One more of my recent receptions to bring home the point(s)

• I like full day weddings.
• I like capturing the events and emotions of the day.
• I’m more photojournalistic than formal/traditional.
• I do more than the couple pictures stuff.

So here’s what often goes on in the receptions. (The other stuff)

Emotion of the Day

This is really what i think I excell at.

I take good couple pictures and stuff. But I really enjoy taking the totally unposed and unexpected pictures.

Capturing the feeling and emotions of the day and of the people.

TAKE NOTE

So if you’re out there looking for a photographer take note:

I’m more into the full day wedding thing.

Take a look at what I do… is this what you want?

If you want someone to show up for 2 hours and take totally formal pictures… you’d be happier with someone else, and probably pay less.
And I’ll be happier taking care of the couples who want emotion filled and often candid shots.

And if all you want is group pictures… Ummm pass.

Rockin the Receptions!

I post so much stuff of the couple… but let’s take a moment to see some of the other people and things going on.

Here’s what was going on about 2 minutes before the rain started falling.

And then later at the reception center we were able to take a couple more.

We just finished with the group pictures.

We were a few pictures into the couple shots and they were running a bit late to start with.

I wanted to go up around the building (temple) the other way around and take a picture with the temple in the background.

As soon as we started to go up the hill it started to rain a little. By the time we got up the hill it was too late… the rain started to come down in buckets.

I used my reflector to try to cover them up… but they were still game for one last picture.

Of course it was bound to be awesome! Too bad you can’t see just how much rain was falling.

We were all soaked to the bone.

On the drive back I don’t think I’ve seen rain fall that hard in years.

Just a quick post of a couple pictures

Select gallery

Full gallery (password required)

No facts just opinions

There’s plenty of sites with specific details on this new camera so i’ll not repeat this but give you a little of my opinion and leave the stats and facts to them.

My Camera background:

I’ve owned the following cameras

D70
D70s
D200
D300

I use lenses that are low light 2.8 or lower.

D300

That being said earlier this year I bought the D300 primarily because I wanted to be able to operate at higher ISO

While I’m happy I have the D300 i must say that I haven’t been operating at higher ISOs with it.
I think I’m getting pickier and pickier and the way they “get rid” of the grain wasn’t to my liking.

So once again I got a new camera hoping that it would work well in those high ISOs.

Problem Solved

And my first opinion is… it most certainly does seem to solve my ISO problems.

To someone taking pictures in darker situations (receptions or indoors anywhere) that’s a big deal and could be worth the $3k

Right now I’m looking at some pictures I took at a reception. It was dark outside they were cutting the cake and I wanted to be at a faster speed to avoid movement blur when they smeared the cake in eachothers face.

125th of a second speed and 1000ISO and the picture was completely useable… and that’s what it’s all about.

I haven’t been afraid to go up much higher than 1000ISO but I haven’t tested exactly the level that I am comfortable with. My guess is I’d probably go all the way to 3200 without too much concern. And if it’s alright to have a moody grainy picture I might even go up to 12k.

UPDATE: I’ve been looking at a lot of the pictures taken at 1600 and I’ll absolutely use them without any hesitation. They look great! They’re somewhat soft and maybe not crisp as most pictures but had I taken them with another camera the grain would have been prohibitive or at a slower shutter speed the pictures might have been very blury (and that’s worse)

Not only was the grain not a factor but the colors were beautiful!

A Pleasant Surprise

I wasn’t expecting that!
It will take some more shoots to really get a handle on it but my first impression is that the color of the pictures might be way better on this camera… which certainly saves me a lot of time in editing.

Enjoyed it more than I thought.

I always considered myself more of a telephoto kind of guy.
So when I picked up the full frame camera and lost that 50% increase in telephoto I thought it would just be alright. But I must say I really enjoyed it. My 28mm lens acted just like my 18mm lens of old.

Now this just means I’ve got to get a 14-24 2.8 nikon lens for $1600 later in the month.

This is my perspective and it comes from my opinions of my D300 and how it compares… If you have any questions ask away.

See a select gallery of about half the images I picked and edited…

Get a password and go to the full gallery

And below I’ll throw on some thumbnails in case you don’t want to venture beyond the blog and see them bigger.

It helps to have such a good subject!

See my previous post for more on the subject of why it was such a good shoot.

See 40 thumbnails below - best to just go to gallery

The shade we had at around 6-7 was great!

The bride was gorgeous, that certainly helps!

The dress was very memorable (and I’ve seen a lot)!

The mom was helpful (even helped with the reflector!

It was laid back and fun and totally enjoyable!

The bride pulled off smiley and modelish wonderfully!

I’ve picked too many of the pictures so I’m trying to unpick some to make things more manageable editing process.

But in the meantime enjoy a preview.

My theories are:

• Wordpress fixed some search engine optimization stuff to make things easier to find.
• I’m taking better pictures.
• Fixing the problem when my wordpress got hacked and google told people not to visit my site.
  (This is probably the biggest thing

But it might be because I post a bit more often. For instance my website has stayed constant… I haven’t added anything to the website for a really long time! (what’s the point? 

Obviously: How do I make lightroom faster?

Would i have a better experience if I upgraded to 64bit operating system?

The answer is probably yes… but then I would ask… How much better and how?
What I’m getting down to… Is it even worth bothering?

Would things be better with more than 4GB of Ram?

Again the answer I expect is yes…. but then I would ask…
How much better and how will I notice the effects?
What I’m getting down to… Is it even worth bothering?

How big can I make my catalogs?

He’ll say… it depends.
I’ll say of course it depends… that’s how computers and technology works…
Now expand on that thought.

Is there a perfect way to install Lightroom and set the preferences?

He’ll probably say there’s no “perfect” way or it depends.
Then I’ll ask ok… what’s the “best” way you know of?

