Self-Interview Regarding Recent D600 Purchase

Feb 062013

Hi Jonathan!
Hello.

So, you bought a D600?
Yep, a kit from Adorama that included the 28-300mm and a SB-70 flash.

Can I see a pic of the box?
Sure, here you go:

Boy, that is really something. But didn’t you just buy a new camera?
I bought a D7000 back in June 2012, which in retrospect was a mistake. I had hoped for a full-frame camera, but after the D800 came out at $3k for the body, I kind of gave up and figured I would stay with DX format. But after the D600 came out, I started rethinking it and eventually (last week) decided to go ahead and get what I really wanted.

Ah, I see. You excited for the video features?
Not really, although it’s nice to know they’re there. I’m much more inclined to stick to stills, although I’m planning on experimenting with time lapse more, and this camera has a dedicated TL function.

Photo Setup – 3/10/12 Just a Leek

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Mar 112012

Before and After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera.

An enormous leek from the farmers market

The Setup

Featured in UCLA Today

Musings No Responses »

Mar 092012

Well my, do I feel fancy!

My friend @vivekster was nice enough to tweet @uclanewsroom the fact that I finished four years, and our staff/faculty news site (@uclatoday) did a story on @jawsnap, who is me! Twitter FTW!

Here the link – After Hours: a photo a day for 1,462 days

Oh, and although it’s true that I’m not in it for the money, I sure don’t mind making money from it. Please note that nearly all of my photos have a “Buy” button near the top. You can get all sorts of sizes, including ginormous, or contact me for special gifts like cards or calendars

Four Years of Daily Photos

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Mar 082012

Well I’ll be damned. I made it four years! FOUR YEARS of taking and posting a photo every single day. I declare Phase I complete.

Here's to Four Years - a panoramic crop of my final daily photo for Phase I

I started my One/Day Project on leap day (February 29th) in 2008, so I’m calling the period between leap days Phase I. Hopefully I’ll make it to Phase II. Check back in about four years for that. Better yet, follow along! Year 5 is already a week in.

Daily Diary

Although I’m pretty cautious on personal details, this project is basically a diary by nature. Looking back over a single year is fun, but going back all four years is really crazy. Four years is a long time. We got married, bought a condo and changed jobs. We visited 15 states and 4 countries. We explored 10 National Parks. I say “we” because my wife was with me through all of this. I’m grateful to have her support; I know I can be annoying by taking photos all the time.

Photo Setup – 2/29/12 Here’s to Four Years

Photo Setup, Photography, Southland No Responses »

Feb 292012

Before and After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera.

My final daily photo for Year 4 at a Santa Monica beach

Technical Stuff

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR at 18mm

Exposure settings: ISO 200, f/9, 1/40s

Cropped dimensions: 3387 x 2267 pixels

Other stuff: ND grad filter, -2/3 EV Continue reading »

Photo Setup – 1/22/12 Venice Dusk

Photo Setup, Photography, Southland No Responses »

Jan 232012

Before and After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera.

Daily photo for 1/22/12 - Venice Pier at Dusk

Tech Info

Tripod, Nikon D80, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm, ND grad filter, f/22, ISO 100, 6 second exposure

Things That Made it Happen

Timing - Although I arrived before sunset, I waited for a while afterwards to get these colors. The sun set at 5:15; this shot was taken about 5:30. Continue reading »

Death Valley iPhoneography

iPhone, Photography, Travel, Trip Journal No Responses »

Dec 062011

During a recent trip to Death Valley National Park, I often took a step back from my ‘big’ camera and pulled out my phone to make some panoramas. If you want to see the big camera photos, click this – Death Valley 2011. The iPhone panoramas are all linked below – the first set was exported from the amazing Photosynth iPhone app and the second set was stitched using AutoStitch. I wrote about both apps in this post a few months ago.

At first glance, the Photosynth panoramas look weird and terrible. Keep in mind, though, that they are full 360° in all directions and when you constrain it to be a 2D rectangle, things get a little squished. Click the ‘interactive’ link below each image to see it how it was intended. The Dante’s View Photosynth turned out particularly well, in my humble opinion.

The AutoStitch panoramas are much prettier, but of course lack the interactivity and imersiveness (?) of the Photosynths. AutoStitch can handle multiple rows of photos, but in all the cases below I just did a single row. It’s interesting to see what textures and scenes each app could handle gracefully.

Photosynth

Zabriskie Point [interactive]

Dante’s View [interactive] Continue reading »

Photo Setup – 11/4/11 Pleasure Pier

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Nov 042011

Before and After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera.

Daily photo for 11/4/11 - Pleasure Pier

Inspiration

It rained today, and post-storm photos tend to be quite lovely. For me, the logical thing to do was head down to the beach near the Santa Monica Pier around sunset. I’ve done that many times before, but I can’t say that it ever gets old. Continue reading »

New Toy Alert: Circular Polarizing Filter

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Oct 292011

Circular polarizing filters are great for saturating colors and preventing unwanted reflections. At least that’s what the internet says but it’s no substitute for discovering on my own, so I spent $150 on a 77mm Promaster filter down at Tuttle Cameras when they were having a big sale. Check out the dramatic difference in these unedited photos:

Minimum polarization...

Maximum polarization!

I mean, wow. Right?

I wanted to share a couple of first impressions. First, there’s a light loss of about 2 stops. That’s like shooting at 1/60 instead of 1/250 or f/5.6 instead of f/2.8. Or just setting your camera to -2 EV. In a more practical sense, it means you might need to use a tripod when you wouldn’t normally have to, like after sunrise or before sunset. Continue reading »

The Amazing iPhone Camera Comparison – iPhone 4S

iPhone, Photography, Southland, Technology 2 Responses »

Oct 272011

Last year, I wrote The Amazing iPhone Camera Comparison using an iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G. This year, I am doing the same thing with the iPhone 4S and 4. Being able to compare the quality from the two cameras has given me a huge respect for the iPhone 4S – the quality difference is amazing and makes the iPhone 4 feel like a toy.

Yes, I made this image in MS Paint.

My Methods

For the tech specs below, I included my numbers from last year’s post and added the ones for the 4S. Most of the numbers came from directly observing the EXIF data off of the photos, which included shots of the sun (for max shutter speed, etc) and a dark closet (for highest ISO, etc). Continue reading »

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