Category Archives: nikon

Copying a Daguerreotype

100225family1_sotc

I had thought about a catchy title for this post like “shooting dead relatives” but decided that it might get me some strange Google hits.

Winter grinds on in these parts and I haven’t had any travel for the last few months. Instead I’ve been getting caught up on indoor work that includes updating my files with stock agencies, organizing the chaos that developed over the course of the last year in my office and doing lots of tabletop studio shoots. I don’t do a lot of studio work but I do have a few clients that need the occasional product shot. This past couple of weeks I’ve been shooting a lot of architectural glass and mirror samples. While I had the small studio area set up for this, I decided to copy some old family photos.

Some of these photos appear to be daguerrotypes. These images are tricky to photograph because they have a mirror-like surface and at most viewing angles they actually appear as a negative — almost like an etched piece of silver.

100226family2_sotc

To see the image properly, you have to look straight-on so that something dark is reflected on the surface. Reflections of any other kind would be a big problem when re-photographing these portraits so I built a box out of foam core. The bottom was a piece of black foam core so that it doesn’t reflect onto the lower portion of the daguerrotype. The sides and back were white to bounce as much light around as possible and I draped a piece of thin foam packing material over the top to soften and distribute the light that came into the box. That light came from two hot lights that I had shooting up at the ceiling and bouncing down into the box.

100226studio_sotc

To eliminate reflection from the surface of the image, I draped a piece of matte black cloth from a background stand across the front of the box. Think of the box as a puppet theater and the black cloth is the front curtain. I could stick the lens of my camera through the curtain and let the cloth drape over the lens to block any reflection from the markings on the camera itself. I used my Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 60mm macro lens to be able to get the close focus that I needed.

The system worked pretty well but there is some pitting in the surface of the glass covering the portraits that was accentuated in the copies. For the tighter shots that I made, where the frames are cropped out, I’ll need to do some significant spotting in Photoshop. I like the wider shots warts-and-all, though. The wear on the cases and the pitting of the glass show the age of these images which were likely made between 1840 and 1860.

Decade in review: 2003

100108agean_sotc

Continuing my review of the the past decade…

2003 marked the year that I moved solidly to digital. I still had my F100 and shot film on assignment for publications that hadn’t themselves transitioned to digital yet, but for my stock work — and especially international travel — I was 100% digital.

The images in this post come from a trip to Greece and Turkey in May and June of 2003. I had a Nikon D100 and traveled with a Mindstor portable storage device and a 12″ Powerbook for back-up. I remember it was startling how easy it was to pass my entire camera bag and laptop through the airport x-ray equipment without a worry of images being fogged. I was done flying with film and I’ve never looked back.

100108acropolis_sotc

I loved Greece and only wish I’d had more time there. With just a few days in Athens and Delphi, then a short cruise to the islands of Crete, Patmos, Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini, and a quick stop at Ephesus in Turkey, it was a lot packed into a short time and there was never time to wait for good light. I took what I could get and considered it to be a great scouting opportunity. One day I’ll go back and spend a few days each in one or two places but I now have a much better idea of where I’d like to spend that time.

Of the Greek islands, I think the Cyclades were my favorite. Mykonos and Santorini belonged to this group of rough and rocky islands and I found them to be endlessly photogenic with their whitewashed jumbles of blocky houses and shops.

100108balconies_sotc
100108mykonos_sotc

These two are from Mykonos. My research had told me that there were a row of windmills on the far side of town from the docks so I made my way immediately in that direction to catch sunset. There’s no direct route to anywhere on Mykonos but wandering the narrow streets was half the fun. The shot looking up through the balconies was taken on the walk back to the boat.

One other lesson learned on this trip: it was during this time that Athens was gearing up for the Olympics and that meant that everything was under construction or renovation. Probably not the best time to visit a place for stock photography. There was scaffolding everywhere. The construction also meant that many images would be dated almost immediately. Still, there’s so much to see in Athens that I wasn’t short of things to photograph. The highway construction that was going on between the city and the airport did make for some nervous moments before catching the flight home, though.

Decade in review: 2002

100103adare_sotc

Continuing my review of the the past decade…

In 2002 I made my last major trip with with film — to Ireland. By this time I was shooting with a Nikon F100 and was just dabbling in digital with a Coolpix 990 (I’d actually had an Apple Quicktake earlier but never really found a way to use it professionally). I took around 250 or 300 rolls of film on this trip and — in those early post-9/11 days — begged for handchecks in Kansas City and again in Chicago to avoid x-ray exposure. I had already removed all of the film from their boxes but they were still in their transparent plastic canisters and kept together in a giant transparent ziplock bag. The handchecks involved taking each roll of film out of its canister and swabbing it before moving on to the next one. Repeat this process a couple hundred times and you’ll nearly miss your connection.

