“So kids, you want to be a drone pilot?”

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Sam

That’s the favorite phrase of my good friend Parker Gyokeres, usually when something goes horribly wrong, which is pretty frequent when you’re dealing with the “electronic divas with bipolar disorder” commonly referred to as drones.

I’m not going to lie, flying remote-controlled aircraft, especially multicopters, is a LOT of fun and I’ve managed to capture some spectacular shots. It immediately adds production value to your project, and turns heads both on location and online. The thing is, there’s a lot more to it than most people realize, and a lot of things that can, and do, go wrong. Continue reading →

Review of the Sony α7R

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Sam

I received my Sony α7R in the mail a little over a week ago. While I haven’t used it as extensively as I would have liked, I do think I’ve delved deep enough to offer some honest opinions on its functionality. Now, there are plenty of places like DPreview where you can get the full low-down on the specs and features, so I’m going to focus specifically on my own revelations about its functionality.

There was a reviewer who compared the α7R to the original iPhone. I think this thought is spot-on. This camera is ground-breaking and a beautiful glimpse into what the camera industry has in store for us in the future. However, it still has some serious flaws that are just enough that I don’t see this camera getting the mainstream usage future iterations might see. Still, the fact that Sony managed to cram a 36 megapixel full frame (35mm format) sensor into a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera is impressive. This means the camera is capable of image quality to rival my Nikon D800.

Let’s get started. Continue reading →

Why I’ll likely be buying Sony for a while

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Sam

Sony NEX-7

Okay, so let’s get the elephant out of the room first. I’m not selling off all my Nikon gear anytime soon, and I still plan to use it extensively for high-profile shooting. In fact, the above photo was shot with my Nikon D800. That said, Sony has really piqued my interest in the past couple of years, to the point that I’m thinking that more of my personal camera gear should be Sony, not Nikon. Why? Well, there are a lot of reasons. Some of it has to do with my shooting style in my off-duty time. Some of it has to do with unique features Sony is putting in their newest cameras. Continue reading →

Emerging technology and the fate of photojournalism

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Sam

Technology seems to change more and more rapidly with each passing year, and the technology of photography is no exception. Some of this has had a positive effect on the field of photojournalism while some has not. Some recent technology threatens to change the face of photojournalism forever.

It’s hard to have a conversation about breaking news photography these days without inevitably mentioning the Chicago Sun-Times bold move of firing its entire photo staff in favor of iPhone. Technology has made near-real-time reporting a possibility for just about anyone, but at the sacrifice of absolute quality. There are certainly a lot of people up in arms about laying off the photo staff of the Chicago Sun-Times, but what if the problem isn’t technology or social media, but our own inability to adapt to these new mediums? Continue reading →

The Modern Celluloid Closet

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Sam

A couple weeks ago, I watched an HBO documentary called “Vito” at the 2012 Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. I highly recommend it to anyone if they get a chance to see it. The documentary chronicles the life of a man named Vito Russo, a pioneer in LGBTQ rights in America, and the author of a book called The Celluloid Closet.

In the book (and lecture series), Russo talked about how in the early days of cinema, gays were portrayed as perfectly normal people. It wasn’t until the mid 20th century that gays disappeared entirely. Over the years, they were slowly brought back, but always portrayed as villains, comic relief, or mentally unstable people. It wasn’t until very recently that the LGBTQ community has come full circle to be portrayed as normal people again.

Watching the movie and hearing about Russo’s work has really opened my eyes to the marginalization of the LGBTQ community within film and TV. Today, I realized it’s not limited to western film either. I was re-watching the second season of “Darker Than Black” today, and found that series was somewhat guilty of it too. Continue reading →

Nikon D800: Initial Thoughts

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Sam

*Click for full resolution, but the image is a bit soft due to shooting wide open into a mirror.

My Nikon D800 came in about two days ago. To say I was giddy as a school girl on prom night might be putting it mildly. This camera really is a dream come true in a lot of respects. The only two things that ever really irked me about the D700 was that sometimes I just wanted a bit more resolution to work with for large prints, and it didn’t have a video mode. My D5100 filled the video gap, but only just barely. Its manual controls for video were shoddy at best, and I ran into a lot of issues, especially trying to get a specific shutter speed in fluorescent lighting to minimize rolling shutter or banding.

Continue reading →

Camera purchasing advice

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Sam

I recently made a fairly extensive post on facebook answering the question “Can anyone recommend a good but fairly inexpensive DSLR?” Since it was really detailed, I figured I’d repost this to share this wisdom with the rest of you. Note that this is published mid-2012, so if you’re reading this a year from now, don’t expect it to still be relevant. Also note that these are just cameras that have piqued my interest for various reasons, and I don’t receive any endorsements from them or give endorsements. Also, the quality of your photos relies on your own photographic technique. Ansel Adams once said that the most important part of a camera is the six inches behind the viewfinder.

For reference, my current camera setup (once I have it in my hands in a few days) is a Nikon D800 with about $16k in lenses, so to me, everything below is pretty cheap. This is, of course, all relative. With that, here’s the post: Continue reading →

Hands-on with the D800E at CP+

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Sam

I just spent Friday at the CP+ Photo Expo in Yokohama. To say I had a blast would be putting it mildly. There were a few key things I was looking at while I was there, and at the top of the list was the Nikon D800E.