I Got Your Sample Nikon D800 NEF Right Here

So I had posted a quick sample shot that I was playing with here – talking about the incredible amount of detail that the NIkon D800 shoots. That said, I had posted a JPG export out of Lightroom.

I figured, why not post an Actual NEF file. This will let people go and actually check it out for themselves. You can download the 41MB NEF file on my Google Drive: http://bit.ly/JNvO2R – give it a look over!

Working with the Nikon D800

Back when I was in Photoshop World DC, I got a chance to hang out with Richard Harrington of Rhed Pixel.  As we were getting ready to do some videos on the release of Photoshop CS6 Beta, a package showed up at the door.  Richard grabbed the box and brought it into the office beaming.  Inside it is the new Nikon D800.  I was really excited to finally be able to see it and put it through its paces.

After spending some time shooting with the camer, both at Photoshop World and back here in Tampa, There were a couple of thoughts mulling about in the head that I wanted to get down on  paper.

Oh, I’ll Just Get the D800.

Right up until the run up to the D4 and D800, I had a flurry of D300/D700 people excited about the step up to the full frame set of cameras.  Before the D800  the conversation was easy – if you dont have the money to plunk down, get yourself a D700.  D3 sensor – not the D3 price.  This gave you great ISO, and a good all around started Full Frame sensor package (obviously a lot more coin than being on the DX side of things)

But then something funny started happening.  Right before the D800 comes out, many people would jump in and say “Well.. I was really gonna make that push to the D3S or the D4, but I think Im just going to settle with the D800.  Can’t really explain it – but it was like the general idea was that the D800 was just the next iteration of the D700.. so really you were just getting a cheaper D4 – with more megapixels.  Heck.. more megapixels cant be THAT bad right?

More megapixels is great..  but you best be aware that going the D800 route will definitely require some upgrades and changes on your part.  The D700 and D800 are not the same cameras.  At all.

Getting Used To The Filesize

When you look at the D800, you are looking at a camera that is slightly bigger than a D700, but has a 36MP sensor inside of it.  In this, I usually tell people that the D800 is more of an evolution of Nikon’s D3X than it is the D700.  My D3S file sizes for a DNG file hovered at about 13-14MB in filesize. I thought those were big.  A RAW file coming out of the D800 is clocking just shy of 40MB.  That is a very significant jump.  Keeping the quality (which is awesome) aside, this is something that will take getting used to for some people.

Whatever cards you use will more likely need to be upgraded for bigger ones. You definitely have that  ”THATS all the shots I get on this card” when you put an 8GB card in it. You will also need to make sure you invest in high speed capacity cards because passing this amount of info from camera to card will need to happen a lot faster if you want to keep shooting out there (I use Lexar 600x cards for all of my stuff, and go between 16GB and 1 32GB card that I have.)

This will also mean that you will tend to shoot less.  I definitely am guilty of overshooting when I get to a shoot I need to do, and then I pay for it in having to whittle down those files.  If you shoot 1000 files.. you are going to see hard drive space just disappear!!  Time for external drives for you .

Loading, Loading, Loading,

The bigger the file, the longer something will take to render in some programs.  Lightroom 4′s definitely made some advances in working with files and the speed at which it can render (Photo Mechanic still being a speed demon in that space), but when trying to render a 1:1 to do some Develop work or to zoom in I definitely experienced a several second “Loading.. ” before i got the big file.

Now.. most of this research is anecdotal, but I found myself waiting about 7-8 seconds going through some files of images.  This is a Corei7 mac with now 16GB of RAM.  If you are operating at less than that? You may have a trip to Crucial in your future to get a RAM bump. Or get a new computer with a faster processor.  Waiting excessively just to cull the files will take an adjustment. If you take the 1000 image shoot scenario and calculate the size and the time on these, you’ll see that your workflow will totally need some adjustments.  Is the D800 worth it? I totally believe so – but I think that being informed of these changes will help you decide if what you get from a quality standpoint is worth that.

