Holy cow – I know I say it like every blog post – but geez it’s been a busy couple of weeks! Clients, shoots, new equipment, new software, new studio accessories, physiotherapists, more clients, more shoots, post production coming out of my… well, you know what.
So am I forgiven for not posting a new blog entry for a week or two? To summarise the last couple of weeks; my new Nikon D700 arrived freshly packed from those good guys at B&H Photo in New York. I am still getting to grips with it but it is awesome, but we already knew that right. I still love my old Fuji’s but the D700 is a welcome addition. This also meant that I had to look for some new tethered shooting software. I have been using Fujifilm’s Hyperutility Software in the studio and I have become very attached (pun intended) to the idea of shooting tethered in the studio. It is invaluable for a number of reasons. Once you have tried it you will not go back.
So anyway, I had to find a new alternative. I found it in the shape of Phase One’s newly revised Capture One Pro 4.8 software. It’s amazing. But more on that later…
Today saw me and a very good friend at the Perth Fashion Festival 2009 – Style Oasis fashion parades. Together we had applied for media accreditation but due to the "overwhelming number of applicants we were unsuccessful." That didn’t mean that we couldn’t still show up with our cameras though!
Having been busy with clients lately I was eager to try out the D700 at a fashion show that was actually properly lit for photography, unlike the downright awful lighting at this years EveryWoman Expo, as I covered back in this blog post. And I can safely say I was gobsmacked by the results! I spent the whole show in ISO1600, f/3.2 and the shutter speed was hovering around the 500th to 1000th of a second range. Autofocus was set to AFS-C in Dynamic 51 point 3D Tracking mode. Wow. Oh yeah, I have the release mode set on the camera so that the shutter will not fire unless the subject is in focus. An invaluable feature that is essential in a fashion catwalk show when the models are pacing up and down the catwalk at a great rate of knots. I found out today that some Canon cameras do not have that feature… that’s too bad!
So yeah, apart from a few exceptions where the models walked directly in front of one of the overhead spot lights, the D700’s metering was pretty spot on. This was also partly my fault as I did not realise until halfway through the first show that I had the cameras metering in evaluative 3D Matrix metering mode (where the camera samples the entire scene to obtain an “acceptable” exposure) instead of centre-weighted. After I made the switch I noticed much fewer images were being blown out.
So, all in all it was a successful outing. I hope you all realised that the images I have posted in this blog entry are from today's fashion shows. I have tickets to see the Morrison show tomorrow evening so stay tuned to more images from Perth Fashion Festival 2009. I have placed a couple of image galleries on my website here. Have a look and don't forget to have a look around the rest of our Perth Based Photography website while you are at it! (shameless google plug there...)
And to finish this weeks blog post, I have made a short video which gives a quick overview of the aforementioned Capture One Pro 4.8 software. As I say in the video, it is just a brief summary of the features of the package and not a full-blown instructional video as I do not know the software well enough at this point to do so… but here’s the video anyway.
Well, I hope you liked it and the video told a little bit of a story.
Ok, I’m outta here. It’s getting really late and it’s going to be a super busy week again (déjà vu?) so take care everyone and keep taking pictures!
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