A few flowers, a lens review and a personal update.

I'm posting a few new stills to both the blog, then they will be processed and for sale shortly on my website.

I don't tend to get asked this very often by clients, but I do get asked by other photographers what system I shoot.  I use Canon cameras, and Canon lenses.  I don't use any third party items.  I recently added a new lens to my line up.  The Canon 24 1.4ii L.  The lens is one impressive looking piece of glass.  It weighs (guessing) as much as my 24-105 (which is less than my 24-70).

I added it because I wanted another low light prime.  Well I bought 2 of them that just couldn't focus to save their life.  When I used them and they hit, the results were magical.  They were simply unobtainable by another lens.  It's the fastest wide angle lens with auto focus Canon makes.  I did some research and it appears that the 24 1.4 that Nikon has it equally a piece of crap to use in the focus department and isn't even as sharp as the Canon version.

What good is sharp when I can't get the stupid thing to focus?  People have suggested sending my cameras in because they could be the problem.  Seriously, what are the chances that I have 3 professional level Canon bodies that work FLAWLESSLY with 8 Canon lenses, zooms/primes, but have a problem that they can't work with another lens?  I actually had someone suggest to me that perhaps the bodies and lenses I have were ALL out of adjustment just enough, but close enough to each other to work.

Seriously?  No, I either got 2 bad 24 1.4ii's (I went through two of them extensively) or the 24 1.4 just sucks.  It was a 1599 after the 200 dollar rebate piece of crap.

I sent it back and I won't be revisiting it anytime soon, that's for sure.

Someone suggested using manual focus, but sorry I didn't buy a lens to use as a manual focus only lens.  I would've bought a Zeiss instead if I wanted over priced manual focus only optics.

Aside from being a professional photographer, I do have a few other interests/hobbies.  I enjoy working out, playing music and studying Judo and JuJitsu.  I received my black belt in Judo this month.  I plan on doing a write up and some photos of that here soon.  I'm excited and looking forward to that write up.

Here's the still's I was talking about before I started the wall of text :)

They will be available for purchase on my website shortly. Thanks for tuning in and stay tuned for the new website launch.

Status update!

The website redesign is going well, so well in fact that I think launch isn't too far out.  Just finalizing details, and *gulp* writing some bio stuff up for you guys to read!  I'll keep you posted.








A friend of mine and I were having a discussion about things in life that are never not worth something.  There's multiple types of watch movements.  Automatic, and quartz.  Basically self winding and battery.  A self winding machine is true to real watch making as you get.

There were other items on the list as I'm sure you can imagine, but it was a good talk.

Pictured is a 90's era Omega seamaster (Think James bond circa 95, only the first three they had were quartz and not automatic) with a faded bezel. 

I'm going to see if my friend wants his collection photographed, because it's always unique trying to get cool concept photos of nice items.  He's definitely got some cool/interesting pieces and like I said, I'm going to try and photograph them.

Complete Devastation MMA 5

I shot the complete devastation 5 event at the Blair County convention center in Altoona, Pennsylvania on July 14th 2012.  I enjoy working with this promotion, because they are interested in more than a quick buck for their pockets.  They legitmately care about putting on quality shows, treating fighters right and growing their name.  So it's good to work with someone that isn't a sleezeball.  Jason, the owner, listens to feedback well too. 

It's been a learning experience for them I'm sure.  They've really been working on their production too. 

Lighting is always a bitch at sporting events held in a building (and outside but that's a different story).

See UFC style lighting is tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of lights and grip equipment.  It's trusses and 10's of thousands fo watts of light.  Strung up from high in the ceiling and feathering out over.  I don't want to get too into a lesson on lighting, but let's just say it's always a challenge in these types of situations.

The lighting could've used some improvement.  You see our eyes see things that our still and video cameras do not.  Just for fun, take a look at a scene in your house that has very dark shadows and very bright highlights.  For instance your desk with your computer in a room with the lights out.  Your eye can pick up detail that your camera cannot.  It's not that our eyes are "sharper" than our lenses.  Rather that the human eye has an incredible dynamic range.  Our eyes have 20-25 f/stops of dynamic range (various books/sites are my sources for this information).

My cameras (canon eos 1div, until the 1DX hits shelves, the top end Canon 1 series cameras) at ISO 100 have a dynamic range of about 12 stops...TWELVE!!!  That's anywhere from a little more than half to a little less than half of the human eye!  At ISO 12800 as most of these events are shot...it PLUMMETS to 8 f/stops.

To put this into plain terms, each f/stop greater in exposure value means double the amount of light.  Each f/stop lower in exposure value means half the amount of light.

f/4 lets in half the light that f/2.8 does, f/5.6 lets in double the light of f/8.

Just thinking of things in numbers rather than f/stops.

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072, 262144, 524288.

We can say that's relative to the 20 f/stops the human eye sees.

At ISO 12800, the 1DIV sees,
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128.

What does this mean in simple terms?  Our eyes see the show just fine.  Our video cameras and still cameras only see parts of the show.  There's really much more to it, but rather than bore you and make my kid not see daddy for awhile, I'll move on.    It just means the video and pictures from the show will not be as strong as actually being at the show.  It means that details become smeared and we don't get as much "info" in the photo/video.

