LATE! 50% off!

Hey guys I’ve been totally lazy recently… (blame mw2 lol) I’m on Olympic break, so I should have time to post. Things are pretty crazy here, as my parents are renting our house out for the Olympics. This means that they are in Hawaii and I am staying in the basement alone :P Anyway, since I’ve sat at this post for the last few days trying to figure out what to say, I’ll just get to the fun part: the photos:

We did a wedding workshop at school….

^My personal fav photo from the day

Oh, and a few things that I did:

5 things that happened last week:

1. I finally started my documentary project for photojournalism class… gonna be a tough one to get done.

2. I moved into my dad’s office during the Olympics, my parents went to Hawaii and rented out our house.

3. I shot a few photos of the Olympics, not as many as I would like

4. I threw out a ton of my stuff that I never use, my life feels a lot simpler now

5. I watched some movies: (my ratings) The Time Travelers Wife (4/5), The hangover (3.5/5) and Couples’ Retreat (3/5)

Have a good one everyone! See you next time. (hopefully next week :P)

Photo/Blog

This will now be more of a normal photo blog, as I found writing technical manuals not be be my forte. I will be trying my hardest to write each week.

5 things that happened last week:

1. I shot my family&child assignment: really awkward.

2. I worked on fixing my mom’s laptop and my friend’s computer.

3. I organized my photos, an ongoing project

4. I made my room a mess again :/ *sigh*

5. I watched Gamer. I rate it 3/5 .

Now for the fun part: I will post photos each week:

These are from a little while ago, I was using my d70 due to my d300s being fixed:

Thanks for looking,
until next time,

Nathan

Redo…

Sorry for not posting anything, even about why I have been absent. I will post something next week as to why and what is coming in the future :)

Tripod Head Overview

Its nice and sunny here, above the clouds. I’m on my way to Ontario to visit relatives and to attend my cousin’s wedding. I haven’t been there for at least 5 years, so there will be a lot of  catching up to do. I will be the second shooter at the wedding. Shooting weddings and events for your family or friends is always awkward because you are expected to socialize and be part of the event, along with taking photos. (I prefer to concentrate 100% on my photography job). I’m sure it will be interesting no matter what, I’ve never had to shoot a wedding yet, I’m hoping it’ll be good.

On to the main topic for this week… Tripod heads! I’m going to do an overview here and next week I’ll delve into detail about aspecific topic. Now quickly for the people out there who have no idea what a tripod head is, a tripod head is the top section to a tripod (If you don’t know what a tripod is, well… Just search Wikipedia). It is the part that adjusts the camera angle. Many cheaper tripods have a “fixed head”, which means that the head is not removable and can not be replaced. The more professional (and costly) tripods come with a platform that you must supply your own removable tripod head with. These are the types of tripod heads we will be talking about to day. Basic tripods with a platform start at around $75 and run all the way up to $1,200 for a basic photo tripod, but tripod legs will be a topic for another day.

There are 3 main types of tripod heads used in conventional photography; pan-tilt, gimbal heads, and ball heads. Quickly, lets go over the heads; what they do and what they are good for.

Pan-Tilt: Pan tilt  heads are the typical heads are the typical tripod heads you see around on most basic fixed tripods. They typically have threetension handles sticking out; one for pan for for horizontal tilt and one for lateral tilt (for adjusting horizon level). Pan-tilt heads are the cheapest heads you can buy. I have had cheap pan tilt head (Manfroto 121) I bought used for $20. Often most people use a pan tilt head, because they don’t know there is anything better out there. There are many manufactures available that make pan-tilt heads including bogen, manfrotto, gitzo, ..

Gimbal: Gimbal heads are typically used for very large telephoto lenses 300mm f/2.8 or larger). These heads allow the photographer to pan and tilt large lenses freely with ease. They allow the photographer to pan track a moving subject easily. The head has a base that is used for panning, and a swinging gimbal to allow for vertical adjustment. Think of the gimbal head as a swing on top of a merry-go-round. The merry-go-round allows for panning movements, and the swing allows for tilting movements; both can be achievedsimultaneously. Most gimbal heads include a locking feature which inables the position to be locked, preventing movement. Because gimbal heads are aimed at large lenses which most have a rotatable collar foot. (this foot/collar is used to offset the heavy weight of the lens, helping to balance the lens/camera combination. When mounted on a gimbal head, the lens/camera should be perfectly balanced so that, even with out locking the camera should not fall backwards of forwards. Lens collars also allow for asdf rotation.
Most pros say that the Wimberly II Head is the best gimbal head available.