This was also my first international press trip (although still as a “spouse” to my writer-wife) and it was a whirlwind. We had left our home around 4:00 in the morning to catch our flight from KC to Chicago, then had an overnight flight to Dublin but neither of us were able to get any sleep on the plane. If I’m not mistaken, we were in the last row, center section, where the seats won’t recline because of the bulkhead that separates the cabin from the bathrooms. We landed around 7:00 a.m. and were picked up at the airport for a full day of touring. We ended up in Belfast that night, finally checking into our hotel around 11:30 p.m.

Thirty minutes later (and you can bet I was already sleeping) the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the hotel. I’ve never felt so sick in my life. The next morning we found out that the alarm had been triggered by a member of our group smoking a cigar in their room. They never came forward to identify themselves so the rest of the trip became like one of those murder-mystery trips with everyone trying to figure out who was on floor 7 and who had been seen with a lighter, etc., etc.

It was a brutal schedule but we were rewarded with scenes like this:

100103ireland_sotc

I shot this across the road from our hotel while everyone else was getting their luggage loaded on the bus. Or maybe we were getting off the bus and checking in — I don’t know. I just remember running across a pasture to stand on a fence and get this shot before the fire went out of the sky. One thing about press trips: you can always be certain that the best light will occur while you’re either on a bus or inside a restaurant. If you want to be out shooting in that light, you have to be quick. (I also learned on a later trip that you should always stay by the bus until you’ve seen your own suitcase get loaded… but that’s another story.)

I loved Ireland and we had pretty decent weather during the whole trip. We went into Northern Ireland, up the Antrim Coast to the Giant’s Causeway, and then cut across the island to the southwest to the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry. I’ll leave you with a shot from the Dingle Peninsula. This is nice and saturated on it’s original Velvia but I thought I’d knock the color back a little this time and go for something a little more subtle. It’s nice to have that flexibility now, not only with digitally captured images but also with scans from old film shots.

100103dingle_sotc

Shooting fashion

091022fashion_sotc

My years with SATW (the Society of American Travel Writers) have given me the opportunity to shoot a lot of different things. On the first night of our Annual Convention in Guadalajara this year, we were treated to a fashion show during dinner. I learned long ago to always have a camera with me, just in case something spectacular happens (if you don’t have one with you, it will, guaranteed). On this evening I had unfortunately pared down to just the D700 and a 24-120 zoom. It’s not a fast lens, so I was glad to have the D700’s high ISO capabilities. The shots here were made at 6400.

The courtyard had been tented as rain was predicted (and it did indeed rain) but at least the tents were transparent so you could get some idea of the architecture above. It would have been amazing to have had this setting open to the sky but, trust me, we needed the shelter.

I’m not a fashion shooter but I’ll try it once. Heck, I’ll try it every chance you give me. Travel photography is all kinds of things: portraiture, architecture, action, food photography, etc. Take every opportunity and add as much to your repertoire as possible.

091022matador_sotc

Working the sunset, part 3

091018surf_sotc

One more from my Puerto Vallarta beach session. I was beginning to feel like I was shooting greeting cards — sunset over ocean surf, footprints in the sand, etc. — so I decided to play a little. Call it a game of “don’t drop your camera in the water”. As the waves would pull back from the beach, I would follow them out. Then, as they came rolling back in, I would hold the D700 down almost to the sand and run backward in front of the waves firing off exposures all the way. I wanted to capture some motion and convey the feeling of the waves coming in. I experimented with several shutter speeds — this was f/6.3 at 1/13th of a second. Strong sharpening in Photoshop helped bring out some interesting texture in the distant wave. Technically, I doubt there is much that’s “right” about this photo but I do feel that it captures the moment better than a static shot. At least that part of the moment that I was shooting for. In the end, whether it’s a success is up to the viewer.

Grape harvest

090928vineyard_sotc

Yesterday morning found me back at Holy Field Vineyard and Winery, shooting the harvest. The grapes weren’t quite ready for last week’s visit but this time the parking area was crowded with cars and the fields filled with people picking and toting fruit.

