This vs. That

A little over a month ago, Bethany asked me why I prefer Canon over Nikon. My answer to that had absolutely nothing to do with any belief of Canon being superior to Nikon. It was simply because that's what what my dad has always used, and that my high school graduation was a Canon Digital Rebel. In other words, it's just what I'm familiar with.

I had been thinking about that a lot lately. I'd be willing to bet you that if you ask anyone why they shoot with a Canon, or why they shoot with a Nikon, more times than not their answer will have something to do with Canon being better than Nikon, or visa versa. Here's where I stand on that argument. I strictly shoot with a Canon because it's what I'm used to. Here's why I don't have any strong opinions on which camera company is better: Take an image shot with a high end Canon camera, and take a similar image shot with a high end Nikon. I'd be willing to bet you that absolutely nobody would be able to tell which image was shot with which camera.

The same thing applies to the argument of the superior post process software between Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture. Process a photo in Lightroom and process a photo in Aperture and again I'm sure you won't be able to tell which was processed in which program. I've used both Aperture and Lightroom. I prefer using Aperture because I like the layout of the interface more than Lightroom. I also like its file management over Lightroom. There are, however, some features in Lightroom that I wish Aperture had (adjustment brush!) but here's to hoping that Aperture 3 will have that feature.

The best camera is the one that's with you

Flashy

It's 2010. How does that grab ya? I say good riddance to 2009. That was an odd year with odd ups and downs. Promoted to full time at the studio, Grandma Kellman passed away, first car accident... What surprises does 2010 hold? We shall find out.

Right off the bat (seemingly) on the third of the year (a Sunday?!) I had a shoot at a dance school in Howell. By far the smallest of the dance schools that we shoot. Only about 42 dancers. This was my first time doing this shoot and in the past the lighting setup for the head shots we (to me) very unsatisfactory. One light to the left and one to the right at full power... rather lame and boring. So me wanting to increase the quality of the head shots decided to have, for the most part, the same set up, except on light's pulled back a little and I have full power going to one of the strobes while only a third of the power going to the other one. This creating more shadow depth and overall, in my opinion, a much more attractive portrait.

I've been reading a lot of photo blogs lately and I'm loving it. It's completely reignited my love for photography. Before I would have a mindset of "Wow, that's an awesome camera, I want that camera," but now (even though I recently bought a brand new Canon 7D) there's specific equipment and accessories on my wish list. On top of that list right now is a 50mm 1.8 lens. This is considered a fast lens, meaning that it the aperture opens pretty wide letting more light hit the image sensor, allowing you to be able to use faster shutter speeds in lower lighting situations. And it's a fixed focal length which kind of forces you to not rely on zooming into a subject. If you want a closer shot, you have to physically get closer. Ideally though, I really want the 50mm 1.2 L lens (L is Canon's highest quality of glass), unfortunately I don't have $1,600 to drop for it. So I'll just have to settle for the 1.8... which is only about $100. It still takes pretty great quality images. My dad has one and I've kind of been borrowing it and instantly fell in love with it. The image below was taken using that lens.

One of the blogs I read is by photographer David Hobby. His blog is all about using speedlites for off camera flashes. Now because the Canon 7D has a built in wireless transmitter, this gives me the ability to be more creative with my 420EX. However, since it is nearly 5 years old, it has me desiring the newer 580EX II. They're pricy though. I also want a shoot-through umbrella and various accessories from David Honl has to offer. The following images of the rose were shot in my room using my 420EX flash. These aren't really serious images I was going for here, more just putzin' around. It just so happened that I really like what came out.

For the second one, I used a sheet of plain white computer paper as a diffusion panel.

I get pretty excited thinking about what I can do if and when I get the various things on my photographic wish list. It's going to take a while for me to accumulate it all. Never-the-less, I can hardly wait!