Some new pics

Been a while since I have posted, but here are some favorites from a recent shoot with the Reisbeck family - their girls are just plain adorable so it was a lot of fun to shoot.

Canon 5d Mark 2 pics

So I picked up my 5d Mark 2 the day it came out and have been very pleased so far. Here is a test shot I did of my brother-in-law as we were preparing to shoot his senior pics - since he was making "big eyes" it showed off his eye detail nicely. I cropped down the image at 100% so you could see the level of detail it is capturing, even at a decent distance from the subject. First, the original image for a "distance from subject" reference - this shot is straight out of the camera except for a slight exposure bump.


Now here is the 100% crop of his eyes - this is straight out of the camera with a Sharpening Amount setting of 25


Here is the Sharpening Amount at 75 with no masking

Now a setting of 100 with no masking:

Now a setting of 150 with no masking!

And finally, I added a Masking setting of 70 with the Amount still set at 150



Of course these are lossy jpeg images, but hopefully you get an idea of what this camera is capable of. I couldn't get this amount of eye detail with my old 10D using a macro lens! I wish I would have shot some with my 5D for comparison, but I am sure that with 75% more megapixels the Mark 2 would definitely outshine it, especially when you consider how well the Mark 2 held up to sharpening.

I hope to post some high ISO comparison images soon as I was very impressed with this camera at iso3200.

Harris Family

Last week I got the chance to snap some pics of the Harris family's new baby boy, Max. Here are just a few favorites from the shoot.

Carson Family Shoot

Had the opportunity to shoot the Carson family on Friday at the AF amphitheater - the weather was a bit cold and windy, but they were brave and toughed out the hour or so long shoot. Adam, the youngest simply did not want to be held by anyone, so we tried some things that allowed him a little more individual freedom and he did great. Thanks again Sam and Jim - you guys are awesome!

I love Halloween!

I'll say it again, I love Halloween! While this doesn't compare to a lot of home haunts out there, we try to make the yard/house fun for the kids and they seem to appreciate the effort. This year I created a new pneumatic powered prop that hid behind a large tombstone until triggered by an infrared motion detector. When triggered, a spot light would light up the tombstone and the prop would leap up from behind it to it's fully extended height of over 6 feet! It took a lot of work :) but the kids seemed to really enjoy it.



















It is not easy to capture shots like this - bright spotlights combined with darkness, fog, moving props, etc make it difficult. I just ramped up the iso, opened up my aperture, and shot handheld. In the window is old "bluie" - he was my first animated prop, a flying crank ghost that is blacklit and hovers in the window

My wife

My wonderful wife and I are having our first baby - a little boy due in January! She has been bugging me for a while to take some pictures of her pregnant so that she can use them in her baby journal. Well, we finally got some time yesterday to go up to the Sundance area and take some pictures. The black shirt made it difficult to really emphasize her tummy, but I tried it out with some back lighting and then cross lighted her with a 40" silver reflector with some on camera flash for fill - I think it worked ok.

In The Trees

Here are some shots from a recent trip to the Sundance area. Utah has wonderful variety of color to shoot in the autumn and my favorite has to be aspens. This was a "scouting" run in preparation for the fall color change, so the leaves hadn't turned yet, so I went with (surprise) black and white.

I tried to emphasizes the light play among the trees by increasing the contrast and using a negative clarity adjustment in Adobe Lightroom to soften the light. The great thing about this area is that these shots are literally right on the side of the road - the Sundance wilderness area is truly amazing - one of my
favorite places in Utah.

At The Beach

Here are a couple more pics from my trip to Dillon Beach, CA. Most of the photos that I have been posting are treated using a duo or tritone effect to give them some warmth. The wind made for some great textures in the sand.
























The tides combined with the unique slope of the beach made for some interesting sand formations once the tide went out.

Trip to Northern California

Went out to visit my family in California last weekend with my wife. We spent a couple of days on the coast at Dillon Beach which is a source of many fond childhood memories. It had been 20 years or so since I had been there and of course the wind was terrible and it was colder than I remember, but it was still nice to share it with Susan and my family. Took some pics on the beach and in the town of Tomales, CA on the way home. Tomales is this great little town located a bit further inland on Route 1. Here are some of my favorites from the trip.