I went to the ground for this shot and held my D700 with the 17-35 Nikkor down in the grass, blindly pointed upward. I had imagined the shot as being a silhouette as the sun was directly behind the central worker but once I opened the file in Adobe Camera Raw, I was amazed at how much detail I could actually pull out of the shadows without losing the blue sky. In the past I’ve found that the Fill Light slider would create some weird outlines along high-contrast edges if taken past 10 or so. Here I’ve cranked it up to 54 and things look fine. I’m not sure if that’s an improvement in ACR, or the D700’s files can handle it better, or if this particular shot is more forgiving. At any rate, the recovery is amazing.

Eatin’ fire and spittin’ out razors

Just another lazy night in the ol’ home town. Wandered down to Mass. Street last night to catch the second annual Busker’s Festival and grabbed a few shots of the street performers…

rope tricks

fire eater

eating fire

These were all shot on my Nikon D700 at ISO 800. Then I ran into Doug, who goaded me into using ISO 6400 for the first time…

spitting out razor blades

two eating fire

Somehow I don’t think it will be the last time I tread in that high-ISO territory. The results were remarkably good. Thanks, Doug — looking forward to seeing some of your shots!

High ISO, low noise

Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt

On my last night in Luxor, Egypt, I attended the sound and light show at Karnak Temple. I had heard that it would be crowded and that we’d be on the move, walking through the temple as it was illuminated, so I left the tripod at the hotel and hoped that the low noise of my new D700 would allow me to get what I needed. Now that I’m home and have the images on screen… suffice it to say that I’m impressed.

The shot above was taken at ISO 3200, f/2.8, handheld at 1/10 of a second with a Nikon D700 and the Nikkor 17-35. ISO 3200. With my D200 I would cringe every time I cranked it up to 800. There’s a bit of noise when you look at this image at full size but very, very little. Yes, I’m quite pleased.

Would a tripod have improved this shot? Sure. I could have left the ISO at 200 and had no noise whatsoever. But I have a whole variety of shots from this evening. I could compose and recompose quickly without the burden of the tripod. In the end, I think I came away with more usable images than had I taken the sticks.

Thanks, Nikon. I’m a believer.

Forces of progress

Shanghai financial district

I still have a few more photos from China that I want to share before my next trip begins on the 1st of February. This is a shot of two of the tallest buildings in China — part of Shanghai’s Pudong new development area. This area has sprung up from nothing in the last two decades and is now a symbol of both Shanghai and a changing China. Such a symbol that my main goal for this trip was to get a good, iconic skyline shot from across the river with the futuristic Pearl Tower and these other giant skyscrapers. More on that effort in the days to come but I’ll use this shot to talk about the shelf-life of Shanghai skyline photos.

In the guidebook I purchased just prior to my trip (published in 2005) photos of this area showed only the 88-story Jin Mao on the left. It was then the tallest building in China. The building on the right has since popped up — taller — and is now the tallest building in China. Great time to get some new, updated skyline shots, right? Surely that guidebook publisher is looking for new images when they go to reprint. But wait. Construction is already underway just blocks away for another new building that will eclipse both of these towers. Looks like my shots will be stale in a few months time, too.

Just as well. Even though it looks like a beautiful day in this shot, haze made getting a distant skyline shot difficult during my two days in Shanghai. I’ll post a few shots that I did manage to get during that time over the next couple of weeks but that twilight shot of sparkling towers reflected in the river just never came together for me. Flexibility is the name of the game, though. There’s always something to shoot.

Progress has also been affecting my life in other ways lately. I’ve recently updated all of my Adobe software to the CS4 versions. That would include Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Lightroom, Contribute… you get the picture. It’s always a little unnerving to update so much software all at one time — especially software that you depend on daily for your livelihood — and there have been a few hiccups but nothing insurmountable. It’s just that darned learning curve again.

Don’t get me wrong — I love to learn new things and I thrive on change — but there’s just a whole lot at once right now. Beyond the software, I’m still sorting out my new travel kit and the new D700 and D300 bodies. I finally decided it was time for a new bag, so I ordered a Think Tank Photo Airport Ultralight.

think tank bag This bag weighs in at just over 2 pounds when empty so it adds very little to the carrying weight which is a major concern of mine, especially when getting through airports. The dimensions look good for the overhead bin and it has a very sleek outer surface that should avoid snagging as it gets stuffed in. I’ll typically still pack a small bag in my checked luggage that I can use on the street. Backpacks are great for getting all of your gear to a location, but they’re not so convenient when you’re trying to get to a lens fast on a busy Shanghai street. So far, I’m very impressed with this as a travel bag and look forward to putting it and all the other new stuff through their paces next month.

Seventeen days and counting until my 2009 travel year begins. I’d better start going through that 400+ page D700 manual.

Michael C. Snell photography blog

travel+photography