I took photos of candidates of confirmation the last week and I’m dealing with those shots right now. I saw this more or less black shot a moment ago – always keen on seeing if something cool could be saved I opened it up using SPP and found these priceless expressions. :D +2 exposure, +0.7 lightness and finally a big push of X3 Fill light +0,7. I used SPP 3.3 as monochrome looks better that way.

Had another wedding session this friday and just started to develop the first images and thought I could share some.. It was a pretty cold day that ended in heavy rain! :D (grain is fake, yes)

My friend and artist, XuYun has been artist in residents at the Nordic Watercolour Museum on Tjörn. She’s just leaving and I rushed out to her little island to take some last minutes pictures of her. Here’s some of them. All taken with SD14 and lenses used 10-20, 30mm, 70mm and 50-500 OS. Can you see what lens took what photo? edit: Some images has a warm light coming in from the side, my doing. Some of these shots has been lit by light from reflecting windows.

above: Double size output

One more thing, I wasn’t thinking about publishing these at first so I saved them as jpeg from Sigma Photo Pro – but then I thought that it would be much easier for her to find her photos if were published. I never before published photos that has been edited from jpeg and then re-saved as jpeg again. mmm.. I wonder how much has been lost?

above: Double size output.

This is Joakim and I shot him today with my SD14 + my good old 30mm.
And yes, it was really cold when I took this shot, and bit of warm reflector comes in from the right.

It’s really an amazing picture, not because of the lens or camera per se, but because I one hour earlier dropped both my camera and lens onto the asphalt from chest level. It’s my first time like that, and I didn’t just trop it, I almost threw it away doing some stupid move when moving it from hand to shoulder. I can still hear that heavy sound..

Everything works and it now have this beautiful dent on top that likely will make it more valuable the day I decide to sell. :D

Double size output original..

Today I got back two lenses that I sent for recalibration and they came back in very good condition. Well, the same as they went but now focusing nicely. (I recently got myself a newer SD14 body, that’s why I wanted to calibrate)

Oddly my 10-20 that I lately didn’t think much of now reproduces stunning photographes from wide open. I’m pretty sure they found something else about it – perhaps a glass not in a perfect position? Anyways – I couldn’t be happier. Look at the last bedroom picture – ISO50 and wide open at 10mm. Pretty amazing sharpness and feeling. SPP4.

The other two shots are 30mm 1.4 @ f1.4 (wide open) and at ISo50.. The light was much more yellow in reality but with ISO50 I could play a bit with white balance and get a pretty nice feel. I also like how SPP handles the overexposed area of the lamp.. Nice tones and roll off!

They’re all available as full size for pixel peepers.  first. second. last.

Half transparent rice paper wasn’t as easy as I thought to photograph. I know you can glue it onto some harder surface but Linn didn’t want that.. Here’s how I did:

(above taken by Linn with DP2)

I thought I was smart – and the setup looked advanced enough but in the computer I realized that this type of paper and light coming from the side isn’t working. That was yesterday, so yesterday! Today I tried another way.

(Above taken with iPhone)

By using my own computer as a light table and light from a big window I got a shadow free result. If you want to try you can make a white image and use it in the screen saver.

Still, it’s hard to get the “white” feeling that rice paper has – the second picture was easier as it didn’t have as “fine” light details as the first one. If you have any good idea about how to do a better job, please tell me. And Yes, I tried many different exposures and it’s pretty easy to go over the edge so to speak. I can give you the raw if you want to have a go. :)

(in Sigma Photo Pro)

Perhaps the last one is even too white and I’m not sure it’s even in perfect focus. hehe. I photoshoped the wrong version. grr

Before

After

And how this is done and some more, watch this movie in HD and full screen. :)

What do you think? :)

When I’m doing weddings I always go to the hairdresser to take the first shots and to get to know the bride. Sometimes it takes forever – like two-three hours and that’s sometimes boring time, time sometimes hard to kill. Of course that depends on how many lenses and cameras I have with me.. lots of lenses, lots of fun! If I’m lucky there are hair style books with BIG facial shots – I LOVE THOSE!  Have you tried? You should. :) These below are from three different weddings. I’m thinking about getting one or two books for myself just in case the barber don’t have. Last Saturdays hairdresser didn’t. Boring.

