Wine Bottle

Wine Bottle, originally uploaded by hermanau.

Thanks to Strobist.com, Flickr, and web 2.0 helping me solve a lot of reverse engineering puzzles in my head. With the limited resources, some very wacky setup, and the recent addition of some cheap umbrellas, I was able to produce the type of product shots I've long wanted to attempt. This shot of wine bottle is one of the examples that shows you everybody can do it... well, almost. :)

This is shot with my Nikon D200 with Nikkor 50mm F/1.8D hand held @ F/9.5 1/90sec. It's lit by 2 SB600 speelights - one below the bottle that sits atop of a piece of transparent Plexiglas, and a second one left of the camera shooting through an white umbrella. Background is simply a piece of poster board I bought from Office Depot. A picture speaks a thousand words, see the setup below.

Stay tuned - I'll demonstrate how I did some of my black background images next. :)

Thanks Ken Rockwell, but...

A lot of you who are into photography would have stumbled across Ken Rockwell's website one way or another. Before I begin, I should really thank him for contributing so much free and useful information to the Internet. His site is undoubtedly generating lots of traffic and probably earning quite a bit of advertisement dollars, and I really think he deserves the recognition and credit. It's one of the websites I always check to see "what Ken thinks" before making my purchasing decisions. It's especially a wonderful site if you're searching for old vs new Nikon equipment.

Alright, enough of giving him all the credits, let's go back to why I'm writing this. I'm writing this to contribute my share back to the online photography community to warn you guys to watch out for his website, and especially what he directs you to believe is the "fact". Ken mixes in a fair share of great information along with his very personal opinions when it comes to comparisons. That's what really makes him deadly. If you're simply starting out in photography and choosing equipment, and you stumble across his website and start learning everything there without a clear head with an open mind when you find other relative information, you'll simply start thinking "the Ken Rockwell way".

"What's wrong with that?", you might ask. I'll give you a quick example here.

On his Nikon SB-600 versus SB-800 Comparison page, you will find plenty of information that you will want to know about the differences between the two. However, if you read it with a clear head, you'll soon notice he's strongly biased against the 800 and presents to you almost no pros for choosing that over the 600. Pay attention to lines like these -

Illuminated LCD	Dedicated icons and 7 segment numbers: bold, easy to read	Coarse generic dot-matrix, harder to read

I don't know what your eyes are made of, Ken... but we don't really live in that 7 segment LCD calculator display age anymore. I really don't know why a dot-matrix LCD screen is harder to read for YOUR EYES.

Idiotic repeating strobe mode	no	Yes

What do you mean by IDIOTIC REPEATING STROBE MODE? For those who are interested in experimenting with flash photography, like capturing water drop sequence, freezing athletic motion, and all kinds of eye opening effects, the SB-600 simply lacks that capability. What you don't use doesn't mean it's "IDIOTIC"


14.) Wedding photographers carry fat external batteries for fast recycling and tons of shots. The SB-800 has a socket for this. The SB-800 even has a bizarre external single AA holder which lets you use odd sets of 5-AA cells for somewhat faster recycling compared to just using the 4 internal cells (It seems weird to me: my sets and charger come in 4s, not 5s.) Other companies like Quantum make big external batteries that plug right into the SB800 while the SB600 has no such connection. In the old days we just rigged up our own connections to flashes, usually with wooden dowels the size of AA batteries and thumb tacks, and used a 6V gel-cell around our waists. Personally I just swap alternating sets of Ni-MH AAs and I'm happy.

Ken, wedding photographers carry the external batteries for fast recycling time because they need the luxury for ultra fast recharge time so they minimize the chances that they miss THE shot. Yes, you can swap your Ni-MH AAs and be happy, but for those who need the flash and they need it NOW, they need that SB-800 and that big fat battery around the waist you describe.

Yes, his entire website is filled with great information about equipment, but also a whole bunch of very personal opinions based on his photographic style. As much as I enjoy reading his site, and as much as I look up to what Ken has to say about something, we should all proceed with caution and read his site with a very, very open mind. Be sure to watch out for those opinionated lines and see what others have to say especially when money in your wallet is on the line.