Details, Details, Details

Image on left? A 100% zoom of the image on the right.  I shot this picture of my friend as she was standing right in front of a window with the blinds turned open.  You know that because you can see the blinds in the irises!!  When I saw that, I was like whoaaaa baby.. this is a good amount of detail right here.

Then, I thought to myself… this amount of detail in an image is going to totally affect How you retouch an image, what you look for, and how you work on it!  I mean, you can totally see a lot of skin information in the picture of my friend to the right… enough to make me consider working the shot. However, you pull back and she looks beautiful!  I think of this as taking a really pretty girl and putting one of those super magnified beauty mirror up to them.  It looks completely different..   How much of what you see in THAT amount of detail are you going to want to deal with?

My buddy Rob was totally cool with me posting a 100 percent view of the shot in the interests of talking about the detail.  Rob is a handsome looking guy, and I can pretty much bet you that you would never notice this much in a shot, or consider working it.  However.. now that there is so much detail.. will some of these areas now set of alarms to you to retouch?

This is not Rob – and this is totally a PG related bodypart.  I had to zoom in and do a triple take when I saw this.  I was like “What the heck? This isnt even in the shot I made, how am I going to work with this? DO I even work with this?”

Retouching these kinds of details will also take a different approach.  You’ll find that running things like a healing brush or a Patch will definitely give you a more noticeable difference in the retouched area. You’ll have to be a little more thorough if you want to make it look really good.  Is that bad?  Not at all.  But its something you’d want to know going into it.  Your retouching may take longer.  Your settings and actions may need to change.

My Take: I’m Loving  The Quality

Overall I am very excited about the tonal range of the camera and the overall quality of the shots that come out of it.  I think that for those who go into the camera with these considerations in mind, you will have a much clearer expectation and appreciation for what the D800 can do, and what it brings to the table.  We havent even scratched the surface of what these cameras can do on the video side of things and Rob here is determined to go on that journey with me to figure that out.  As soon as we have some more on the field stuff, I will totally share it on!

If you want to comment on this and get in on the conversation make sure you leave it at my Google+ page: http://www.gplusrc.com

The Glassblower

(First off, thanks so much to the ppl who PMed.. doing ok..  Just needed to take care of some things.  Getting back to the saddle slowly but surely)

I went out last night to support a local Meetup group that we started over here in Tampa – The Tampa Bay Strobist group (link: http://bit.ly/tpastrobist ).  Usually these monthly events that we do send out about 80 people to go out and shoot with a bunch of models, and Assistant Organizers walk around assisting people with camera stuff.  Me, I just walk around and suggest stuff to the groups.  Its really a cool time.

Walking back from a group, I saw this guy hanging out in front of a store window  blowing glass.  I love watching this stuff.  He’s holding a contest for people online to get a picture of him doing his thing in a couple of days.  Figured i’d give it a shot anyway and send it to him.

My Photoshop HDR Pro Preset

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 .. HDR Shot with a Leica M9

About Those Presets
While we were doing the “Grill Bryan Hughes” Episode of The Grid Live – Scott Kelby and Bryan Hughes got to talking about the presets in Adobe CS5 that were included in the install. This got them both talking about whether it be cool to just make a set of presets that we could share out in the masses. We thought, hey! Why Not!

Church – RC

The preset i’m showing you here started off as a reprocessing of an interior shot I did of a church some time ago. As I start working more and more on HDR and images, I start going back to older images and reapplying the techniques to see what kinds of results I get. This church was one of them – and he preset that I developed for it served as a foundation preset for so other HDR Shots.

For me, most of the work that I do tends to have the Gamma slider over to the left. This will darken the image substantially. From there, it’s all about playing with the exposure, Strength, and radius. If I need any sort of additional contrast, I usually tone that up in Photoshop in post.

City in Twilight

One of the things that I tell people about producing HDR images is that the best images that you make are at twilight. A bright sun doesnt give you the greatest amount of nuance, range, or color. Many photographers are quite used to waiting until the Golden Hour to make great images because of the color. Now, imagine augmenting that experience by having so many different tonalities and exposures blending together with intense colors. That’s what HDR in twilight gives you.

