My other photography

Strong Bad

For you dogs out there, sorry to disappoint. No club stuff this time. This is some other stuff I've done. Here is a shot from Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. I was there back in August.


John

MrNightly

Beautiful.. as they all have been.. hehe

janmike

very nice, makes you want to jump on that plane immediately.

Strong Bad

Thanks guys. Here is one from the hotel balcony mid-day. Waikiki beach.

Strong Bad

Opposite side of the island on the surfers paradise North Shore. There were only 3 people along this long stretch of beach. Barely a soul on the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Strong Bad

One more from the North Shore. It's not surfing heaven in August as you can see. December it kicks in overdrive and makes for some of the best in the world. Maui gets hit with the same stuff.

wingnut4772

Oooooh...purdy.

MacLeod

Dude! Those are amazing pictures!

What camera are you using? You can virtually count ever single leaf on those palm trees! That cant be digital unless its one of those $$$$$$$$$$$ DSLR's.

Strong Bad

Thanks gents!

I use the Nikon D70 (6.1mp digital SLR). Those were taken using the Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR lens. That lens will cost you twice as much as the camera body.

Worth every penny in my book.


John

disneyjoe7

Nice pictures, Very nice camera lens combo.

aaharvel

very nice John D

organ

Beautiful pics there. I love the first one. Very calm and soothing.

Strong Bad

Here is one of the Baltimore Inner Harbor. I shot this from the deck of a restaurant right on the waterfront. This was done with one of my cheapy Sigma zoom lens. I gave it some post production treatment (mainly to brighten and sharpen) in Nikon Capture.

organ

Niiiice. The water is trippin me out! I love it.

disneyjoe7

John,

I see you use long exposure's, do you use a tri-pod? Can you add to that, I'm alway's learning.

organ

Is it me or did anybody notice that great photograps makes you see the landscape, colors, etc in a whole different way? I mean, good photographs make you pay attention to certain details that you normally wouldn't if you were there in person.

MattN03

Great pics!

MacLeod

john d. strong wrote:

Thanks gents!

I use the Nikon D70 (6.1mp digital SLR). Those were taken using the Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR lens. That lens will cost you twice as much as the camera body.

Worth every penny in my book.


John

Nikon just rules dont they when it comes to SLR's!

Im in the process of saving up for a digital camera and am seriously considering saving up the $700 for the D50. I take a lot of pictures although most of them are just "picture taking" and not photography so I dont always need a super master ruler camera but there have been several times while mnt biking or out in downtown Chatty or whatever that Ive seen scenes Id love to take and make something out of but have never had the camera to do so.

Ive also thought about just getting a $200 compact digicam and then a $200 entry level Nikon SLR 35mm camera for the good pictures.

I dunno, I really love digital.

michael_w

Cool pictures John. You're not making it much easier for me to resist picking up a dslr

Strong Bad

Thanks again guys! I really enjoy photography.

As far as long exposures, yeah, use a tripod and get a remote to fire the camera. Focus first, then set to manual focus and fire. For that Inner Harbor photo, that was hand held leaning on a railing. I was at that restaurant shooting a wedding anniversary and stepped outside on the deck when I got bored later in the night. I looked at the Harbor and immediately saw a photo op. I think I fired off about 8 shots before getting that one. Others were blurry and not quite right.

Macleod, don't underestimate the D50. The sensor in that one is rumored to give a little bit better quality than the D70 / D70s. Not a world of difference, still, a little better. The D70 /D70s has more funtionality though.

Now, you want something SERIOUSLY challenging to shoot...try a gymnastics meet. Most of the time the lighting is not good (not enough, uneven, etc...). Then you contend with fast movement and trying to guess what their next move will be. Last weekend I shot a big season ending championship meet at Rutgers University in North Jersey. I got a media pass to shoot on the floor. I usually toss some photos to the colleges for free since gymnastics is not a big sport at most colleges and gets very little press, if any. If you're lucky, 5% of your photos come out. Here is one of my best shots of the day. She's from the U of New Hampshire team.

Damn, off to work....

Mike682

Macleod: The D50 is a great camera, especially for around $600 w/lens. You can shoot at iso1600 with very little noise. The Rebel XT is also good but costs a few hundred more. Don't forget Pentax too. The Pentax istD is also a great camera and runs around $550 w/lens.

