This picture taken by a D300 and iso 3200 is another reason that I really really want this camera...

the quality is just impressive, well if I put one year 90$ each month to the side and sell my D80 for like, mhm 500-600$ I could buy one...

but I don't want to buy once a year a new camera and I rather have a second body than to give my D80 away :P

I did nearly buy a Nikon D50 today, sicne somebody sold one in excellent condition for 250$ on craigslist, which is incredible cheap and I still miss my first D-SLR.

When I saw my ticket for my flight from boston to washington I got excited. Row 10, finally close to the exit. The only thing what looked weird was that it said 10a...

well it turned out to be a tiny buisness jet with 12 rows and each row had a seat on the left and one of the right.

Long story short it was fun to fly in such a tiny aircraft and it was so close over the ground, I was actually able to take some snapshots of boston from the air.

ok this was like 10 minutes after the start so maybe not really boston anymore...

so is he stalking me, or are I'm stalking him?

this is here the question...

well the metabolomics conference in boston is now more or less over and it was quite an interresting experience. Basically during the day you attended several very nice talks (I even understood something of the biochem talks), walk around and look at some posters or be in little meetings with people to present the binbase system.

Well the presentation would have been much easier if you would had access to the internet and if the hotel would not have blocked all my webpages, which was pretty annoying. basically I was only able to present the administration frontend to several people who all liked it and the possibilities it gives you. The query speed was not exceptional fast, since the hotel connection was extremly slow and i discovered several bugs during the presentation, but they will be fixed easily.
Basically I need a feature which shows the user what's happening right now and have to change the error handling.
We also noticed that all people like the idea behind our system and were impressed by it, but they all told me that it needs to support quadropoles, lcms and GCxGC to be really successfull. Right now I guess the easiest and most important feature needs to be quadropole support and I'm going to invest a couple of my weekends to add this on my own, if people send me some test data which are created to our standard method.

The best parts were like always the evenings, we basically hit on bar after another which I notice quiete baddly on my checking account, basically you spend on a nght easily 30 - 40$ for drinks and additional 20 - 30$ for food. But well you get connections and connections are important in live and for your future career. It also gave me the chance to talk a bit with the developers of mzmine and to get a rough idea what kind of talk I have to prepare for finnland. Right now it looks like a short overview what we do, where is the problem and how we do it. I also guess I have to prepare an in detail talk for the developers to demonstrate the concepts.

What's about boston as a town? Well it's just a beautiful city and I'm defnatly going back here for some vacation, since I was pretty limited and had barley any time to take pictures. Anyway you can find a couple of shots here

Now I just have to find a way to get back to davis, since I'm pretty worried that the hurricane is going to kill my flight connection over washington. They shut down the airport for several hours yesterday and most likley do it again tomorrow...

well fter an exciting flight with united airlines (which sucks badly...) I arrived in Boston and spend sofar

• 15$ to check my baggage, are they kidding me? It's not even included in the price
• 20$ for a taxi
• 5$ tip to the taxi driver for returning my phone which i forgot in the taxi
• 10$ for beverages on board of the flight and food
• 15$ for dinner

and this was just the first day...

The picture on the left is hamburg and I will take some boston pictures in the next couple fo days

currently I'm bored and frustrated and just got paid. Which is a very very dangerous combination for me...

So I went online, look around and found a nice deal on a sigma 400mm F/5.6 prime and promptly bought it,after goggling it and get some information about it. The reason is, I wanted a 300mm F/4 prime since two years, but could never convince myself to actually pull the trigger on it, since it's 1200$. The 10 year old sigma in excellent condition and quite good reviews on the other hand sold for 400$ and 12$ shipping. So I decided to give it a little try and if it wont work out, well I send it back and pay another 12$ shipping.

What's to know about it?

• quite an old design (10-15 years old)
• heavy, 3 - 4 lbs
• slow, F/5.6 basically means auto focus is slow or wont auto focus with a TC
• low contrast, which is not that big of a deal
• around 400$ used and not optically perfect, but still better than all the 1xx - 5xx zooms these days
• optically better than my Tamron 70-200 + TC
• slow autofocus, so no bif's with my D80, maybe in future with the D300, if I ever get one
  

Basically it's the only affordable way to reach 400mm for an amateur, since the closest Nikon lens cost around 4500$.