Ball heads are the bread and butter for most pro photographers today. They allow for the easiest, fastest framing and are very compact, light, and easy to operate. At their core, they operate on the universal ball and socket principle. They typically also include a panning base to allow for easy panning. Having a ball head allows the photographer to adjust all angles at the same time, and, with one hand, tighten all angles. These heads are much moreconvenient than pan tilt heads, which require tedious adjustments of each angle direction from different knobs. Next week I will be making a post in more detail about ball heads and thedifferent brands and types of ballheads.

Now that we know the basics about the different types of tripod heads, lets go over some more info about heads in general. Most heads will fit most tripods. In general there are two standard thread sizes for the mounting threads; 1/4″ and 3/8″. Usually this is not a big issue if one thread size does not match the other, there are step up male and step down female thread adaptors for the two sizes. Just keep in mind that the larger the thread the more secure the fit, so use a step up adaptor if possible.

To mount your tripod head on your tripod, simply match up the threads and screw on (making sure to tighten the panning base of the head). Some tripods feature additional locking feature such as screws under thetripod mount section, or lock tight grips.

Another important aspect of the tripod head is the camera mounting method. There are two types of mounting methods; screw down and quick release. Screw down tripods use a thumb screw from the bottom of the head up though the mounting plate into the camera tripod socket. These are a big pain to mount and typically are less resistant to camera twisting over the quick release style.

Quick release clamps use a plate that attaches to the bottom of the camera, which can easily snap-in to the head, using a leaver or knob. Quick release plates are most common these days.

Within the quick release clamps, there are two main types of plates; friction and mechanical. Friction type clamps use a cork or rubber base to prevent twisting of the plate and camera, while themechanical types use a metal base that is fitted to the  individual camera, usually using a lip to secure the plate to the body . Generally the professionals use themechanical, type because they are found to be much more reliable then a cork or rubber pad.

Well, that’s all for now, as I am finishing this up I am in my aunts place for the first night and I’ll defiantly have to post some more about my adventures here sometime.

Till next time,

What is 21st Century Photographer about? – 1st blog post

Hello and welcome to the my first blog post ever! Here at 21st century photographer I will be discussing my latest journey in the world of digital photography. I plan on discussing whatever I currently am discovering regarding said topics. I plan on posting every Sunday reviewing my discoverys of the past week.

I suppose some sort of biography is in order, so here we go:  (Snipped, and edited from my portfolio website work in progress)

Born in Victoria, BC, I have been a lifestyle portrait and event photographer who has been photographing on the Lower Mainland since 2004, when I discovered my passion for visual arts through a home-school art class. I focus my  talents on shooting portraits, sports and covering events.
I recently graduated from Carson Graham Secondary school. During my senior year at Carson I headed the sports division of the yearbook committee and received multiple awards for various art courses, including the Senior Traditional Photography program. I am currently enrolled in the Vancouver
Institute of Media Arts Digital Photography program for September 2009. I am member of the National Press Photographers Association, and the North Shore Photography Society.
Besides keeping up my busy photography schedule, I also manage to find time to produce timelapse short films, some of which have been broadcast on the JoyTV television network.
I am also extremely enthusiastic about sharing my technical and artistic knowledge with others in the areas of photography, the Adobe software suite and other general software and hardware technology. He is an active member of many online communities. You can find me on Photo.net [link] , DeviantArt [link] and Vimeo [link]. I also have Facebook [link] and Twitter [link].

So there you go.. there is a lot more to me than that of course, but I had to keep it short(ish?).  I’m also helping this blog will  help my improve my writing skills, so please bear with me and my poor writing, I am going to try to improve my grammar and sentence structure as time goes on.

I did a bit of thinking about the topics I want to cover in this blog and I made a short list of (some) categories while on the way back from work on the Sea-bus:

Computer Side
Data Security
Workflow
Software
Calibration/Medium Transfer

Camera Side
Ethics
Equiptment
Technique
Subjects

Business

I am  researching a new tripod head to replace my ancient pan-tilt head that doesn’t really work… much.  Am still going through all my options but have a feeling I am going in the right direction. I am going to post a blog post on my findings shortly.

Off topic, I am going to be heading to Ontario on Tuesday for my cousin’s wedding. I will be doing some photography at the wedding, shooting as a second photographer. It will be my first wedding, so I’m sure it’ll be interesting (can I be scared?). On my flight there I will be writing the tripod head post (and maybe something else also).

Hopefully  I can be of help to someone (or maybe more than one?) out there. Please check back every Sunday (or more often) for a new post. Best of luck and hope you have a good week!

Ello There!

This is just a test, I’ll be posting most every Sunday afternoon. First post will be by next Sunday or sooner.