Good Portraits

I found a great portrait photographer, perhaps one of the best in the world! He lives in Escheburg, Deutschland and his name is Markus Schwarze. Here are some photos of his. He mostly uses a 5D and 35mm f1.4. Here are a whole bunch of his photos http://www.flickriver.com/photos/wefwef/popular-interesting/ but here are a few I liked in particular.

 

 

Windows Photo Gallery Vs. Lightroom 3 for Photo Noise Reduction

It’ been about two weeks since I sold my Canon Xsi to buy a T2i. According to UPS tracking information, my camera shall arrive tomorrow morning (of course, ill be at school). Anyways, here are two photos my friend Lucas took with my Xsi this past winter. This is a comparison of the noise reduction in two different programs.   This photo was taken at 1600 ISO, 5.6f and 105mm. The noise was relatively bad so I plopped it into Lightroom 3 beta two and fixed that noise problem. The top photo without a watermark is the photo that I used noise reduction from Windows Live Photo Gallery and the bottom photo with the Oliver Sholder watermark is edited with lightroom to remove noise. Viewing the larger photos will show a major difference between the two. The conclusion: lightroom is significantly better in terms of noise reduction. This, however, did not come as a surprise since the program costs more than the other free program, plus it has a much more complex algorithm.

Camera Deprivation

May 6th (or before) is the when my new T2i will arrive. I am pumped for this and really can’t wait. It’s a solid upgrade from my Xsi. The biggest reason is the HD video, but I will talk more about that once I get the camera and try it out. For now, I have been looking back at my best photos from older shoots – specifically, the one where I took my nifty 50 (50mm 1.8f lens) downtown and took some great photos.

A Man's Gear

This was a photographer at the Purim Carnival I shot at. I saw a name-tag thing and from it, I am pretty sure that he shoots for a local Newspaper. He wields his cameras like Clint Eastwood would hold his guns in a 60s or 70s western. Both were Nikons; on the left, i think that was a 300mm lens and on the right one of those prime lenses with a super low f stop.
Clearly, from looking at the dirt in the lens on the left, this is a man that does outdoor photography. Maybe the dirt is from shooting dirt-bikes or maybe just the sky on a windy dusty day. Whatever it is, i'd like to have his job.

Shooting the Purim Carnival

As a freelance favor, I shot the Purim Carnival at the JCC. I was taking photos for the local Jewish youth group I am in called the BBYO. The conditions for shooting were the worst that could possibly be. It dim lights, indoors and little kids; everyone was moving around quickly and I was doing my best, mostly sticking in 800 or 1600 ISO. Overall, I got the hang of it. I kept settings around this: 1600 ISO, 1/50 shutter speed and 3.5f. I needed between 1/40-1/60 to avoid blur in my photos. I wish i had one of those uber cameras - the ones with over 100,000 ISO and that i had a 1.2f lens, that would have made it much easier and my photos better, however, i managed well with my gear (about $1500 total).Overall it was a good experience for shooting indoors.
    I have a cocktail party/dance/other things coming up to shoot. It's in a week or so and i'll be sure to blog and post photos of my experiences and encounters there, for I'm sure it will be exciting.