i2iSTUDIOS Blog

I picked up a 105mm Micro lens and went to the Krohn Conservatory for a rundown of how this lens is to handle.

Overall the contrast is fantastic but thedepth of field is super narrow at 1:1 which all of these were shot at.

In March of 2006 I had a chance to go to Europe to study for a shot time.  In that I was able to see this beautiful sight.  I, of course had to bring my D200 with me with the 18-200mm lens and be sure to do my best to capture what I saw, and what a sight it was.  I was taken aside my the size and mass of it.  What a sight to see, really, I mean to live in a place and city where you get to see this everyday would be amazing to say the least.  I have so many photos from the top of Eiffel Tower looking down to the beautiful city below and from below looking up. I love these photos the best. They were all taken handheld at ISO 640 1/15s on my D200 with 18-200mm VR lens almost all of them at 18mm.

Ok, so no I didn’t… I had a request for photos with my 18-200mm VR lens and thought I’d post the ones I took from my trip to France and Belgium. These photos are from the Mercedes Dealership in Brussels. The dealer guy was so awesome, he let me sit in it like I was a little kid, I was grinning from ear to ear!

Purrdy car.

In the back he had this awesome Maybach!

The night is young and I feel the need to be creative. This is what I come up with. Click it to make it bigger

Nikon D3, 60mm Micro 30″ f/36 @ ISO 200 Manual Focus, Mirror Locked Up

Lighting Detail: Floor Lamp above right, Flash shooting up from below, Candle side right

I was working the Cincinnati Bridal and Formal show yesterday, here are most of the gowns there. Great looking gowns and beautiful girls to show them. I got to meet some really friendly photographers there, you can never have too many photog friends to talk to and learn from. Having a D3 around my shoulder made me a bit of a target of photogs up and down the isle but i’m a talker so if you ever have questions just come up and say hello.

I am really starting to learn the ins and outs of this D3. There metering system has really changed from the D200. Right now I am finding that matrix metering is best for me, whereas center weighted was best on the D200. Learning about your gear and how it works is key to successfully exposed photographs. Take time to learn your camera system before you get into those events where you either get the job done or go home with your tail between your legs.

All of these photos were taken with the D3, ISO 800, 70-200 f2.8 @ 200mm f4 Aperture priority. Shutter speeds were usually around 1/800s. Most images cropped in about 25%.  Also, these images are straight out of the camera besides the cropping.  I shot in RAW+JPEG.  These are the Jpeg, in camera I have a -2 for the contrast.

Hey Guys, I desperately wanted the grid lines in the viewfinder so I ordered the focusing screen from an online store and here we go. Now as a disclaimer, I have never done this before nor have I read any instructions on how to do this. I just opened up the D3 and got to work. This is what I did to replace it, this is NOT a howto guide. Just look at what I did and I took a few pics along the way so make your own judgements, K? K.

Ok, there is the box and the insides.

Inside the D3 is a small leaver, you can press down on that and down falls the tray that holds the focusing screen. The tray will come to a rest at the bottom but will not touch the reflex mirror. With the supplied tweasers I took the OEM focusing screen and place it into the little holder that Nikon built into the E-Type box to the right of the new screen. Then take the new focusing screen and put it back in the holder. With the tweesers lift it back into place and it will latch back up.

I had to do this several times. There was quite a lot of dust and it took awhile to blow it all away.

The grid lines are not “On Demand” They are just there. The screen is a lot clearer than the matte of the OEM screen and the lines are very thin, much thinner than the ones in the D200.

I hope this gives insight into how it’s done.

I stared Carbonite on Oct 23 of 2007 and my computer has been backing up ever since.  Last night it finished!!!  I backed up 426 GB (148393 files).  It’s time for my PC to get some sleep.

By rubbing your leg to death!

This little fella came right up to me and rubbed my leg and wanted to get petted a lot!  I got up and started walking and it just kept following me around until another person came around for it to play with.

Right when I opened the car do I saw this, whipped out the camera and the 70-200mm and fired a shot.  I got the nose in perfect sharpness, though the eyes would have been better, I’ll setting for this.

Hey folks, the new job has been keeping me super busy but I did get to go out today and do a little shooting, boy do I love this D3! Here’s just a few little things I worked on today.