I serious have to say what is nikon thinking latley, every new released nikon lens in an interresting range is 1400$+ and the third party producers like tamron and sigma are only producing these stupid megazooms, which never hold what they promise.

The picture of the bird is taken with the 70-200mm F/2.8 Tamron and sadly unsharp. I have no idea why this keeps happening, the Tamron is able to provide extremely sharp pictures, but I guess it's really the camera.

I just wished I would had waited 1 month and bought the D300, than I could use all these cheap old manual focus lenses. Like a Nikon 85mm F/1.4 MF for 400$ instead of 1050$ as AF version.

Well, I guess I put everymonth 150$ aways and can buy the D300 july next year...

well I'm sitting here and look at the pictures I took with the DP-1 from sigma and have to say that I'm very very happy that I did not buy this camera. It's not the fault of the camera, the pictures are nothing special, but very nice for such a small camera and the handling of the camera was very good, but boy the software sucks. I never saw just an ugly piece of software. Even the nikon software is nices, which says a lot..

Well my current result

• manual focus is nice
• fixed lens is interesting, but bad on a compact camera, some zoom would be nice
• it's just to pricey, half the price would be good
• software is impossible to use
• manual controls work very well

final conclusion, lets wait 1 - 2 years or see what the EVIL standard brings.

I'm also so frustrated right now and really tempted to just buy anything. But for some reason all the things which are interesting are out of stock...

Well time to go back on the balcony and wait that the hawk which is circling my house finally lands somewhere close enough for me.

I can convince myself to buy a 300mm F/4 (out of stock) but why the hell is there no 400mm F/4 of F/5.6? the next bigger lens from nikon is the 400mm F/2.8 for 5k+ or the 500mm F/5.6 for 5k+ too.

well being back from Germany and preparing my self to go to Boston for a week.

On the left a tree in the berlin tiergarten, exciting isn't it?

...still trying to figure out how to take great landscapes...

just some dog shots for lindsay...

Just spending the day outside and still working on my street photography. And well so far nobody complained that I took there picture and most of them I deleted anyway.

Basically these are the only ones which had a nice expression. If you happen to recognize your self and don't want this picture be able to see, please drop me a line and I remove it.

just being bored at the airport in chicago a couple of days and happily snapping away till I got the 'look' from one of the airport security guys...

The car picture was just taken to practice panning at low shutter speeds and get some feeling of speed into the picture.

...i'm weak...

I bought an ipod touch 16GB...

...and I still don't really know why...

...maybe I don't want to pay thousands for an iphone?

A couple of days I was asked to take a couple of pictures at a soccer game to help somebody to evaluate the tamron 70-200 F/2.8.

His focus was to use it for highschool sports at night times and in the evening. Now noramlly there are lights on during these kind of events, but in my case it was very dark, I was barley able to see anything in the viewfinder and the lights were off...

Means I went to the absolute max of the Nikon D80 and shot at ISO 6400 (3200 in camera and +1 stop in pp) at F/2.8 and 1/50s. Normally you would shoot soccer at 1/500 - 1/1000s to freeze the players.

After all I was surprised that I got some usable pictures at all out of this. I would never imagined that the camera could focus or produce an usable exposure.

Well needless to say, the person was very happy with the result.

...i really need to stop starting all my posts with 'well'...

Well I really have to learn to take good macros. I normally get the color right, but i never get the sharpness I'm looking for.
Maybe I need to stop using natural light for this kind of stuff and use speed lights again.

But I seriously need to find a way to make money with this hobby, since it becomes way to expensive. There are so many toys I want and I hate to wait and save...

some things are weird I was really not happy with the 17-55mm F/2.8, but I'm really sad that I returned it. For some strange reason I miss this lens.

Some squirrels are to curious for there own good...

And my tamron 70-200 + TC seems to have front focus issues at really close distances which is normal for a combination like this. I did not really expect to ever need the macro functionality of this lens...