They're here! Nikon D3 and D300

It wasn't long ago when I upgraded my D70 to D200... and today Nikon finally released their top secret projects of the D300 and professional D3 to compete with Canon. I browsed the spec sheet briefly and I'm still digesting the information... here's the link to the 2 cameras for your information. :)

• Nikon D3

• Nikon D300

It appears that Nikon finally delivered their flavor of full frame sensor, and this new sensor design provides unprecedented noise control in Nikon DSLR history that may allow them to rival with Canon. This new FX format also carries on the Nikon tradition of compatibility to allow the use of DX lens with automatic masking. Both cameras utilizes a new 14bit EXPEED sensor that should boost tonal range. Both cameras offer the new 51-point AF system, and also a self sensor cleaning feature. They also seem to have put in more effort in defending the cameras against dust and moisture. The detachable caps seem to be improved... (yay no more losing plastic caps). Both cameras have 3" LCD monitors with wide viewing angle, and hopefully their new EN-EL4a would address the battery life issue.

At a first glance, the 2 cameras appear to be matching up quite well against the Canon 40D and 1D-MkIII. Now they're on even ground to compete... it will be interesting to see the upcoming image comparison. :)

More on this later.

Goodbye my Nikon D70

"Thank you"

My Nikon D70 really took me to a different level moving up from my Nikon D50 with a lot more features that are missing. For that kind of money, it's an absolutely perfect camera for anybody to move up from point & shoot to really get a taste of DSLR photography. I had a talk with my die-hard Canon friend comparing features of the few cameras we've had our hands on, and I'm sure he'll agree if I say that Nikon really packed a lot more features and value into this camera than anything comparable with the same price tag with the name Canon on it. Just by holding the camera in your hand and you'll feel the difference, much like feeling BMW plastic comparing to Honda Civic plastic.

Why am I getting rid of it? It's sad but 6.1 megapixel is simply not enough if I start printing or selling my images. It's really unfortunate that it boils down to this, but it's the sad truth that the D70 is made for the consumers, not prosumers, nor the pros. If I were ever to dip my foot into that area, it simply isn't good enough.

Why not sell the D50? The D50 is a newer camera, and I find it generally much easier to capture good images with it than the D70. Don't get me wrong. Both cameras are neck to neck in terms of image quality, and the D70 gives you a lot more bells and whistles and extend your capabilities to create that "better" you'll struggle with the D50. However, the D50 is my choice to serve as a second camera, or as a backup camera. On top of all that, my wife bought the D50 to me as a gift... :-)

If you want to seize this opportunity and pick up my D70, it's on ebay for 7 days starting today 7/25/07. Here's the link to the auction.

Goodbye D70! You served me well, and It's really sad to see you go. I hope your new owner takes great care of you!

My first real Photo Shoot - Audi TT

Moro Blue Audi TT Coupe, originally uploaded by hermanau.

The pressure was on, and I was seriously getting quite nervous. I found a few guys over the Internet willing to show up with their rides for a photo shoot last week at my "private studio". I had Bernard with me that night who really relieved me from quite a bit of stress and pressure helping out and shooting as well.

I planned things out pretty well and tried to get as much all thought out as I could, but still there were things that went unexpected. Instead of the 2 cars we scheduled, we had 4 showing up. No big deal really, but it wasn't easy when time was limited while we did not want the shoot to go endlessly. And then I struggled a bit with the 2 cameras with me and managing the tripod, while still trying to coordinate the cars and communicate with the owners all at the same time when the primary thing I wanted to do was to shoot. I also made mistakes here and there when I had so many things on my mind, while there were distractions around particularly when there were others driving around the lot being silly... some guy with a modified car was revving his engine being stupid; some other guys drove up to the empty lot with unknown intentions; and later 2 cops also showed up but was being nice and didn't interrupt at all and actually waved at us. I actually felt better that knowing there were law enforcements around... :)

But here are the results... this is particularly the one shot I liked the most. After many, many experimental shots shooting everything, endlessly looking for inspirations from magazines and the Internet, and portraying different angles and scenarios all in my head randomly, I think I'm finally getting to a point where I feel comfortable to proudly call this my work.



Big thanks to all 4 owners who were very cooperative throughout the 3 hour process, putting up with my endless request of moving the cars, turning the wheels, etc. I'm also very glad that everything went under control and everybody was very friendly.

On a side note, I developed some of my pictures at Target and I find the whole service very impressive and easy to use. From my home computer to flickr to picking up at a local Target = 1 hr? AND the quality was better than what we got from Samy's? That's an easy call for me... :) Be sure to try it out flickr users!

on a side note, some of my work of this Audi Shoot is published here on German Car Blog