John, I am into photography as well. Those indoor gym shots are very difficult. Many will use a fast 50mm or 85mm 1.4 or 1.8 lens. Shoot at 800 iso or higher, etc.


Mike

Strong Bad

Mike:

That was shot with the 85mm 1.4. Wide open at f1.4, ISO 320, 1/320 shutter and custom PRE white balance using an 18% grey card.

The 85mm 1.4 is almost a perfect lens. It is slow to focus and cost around $1000! Those are the only 2 downsides. I can live with that!

When I shoot these gymnastics meets, I keep my ISO and shutter down so I can keep the quality up while keeping noise down. I'm very choosy with my shots. I go mainly for the moments when they are posing or close to. I try to hit some action shots, but not many. I had another photographer try to tell me I should be getting all action shots. I told him it's my camera, I'm the photographer and i'll shoot the way i want. He has the higher end Nikon D200 and gets sucky **** shots! He's always trying to get them spinning and flipping in the air and totally misses.

I check out other sites with meet photos and while they may have some good action shots, they're noisy as hell and fairly lower quality. I'm very picky about quality!

Here are more on my site. Check out the EAGL Championship shots for the different schools.

http://strongdigitalart.smugmug.com/Sports/154166


Take care and happy shooting! Spring is here! Lock and load!


John

Ron-P

Nice John. My daughter is in gymnastics, that is some amazing stuff. The things those guys and gals can do is very cool to watch.

MacLeod

I have to admit John, that youre getting me fired up about spending a little more on a camera and trying some amateur photography......you sonuvabitch! You realize how much moeny I already spend on car audio and mountain bike gear?!?! Great, Im going to have to get a 2nd job.

Strong Bad

Ron-P wrote:

Nice John. My daughter is in gymnastics, that is some amazing stuff. The things those guys and gals can do is very cool to watch.

Ron, the stuff they do boggles the mind. I watch some of them do these back twisting flips on the beam and stick the landing...it's quite amazing to say the least.

Most of the meets I go to, there are very few people in the stands watching. I feel bad in a way for those college gymnasts. They beat themselves up for a tiny crowd. Talk about doing it for the love of the sport. You have someone like T. Owens bitching about not getting enough millions to do his sport. These gymnasts leave college and it's pretty much over. They don't turn pro and make millions. It's just over!

I'm turning alot of my photographs over to the colleges for nothing. They allow me to come in and do what i like which is photography and in return they get nice photos for their websites. U of Maryland used one of my photos recently.

Macleod, think hard about the digital SLR thing. I started out just getting the camera and a couple cheapy zoom lens. Yeah right! Over the last year, I spent almost $5k on lens alone. Like audio, you keep wanting more and more and....

HBombToo

Good Stuff John and I'll take the good with the bad... wink, wink

mldennison

john,
those are some awesome shots!

this is kinda creepy, i was reading cnn today and found this article:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/30/hi.sewage.spill.ap/index.html

the picture looks errily like yours...good thing you were there then and not now.

Ron-P

You have someone like T. Owens bitching about not getting enough millions to do his sport. These gymnasts leave college and it's pretty much over. They don't turn pro and make millions. It's just over!

Sad isn't it? Take a basic no-talent sport like football with these guys making millions and then you look at a sport that takes real talent and they get almost nothing for it.

Mike682

John

I couldn't look at the pics this morning because of work but I just checked out your website and you have some great shots. Great indoor gymnastic shots too.

I hate it when others try to tell you what to do with your cam!

How do you like smugmug?

Mike

MacLeod

john d. strong wrote:

Macleod, think hard about the digital SLR thing. I started out just getting the camera and a couple cheapy zoom lens. Yeah right! Over the last year, I spent almost $5k on lens alone. Like audio, you keep wanting more and more and....

I dont know if I really need to spend $700+ on a camera anyways.

Although I do take a lot of pictures, most of them are just snapped off and nothing Im planning on framing. However, every so often I would like to take some "show off" pictures. I love city scapes especially at night and downtown Chattanoog is a beautiful city and I would like to maybe take a couple pictures like your harbor pic and print it out 8x10 or 11x13 and display it. Could something like this Sony W7 ($300) be capable of taking shots like these with quality enough for display or would I be better off with something like this Sony H2 ($400) for $100 more with a little less MP but 12x zoom or am I just going to have to bite the bullet and get the $700 SLR?

God, I hate being a newbie again!