Combat Photographer

Every once in a while a new contraption comes along that makes you go "hummm".  When I stumbled upon this little gem that's exactly what I thought.

Are you a Xbox junkie?  Perhaps a Gulf War vet that got used to having an Aimpoint or Eotech red-dot sight on your service rifle?  Well, wait no more - you can now mount a red-dot optic on your DSLR presumably for shooting birds in flight.

Just plop this baby on your hotshoe mount and start blasting tangos... I mean birds at 8fps with your favorite shooter.

Unfortunately this little gem isn't commercially available (at this time) and it's DIY.  But the sight can be had for a mere $29 on Amazon.com and the rest looks fairly easy to make yourself... assuming you're so inclined.  For me?  I'll stick to my viewfinder.

New Season Musings

This year is off to a great start.  Since I live in Indiana, the winters tend to be a bit tough and honestly, it wears on my creativity and inspiration.  I don't do a lot of shooting in the winter, and when I do it's mostly in studio.

I'm a people shooter.  I really enjoy shooting people vs. shooting nature.  I'll get the bug every once in a while to shoot a flower here, a bug there or something without a pulse occasionally.  But what really gets my shutter clicking is a person in front of my lens, preferably doing something interesting.

I have an interest in events such as WWII reenactments, Civil War reenactments and Ren Festivals.  Why?  Well, because there is a seemingly endless number of willing subjects to pose for me and they almost always have an intriguing costume or are doing something fun that makes for great imagery.

During the first week of May each year they hold a WWII reenactment in Lowell Indiana at a park named Buckley Homestead.  This year I headed down again to shoot the massive WWII event which includes tanks, airplanes, soldiers, guns and even food.

Inevitably when I get home to my studio, I want to edit the images so that they have a historic look.  I want to fool the viewer into thinking perhaps these images weren't taken in 2010 but in 1942 instead. 

I find this somewhat challenging.  I mean, the 40's were an interesting era in photography because you had a mixture of both color and B&W images.  You even had B&W images that were later colored by airbrush which have a very unique quality all their own.  So for me, trying to capture the essence of the era and the feeling of warfare proves to be very difficult.  I also like to mix things up a bit and not repeat the same editing technique over and over.

This years event was great and I feel as though I've done what I set out to do with my captures and edits.  I've shared a few images here and hope that you enjoy them.  If you have any questions about how I achieve a particular look, please post in the comments section and perhaps I'll make a post dedicated to my editing techniques.

Coming up this month I have a Civil War reenactment in Naperville on the 15th (next weekend).  I'm really looking forward to this event and the challenges my edits will present yet again.  Trying to reproduce the look of Civil War era photography is especially challenging for me.

Doing Fashion Right

The guys a King Street Studios really know how to rock the fashion house with killer photography and video.  Watch this HD video of a recent fashion show they completely setup and shot.  It's amazing work, I especially like the single light system they used to shoot models heading out to the runway.  The image quality and lighting simply rock.


Fstoppers Original: King Street Studios Shoots Charleston Fashion Week from FStoppers on Vimeo.

Hells Angels: Studio Shoot

Last night a buddy and I finished up a big event, it was a studio shoot with 7 models, 5 motorcycles, and about 20 photographers.  We organize the events through Meet-Up.com and the group has been active for about a year now.

We found an auto shop that was willing to host the event, which they absolutely loved and invited us back again next year.  They want to make this shoot an annual event, of course they get the rights to use some of the images for marketing purposes. 

Here's a video I put together of the event.

NatGeo and the 7D

This video was shot with a Canon 7D.  It's quite impressive how good the video looks.  Double click on the embedded video below to view in full screen mode.  It's much more interesting at full resolution.



NG Earth Explorer Desert Adventure from Johnnie Behiri on Vimeo.

Camera Phones to Replace DSLR's?

Nokia's CEO Anssi Vanjoki has gone on the record as saying "there will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses" while talking about the progress being made in cell phone camera technologies in Helsinki yesterday (4/20/10).  He's of the opinion that camera phones will one day soon replace our heavy DSLR's.

He also predicts that HD video will be coming to cell phones within the next 12 months.

I mean honestly, does this man think a cell phone with a sensor the size of a pencil eraser will really challenge a full frame sensor of say a D3s or 1Ds?  Does he really think Hasselblad will fold in the face of the fierce competition fielded by Nokia and their latest cell phone?  I'm guessing he's more than a little off base here.

But the comment about the lenses is really troublesome.  The lens, as we all know, is the most critical piece of hardware for a camera, especially a professional grade camera.  How in the world does he plan on fitting a lens with a f/1.2 aperture that delivers a razor thin depth of field and creamy bokeh on a camera phone?  Obviously the man doesn't understand what a DSLR is or how it works... or why it works.

But then this is the same guy that predicted the N-Gage was going to revolutionize gaming.

House Season Finale Shot Using 5D Mark II

An article has surfaced that claims the final episode of this seasons House MD has been shot using a Canon 5D Mark II.

You can read more here.

According to the director of the show Greg Yaitanes he was quite impressed with the video quality of the 5D Mark II and claimed in a Twitter interview that he "loved it [5D Mark II] and feel it's the future.".

They used "all of the Canon prime" lenses in filming and also used the 24-70 and 70-200 zooms.  It's interesting to note they used Canon lenses for their super shallow depth of field.


The show has been traditionally filmed using 35mm film, so this is a big step forward for the House crew and for cinematography in general. 

Being a big House MD fan, I can't wait until May 17th to see this episode!