I always woundered how people get these really nice sunset color done, whenever I tried it, well It never looked real...

So I kept reading and the answer was like always very simple. Define a fixed white balance instead of auto white balance. If you use auto white balance, it just washes out and looks like 'blah'

The picture itself is nothing special and really boring, acceptable composition, blurry trees, but the colors start to go the way they are supposed to be.

Well does anybody know what kind of flower this is? I hate to take pictures of stuff I don't know. As a reference bunnies eat it and is ca 12 wide.

Taken with Nikon D80 + 90mm macro + 1.4 TC, hand held at iso 800.

yes would be nicer without the noise, but there is no space for a 70-200mm F/2.8 + camera with 90mm macro and a flash. So the flash had to stay at home for now...

Well my quest for the holy grail of chipmunk images starts to return the first results. I still don't get closer than maybe 8 yards of them and I'm covered in dirt after trying to sneak up to these little bastards. But at least I start to get reliable results with the tamron 70-200m F/2.8 + TC 1.4

now I just need to get 7 yards closer to them, maybe I should watch caddy shack again...

I discovered Herby, he was hidden under tree and covered in rust and dirt...

he is even missing his number :(

Like with every embassy appointment, I arrived early, way to early, about 2 hours to early. So I took the time to take some pictures in the area of the German consulate and I really like the area so far and would love to live there.

It's just so beautiful.

At least 3 shots out of 800 turned out to be pretty nice. And I really like the flying bird, which is pretty sharp.

• my first successful bird in flight
  
• just four birds
  
  
  


• the three stugges
  

At moments like this I wish I had a Nikon D300 and a Nikon 300mm AFS, the Nikon D80 is a wounder full camera, but the focus tracking is really really awful sometimes.

And it finally managed to catch up and focus when the bird landed with the crab...

well the longer I look at this picture the more it bugs me, for example all the detail in the hair was lost.

Well now it's back and I really should be happy with this look.

Btw this is the original picture our of camera with 0 adjustments

Since I was not really happy with the original version, I went back to the drawing board and did some more magic. I guess now it really rocks :)

well the post processing is done and I got lots of very beautiful shots out of it and think Kim is going to be very happy.
It also gave me the chance to test some new methods of post processing

1. overexposed by two stops to archive this classic pin up high contrast look.
   


2. This picture was just beautiful composition wise but totally out of focus, well 15 minutes of work transform it into a classic piece of art :)
   


3. Kim was trying to reach for her daughter (which tried to knock over my light stands) and I really like the dynamic of this composition (sadly the framing is a bit off)
   
   


4. just a beautiful mum and daughter picture
   
   


5. Well I went a little bit nut's with the lightning, contrast and exposure brush but boy it looks cool!
   
   


6. slightly out of focus but after all a very nice composition with some simple post processing
   
   


7. well simple black and white and just looks nice
   
   


8. it feels nice to look sexy
   
   


9. and last but not least, it's always sunny in davis...
   
   

all the post processing was done using only adobe lightroom, which shows the power of this program quite well. And I had a lot of fun :)

The rest of this set can be found under zenfolio

all the pictures where taken using a Nikon D80, available light and a nikon 35mm F/2 or Tamron 70-200mm F/2.8

And really the last picture,

Just using the sun and the shade in some trees without any post processing.

something smells fishy in the state california,

today I went with Kim and her cute little daughter to take some potraets of them (which turned to be excellent, since I just finished the first sd card and have around 25 shots already) and my camera misfired about 50% of the tim...

you press the shutter button and it just refuses to fire. Now It could be that the onboard flash just overheated, since it worked fine when I use it without the flash. Which I just hope and which tells me I shoot to many pictures and should get a dedicated commander or worse pocketwizards (perfect solution just so expensive...)

I also ended up with alot of natural light shot's which seem to be quiete nice. It's impressive what happens at the golden hour. They just have this WOW quality and need barley postprocessing.

