Better late than never...

After much procrastination and other things getting in the way I have finally managed to finish the images I took at this years EveryWoman Expo at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. Thank god.

It has taken nearly two months and about 11 visits to my Physiotherapist (for spending far too much time in front of the PC with bad posture!) to cull the 4371 images down to an almost manageable 650ish.

I ended up doing the majority of the post-processing in Lightroom 2; something that is new to me. Let me explain. I usually do all of my post production straight into Photoshop CS3, one image at a time – for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I am really familiar with PS and most of the editing doesn’t take all that long once the image has actually opened. Secondly, for some time (and possibly incorrectly) I have been of the opinion that the end result of an image edited in PS just looked… better – than the same adjustment made in Lightroom. Now I realise that the same processing and editing engines that run PS are in Lightroom (albeit in a less powerful incarnation) but call me silly and old-fashioned; I just liked Photoshop more.

The problem with Photoshop arises however when you start to open lots of images, lots and lots and lots of images, all at once. I have a pretty souped up workstation but it really starts to suffer with this. No such problem with Lightroom however! Yay. And I am now a lot more familiar with Lightroom’s capabilities than I was two months ago too.

I did really struggle with the colours that the Nikon D700 was producing compared to my beloved Fujifilm S5 Pro. There seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason for the out-and-out colour shift from one image to the next. The image gallery that I have uploaded to my website contains about 90% D700 images – simply because that camera body took 90% of the images over the weekend of the Expo; but anyway you will see what I mean with the colour shifting. Bear in mind also that you are viewing images after I have tried to tweak them in Lightroom. The images look quite acceptable when viewed individually, but played one after the next the colour shifting becomes evident.

And to finally put the Nikon D700 vs. Fujifilm S5 Pro comparison to bed; after now reviewing every single image from the weekend I can safely say that the D700 showed much less noise than the Fuji, but the colours produced by the S5 Pro still amaze me, and they are consistent (for the most part) shot to shot unlike the D700. Both cameras have the same resolving power (they are both 12 megapixels after-all) and given time I am sure I could get used to the one big-ass menu on the D700 as opposed to the separate (and brilliantly done) dual menus on the S5 Pro. As for the rather mediocre pixel count of both these cameras in today’s market – I feel it really apt to adopt and slightly modify a saying that Porsche drivers have been saying for years to their Italian counterparts – “it’s not how many pixels you have – it’s how you use and process them that matters!” I don’t want to get into a half hour lecture of the advantages of less pixels = bigger pixel sites which in turn = more photons hitting said pixel sites which finally = MUCH more dynamic range and less noise than a camera with a similar sized sensor but a higher resolution. You just have to trust me on this. If you don’t believe me, ask Google!

Anyway, I am really looking forward to the next few weeks. I have a few model portfolio shoots lined-up with new models which give me the luxury of being able to try new ideas and lighting scenarios. To this day previous model development shoots I have done produced some of my best work – in my own opinion. When the pressure is off and you have free reign to do whatever it really does make for a fun time! I can’t wait.