Post Process Practice

I shot a portrait of a Purdue prof and his grad students today. The image straight from the camera wasn't so hot, but I knew that. What I was hoping to be a large, windowless classroom turned into a small office with no shades for the only window! The only option I really had was to throw around as many photons as I could muster in hopes to get a long enough shutter speed to show some movement. 1/1.3s f/22 ISO 200 later...



So I took it into photoshop knowing I was going to have to do more than the usual to make this image worth something (or at least close to being worth something). About 20 adjustment layers and much dodging, burning, smearing and blurring later...



So my question to you, dear readers, is was it worth the 90 minutes of photoshop work, did I take it too far, or was it doomed from the start?

Purdue Red Ranger

I met with the Purdue Red Ranger this evening to shoot a short movie. Originally it was supposed to be a western-style stand off between the Red Ranger and Purdue Space Ghost. Space Ghost never showed (and now his facebook account is deactivated).

so we just did some stills instead. I went for an edgier look with some grungy processing a bit Dave Hill-ish, but not as desaturated.

Strobist: Three lights. SB80dx and SB26 as 45degree kickers (1/2 power ea) and on SB600 into a reflective umbrella camera right (1/1 power). I triggered the SB600 with CLS (manual and FVlocked) and the other two with their optical slaves.

Interview with a Sasquatch

Gerald Brewster, also known as the Sasquatch, sat down with the Exponent to tell the world he does exist.



The Exponent is full of great articles and photos today
www.purdueexponent.org

Happy April Fools Day Everyone!

Okay, so maybe Its Monday

I hate mondays. I hate weekdays. I think everyone would be better off if we had a 1 day week and a 6 day weekend.

I've been fairly busy the last few weeks. I'm now the Multimedia Editor at the Exponent. This basically means that I produce videos all week. The good thing is, its not as many hours as the photo editor job which means I have more time to shoot pictures and do homework.

Here are a few of the things I've been working on recently.

Patrick Jones - a former criminologist for the Chicago PD - is the Forensics Lab director here at Purdue.

Patrick invented a compressed air powered device used to dust for finger prints. Using air to apply the powder instead of a brush reduces smudging and makes it possible to recover prints from extremely delicate objects.


Here Jones is using side-by-side microscope comparison to match bullets fired from the same gun. Unlike TV, the match isn't made from striations from the gun barrel, but from the impression the hammer leaves when it strikes the primer.


On the first day of Jones's criminology class, he is carried into the room in a body bag and remains there motionless before popping out to the surprise of his students.


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Alex Camarota is a TA and graduate student in the department of creative writing here at Purdue. Alex is also almost completely deaf. While he can still here sounds such as stomping and enjoys listening to reggae music, Alex can't hear you if he can't see your lips move. Alex and his twin brother (a graphic designer in California) were both born with their mostly hearing intact, however it has degenerated ever since. Alex is putting on a free writing workshop that aims to help people understand how to write about disabilities.


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Lastly, I've been producing videos like mad. I've come to understand how to use my D300s in this capacity quite a bit better. I'd still like to see a firmware update allowing manual video control, however I think I've got the work-arounds pretty much down.

Click the links to watch in 720p HD

Starting with the Most recent:

Water Break live. A weekly piece written by the sports desk. This is my first attempt with a green screen - I've got some bugs to work out.
Water Break Live


Rube Goldberg. The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers' Rube Goldberg device was definitely a crowd pleaser at the regional competition Saturday with cannons, Tesla coils, and (in theory) the Purdue fight song.
Rube Goldberg


Big Man on Campus. This greek philanthropy event raises money for breast cancer research each year. This year's contribution: over $127,000.
BMOC


Patrick Jones: Purdue Forensics Lab director teaches us how to recover a fingerprint.
Patrick Jones


Cupid's Arrows: Members of the Purdue Music Organization deliver singing Valentines on Feb 12th.
Valentines


Well that's it for now. I'll have another update in a week or so (hopefully!)

Transportation

Well not too much has happened this month
I bought a new camera (D300s)
I bought a new lens (17-55 f/2.8)
I bought a car (Oldsmobile Intrigue)
I need a job :/

Okay, so I guess I have done some stuff this month. I started 2010 off well with a portrait session with Courtney and some save the date photos with Jimmy and Thea.





I made a quick multi-media segment with the D300s during the Purdue Outing Club Adventure Race. (Click the link to watch it in 720p HD!)

POCAR 2010 from Michael Carney on Vimeo.

And this last Saturday participated in a Strobist meet-up in Indianapolis (again with Courtney). Yeah, that's a P-51 Mustang ;D




And this evening I'm off to a Women's Basketball game.

Man, I wish I could get paid for this stuff!!!

First Impressions: D300s, 17-55, MKE400

D300s - coming from a D300 there isn't much of a change. Bonuses: center selector button and dedicated Live View make things a bit quicker. Quiet shutter mode - definitely works, but makes 3 clicks per shot instead of the standard 2. Video quality is amazing! rolling shutter is not as big of a problem as I expected and it handles the audio quite well.

