Sean M. Leahy Photography

Detroit Renaissance Center - Gotham City Style

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to participate in the first annual Worldwide Photo Walk organized by Scott Kelby and the folks over at NAPP.  It was a great experience, I was able to interact with lots of other photographers and it has been really great seeing the images posted by others from the same walk.  I participated in the Detroit photowalk, located on the Detroit River Walk in Detroit Michigan.  I would like to extend a special thanks to our group leader/organizer Terry White for a great photowalk.

Although the forecast for the day was pretty suspect, we managed to stay dry and have a few hours of straight shooting.  In the time we had (about 2 hours) I was able to fire off about 200 frames or so, of which I have posted a few of my favorites from the day (click for larger view).

I will definately be on the lookout for more photowalks in the mid-Michigan area as well as photography meetups, they are a blast and you always come away from them with new ideas and even some new skills.  If you happen to know of any drop me a line, or contact me if you would be interested in setting one up.

Recently I was visiting with some family when my nieces just HAD to show me their high flying acrobatic skills on the trampoline.  So I grabbed my Nikon D300, a speedlight and stand and followed them to the backyard.  Below are a few shots I was able to grab (click for larger view).

Here is a lighting diagram for the above shots (click for larger view)

This setup provided a few challenges, the first and probably most obvious is the fact that the subjects (my nieces) are moving and moving pretty fast.  So in order to stop the action you will need to use a flash and a shutter speed that will freeze them at that moment in time, faster than they are moving so the light that makes it back to the camera is clear and not streaky resulting in a blurred image. For this particular shot I not only wanted to freeze them, but I wanted a little motion blur so the image would still have the feeling of motion and not be too sterile of a photograph.  The second challenge was that I needed to light my subject outside, so the exposure became an issue as I wanted to preserve the ambient evening light while still being able to have my subject bright and viewable.

To address the first challenge, I set my speedlight up camera left of the trampoline and raised it up to about 8 feet high or so and aimed it towards the center of the trampoline canvas.  Then working with the exposure to address the second challenge, I first set the camera to expose for the ambient light which worked out to f5.6 at 1/100sec, this ensured that the background would look relatively close to how I wanted it.  Then I added the subjects and started adjusting the strength of the light.  For most of the shots I bounced between EV +1/3 to -1/3 depending on where the girls were jumping.

Overall, I was pleased with several of the shots, as I was able to get the focus clear on their faces yet there was still some motion blur in arms, legs and hair to convey their lively activity.

Looking to continue the MSU Landmark project, I ran out and grabbed a quick HDR of the MSU Library.  Oh the hours spent inside this building…if only I could have them back.  (just kidding…it was well worth it).  Anyway the weather was great, and it was calm enough (not too many students on campus yet) for me to get a lot of shots without having people walk through my scene.  Here is the final rendered image (click for larger view).

MSU Library HDR

Okay, I must admit that taking images like this gets me all geeked up.  I start looking at other scenes (with my own eyes) and start seeing them as HDR’s in my mind, constantly shifting images through my mind looking for great possible compositions.  I had the idea to shoot this HDR for about 2 weeks now, riding past the Library at near dusk I could see the illuminated interior against the light sky and kept thinking “that would be a great image” and well, I am pretty pleased with the result.  When scouting for HDR images I normally look for scenes that contain a lot of contrast, that is scenes with areas that are dark as well as light, like the above image, the windows are light, yet the exterior is getting dark, perfect for HDR!

To create the image above I took a bracketed range of exposures (7 of them) ranging from -3 EV to +3 EV with the primary image at 0 EV set to f11 and 1/4s shutter speed.  To get an idea of the composite images here they are broken down (I left a few out, but you get the idea)

0 EV

-3 EV

-2 EV

+2 EV

+3 EV

For this setup I used my Nikon D300 on tripod with a cable release (to help ensure there is no motion blur introduced with slow shutter speeds) and attached to my camera body was my new Nikon 18-200mm VRII lens, have I mentioned yet how much I love that little lens?  Well let me plug it again…although I have only had this lens for a few days it has already earned its permanent place in my camera bag, in fact at the moment it will be the defacto “attached” lens, so if I am ever in a hurry I can pull the camera out and catch the action knowing I will have the right focal length in hand.

