100 Strangers

I have decided to take on a new project. It’s called “100 Strangers” and it’s awesome! The objective is simple: photograph 100 random people. I think it will be fun so invited a friend and will be downtown with my cameras shooting away. I debating between which of the two lenses I will bring out of these three – 17-70mm 70-200mm and 50mm. I really can’t decide. All of them are good and I’m torn between having a wide angle lens, having a telephoto lens and having the ability to blur the backrounds of the photos as much as the photo of the girl below (taken from the 100 strangers Flickr group). Atleast I get to take since I’m bring two DSLR bodies.

Speaking of having two cameras – I got a new piece of gear. It’s a harness (pictures below). It’s pretty sweet because now I can have both DSLRS very accessible to use on the fly. Both cameras remain exactly where I want them to be so I can take a shot with one and switch to the other in about a second. I don’t know if it will look extreme or anything to others but I like it. Sometimes photographers have to look bad to take good photos.

 

Two Cameras

I got a Canon 40D as a second body. I don’t know why I did not a long time ago (except that its expensive and I found an awesome deal). Now I don’t have to switch lenses. It’s pretty sweet. My usual setup is to keep either a 50mm or 70-200mm on my main body and then a 17-70mm on my 40D. It works out really well. And for low light, I put my 580EX II speedlite on the 40D since it’s NR is worse.

Good and Bad Sports Photography

As many of my peers know, I photograph sports for my school yearbook. At games, there are usually 2-4 serious photographers (I’ll define that as anyone with a DSLR and lens of 100mm +.

Here is an example of the WRONG way to take sports photos. 

I have seen here at a few sporting events now. She uses what I is either a Canon Rebel XS or XSi. The max ISO on it is 1600. The lens is a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6. This is a very slow lens. Overall, this is terrible for shooting sports in low light. I was shooting at f/2.8 at 3200-6400 ISO later in the night. That shot of this photographer is even shot at 5000 ISO. Here is what is wrong – slow camera, slow lens, but most of all…. Flash! With a full size football field, there is no way an on camera flash will reach players 25 yards away let along across the field. In addition to that, the Rebel cameras only have a flash sync of 1/200th or 1/250th, thus making impossible to get sharp action shots.

Here is an example to the RIGHT way to take sports photos.

I don’t know her name, but I had a few words with her. She takes photos for the Citizen Times, a local newspaper of Asheville. I did not see exactly what camera it was but I think it’s a Nikon D700, D300 or D300s. She told me the lens is a 300mm f/2.8 (just over $5500 new). Of course, only those on a professional budget can get that kind of lens. The monopod is a good choice, and even a must with larger lenses like that one.

Here is one photo I took with my 70-200mm. 

Info: 6400, ISO f/4, 1/750th

The required gear

Today I was checking out some pretty amazing photojournalistic photos on “the big picture” from the Boston Globe. I decided to make a list of the perfect gear for photojournalism.

 

 

Canon1D Mark IV

Canon 1d Mark IV

Canon G10

580EX II Speedlite

Canon 24-70mm f/2.8

Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II

Canon 50mm f/1.2

Canon 14mm f/2.8

1.4x converter

2x converter

Apple Macbook Pro

1TB portable HD

256GB in CF cards

iPhone 4

Mace

 

With this gear, you can handle pretty much any situation. No, any sutiation. You might want to add waterproof casing if going underwater, but that really covers it.

 

Strobist

I was really inspired by those pro stobists out there. For those that don’t know, a strobe is just another word for a Flash or Speedlite. So, a strobist is just someone who uses strobes to take photos. I invested some money to start my strobe setup. I bought a 580EX II ($500ish) and some cheap wireless flash receivers and a trigger. I also have a second strobe in the mail that should be at my house soon. I’m really just testing the waters, but I've realized I opened up a whole new world for myself. There are an infinite number of places each light or strobe can be placed, giving your photo different lighting.

 

 

(not done an unnamed person found on google images)

 

 

   Here I had an idea for some shots. I would show the chess pieces in two dramatic views – one from the perspective of the pawns and another from the view of the large king or queen (these indian chess sets have pieces that are really hard to tell what they are). Anyway, you can see my set up from the 3rd shot. I had a normal light (very orange with used alone) and then my 580EX II. So it was 580EX II camera left, and lamp light camera left. The way you see it in the 3rd photo is the same way I shot both shots. You can see, when I fired the shot, the 580EX II went off.