Would a sub $2000 mac be better than a quad-core PC with 4GB of ram 5-6 HDs?

Follow up if the answer is yes… would it be worth giving up my 3 screen setup? (And having to classify myself with annoying Apple Fan Boys… I mean I did get an iPhone so I don’t suppose it’s way out there)
Because if it’s only a tiny bit faster then what’s the point?

Why does it seem that Lightroom is specially sluggish when I leave for a while. Or when I wake in the mornings?

I don’t turn off my computer or even shut down lightroom.
Is that a terrible thing and the root of all my problems?
Does lightroom need to be shut down from time to time just like a computer?

Will add more to the post as I think about them or you suggest them.

Here’s a series of twitter messages I sent out this morning.
I figured it might be important enough to put on the blog since more people view it on a daily basis.

Somewhere out in the tubes there’s an article/blog called: “10 things to do to speed up lightroom” I just can’t find it! Please write one!

In that blog tell me what the fastest computer would be and what tips you suggest about how to run the computer etc…

If I do too many pictures in one catalog am I overburdening things and slowing lightroom down? What’s the magic number?

In fact almost everyone writes about the 10 new features they love in LR2
I would but hundreds of people already did it.
And the article is always called “10 features I love in the new Lightroom 2″

Thomas hawk wrote about the new LR2 features
It’s probably my preferred so far. But seeing how they were all the same I stopped looking at them.

In that Thomas Hawk article Sephen Shankland makes a comment that makes it seem like he knows a bit about speed issues in lightroom. Turns out he has a blog over at CNET

• This article needs to be by someone who really really knows what they’re talking about.
• Not written by someone who is simply a user. (Heck I’ve edited tens of thousands of pictures and i’ve noticed trends but I’m certainly not the person to write this because I would only have theories and not solid facts)
• Base their 10 points on facts and not speculation
• Give us the perfect setup
  (I have a quad core and that sped up things immensely! But I want more)
• Going from picture to picture is where the most annoying lag is.
• In my case I don’t care about the exporting/crunching of images i’m talking about the navigation more so… moving from grid to develope and from picture to picture or applying the edits.

Some lightroom developer needs to do this (maybe they have)

Or someone that likes doing detailed research

I wouldn’t mind Scott Kelby writing this up because he certainly chats with the adobe people a lot and isn’t afraid to ask the questions. Plus everyone seems to read his blog so he can at least pose the question.

Update:

Thanks to Calanan for finding an article that gives 5 apparent ways to speed things up.
Heere’s the twitter message he sent

calanan @jarvie How about 5? http://tinyurl.com/3a3vda

5 tips are great but I want more.
An article not just for the common lightroom user. I want something geared toward huge catalogs and not just focused on speeding up lightroom on an old crappy computer but on an already upgraded computer.

Something that goes more into depth.

I could probably spit out 5 tips to make lightroom faster based on experience.
But i want some really solid stuff going above mere observations and guesses.

Saying get a faster computer and get more ram is cheap because that speeds up every computer. Say that and then explain how it benefits and perhaps give an example.

Am I being too demanding? Lots of people out there blogging and looking for things to write about… just trying to help make the best lightroom article ever.

dwterry @jarvie I have Lightroom store my data in XMP files with the images. That way my edits and my images get backed up simultaneously.

dwterry @jarvie The other advantage is that frees me to blow away my LR catalog any time I want. Which is about every few thousand files or so.

jarvie @dwterry XMP files? that sounds so messy. but i’m willing to listen. Will that make them import into any lightroom with settings in-tact?

Plus i thought one of the points of lightroom was to be more than a place to edit… DAM
DAM - a way to Manage our Digital Assets

If I really had a choice and it worked I would love to have ALL my pictures in the same library… so that might be going the wrong way.

zelph @jarvie I have 17,000+ on my home computer’s lightroom catalog and only about 1,000 on my laptop… I see no noticeable difference

This isn’t what I’ve heard elsewhere, but I’m not sure he’s wrong. I don’t really know if my catalog with 5000 runs faster than those with 40,000 plus.
Now we just need a thousand more people to say what they think and we’ll get down to the bottom of this

To see full gallery get a password and go here

She liked her shoes even though she never wore them because we couldn’t see them and they sank into the grass.

I showed some more serious kinds of poses in the last pose i thought I’d add a smile more usual to her.

I would think most girls would want pictures of themselves that look like they belong in some magazine. They buy those wedding magazines all the time anyway right Well I did a few that way and she oblidged nicely.

I have had many a succesful photo shoot at this park next to this wall
Well only 3 but still… fun wall.

Thought i’d play around and rescue this picture by making it an arsty farstt picture

Here’s a picture to contrast it with… they are to show off the dress and such.

I can’t remember where this came from or who thought of it or why we did it.
But It’s pretty cool

I think I shared this one in the other post.

I sometimes do a normal edit and then one where I play around.
And give them both. Which one is this?

This is a totally “normal edit”
Haha… just kidding.

Towards the end make them do crazy fun stuff…
Because most of the times those are the ones they’re comfortable putting up on facebook and stuff…
They don’t want to look to full of themselves.

Get the unwilling parental figure involved if they’re there.
Good memories

How often is it the very last pose of the day that you like the best.
This in fact was the very last picture I took.

You can go for a long time and take hundreds of photographs
You know that so many of them would work.
And you keep going and going….
It must be something pushing you to wait until you get The Shot
And then when you know you’ve got it… or it isn’t coming… then you can leave.

to see the full gallery get a password and go here

Why not use the local scenery to prove the point right?

Towards the end we were just playing around.

I tried out a new style that I’m liking

Some more shannanagins

A more typical engagement type shot.
So grandma can see their faces really well.