Rather than focus on negatives why don't we talk about some of the positives?  The show was great and the crowd was really excited for some good fights.  There were big names on the card.  TUF Veteran Jeff Smith, UFC fighter Corey Hill, M-1 veteran George Sheppard, local fighters like Levi McCord, Jason Royer and champion Charlie Gathers. Semi-Local (he used to live in town here but moved down south) Brad Mountain was on the card as well.  So the card was stacked. Matchmaking was great.

There was a sweet after party WITH THE VIDEO OF THE FIGHTS PLAYING!. 

It was really a great value for entertainment and a way to support MMA in this region.  I'm glad the promoter brings me on to shoot these shows.  Trust me when I say this, each show gets better than the last one. 

It was definitely a blast to be there.
Here's a few snaps of the show,

The full gallery of photos

Oh, if you're a fighter that's in one of these photos listed on THIS BLOG (not the website, they are not permissable to steal) you can feel free to download it and put it on your facebook.  With the following exceptions,
1; My watermark cannot be edited.
2; the photo cannot be changed.

Thanks!

See you at the next show!

beautiful wedding, new site.

Just shot a beautiful wedding with Karinn and Dustin.  It sure was a hot one, and the humidity was just as high!

I signed with a company to do my website.  The changes will begin here in the near future.  The old site will remain up until we are ready for launch, so everything is seamless.

Here's a quick pick from the wedding,

Stay tuned!

We are off this weekend!  Take care and see you next weekend with CDMMA photos!

On June 22nd, there was another installment of the Warrior Challenge MMA fights. It was a packed house and a great night of fights. Here are some photographs from the night. As always, you can check out the full gallery HERE




  I did a few things different this time around, and experimented a little bit. I brought my standard fare, and then a few other lenses to give them a go. The results were pretty good, so I am pleased there.

I am meeting with a web design company sometime this coming week or next week, and speaking with someone else as well about my website. The construction phase will be over soon, and I will have a brand spanking new site online. Please stick with me until it is completed. It will showcase some of the other work that I do and bring that more to the front line.


  Even though I shoot weddings, and portraits and consider them just as important of a focus for me as the fights, a lot of people aren't aware that I photograph anything but fights. If you know of anyone who is looking for a photographer, have them get in touch with me. I definitely photograph more than just sports and events.

I'm not going to lie. One of the cool things about being a father is that I get to play with cool toys. While my son is only 14 months old, and they suggest that cars are for 3+, I can't wait. I let Erik play with cars under supervision. What boy doesn't play with toy cars? So I was playing around with some of his cars and snapping a few photos. When I realized how few Hondas he has, I had to get on eBay and buy a few. The 2 most popular car companies are only about 88 cents a piece. Well when you buy them on eBay because you cannot find them at K-Mart, Target, Wal Mart or any other store that may have matchbox/hotwheels...you pay a lot more. On 6 cars, I spent enough to get 25 cars. Looking back, it was probably a stupid idea. My 14 month old doesn't know the difference between a Honda civic and a Shelby GT500. So what possessed me, I'll never know. It sounded like a good idea. Well we were outside playing and I was setting up these cars and shooting some photos. Part of it was to challenge myself to get these shots QUICKLY! My son and wife were present the whole time. Do you think I'd be able to spend hours or even minutes setting up this scene with my kid playing? Nope. SO part of it was just challenging myself. In my work, I'm often not given much time. I need to be able to get a good/salable photograph quickly. I'm not longer one that wants to educate people, but I'll say this. Salable photography is a lot like the movie Moneyball. I'll leave it at that. Anyway, these are some neat photos of the cars, and one of my little dude playing.

WCC, Cycling lights.

Welcome back for our next installment of fight photos, and a little tech talk.

All three of the below photographs were shot with the same settings. While the only part that matters about the settings is the shutter speed, it was something like f/2.8, ISO 6400, 1/640. The shutter speed was faster than the lights cycling. What this means is you don't catch the full cycle. There's a lot of literature about this. A lot that goes into it. A lot of commercial buildings are 3 phase systems, where lights on one leg are peaking while the lights on the other leg (power) aren't peaking. This gives a little bit more "even" illumination of light/color shifting.

Now, one needs to understand, this stuff all happens auto-magically, without you being able to see it. However, when you're trying to photograph moving targets with fast shutter speeds...the above is what you get.

Three photos, all shot within 1.1 seconds of each other...three different looks.  But not one single camera setting changed.

It's a battle you have with event locations, because...though post processing for them is a mother!  a Bear!  There is a simple solution...lighting on trusses blasting thousands of watts of light EVENLY (I've been to some poorly aimed situations before) on the subject. 

The full gallery of fight photographs can be seen here, WCC June 8th, Greensburg PA

It was a great night of fights.  A training partner Lenny was there fighting, in what in my mind was fight of the night.  He came out early looking like a pro boxer, and got caught on the wrong end of a busted nose.  Lenny was game and the bloody battle continued into the 3rd round.  It was a tough one Lenny, but you'll get them next time.  Best wishes man!

I'm not sure when the WCC's next installment is, but I'm sure I'll be photographing their events in the future.