My Favorite Shot From the Weekend

I'm been laying low lately, not going to very many live music shows. This past weekend, I got to go see one of my favorite bands, The Woodshedders, at one of my favorite venues, Barns of Rose Hill in Berryville, Virginia.

 

This was my first concert shoot with the Nikon Df. Here's my favorite shot from the evening:

 

Jesse Shultzaberger, Drummer for The Woodshedders, by Reed A. George

Nikon Df, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D

iso 4000, f2, 1/125 sec.

 

 

Pretty amazing performance at iso 4000. The Df is going to be a great concert camera for me.

 

At this show, the lights were quite low, except for those damned blue LEDs, the worst for digital photography ever. The problem with colored LEDs is that you get very high intensity in whatever color channel they match, and NOTHING in any other color. So, I usually end up converting them to black and white. Not really a problem, since I love B&W anyway. The only other thing I've found to neutralize this problem is to add a little fill flash. I didn't bring a flash to this show.

 

Anyway, I'm quite pleased with the Df's performance.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

Japanese Maple in Autumn - Nikon Df

I'm enjoying my new Nikon Df a lot. Here's a shot of the Japanese maple outside my office.

 

Japanese Maple in Autumn, by Reed A. George

Nikon Df, Nikkor 50mm f1.4D AF Lens

iso 100, f1.4, 1/125 sec.

 

The 50mm f1.4 AF-D lens is now well out of date in the Nikkor lineup. It has always drawn criticism for lack of sharpness wide open, which I suppose is true. That doesn't keep me from using and enjoying it.

 

That said, the new Sigma 50mm f1.4 ART lens is the hot thing out there these days. My friends who have them approve. Much larger than the AF-D lens, these new Sigmas really seem to deliver amazing image quality. The updated Nikkor product, the AF-S 50mm f1.4G is another option, but both the Nikkor and Sigma lack aperture rings, something I'm unhappy about. This means that I can't use them on my old Nikon film bodies, or even adapted to Micro 4/3 for that matter.

 

As it stands, I can carry my older AF-D lens in the bag with any of my Nikon SLR bodies, from the 1959 model F to the 2014 model Df, and it will work just fine with any of them.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

Whirling Disks and Rear Curtain Sync

Rear curtain flash sync is a function on many cameras. The way it works is that instead of triggering your flash when your shutter opens (generally for a much longer time than the length of the flash light pulse itself), it opens the shutter, then triggers the flash right before the shutter closes.

 

Why would you want this? Well, if you're using a slow shutter speed, you'll get motion blur or light trails from anything that's moving fast. With normal (front curtain) sync, the flash goes off, the shutter stays open, and you get trails that are made after the flash. With rear curtain synch, the trails are made first, then you get flash and light the rest of the scene at the end of the exposure. The classic example is a moving car, where you get an image of a car that's already gone by you, with fantastic blur behind it. Using front curtain sync, you'd get the car before it passes by, and light streak in front of the car, not nearly as cool.

 

Well, I find it's pretty difficult to find applications other than moving cars for this cool technique. At the River and Roots music festival, I found one. These guys were playing what I would normally call "Frisbee," but with a disk that has its own light in it. They were playing in the dark. I thought, hmm. I bet that disk would make a great light streak. So, I tried it. Amazing! It made this really cool nested helix shape as it flew by. Next step, try rear curtain sync to see if I could capture the streaks and the player. Here's how that looks:

 

I like this shot a lot, but I wanted the streaks to be longer, and I didn't like the distracting lights in the background (at left).

First, the background lights. One of the other players was near the river, which was completely dark. Goodbye background distractions:

Getting the timing just right was tough, but I was getting the hang of it.

So, how to lengthen the light trails? Longer exposure, of course. So, I went to a full second exposure, with the flash at the end. Since the ambient scene was so dark, I didn't even have to change my f-stop or flash settings. This is exactly the effect I was looking for:

Whirling Disk, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor AF-D 50mm f1.4 Lens

iso 1600, f4, 1 second exposure, rear curtain sync flash

 

Great fun. I don't think any other photographer at the festival captured a shot just like this.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Watermelon Park Festival, 2013 - Shot With Nikon D700

I've been shooting a lot of live music and local musicians over the past few years. It's a wonderful project, and has helped me to meet a lot of great people, musicians and fans alike.

Every September, I look forward to the Watermelon Park Festival, held in Berryville, Virginia, about an hour from my home. It's a great time of year to be outdoors, camping, listening to great music. This year was no exception.

There will soon be a review of the festival written by Jim McWalters on the live music blog Cosmic Vibes Live. It will include photos from both Jim and myself.

(Click Here) to check out Cosmic Vibes Live.

Here are my pics from the festival.

Impromptu Music with David Van Deventer, Danny Knicely, and Jared Pool, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 1600, f2, 1/125 sec.

The Plank Stompers, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D Lens

iso 400, f4.8, 1/250 sec.

The Bumper Jacksons, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 3200, f1.4, 1/250 sec.

The Green Boys, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 800, f4.8, 1/125 sec. With Fill Flash

The Green Boys, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D Lens

iso 800, f4.8, 1/125 sec. With Fill Flash

Watermelon Boat Float!, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 400, f8, 1/250 sec.

 

Dwayne Brooke of The Woodshedders, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 3200, f1.7, 1/125 sec.

Dwayne Brooke and Jared Pool of The Woodshedders, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 3200, f1.7, 1/125 sec.

David Van Deventer of The Woodshedders, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 3200, f1.7, 1/125 sec.

Dwayne Brooke and Jared Pool of The Woodshedders, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 3200, f1.4, 1/125 sec.

Larry Keel, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D Lens

iso 1600, f2, 1/180 sec.

Larry Keel, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D Lens

iso 1600, f2, 1/180 sec.

Aimee Curl and Danny Knicely of Furnace Mountain Band, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D Lens

iso 800, f2.8, 1/125 sec.

 

Hoopin' It Up!, by Reed A. George

Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D Lens

iso 800, f2.8, 1/2 sec.

 

 

This festival presents a lot of opportunities to test my photographic skills. This year, I took the D700, 20mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, and 85mm f1.8 autofocus lenses. I shot in daylight, dark, with and without flash. The flash came in real handy in the dance tent during the day, as in the Green Boys shots above.

 

I will admit that I was a pretty lazy photographer on this particular weekend. This festival has become a great relaxation for me. I guess that's a pretty good thing in itself.

 

I do have some film shots, taken with my Leica CL and Rokkor 40mm f2.8, but the film is off at The Darkroom for processing. I'll share those later.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

This book (below) includes some great festival photography, including some by my buddy J. Milo Farineau.

 

(Click Here) to go to Milo's site. He's a master.