PhotographyBanzai.com

If you frequent my website, you will know that I visited Arizona in October to see my aunt and uncle. I took a lot of photos with the intention of using some of them for content and products my uncle and I had planned. Our first joint product is a calendar entitled (click below for more info): Arizona Mile Markers…and the Wonders in Between… What the calendar looks like! My uncle decided which images were to be used. We ended up using quite a few from the images that he took with his Nikon digicam, which was alright with me because he has an eye for framing (I think 7 of 13 were mine). I fitted them into the calendar’s formatting and put together the game aspect of the calendar. The calendar isn’t just a normal one with pictures.  Each month is a location you can try to figure out where it is located. The next month shows where the previous month is with a street name, satellite map (courtesy of the USGS ), and GPS coordinates. I had most of the coordinates, but for ones I didn’t h...

Noisy Cameras is quite a resource for news and other tidbits of information in the camera world. I noticed on their site along with places like pentaxforums.com that the Pentax K-5 will be going on sale today.  http://www.1001noisycameras.com/2011/11/black-friday-camera-specials-situation-room.html While I’m not in the market for new gear, I do usually follow pricing on the equipment I use so I know when something is a good deal or not. Under the thumb of Hoya, Pentax rarely had reasonable camera and lens deals. It did happen, but was difficult to notice and infrequent (the DA* 55mm I bought new was one such instance that lasted only a few hours). Actually, they tended to raise prices on gear and hold those prices high… Ricoh might be different. First we see a reduction on the K-5 of around $150 once then took over and now we see a Cyber Monday deal of with a price of around $1000 for the camera body. That’s really a great price on the camera considering how well it has held value...

A friend offered me a ticket to a local hockey game. I was initially really excited because I though I could get some great photos of the event. My excitement lessened a bit when I saw this on their website. Cameras, Video Cameras, Audio Recorders Cameras are permitted at Rockford IceHogs games. Cameras with lenses that are 3 or more inches in length are not allowed. Video cameras and audio recorders are also prohibited in the BMO Harris Bank Center unless specifically approved. Professional cameras are prohibited unless accompanied by appropriate media credentials. What’s with that? I wondered… I’m not one to attend sporting events often so I don’t know how things go down usually, but that seems excessively strict. I just assumed that “professional” was any DSLR camera, so I started looking for other options. It was Thanksgiving Day, so there were a ton of deals on super-zoom bridge cameras. I almost justified buying one, but there just wasn’t enough value in those cameras given...

In my efforts to improve the quality of my convention videos, I have spent time working through the settings of my DSLR cameras to get the best quality out of them as possible. I went over some settings in my previous article, but I thought only settings themselves were worth spending more time on. These techniques and settings apply to the K-5 and most likely the K-7 cameras. Overview on Youtube: Setting: Movie Aperture control (Fixed, Auto). Use FIXED for more control. Fixed: The camera allows you to chance the aperture at will. When the camera is recording, the aperture will be locked at whatever it was set at. The Auto setting means that the camera will control the aperture completely without user input. Using auto might be good for the sake of simplicity or when using the camera in strong lighting. Pressing the green button when in Fixed mode will allow the camera to automatically adjust the aperture. It’s a nice feature to get a good starting point on proper exposure of the...

I’m always looking for ways to improve my work. That goes for pretty much anything I do, but lately it is convention videos that needed more improvement. At Kollision Con I took 57 clips that I plan on making a Youtube video out of as seen in my previous post. Keep in mind that I use Ubuntu (Kubuntu variant) and Pentax cameras, so any directions have that angle to them. Step 1: Use techniques in the field to improve video quality over my previous efforts. I went over the method I tried here. I didn’t use the main camera strap like I had in the linked article because it would interfere with using the camera for photos. I ended up trying to just get the camera straps on each camera stretched out away from me. I think it helped a bit. A lot more can be done, but I’d like to avoid expensive awkward stabilizer setups. How the camera is used is just as important. My DSLRs have somewhat limited camera control in video, but I’ll give you are rundown on how I used them. Manual focus, or...

I went to a local convention called Kollision Con on Saturday for a few hours. Here are the results of my effort. I’ll be talking later about how that video was done. I set out to improve from my previous videos and I think I accomplished that. This time I ended up spending some money on the music along with more general effort on getting better source video clips.  So with that, the cost of the badge, and around 126 miles round trip… it wasn’t the cheapest event, but still less than staying at the hotel for a day or two. Photo highlights:  If you have any questions or comments, let me know through my contact page, thanks. 

I received another question from a Facebook friend about photography. First question: How again do you set up a batch process? I know how to automate them, but I can’t remember how to set them up. Will it work for both camera raw settings and then additional Photoshop edits? I’m going through a shoot with someone, and with similar pictures I’d love to be able to do that. Answer: The process that I use is good for camera raw modifications and whatever happens in the Photoshop action. 1. Open and tweak all of the images in a directory. In Photoshop I just select all of the files at once and camera raw opens all of them in a list to the left of the raw editing tools and preview. 2. Press the “Done” button when finished to save all of the tweaks. 3. Create a Photoshop action to do whatever you want. Keep in mind that it will happen uniformly to every image. For example, I made an action to just save a full-quality JPEG image. Other times I’ve run auto-contrast with a de-noise plugin call...

