I want an iPhone

The fact is, I'm a late adopter (or is it adaptor?). One of the few things I have ever bought when it first hit the market was my Nikon D300 and that's because I have a lot more confidence in Nikon cameras than any other consumer products. I figured the camera would be right out of the box or that Nikon would make it right if it wasn't. That's based on past experience. All my Nikon gear works and keeps working for years and years.

When the iPhone came out I thought to myself, "Oh I want one of those." I didn't camp out at the Apple Store or wait in a long lines to get one, I waited... A few months later Apple dropped the price and I still waited. The truth is that I am a luddite and I don't really use a cell phone very much. The one I have now is probably eight years old and has a couple of missing and broken parts. I often forget it and leave it sitting on the kitchen counter like a pitiful answering machine. For the most part I can live without a cell phone. Whenever I get around to calling someone they are usually busy talking to someone else on their cell phone. The other problem is that our family is locked into another service provider's plan for at least a few more months, atleast that is my current excuse. Oh, and I hate the thought of paying those monthly data and text plans for the life of the new phone.

So, I keep looking wistfully at iPhones and iPhone upgrades and thinking that they are not so much money and that I need a new point and shoot camera anyway, so the iPhone could kill two birds with one phone, I mean stone. Today I'm sitting around minding my own business and looking at photography blogs when I come across this tidbit from Chase Jarvis.



Damn, I want an iPhone.

What Moves Me

I finished my photo for the Strobist Bootcamp project on transportation yesterday, so I would like to thank David Hobby again for providing some nice end of summer inspiration for a fun photo shoot. Everyone’s submissions are over at www.flickr.com in the strobist group pool and tagged with – sbc2assign4.

www.strobist.blogspot.com

What moves me is photography and the way it can communicate thoughts, ideas and emotions. This photo was taken at a county park that I had not been to for a long time and I had forgotten how much I always liked going there. When I moved from my house in the suburbs I had to put my kayak into storage and over the winter the little car with the roof racks got sold. So I found myself with no kayak and no way to get a kayak to the water .

At the beginning of the month I borrowed a car (with roof racks) and spent the whole day going from one end of the county to the other to retrieve my trusty kayak and took it over to Ellen’s new house which has a nice little garage in the back, just perfect for things like old kayaks. Then I returned the car and went looking for cheap roof racks (which really don’t exist) for my own car so that I could go kayak when the mood strikes me. So this is a little tribute to my old friend which my nieces have named “Brucie.”

Exposure info: ISO 200, WB 3800, 1/160 second, f/5.6 and exposure comp -1/3 stop. Dark red gels on two flash units in boat sealed in double plastic bags and triggered with cactus v2 triggers. SB800 behind rear bulkhead, Sunpak 383s in front. Flashes set to half power. Nikon D300 focal length14 mm on Tokina 12-24 dx lens.

For more kayaking and canoeing fun check out www.adventurecanoe.com and sign up for the forum.

No Salt

It’s Saturday night and all is quiet… Too quiet and that’s what is irritating me for some reason. Nothing much is happening and that means not much progress is being made. The world has taken something out of me this week but rather than complain, I’ll try recapping my activities instead.

I ordered another flash on Friday and took some more demolition photos under bad midday light. This whole week has been slow as far as photographs go but I do have some ideas sloshing around in my brain for next week even though the new flash will probably not make it until Thursday or Friday.

I could use another flash (radio) trigger but I’m thinking of upgrading, so it will probably end up being a bit longer before I buy anything new since I don’t want to add stuff I’m not going to use going into the future. I’m hoping to test a few of the new flash triggers by Radio Popper and Pocket Wizard soon to see if I can settle on a clear favorite. Of course the reality is that you can only use what exists at the time you want to use it even though a lot of tempting things are in the works. New gear is always exciting but often more of a want or a wish than an actual needed item to get the job done.

On a more mundane level, I also need a few more reflectors. I have been using the plastic sheets that yard signs and store displays often made of. That material (Coroplast) seems to hold up better for me than foam core board which is also popular to use as a reflector. Coroplast can be wiped off when it gets dirty and is easy to cut like Foamcore material. You can also use it to make gridded snoots for your shoe mount flashes. I think I’m going to need a few more pieces of it for my outdoor photos next week. It’s pretty handy stuff and it is inexpensive when compared to the other options like collapsible reflectors.

David Hobby has a new Strobist Boot Camp assignment (sbc2assign4) going on right now over at www.strobist.blogspot.com so I am going to try throwing some effort in that direction because it is a lot of fun and a chance to interact with some other photographers as well as actually learning a new trick or two. The subject this time is “Transportation.” There are also some cool prizes for the winning shot to motivate you so go check it out.

Balancing Act

This one is all about balancing ambient light with fill flash which just happens to be one of my favorite things to do. In this shot I am using a minimal amount of gear, a single off camera SB600 flash triggered by Nikon CLS, better known as the Creative Lighting System. It’s automatic and fine tunable from the camera. I thought I might have issues with triggering the flash outside but it worked flawlessly. Of course noonday sun might interfere with the optical triggering but I have not tried that yet so I can’t say for sure.

Tech info: f/10, 1/250th, ISO 800. SB600 flash triggered with Nikon CLS off camera left.