Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/25 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Another shot from the Centrifuge Bar at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas while I was enjoying a beer and winding down from 3 days at the PMA show. In this shot I simply opened the aperture all the way up and with the camera on my lap played around with the manual focus (using the distance markings of the focus ring on my manual 50mm f/1.7 lens while estimating the distance) and let my Pentax K10D do the rest. It took 3 or 4 tries to get the framing right but using this technique saved me from getting down on my knees in the bar- something I try to avoid these days. This picture is essentially straight out of the camera with nothing more than my Lightroom default import processing of the RAW file. White balance was set to auto and has not been adjusted. Doesn’t get much easier than this!

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/50 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Speak to me…as in little green men from outer space ;-) This image makes me think of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Taken in the bar at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas. The Centrifuge bar (as it is known) is designed around a central cylinderical tower covered in tiny color changing LED or fiber optic lights. I was sitting about 12-15′ away from the bar when I took this relaxing from 3 days of walking the show floor at PMA. I simply manually set the focus on my 50mm lens (at f/1.7) to around 3′ and let the camera do the rest. Shooting bokeh is really one of the easiest things to do once you understand the technique. The hard part becomes making an actual composition out of the bokeh. In this case the arrangeent of the lights themselves was all I needed. Tomorrow I’ll have another example shot in the same place.

Sitting in the Southwest Airlines C gate departure lounge at Las Vegas international Airport yesterday this is pretty much what I was seeing through my glazed-over post-PMA eyes. This image is pretty much SOOC (straight of out of the camera). I did apply my standard Lightroom import processing but didn’t have to do much else. For the shot I just opened up the aperture, focused on the backrest of the seat across the aisle from me, recomposed and shot. The large aperture took care of blurring out the background and created the nice bokeh balls from all the lights. The sun had set behind me about 20 minutes before so I got a nice blue hour band through the east facing windows in the background. This is the original composition:

It took a few tries to get the focus right but I figured I had a pretty good shot on about the third or fourth try. A few minutes later, the gentleman on the right walked up, sat down in the second row and pulled out his headphones and I knew that the shot I was looking for had finally materialized.

Shooting in airports is one of my favorite locations but they can be a mixed bag. There is so much to see and so many walks of life confined in a relatively small and typically interestingly designed space. However, you have to be careful of invading peoples’ privacy too much since there’s usually nowhere to run and hide. Shooting shots like this though, can be quite innocent as most people are lost in their own little iPod-isolated world. Also, if they give you a hard time you can show them the shot and prove that they’re nothing more than background texture ;-)

Technical difficulties involve poor and variable lighting conditions and constantly moving subjects. I tend to set my Pentax K10D’s auto ISO to 100-800 (or maybe 1000) and shoot in RAW so I can tweak the white balance later if needed. Generally I like to use my old 50mm lens left wide open at f/1.7. It is small with decent reach and not nearly as imposing as a larger and longer lens might be. Personally, I think Pentax’s SMCP-FA 77mm f/1.8 Limited lens would be a better choice for this type of photography. It is just as small and fast, sharper wide open, has longer reach, and is autofocus. Autofocus here is nice as it allows you to compose and shoot much faster with better accuracy than a manual focus lens (at least for me). That way you draw less attention to yourself while taking pictures.

Anyway, next time you find yourself at the airport, take your camera out of your bag and see what you can get! Here’s a few more that I took:

13 second exposure @ f/16. Camera was set on window sill and triggered with the 2 second delay self timer.

Tram passengers.

This shot was taken at f/4 to give a bit more DoF and sharpen things up a bit.

This was shot from the hip and I knew it would be out of focus but somehow it still works.

Waiting in line at the ticket counter. The shutter release caused him to turn around but I feigned taking a picture of the ceiling to avoid conflict ;-)

]]> http://www.booleansplit.com/?feed=rss2&p=481 0 http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=479 http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=479#comments Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:57:07 +0000 Robert http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=479
Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/40 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Bouchon Bistro @ The Venetian, Las Vegas

The rest of the meal for those interested in such things:

Fresh oysters.

Warm pistachios.

Blood pudding sausage with roasted apples and potato pureé. I had the bar tender pick the wine for dinner. He selected a cabernet. Later he had me try a pinot gris he was thinking of suggesting. The cab was pretty rich with a peppery finish that matched the mild gamey-ness of the blood sausage. The pinot gris, on the otherhand, absolutely exploded in my mouth and provided an incredible contrast to the flavors in the meal. In hindsight he should have gone with the white ;-)

Day 2 I took another lap of the show floor looking for things I may have missed yesterday. Click through to see what I found.

