136/365: Closed Umbrella

March 24, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

136/365: Closed Umbrella, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

A reflective umbrella doesn’t need to be completely open to be a useful light modifier. When closed, it still provides a nice, large light source. It’s also great when you need more directional lighting than the grenade-type radius an umbrella gives you when fully opened.

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125/365: Portrait Time

March 14, 2010 | Category: Life, Photography Randomness | Leave a Comment

125/365: Portrait Time, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

Tonight, had to do some portrait work for my wife. She’s in the process of redesigning her business website (Health & Wellness Counseling), and we need some good professional shots for it.

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Tags: 24-70, d700, karla, portrait

87/365: Yoda to the Rescue

February 4, 2010 | Category: Life | Leave a Comment

87/365: Yoda to the Rescue, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

I really wasn’t in the mood to take a self portrait today, but Yoda was gracious enough to volunteer to have his picture taken instead.

Thanks, Yoda!

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Tags: star wars, statue, yoda

86/365: DIY Beauty Dish Test

February 2, 2010 | Category: Photography Randomness | Leave a Comment

86/365: DIY Beauty Dish Test, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

The DIY light modifier that I had mentioned in Day 84 was a beauty dish for my SB-800 flash. I’m pretty happy with the way it had turned out. Total cost of materials was only around $30. This pic was taken just using the dish. I followed these instructions to put this together:

David Tejada

Props to David on a well written and easy to follow tutorial. While his writeup was great, the actual work totally sucked. But the results are worth it

Strobist:
- SB-800 in DIY beauty dish, camera right

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Tags: beauty dish, DIY, flash, lighting, Nikon, sb-800, speedlight

83/365: I Say Tomato, You Say Tamato

January 31, 2010 | Category: Life | Leave a Comment

83/365: I Say Tomato, You Say Tamato, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

Being married to a Holistic Nutritional Counselor, you pick up a thing or two about healthy living. One of the things that my wife makes a point of is buying organic when possible. Aside from all the health benefits of eating organic fruits and veggies, I have to say that an added perk is that they just taste better than the regular stuff.

When we visited the O’O organic farm in Hawaii a few weeks ago, the chef there had mentioned that if you really want to taste the difference between an organic and non-organic crop, compare tomatoes or beets. I can definitely vouch for this as far as tomatoes go (not a real beet fan, so I typically don’t eat them). Organic tomatoes have such a rich and sweet flavor, whereas the non-organics frankly don’t taste like much at all. The reasons behind this really open up the discussion around conventional farming vs. sustainable/organic farms. A really good flick that I recommend is Food, Inc.. It really opens your eyes to the food industry in general, and makes you appreciate the benefits of organic eating.

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Tags: red, tomato, vegetables

59/365: RP Cubes, Yo

January 7, 2010 | Category: Nikon | 3 Comments

59/365: RP Cubes, Yo, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

Tonight I created 3 RP Cubes that work. Go me.

In a nutshell, these allow you to remotely control the flash power for Nikon speedlights from a RadioPopper JrX Transmitter. I was dreading this project a bit b/c it involved having to solder wires into a 1.8 plug. However, it was much easier than I thought it would be.

Gotta say though, I am still a bit nauseous from the solder fumes.

More info on this DIY here:

http://lightandpixels.com/2009/11/06/radiopopper-jrx-cube-diy/

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Tags: DIY, flash, lighting, Nikon, radiopopper, rp cube

41/365: The First Snowfall of the Year

December 19, 2009 | Category: Life | Leave a Comment

41/365: The First Snowfall of the Year, originally uploaded by jeffspot.

Ah, the first snowfall of the year. It’s so serene.

Until you have to shovel it.

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Tags: flickr, hat, snow

So long D90. You have served me well…

October 30, 2009 | Category: Nikon | Leave a Comment

Now that I’ve shot (what I believe) is my last wedding of 2009, it was time to finally put the D90 up for sale and use the proceeds toward a full-frame D700. I had originally considered waiting for a while longer to see if Nikon was going to replace the D700 with a newer model in the near future. However, reading a recent comment from a Nikon rep that the replacement wasn’t going to happen any time soon, I figured I might as well take the leap now.

Selling the D90 was an interesting process. I’ve typically used eBay to pawn off my used stuff in the past. However considering the market value of the camera, I didn’t feel like having eBay/Paypal take 10% of the proceeds through their crazy fee structure. So I tried out 2 new selling avenues this time – The fredmiranda.com Buy & Sell forum, as well as good old craigslist.

Going through fredmiranda.com, you need to pony up a $25 annual subscription fee to be able to post photog gear for sale. To me, this was a small price to pay (especially compared to the $80 plus that eBay would have taken from me had I sold through them). At any given time, the fredmiranda forums see about 2000 photogs perusing it. That’s pretty good exposure. Plus, I figured it could be worthwhile should I decide to sell anything else within a year since the $25 fee allows you to sell as much as you want during the subscription period.

Craigslist is great because posting items for sale is free, and you are geared toward local pickup/cash exchange sales. My only hesitation about posting through craigslist was due to some of the horror stories you read about on the web about scam artists and stuff. But I know quite a few people that have had great luck with craigslist. I guess it all comes down to making every effort to be vigilant and smart about dealing with potential buyers on this forum.

In the end, I found a really cool buyer through craigslist and sold the D90 to him. Quick, easy, and cash in the pocket without any ridiculous fees. I did get some interested buyers through fredmiranda.com as well. However, I found that quite a few of them would say, “Hey I’m interested!”, but then you wouldn’t hear from them after responding. I did eventually get one serious buyer through FM, however this was after I was set to sell to the craigslist contact. Ah well.

Anyway, I ordered the D700 yesterday through B&H. One of the things that I love about ordering from B&H is that living in NJ, you are able to get stuff from them tax-free and next day ground shipping. As I type this, the D700 is on a UPS truck to be delivered today. Can’t wait!

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Tags: craigslist, d700, d90, fredmiranda