You may notice that in some of the presets, I tend to use a little less saturation but a little more vibrance. Overall, HDR images tend to ‘cast’ a little bit of color – that’s to say that they almost appear as if they have a “blue” film.. or “green’ film over them (it could be any color really). Trying to minimize this – i’ll drop the saturation. To bring back some of the under-represented color, I will use Vibrance.

THIS IS NOT STRAIGHT OUT OF HDR PRO
Please keep in mind one thing. The images that you are seeing here are not straight out of HDR Pro in Photoshop. These images have had color augmented to them, effects inlaid, sharpening, contrast adjustments, etc. If you are shooting HDR images, it’s important to know that when you complete the tonemap of the image – you are only halfway done with your image. The rest of the process are all of the little photoshop tricks and tweaks that you do to eek out the best quality HDR image that you can.

This is what motivated me to write “The HDR Book”. If you’re interested in checking that out, click on the link here, or click the book icon on the right. Thanks!

New Metal Print Alert

Just got a new print from Image Wizards. LOVE the quality of this one.. just feels a lot like you’re staring down at a scene you normally wouldn’t see. This one will go up in the office – and prob the only one i’ll keep. Figure only 15 will be printed in total, so I may as well have one on metal.

Portraits Take Time : For Katie

Just hung out with my friend Alan Brusky of Fireleaf Design at the studio. He had asked me if I would help make an image of his sister in law, Katie while she was visiting here in Tampa. I figured this could be pretty cool, and to help a friend.. double bonus!

One of the things that got me excited about this was that Katie had never been into a “photo shoot” before. This would mean that this gives me the option to be able to practice something I love with someone who has had no experience being “talked to” by a photographer. I believe that every photographer out there has a bedside manner. Depending on how that bedside manner is – you’ll survive or fail a portrait session. We’ll talk about that one another time. So.. this would be her first time modeling.. with a stranger. Neat!

So, why am I writing this post? Well its about time, you see. Above you see the very first shot that I made with Katie. To the right – its the very last. When i work with a person in front of a camera I am very quick to explain to them that in order to get a picture thats wonderful, time is involved.

When you tell someone “I suck in front of a camera” – you are usually basing it on a very limited amount of times having your picture taken. Think of it like this: Think Thanksgiving – how many pictures could you have of yourself. Now add Easter.. prob not that many more. July 4.. couple here or there. So, in a smattering of pictures- lets say you get to 100.. you find that most suck, and you take horrible pictures.

Now, compare this to a model. A model can go into a shoot and take several hundred pictures. Do you know how many will be “The One?” Prob a handful – if that. As you get better as a model (and as a Photographer) those numbers get better.. but it takes time to do this.

Now, where Time comes into play. When you start working with someone, it takes time for that person to get used to you. It gets time for that person to find their footing in what they are doing. It takes time for them to figure out what you mean when you say “turn this way”. It takes time for them to relax every time you hit the shutter. However – if your Bedside manner is right.. and you know your gear.. the trust level increases, the person warms up.. and you get to make some good shots.

The next time you shoot with someone, go through the list of images – from start to finish. It’s as if there was a flipbook of comfort in front of you. The best shots more than likely are towards the tail end.

So.. make sure you convey this. Make sure you convey that this is something that will take a little time. When you show the result.. they’ll know it was a great trip.

Corey Barker: Portrait w/ P7000, SB900, and SB800

This afternoon was playing around with my wife Jenn’s Nikon P7000. As an advanced point and shoot this thing rocks! It made me start thinking, “could I use this thing with some off camera Flash action”

I think so…. excited! Gonna try a couple more things with it.. but liked what I saw here..

RC

Dumpster Diving in my Lightroom Catalog

Click on the pic to see a bigger one on Flickr

Sometimes when I am in the middle of clearing out images in my Lightroom catalog, I stumble into a bunch of images that usually label WWIT

WWIT – What Was I Thinking?

Found this one… figured i’d play with it a little bit..