If you have any suggestions for other MSU Landmarks that you think I should photograph please let me know, or heck come along with me its always more fun to shoot with other people.

Have you ever been out shooting and thought “damn! I have the wrong lens on my camera” but you don’t have time to change lenses due to subject availability or conditions, so you make do as best you can only to be greatly disappointed when you look over your days work.  It’s very frustrating, and it seems that whenever you have a telephoto lens you end up needing a wide angle lense and vise versa.  After looking and looking for a great all purpose lens I finally found one.  I am talking about the Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm DX lens with VRII.  This lens is simply great, I just got my hands on one last Friday and have been playing with it ever since.  This lens is a variable aperture from f3.5-5.6 so its not the fastest or sharpest lens money can buy, but it is a wonderful all purpose lens that makes the perfect travel lens in my opinion.  When you want to travel light and be sure to have the right lens this is your baby.  The vibration reduction (VRII) system is wonderful for hand held shots (another reason its a perfect travel lens) it allows you to shoot up to 4 stops faster than equivalent lens without the VR system.

Nikkor 18-200mm VRII DX

This lens is not only a great tool for all around shooting, it is also priced in a decent range, don’t get me wrong its not cheap, but priced fairly modest at under $700.  I ordered mine through B&H Photo Video (who else? right?), here is the item that I ordered Nikon 18-200mm VR DX .  This lens will make the perfect companion for my upcoming photo walk on August 23rd.  That will be this little guys first true test. 

Here is a quick sample of the lens range (18mm : 50mm : 200mm), this was a quick shoot with the following images straight from the camera no processing performed. (click image for larger view)

Focal length 18mm

Focal length 50mm

Focal length 200mm

I would seriously recommend this lens to any Nikon shooter who is looking for a wonderful utility lens, it will never replace the high end lenses, but when you are out and about and don’t have the luxury of your full camera bag, this little compact lens is a wonderful tool that I will certainly never leave home without!

Here is another image I shot real quick with this new lens.  Its not framed particularly  (click for larger view)

Image Specs:

• Aperture: f6.3
• Shutter: 1/160s
• ISO: 200
• Focal length: 18mm

If you have not heard yet, Scott Kelby and the folks over at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) have organized a Worldwide Photo Walk on Saturday August 23rd, 2008.  This photo walk is a free social event held in select cities all around the world, in which photographers of all levels can come together shoot, tell stories and learn a thing or two from each other.  Not to mention there will be lots of prizes given out to participants.

I have registered and will be participating in the Detroit photo walk hosted by Terry White.  For more details and to checkout a city near you for a photo walk, visit Worldwide Photo Walk Website and hurry! time is running out, as each walk is limited to the first 50 people who register.

What do you do with an old loaf of bread?

Why shoot it of course!  I got this idea by seeing a similar image in a photo magazine recently and I thought to myself “that cannot be too hard to do” and I was right.  It was actually fairly easy. Here is the finished image that has been converted to black and white (grey-scale) and a simple text layer at the bottom. (click for larger view)

Slice of Life

What I like about this image is its uniformity and simplicity.  It is after all nothing more than an array of bread slices.  I like the fact that it is a simple pattern or grid of similar pieces of bread, yet under closer inspection all of the pieces are different, there are no two the same.  Perhaps this is a metaphor?  Perhaps, or maybe its just a picture of some bread you decide.

Image Specs:

• Aperture: f16
• Shutter: 1/15
• ISO: 200
• Flash: External SB-600
• Flash E/V: +2.0

To get this image I placed the bread out evenly (well as evenly as I could manage by eyeballing it) on black peice of foam-board.  Then I setup my tripod along side of the foam-board with my tripod head extendor racked out all the way so my actual camera was about right in the center of the board.  Then using a small lightstand with my SB-600 and a translucent shoot through umbrella attached I shot the light right next to the lens pointing down at the bread at a 70* angle or so, and used some white foam-board as a reflector on the bottom end of the bread to help bounce the light back across the peices to get a more even light distribution.