I’m always thinking of ways to improve the quality of my work. While I might be bias because I have spent a lot more time taking photos than shooting video… so photos come more naturally, I think it takes a lot of effort and money to get high quality video compared to the latter. Most often expensive stabilization hardware is needed to just get in the door. I’m not in a position or have any real desire to use something like a steady cam, so I have been looking for simple methods to improve the quality of my videos taken at events like conventions. Camera and tripod strap. Here is a Youtube video I made explaining the method I’ve been testing. I go into detail and demonstrate the techniques I devised to use the additional camera strap: The general technique I’ve been trying: Attach the second strap to the tripod. Have the strap short enough so you can have tension on it, but still easily see the screen. Use your left arm as a monopod by holding the tripod mount area and pushing your el...

My Youtube channel started in January 29 just went past 20,000 total views from 45 videos. It isn’t much compared to some channels I’ve seen on there, but it’s a decent start! That’s around 2000 views per month. http://www.youtube.com/user/photographybanzai Most of the videos are basic photography product overviews, but I also have a few convention videos that I compile from clips I take. I’m looking forward to making more videos. Every one I make, I try to improve the quality. My most recent videos have an intro sequence and sound using an external microphone instead of the one in the camera. I really want to make improved convention videos, but that of course means going to more conventions and specifically focusing more on getting quality footage. The most popular video is one about the Yongnuo YN-460-II flash units I have. Looks like it was linked in a forum or something.

Polaroid has never been on my radar as a photography enthusiast. While I had a film camera back in the day, I never really used it much. The only thing I can remember about the camera was that it was blue and had a fixed lens (birthday present). However, I do recognize the popularity of Polaroid’s old instant cameras. They were and still are popular with many people because they provided a unique and instantly gratifying experience. Enter stage left, the Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera. I’ll say it’s about time Polaroid takes the obvious step of making an instant camera for the current era. Looking at a retail price of $300 it is within reach of many people. It’s a good thing they tried to keep the price down by presumably making most of their profit on consumables. So if the camera eventually gets around $200 I think it will have a good chance at becoming popular, not considering if it will work as advertised. What does the camera have going for it? Nostalgia. That’s probably...

I had a short photo session with a friend today. He was cosplaying as Shizuo from “Durarara!!” The show is basically a modern day rendition of the headless horseman. For the session I decided to go with strong high contrast light. When using a flash, I didn’t attach a diffuser. Partly because of the dreary conditions and partly because of my first intention.  The show takes place in Tokyo, often at nighttime. While the setting used for the shoot wasn’t exactly like that, I kept setting in mind for the background and overall feel of most images taken. I was expecting rain but I wasn’t sure just how much. The light sprinkles worked out well as it wasn’t a hindrance and added a bit to the feel of the photos.  I used the flash off-camera quite a bit of the time. Sometimes I held it in my hand and others I placed it on the ground. The standard method of wireless flash communication where the built-in flash acts as a controller is very far from ideal. I was having distanc...

Like any photography at around sunset or sunrise, it’s a unique and wonderful time to take photos. The sky of Arizona turns into a mixture of strong blue with deep yellow. The yellow casts a tint to everything around making it seemingly glow. Not often are there clouds, so the true vibrant color is there on the forefront.  I stayed out one evening toward the end of sunset and managed to also include a sliver of the moon, which added even more dramatic flair to the overall atmosphere. When the weather does stray from the empty sky like from a quick downpour, be prepared for sights of rainbows offsetting the yellow tinged expanses. 

I’ll be posting a few photos of various types of scenic views of Arizona. My first is a set of canyon and general scenic vistas from the northern areas of the state. Primarily the Grand Canyon and Canyon De Chelly.  While on the south rim, it was further east and quite a ways from the major tourist trap area. The expansive but shallow ranges felt very impressive. Self portrait shadows always appeal to me. Down at the bottom in Canyon De Chelly I really liked the rock formations to the east. Hint of fall color in Arizona. Taken from a rain water exit hole. A small hint of the river is visible.

There was a local photographers meetup that I attended recently. A generous member of the Facebook group offered up a place and had a bonfire setup. Here are some highlight photos:    It looks like my camera (Pentax K-5) and lens (FA 31mm f1.8) combo were having front focusing issues throughout the event. The camera body was sent away for two rounds of warranty service a while back and I didn’t have a chance to check focus with that lens yet. Next time, I’ll be sure to see if a combo needs AF micro adjustments before using it…  Large aperture lenses used at a large aperture need spot-on focus for proper composition, so even just a few inches of front or back focus can ruin an image. I used the 55mm f1.4 and 14mm f2.8 with the K-5 in Arizona without any issues, but I checked those before the trip. 

Last week I spent a full 7 days in Arizona visiting my aunt and uncle. There was a big focus on photography as my uncle and I had a few ideas we want to try out that require great images of the area. I’ll be going into more detail in the future about those ideas, but until then here is a photo my uncle took of me at the Grand Canyon (south rim). Me holding a Pentax K-7 and 55mm f1.4 lens.  My uncle took a great photo with my other camera! The photo was taken with my K-5 and 14mm f2.8 lens (I was dual wielding camera bodies most of the trip). I had the camera setup as usual in USER mode (P + MTF mode) and he framed and took the photo. Very nicely done if I do say so… To my knowledge he has no schooling in photography and only has shown some basic interest in it, but more since our talk about our mutual project. Although he did mention owning a Minolta SLR in the past, so I could be wrong. Right now he is using a small 6 mega-pixel Nikon digicam as his main camera. I really like the ...

As a zenfolio user, I receive email updates about new features they offer. Just recently they sent an email saying my account can now host video. The main reason I use their service is even though I know how to do programming, I wanted to have a gallery that looked great and was easy to use without much effort.  I liked their interface a lot more than other offerings so it was an easy choice. Beside the gallery ease of use and nice display format, being able to offer prints and other products was a big reason for a paid service too. I have been using Youtube for my video hosting, but I can see some benefit in using my Zenfolio powered gallery for some videos…