MKE400 - Much smaller than I imagined, fits in my palm with no problems. I like that I can choose between super-cardioid and lobar pick-up patterns (lobar works great for sit-down interviews) and the cord is just long enough to reach the D300s input jack without too many problems.

17-55mm f/2.8 - I'm so glad I chose to go with this instead of a third party lens. Everything about it from build quality to IQ is amazing. Thanks Laurie for working with me on the sale and thanks Joe McNally for selling it (yeah, I've got Joe McNally's lens - gaff tape and all!).

Oh, hi there!

Well I'd like to apologize to everyone for the last 4 months' lack of blog updates.

Working as the Photo Editor at The Exponent was a great work experience for me, but being in the office for 30 hours each week on top of taking 19 credit hours this semester didn't leave me much time to do anything else.

I have been taking pictures this semester - mostly football and basketball with the occasional portrait mixed in.

I got a Zenfolio website up and running (I quickly realized that I am not a web developer) and I've been very pleased with their service thus far.

I got my first paid video assignment this semester working for Dr. Johnson and the Lugar-Purdue Future of Forestry Program. Nothing real exciting - pretty straight forward.

I'm finally ready to sell some of my old camera equipment: D50, sigma 17-70, nikon 70-300, Nikon 28f/2.8, Nikon 100f/2.8, and my D300. Actually, really the only things I'm not selling are my 50/1.8 and my accessories.

But don't fret, I'm upgrading to a D300s and Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 :D

I'll post some updates over break, and I'll get back into my usual rhythm once next semester starts.

I've got three clients lined up for the 2nd of January and I'm renting a studio in Westfield for their shoots. Should be a great experience for me.

Well, that's just about all I can think of right now, I'll end with some pics from the last few months straight out of camera - I'm too lazy for post right now. Happy Holidays!

Mumbai March

Several campus groups worked together to organize a march for the Mumbai incident.





sorry about the belated post, school has been hell this week. It is also impossible to get the correct white balance when shooting in MSEE - the lights are so yellow, there is no way to compensate for it with today's digital sensors.

Football vs Penn State

A Week late and several dollars short, here are some Penn State pictures

OA;OT - HDR

in my last attempt at HDR - it sucked, hard. So I tried again this time during the day (hooray no noise!)

On Assignment; Off Topic

Okay, so in order to help keep my sanity while I do the humdrum tasks of photo assignments (or if those interesting assignments turn out to be mind-numbingly dull) I've decided to start looking beyond the assignment for photos or On Assignment; Off Topic. so here is a batch from yesterday's disappointing assignment of "Dirty Jobs" - the guy didn't do a single thing. It was much more of a guided tour of a farm where half the places we couldn't go to because they didn't want research getting leaked. Well, I'm going to stop talking now (its not my strong point).

Robin Williams

Yup, I got to shoot Robin Williams yesterday. For 4 whole minutes!!! (Don't worry, I still managed to take 148 pictures). On the way out, I noticed the Sun going down behind the bell tower/ engineering fountain. I figured it would be a good opportunity to try some HDR, but that kinda failed and the noise was really high (ISO 3200) so I just really 'shopped the hell out of it so you wouldn't notice.





I forgot to change the res on the last pic, so have a desktop on me.

The 8 Hour Football Game

man its been a busy week

I've been doing a bunch of stuff for the exponent, plus class, plus clubs, plus hurling start up again this week, plus (insert something else here that i've done this week, but I'm too tired to think of it).

So back to the 8 hour game...
let me walk you through my day today

7:15am - wake up, talk to Forest, decide not to go to the wildlife area to take pictures because of the rain

11:00am - wake up again

12:00pm - edit photos for WPBC

1:00pm ish - grill some lunch, sell some parking spots for the game today

2:30pm - with press pass around my neck, shoulder bag full of lenses and a camera, and a D1h with a sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 and monopod over my shoulder (the lens was too big for the bag [begins drooling in lust])

2:50pm - meet other exponent photogs for the game

3:30pm - game starts (along with TV timeouts, and double overtime)

?:??pm - game ends 33-26 Oregon; start walking to the Exponent building

9:57pm - leave exponent building and go home (via McDo's for dinner)

10:??pm - back at home to clean and well, do this

?:??am - go to bed

I took over 1000 pictures at the game, and was surrounded by lens and camera porn all day (a plethora of Canon 1dMk's, D3's, D300's, and D700s along with everything from the lowliest 55-200mm Nikkor to Canon and Nikkor super telephoto primes (like 400mm f/2.8's - that was the highlight of the show)
of course after I take all of those photos I have to go sort through them for the editors - ugh.

On the up side of things, and after many hours of phone conversations, double checking numbers, and many e-mails, I will be getting a new Nikon D300 in the next couple of weeks - score!

so here are a couple of football shots - mostly taken with a 80-200mm f/2.8 lens on my D50. If I think about it I'll snag some of my photos with the sigma from the exponent next time I'm in, along with a shot or two of the native american dancers i photographed last night.

excuse my bad capitalization in this post, i'm too tired to care.