Have you taken a shot or three similar to any above? Please share! Just upload when making your comment, or add [img] http://www… [/img] tag to have your image inserted from your own place..

Original

Memory from years ago. Found the RAW in a folder – Redeveloped using RD (perhaps I did first time too?) It’s a pretty cool image taken using the SD14 and the 30mm lens set at F2.2. It was cold and rainy. So this would probably look a bit the same using the DP2. :D

Oh, how much I’m longing for a film function for a SD camera. even at 480p or 720p it would kick some serious but – especially at black and white with it’s extreme micro contrast it has a very special film-like feeling that I yet have to see using anything digital. Including red.

SD14 + DP1, 12-24 and 120-300 used most on these. Sigma Photo Pro for all color pictures and Raw Developer 1.80 used on all Black and white shots. Aperture for post and publishing.  Click more for more! :D Full size images for all.

Click for full size. If you have a Mac and a SD14 then please please try RD 1.8 out. For use Black and White nerds it’s heaven. This is processed using + monochrome XDR .. will show how you can use it and become BW master later. :D

a 100% crop of one of the above shot

Another really fun wedding session, this time a bit north or everything in a town called Mariestad – more famous for it’s fine beer. It was a bit tricky as Linn is now working down south as a guide on a castle and she couldn’t be my assistant. I really wanted that – so we improvised and used the best man for the job. Lucky for Jon and Carolina, it worked great! You can actually see him on several shots.

Oh, I also improved my car shooting style thingi – fun stuff! Lucky for me we had the time needed to play.

Cameras used was SD14 and DP1 – I had many lenses with me – more or less all but I ended up using the trusty 12-24 the most as I love the cokin filter border effect so much. Second place I think is 30 or 50mm 1.4 not sure as 50 is so new for me I tend to reach for the 30mm. 120-300 does give me joy when needed. It’s not very easy to find good occations or locations for it but when it’s time then it’s great!

I also noticed a slight magenta cast in some of the “just out of the church” shots – just so you know. :D

When open the whole article more pictures appears as well as some whom has been shown already above. Don’t be frightened about that, it’s perfectly normal.

Another wedding session, and I’m happy to announce that DP1 is a great b camera! :D Linn had hers with her all the time (she assist me) and she took quite a few really nice shots. I used mine as well and I got more keepers from the DP1 (compared to amount of shots taken) than with the SD14. More time to think? I think one or two of Linns are among these too.

My workflow has slightly changed and looks like the following. I make the basic adjustments from SD14 and DP1 RAW in SPP 2.5 Windows. After adjustments are done I import all into a new project in Apple Aperture.

In Aperture I use the new plugin called Viveza to further adjust certain spots – add light to face or simply to enhance black and white images. I also use Aperture to dodge and burn, crop and straighten, add vignetting and my little watermark. I don’t apply vignetting to all but to many shots. So don’t judge lenses because of my images. hehe..

During all this I also add stars to my favorites, this I later use when publishing to the couple and the very best here on my website. I ended up with 44 images in this post and 133 to the couple, I started with about 300 from SPP and around 700 in total from field..

The two above shots are DP1

DP1

There is all in all 44 images in this post. Click each image to view the full size image. Remember that this is copyrighted material.

DP1

DP1

DP1

DP1

Linns shot, 10-20mm

DP1

DP1

DP1

DP1

Not much to say, have a session tomorrow and wanted to know how much I could trust my 30mm wide open. Some shots turned out quite nice so I decided to share. :) All images are uploaded as full size (converted automatic via 1001 flickr uploader – in case you see some nasty JPEG artefacts).