Clematis Street, West Palm Beach

This was a little exercise I created for myself, kind of a homework assignment. I wanted to shoot a number of street scenes, at night, using only available light, then edit them together like a television commercial for the area. I selected Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach, FL. Its an older area of town that has been transformed into a lively destination for tourists as well as locals. There are upscale restaurants as well as pizza parlors. There are wine bars, a tequila bar, nightclubs, and various shops along Clematis that all stay open late on certain nights of the week.

For this video, I used my Nikon D7000 and Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens. This lens has become my favorite for shooting at night, whether stills or video. For sound, I used a Zoom H2 digital recorder. I'm learning to edit in Adobe Premiere and like I said, this video was a homework assignment. Working on this project, I learned simple transitions, syncing audio tracks, and the overall pacing of the different shots. I realize I still have a lot to learn but I think it turned out pretty well. I also learned that you need to shoot a LOT of footage to have enough for editing. The more you shoot, the more creative choices you can make later. I invite all constructive criticism so please leave me comments. =)

Something that's already been brought to my attention is that I should use a tripod. The irony is that I frequently carry a tripod with me to shoot still images at night, but it didn't occur to me to use a tripod for this video. For some of the shots, like the fountain, I simply set the camera down on a wall. Also, I need to buy a pan/tilt head for my tripod. Anyone have any suggestions for a good DSLR pan/tilt head?

35mm Lenses Tutorial

I just finished updating my 35mm Lenses Tutorial for anyone learning photography. I started this project to help my friend Thea, who's studying photography at Columbia University in New York. I decided to expand it and post it on my web site for everyone. When it comes to lenses, there's a lot of information out there, not to mention a bunch of confusing jargon. In my tutorial, I've tried to simplify everything and make it as easy to understand as possible. Let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy =)

A Storm Coming HDR

I was running some errands in the Boca Raton area and I noticed a thunderstorm rolling in. I drove around, looking for a good vantage point and finally found a spot on Spanish River Boulevard where it crosses over I-95. I had to park some distance away and walk to the top of the overpass with my camera and tripod. I took a few shots, then headed back down to my truck. Less than a minute after I finished loading my gear, the heavy rains of the storm reached me.

Nikon D7000 with Nikkon 12-24mm f/4.0 lens. HDR processed.

Guacamole Roll at Hiro's Yakkosan

I took a break from working at Budget Video and stopped by Hiro's Yakkosan for some late night raw food. Hiro's isn't a typical sushi restaurant. It more of a Japanese tapas restaurant. I had a salad and the guacamole roll, pictured above. Notice there is no rice. Nom nom nom.

Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens. Exposure: f/1.8 1/30 ISO 400

Color Lab of Florida

Once upon a time, before digital cameras, professional photographers in Fort Lauderdale would take their film to Color Lab of Florida to have it developed. Many photographers, including myself, loved to shoot transparency film, also known as reversal or "slide" film. You could get deep, rich colors with slide film that you couldn't get from color negative film. The process for developing color negative film is called C-41, while the process for slide film is E-6. Consumer photo labs like the ones in Wal-Mart or CVS only had C-41 machines because the general public didn't buy slide film. If you brought a roll of slide film to your neighborhood drug store, they would send it out to a lab. Professional photographers used to rely on local labs like this one to develop their film quickly.

Many years have passed since Color Lab closed its doors, never to open them again. Today, the building still stands on Dixie Highway in Fort Lauderdale. Sometimes I miss shooting film but now I can use HDR techniques to create images that weren't possible with film.

Nikon D7000 with a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens. ISO 200. HDR processed.

Steve Aoki at Club Cinema 2011

Wednesday, I was invited to shoot Steve Aoki at Club Cinema. I photographed DJ Aoki at the Ultra Music Festival earlier this year. Club Cinema in Pompano Beach used to be a multi-screen movie theater before it was converted into a club several years ago. As you can see, its a fairly large venue. For this video, I used my Nikon D7000 with a Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens. I also used a Zoom H2 digital recorder for the sound. Unless its been a big, multi-camera production for television or film, I haven't seen anyone else capture the live sound at these events. This is probably because the music is so loud, it overpowers most built-in mics. After a little trial and error, I learned how to set the levels on the H2 and I think the live sound is so much better than simply adding some random music track to the video later.

Scan of a Sunset on Fujichrome 35mm film

Tonight I was at my office scanning some of my old slides. Those of you who have only used digital cameras may not know what I'm talking about. Before digital cameras, I used different types of 35mm film. I used black and white, color negative, and slide film. Color negative film was used by most consumers. It was cheap, and you could take it to any drug store to have it processed. When you returned, you would get a set of prints along with your negatives.

Slide film, more accurately known as transparency or reversal film, is a special type of film that produces a positive, not a negative, when its developed. In other words, you didn't pick up prints and negatives, you simply picked up your developed film. You could hold your developed film up to a light and there were all of your pictures, in beautiful, rich color! You would cut your film into individual frames and load each one into a plastic holder called a slide. Slides could be put in a slide projector and shown on a big screen, you could have prints made at a special lab, or they could be scanned.

This particular image is from a slide I shot 7 or 8 years ago. I was on I-95, returning home from a photo shoot. I saw this amazing sunset, pulled over to the side of the road, and took this picture. This image has not been adjusted or modified in any way. This is exactly the way the slide looks when you hold it up to the light.

Nikon FM2 with Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 lens. Fujichrome Velvia film, ISO 50. I didn't record the exposure.

Hillsboro Lighthouse Panorama

Click the image for a larger view.

Tonight I walked down to the beach on the south side of Hillsboro Inlet. I brought my camera and tripod so I could shoot this panorama. While I didn't use a dedicated panoramic head on my tripod, I did have my Manfrotto 503HDV head which allowed me to slide the camera back so the center of rotation was directly below the camera's entrance pupil. This point is usually just in front of the aperture diaphragm in the lens. If you don't rotate the camera around this point, you'll get parallax errors and the images will be much harder to stitch together.

This panorama is made from four 16MP images. I used Hugin to stitch the images together, then I did some minor retouching in Photoshop. The final image is more than 14,000 pixels in width.

Nikon D7000 with Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens. Exposure: f/5.6 20sec ISO 400 (all four images)