An Afternoon with a DeLorean

Posted on May 23, 2013 by owencherry

My friend Justin owns a DeLorean. Actually he owns two DeLoreans. The day after shooting the wedding this weekend, Portt and I met up with Justin in West Montrose so the car could pose with the covered bridge. I both envy and don’t envy Justin. On the plus side he owns two classic 80’s supercars. On the other hand, wow did a lot of people stop and ask to pose with the car. He must get that a lot.

The light was moving back and forth constantly between overcast and bright sun. Bracketing each shot allowed me to capture the full range of tones with the option of HDR later on. I decided to go the HDR route with the posed shots. They may be a bit over done but I think they have the “car ad’ look to them. I went even heavier in the processing on the last shot. I was trying my best to pan, but with a wide angle FOV (19mm) the effect isn’t too pronounced.

Nikon D300s with AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8.

A Misty Barn Three Ways

Posted on May 22, 2013 by owencherry

Driving home from Guelph, Mitzy and I pulled over at a barn that both of us have always wanted to photograph. You wouldn’t know it from this post, but it’s actually quite red. The mist gives it a completely different feel! I thought I’d show three quick interpretations of the same photo to get a feel for which is most effective.

D300s with AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 at 34mm f/5.6 15s ISO 200.

Which do you like best?

One Last Bowl

Posted on May 18, 2013 by owencherry

Last Saturday, Mitzy, Ian and I had one last bowl at the Waterloo Bowling Lanes before they closed for good. Naturally, I brought the camera along. These shots were with the D300s and AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8. I used the SB-900 with Lumiquest Softbox LTz for the shots with flash (with this method).

Very sad to see the place go but at least we got to say goodbye properly.

Blog Week Day 2 – The Many Faces of my Favourite Spot on Three Bridges Road

Posted on May 8, 2013 by owencherry

For the second post of my blog-a-day week I’ll share what I consider one of the loveliest spots near Waterloo, the crossing of the Conestogo River on Three Bridges Road. Located just west of St. Jacobs and a short drive from where I work, it’s a great spot to go during lunch or at the end of the day to grab a few shots.

In the summer, the river is shallow and slow-moving. In the late winter and early spring with a heavy melt, it’s a torrent and the low bridge is lost completely beneath the water. Regardless of the seasonal changes, I’m still amazed at how many different types of photos I can get at the same place. It just goes to show that you don’t have to travel far to get great shots (or pretty good shots, at least).

I used a wide range of equipment for these photos. The bodies (Nikon D300s, D7000 and N80, Bronica ETRS) were paired with lenses (Nikon 17-55 f/2.8, Nikon 35 f/1.8, Nikon 60 f/2.8G Micro, Nikon 85 f/1.8G, Tokina 11-16 f/2.8, Tokina 50-135 f/2.8, Sigma 50 f/1.4, Bronica MC 40 f/4, Bronica EII 75/2.8). On the self portraits I used Nikon SB-700 and SB-900 strobes with CLS control.

I’ll give a prize to the person who gets the most correct gear-to-photo matches!

The Tragically Hip at the Aud – More Photos

Posted on February 11, 2013 by owencherry

This post is a follow-up to last week’s about my impromptu shoot at a Tragically Hip show at the Kitchener Auditorium. I thought I’d show a bunch more photos but also give a few tips and tricks.

Let’s start with packing gear. Because I hadn’t ever shot at an indoor stadium show and had no idea what kind of vantage point I’d have, I brought nearly everything (11-16, 17-55, 50-135, 35, 50, 85 and both the D300s and D7000… oh, and some strobes and light modifiers too). I really didn’t know if I would even have the chance to change lenses during the shoot but I wanted to be safe. At the time I also didn’t know the extent of the shoot…. would I be covering just the show? or maybe shooting the band afterwords? would the writer need some details to support an interview? In the end, when I found that I would just be shooting the first three songs, I opted for a simple and versatile setup that would need no lens swapping. I put the AF-S 17-55 f/2.8 on the D300s and the Tokina 50-135 f/2.8 on the D7000 and left the rest in the car.

Concert photography presents a few technical challenges due to the extreme contrast and colour of light and fast-moving performers. In the concerts I’m used to shooting, there is barely enough light to shoot 1/60s with a wide open lens at ISO 1600; however during this show there was ample light. I chose to shoot at ISO 1600 with the lenses wide open or near-wide open but was able to get very fast shutter speeds like 1/250s. Freezing the subjects was a breeze.

When shooting a concert the hall is usually quite dark and the subjects quite bright. Imagine trying to properly expose a backlit penguin in the snow and then invert the light and dark. The camera will want to expose for the shadows and completely blow out the subjects. When shooting wide angle with the D300s I dealt with this extreme contrast by setting the exposure compensation to -1EV and crossing my fingers. For the most part it worked and I got a lot of keepers. With the D7000 and 50-135 I used the spot meter instead of the matrix meter. I actually have the function button programmed to quickly switch to spot meter while pressed. Occasionally I would combine the spot meter with the AE-L (exposure lock) when I needed to recompose.

In all I got 20-25 shots that I consider keepers (not bad for three songs). Here is a selection.