Light matters!

January 13, 2013

Photography is all about light. As a matter of fact, some people say that photography is like painting with light. I was reminded of that the other day when I was out and about in Dubai photographing the city. Around 4:30pm I arrived at the scene and took the following photo: Most photographers that had arrived with me left after a few minutes. But I sat down, took out my Kindle and read for a while. I ended up taking one photo pretty much every 10-15 minutes. Here are some of the results. Lesson learned: Light matters. A gorgeous scene …

Nikon D800 Battery Life – Part 2

September 26, 2012

D800 battery life A few months ago, I wrote about my disappointment with the D800 battery life. I was only able to get around 500 photos out of each charge. It was disappointing and also extremely annoying. However, Nikon had a recall on a certain battery batch. There was supposedly a risk of the battery catching fire while being charged. I was happy to find out that my battery was also affected. Kudos to Nikon for the extremely efficient and easy return process. I simply had to fill in a form on their website. Three days later, UPS showed up …

Nikon D800 battery life

May 5, 2012

Let me be clear: I love the Nikon D800. But there is something that really bugs me. And that is the battery life. I took my camera on a business trip this week. The battery ran out after 250 photos. Granted a lot of them were long exposure (5-15 seconds), but this is almost ridiculous. My D300s seemed to last for weeks. However, the battery is on re-call. I just found out. Will call Nikon on Monday to get a replacement. I do hope that this will fix the problem. 250 photos is not enough.

First Nikon D800 HDR – Single RAW file

April 16, 2012

Nikon D800 HDR The other day I wrote about the Nikon D800 file size. I do have to say that I am pleasantly surprised about who well the huge RAW files handle on my MacAir and the MacMini. Tonight, I decided to do another test: HDR processing on my MacAir. For that purpose, I took a single RAW file that I took a few days ago. I processed that file with five different EV settings (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2) and exported the files to jpeg. Each jpeg is between 5.7MB and 9MB large. The files were processed HDR EFEX …

Nikon D800 impressions – part 2

April 9, 2012

Nikon D800 impressions. The Nikon D800 is an awesome camera. I am super happy with it so far. It is a major step up from my prior Nikon D300s. Picture quality is unbelievable. Here are some additional impressions after photo number 1500: Photo quality is amazing. Colors look beautiful. When you pull up the photos on a large screen you can immediately tell the difference between the D300s and the D800. Working with the files is totally ok. Even my MacAir 2011 can handle the RAW files ok. Aperture is a bit slower. No big deal. Noise is extremely well …

Photo featured on Ming Thein’s blog

April 7, 2012

Exciting news. Professional photographer Ming Thein reviewed one of my photos on his blog the other day. It got a very decent review. Check it out! Also, make sure to bookmark or subscribe to Ming’s blog. It is EXCELLENT! Highly recommend it.

The Nikon D800 and photo detail

April 5, 2012

Nikon D800 Detail This is really tough. I have had the D800 for almost a full week but have not yet had time to take it out for a full spin. Hopefully tonight. But I have had time to take a few snapshots here and there. The image quality from the Nikon D800 is unbelievable. Take a look at the two photos in the attached gallery. The first one is the original. The second one is a crop – down from 36MP to 0.6MP. Amazing detail, from my point of view. You can actually see some cigarette buds lying around when …

Nikon D800 file size

April 3, 2012

D800 File Size There is a big discussion going on about the D800 file size. A 36MP camera does produce HUGE files. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to shoot a few photos and upload them to my two Macs: a 13inch 2011 MacAir (i5, 4GB RAM) and a 2011 iMac (i5, 8GB RAM). I use Aperture as the main tool in my workflow. Here is what I have learned so far. I am comparing my experience with the old D300s: Processing: The D800 file size is heavily influenced by the RAW settings in the camera. The difference between 14bit …

D800 – More tests

April 1, 2012

The D800 is truly awesome. This morning, I sat down to take a look at some the photos I took last night. Most of these were shot with higher ISOs. Take a look at the crops. The amount of detail in the photos is almost shocking. Click on the images to see the larger version.

Nikon D800 high ISO

March 31, 2012

There has been a huge debate about the Nikon D800 not being able to to handle high ISO. Well, I got my body a few days ago and I am pleasantly surprised. Last night, I used my 300mm lens to take a hand-held test shot. Here it is. ISO 12800. Pretty impressive. This is pretty much un-touched. Just the standard do-noise application in Aperture.

Welcome to sftwins.com

March 31, 2012

Welcome to my new photoblog! After a few years of running this site via Apple’s iWeb, I finally decided to move to WordPress. There are a lot more options and it is handy to be able to work on the site while on the road.

Hello world!

March 31, 2012

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!