fun of Kelsey when she was awarded her stars of honor for coloring paper on the South Bank. But at the same time, we were pushing our own limits of what we could see and what we could capture in the camera.

When I get back to my room after a day, the first thing I do is check up on everything photographers that I admire are doing. I’ve always paid attention to their photos and figured out what I liked and what I didn’t, but now it’s different. I’m dissecting the lighting they use for every photo. I’m looking at the way they design their logos, layout their blogs, export their photos. I’m reading about their business practices and how they deal with contracts. I now have a Twitter (I was anti-Twitter for quite awhile). It’s not so much a tool for informing others of what you’re doing as much as it is a tool to see what others are doing. Other photographers, students, newsgroups. I’ve found that I’m not using it to connect with people that I know, but more so to connect with people that I want to know. People who I admire and people who I want to see the way they’re living.

Roehampton is probably gonna flip when they see how much bandwidth I take up on a daily basis.

I was talking with Kelsey today about the reasons why we won’t be able to start taking pictures professionally (aka actually making money off of photography) and she shot every one of them down. But she’s right. We’re good at what we do. We are all decently equipped in terms of gear. We know what we’re doing. So it’s go time. When I get back, I’m doing it to it. I’m guessing that Kels and Beth will be right behind me. Or in front of me.

So there you have it. London is getting intense. And not because of the classes or culture shock, but because we’re making it intense.

Rollout.