Ok how do I shoot potraits?

available light only:

1. go in manual mode
2. set your desired aperature
3. set your desired shutter speed
4. set auto iso to 800 and let it figure out the rest
5. as metering matrix or spot metering, depending on situation

flash and available light combination:

1. go in manual mode
2. set shutter speed to 1/250th
3. set an aperature of your choice
4. set iso two 200 - 400 to reduce the workload for the flashs
5. arange you light's, basically one on the left, one from the front
6. set them to 1/2
7. chimp with the display,iso,flash power,aperature till you get the correct exposure
8. balance with the ambient light. Rule of dumb, the slower the shutter speed, the more ambiant light you get

important lesson:

put some heavy stuff on your lightstands/umbrellas. Since the wind blows them over which means you loose 40$ for some new umbrellas or try to fix them with ducttape.

well today I received my new bag pack, which I had to order because my old bag pack is to large as carry on these days and boy it's beautiful in a strange way....

Basically it's an ugly sand colored cotton bag which looks like a 15$ yard sale bag and just needs to get really really dirty and some NRA*,Colt,"Shoot first ask later" stickers to become perfect.

Why?

Because it doesn't look like a camera bag, is very small and has enough space for 2 - 3 lenses, a camera and a tiny laptop in the bag.

For example it fits my travel setup:

1 x Tamron 70-200mm F/2.8 without hood
1 x Nikon D80 with 35mm F/2 attached
1 x IBM X60 Laptop and power supply (no love for the mac book, it's to big)
1 x small Lens X - maybe the sigma 10-20, did not test it yet or a small mono pod at the bottom


That's the one


*NRA = national rifle association

lenses for portraits on DX framed cameras (1.5 crop factor)

well after taking a lot of pictures in the last two years and testing a lot of lenses and cameras I'm finally able to make a statement about what stuff to use what situation at a defined working distance.

Currently this is my standard approach

• full body 35mm F/2
• half body 50mm F/1.8
• headshot 90mm F/2.8

This allows me to be 2 - 3 yards/meters away from the model and communicate in a normal way without screaming out of my lungs. It also permits my flash system to work without trouble. If I shoot available light or need to be able to switch focal distances quickly I moving over to the heavy and big 70-200mm F/2.8. It's very flexible but demands shutter speeds of 1/250s and some distance to the model, since it can be intimidating.

well after googeling a bit, I found a nice dual bracket holder:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250279099019

which could fix my: flash has not enough power problem and should be cheaper in the long run.

1 x SB-800 = 320$
1 x SB-600 = 170$

2 x SB-600 + Flash bracket = 400$

ok It's maybe cheaper to get an SB-800, but two SB-600 have much more power than a single SB-800.
It's a moot point anyway since I need a controller first. The nikon cameras can only control two bank.

I'm not even sure if I want to stick with CLS since it work's perfect inside, but is pretty unreliable outside, since the communication signal can't bounce off anywhere, maybe it's time that radio poppers drop by like 50% in price...

well after taking the potraits of lindsay today, first time ever with two umbrellas in public and testing something totally new. Yes i am a photo nerd...

Well SB-600 are great flashes for indoor work or to work in the shade with, but they are pretty much useless in the bright sun. They have just not enough power and it seems that I won't buy anymore of them.

Seems that the next flash will be an SB-800 or I have to shoot pictures after the 'golden' hour. An SB-900 would be even nicer, but at 500$ a pop and SB-800 for 300$ a pop, well it's not really a question anymore.
After all it's just a hobby...

I also could just shoot at ISO-400 or ISO-800, but this means that I never get nice sharp sparkling eyes. And a portrait without these is just pointless. Ok there is a solution to shoot sparkling eyes at up to ISO 1600 - 3200, it's called D3/D700 and way out of the reach of my wallet. (For now at least)

Why a third flash in the first place?

now I need a hair light or rim light from time to time to give my pictures this particular edge and to be more flexible.

well I finally start to understand adobe lightroom and discovered the greatest feature ever, the exposure brush. Basically you can lighten,darken parts of a pictures with the touch of a brush. The effects are quite amaizing.

For example, before:



and after adjustments and partial desaturation using exposure brush + reducing the exposure in some parts



so you need photoshop CS3/gimp less and less these days, thanks to photoshop light room.