This idea in some form or another showed up in several Asian vendors’ booths. The idea is simple: provide a remote display that uses the video out feed from cameras with live view. This version is wired to the camera and features an articulating screen. Others seen on the show floor featured wireless technology to transmit the video signal to a remote release. The basic idea is pretty clever but I have to wonder just how many people really need such a thing (voyeurs not withstanding).

CropLines is a specialty product that adds custom-designed crop lines to focus screens. They’re not particularly cheap (close to $200 per screen) but that is mostly due to the degree of handwork required. I’m thinking I could use one with square crop lines. If you print a lot of photos an 8 X 10 crop would also be useful. The focus screen pictured is for standardized studio portraits.

Those wily Germans at Novoflex have one-upped the tripod by adding a fourth leg. They call it the “Quadrapod”. Not content with adding an extra leg, they also made the whole thing modular. Each leg screws off to create monopods. Also, additional accessories can be attached to the head mechanism to further expand its usefulness:

Add two more mini legs and you have a packable table-top quadrapod. Add suction cups…

…and you can stick it to a window. In typical Germanic fashion, the build quality is second to none. I didn’t ask how much ’cause if you have to ask…

I figured if I was going to spend $15 on lunch I should get my money’s worth so I headed over to the Hilton to the Noodle Bar in the back of the Benihana restaurant for some Hong Kong style stir fry noodles.

Back to the show and I discovered Olympus’ cut-away version of their E3 DSLR. Is it just me or does this look more complicated than the Nikon D3 version from yesterday?

With the crowds dwindling I took a few moments to play with the Panasonic Lumix G1. It is quite a tidy little package though it feels a little on the plasticy side for my tastes. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is quite strange for someone coming from a true SLR camera. The weirdest part was the fact that the EVF displays the exposure preview just like a PnS (point ‘n shoot) camera does. I can see this being sort of useful sometimes but could turn into a real turn-off as the image fluctuates back and forth looking for “proper” exposure. My guess is most users will just use the big LCD display on the pack like a PnS camera. I stand firm in my assertion that this camera (and others like it) are either pocket cameras that are too big to fit in a pocket or DSLRs that are too small to keep up with their larger brethren. BTW, I overheard a Panasonic employee boasting that their were a total of 6 lenses for the G1. Me, I’ll just keep carrying a PnS (an old Panasonic Lumix FX-07 actually) in my pocket and a real DSLR around my neck for the time being.

Finally, I wondered back to the Nikon booth to take a look at their new AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G lens. Obviously, I didn’t get to take any sample photos with it but it looks and handles pretty nice. I’m sure at $200 Nikon will sell a ton of these. If you have a Nikon DX format camera (anything other than a D700 or D3) I suggest you look at this lens. Having shot fast fifties on both full frame and DX sensor cameras, I can safely say that a 35mm lens on a DX sensor camera (52.5mm equiv focal length) is much more useful than a 50mm lens (75mm equiv)  for everyday use.

Tomorrow I’m planning on making one more pass. I wouldn’t hold your breath in anticipation of any more great finds.

Benihana Japanese Steak House, Las Vegas Hilton Hotel and Casino.

I had lunch today in the noodle shop in the back of the Benihana restaurant. The main part of the restaurant was closed and I was leaving I was struck by all the decor all lit up for nobody. I stopped, switched my camera to manual mode, dialed in f/16, ISO 100, and 30 seconds of exposure. I set the self timer to the 2 second delay and set the camera on a flat top of a wooden handrail support post. I didn’t compose the shot with the viewfinder (due to the low height of the railing) nor did I review the shot after taking this single exposure. Later, in Lightroom I dialed back the exposure -0.42 EV and set the white balance to tungsten. Not bad for a “snap shot” :-)

Bouchon, The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV

I have to say, this shot would not have been possible without my Pentax K10D’s in-camera shake reduction. I mean, they didn’t have IS 20 years ago when this lens was made ;-)

Outside the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino.

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 400, f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS off

Shaggy shoe fashion.

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 100, f/1.7, 1/250 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV.

Check out more Bokeh Wednesday shots at the Bokeh Wednesday group on Flickr.

I’m headed to North America’s largest photography show March 3-5 in Las Vegas. What do you want me to look for and/or find out??