[twitch]

I was in Philadelphia for a day and just had to visit JFK Plaza to check out this famous public art display as I love it.. pun intended haha. Shot with a Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D @ f/1.8, ISO3200, multiple shots stitched together to give a wider FOV but with a shallow DOF.

Nice, well executed, very 3D like! This technique has a name: "brenizer technique" or something after a photographer who popularised it. I have to try this myself one day.

[Rory]

Nice, well executed, very 3D like! This technique has a name: "brenizer technique" or something after a photographer who popularised it. I have to try this myself one day.

Yeah, the technique has been around quite a while, but he started a flickr group and got credit.

[twilight_samurai]

Nice, well executed, very 3D like! This technique has a name: "brenizer technique" or something after a photographer who popularised it. I have to try this myself one day.

Thanks Twitch!

Yes, Ryan Brenizer.. my favourite wedding photographer, although he himself doesn`t refer to that technique by his name as he wasn`t the inventor. He calls it a `bokeh panorama`.

I consider him a mentor of sorts, even though I`ve never met him before. In addition to making some great photos, he`s also quite willing to share information about how he shot a photo so I feel like I've learned a lot by following his considerable body of work.

[twilight_samurai]

Any tips here. Every panorama I've tried for this technique has turned out garbage in PS. Also double a part, or doesn't even match them up. Burst shooting, I assume to freeze the people?

Rory, perhaps something that may help with the stitching is the software that you use to stitch it together. I prefer using a program that`s designed specifically for this task.. like AutoPano Giga. I`ve also tried one called AutoStitch which is not as user friendly as there`s hardly any GUI but works fine and there's a freeware version available iirc.

In this particularly shot, the people were not really moving to begin with so I didn`t have any trouble there.. I just fired off their shots quickly (not burst mode) so that any change in their body position would be minimized. The other parts of the picture I was able to take more time.

Something else that helps is to make sure there`s a good amount of overlap between adjacent photos (maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 overlap). Oh and of course, shoot in full manual mode so there's no change in your exposure between shots. But even after a carefully planned panorama, you may still need to go into PS to fix little things here and there but it should be minimal work.

[Rory]

Yeah, I make sure to overlap. It's just that high contrast doesn't seem to mesh with PS. I'll try the others you mentioned. Thanks for the tip.

[Asahiflex]

I'm in the process of selling off all my full-frame Sony/Minolta gear. About three years ago, I found a lot of Minolta high-end glass for a song, and bought it to go with a recently acquired Sony apsc a700. I was frustrated not to be using the full potential of the lenses. So I shifted to a full-frame a850. The lenses were great, and it really was nice when a 35 was a 35 etc. But I found – for me as an amateur enthusiast with very wide ranging photographic interests – that it was all just too much big, heavy gear. But that viewfinder! Really, it was the viewfinder. I didn't need 24mp. I've always been interested in Pentax and it's diminutive sized system. So here I am back at apsc and thinking it'll be nice to have half the weight or less to lug around. If I was a pro sports shooter or photo journalist, then I'm looking at a D700 or something.

[Asahiflex]

I understand why FF is cumbersome. Indeed, the weight is not nice... But the viewfinder and the pictures are. So I have a cheap old 5D and I will keep it for my MF lenses.

Today I used my cheap Meyer 100mm f/2.8 Orestor. I find it hard to say, but the Orestor definitely trounces any of the 105mm Takumars I have ever tried. It trounces them on sharpness, bokeh and even microcontrast...

[Rory]

Great shots, Peter.

Perhaps it's my youthful exuberance, but I like some size and weight to my camera. I felt much more comfortable with my K-7 than my K-x. My D700 feels even better. And once I finally got it gripped, oh man! I like to feel the weight. Maybe I'll change my mind in twenty years.

[K-9]

I find all Pentax camera bodies too small. I like the D700, but still feel it's a little on the small size. I guess it's from all my years of hand holding a 67II that makes everything feel small . I rarely use grips, as I don't like the bottom weight to the camera, and find shooting portrait style to be an awkward way of holding the camera on the bottom grip. I'd rather rest it on my palm the old fashioned way, with my fingers on the lens for fine tune manual focusing. I'd like to see I chunkier D800 than the D700 when it comes out. I don't like either the D3X or D3S because of the built in bottom grip.

I'm pretty sure I'd like the 645D in my hands, but not at the current price!

[twilight_samurai]

I like having the battery grip on the D700 if I'm using a larger lens as I find it helps to balance out the camera. Though K-9, I'm not quite sure how you find it awkward holding this combo in portrait mode?.. my left hand is still supporting the lens and am able to fine-tune the focus if necessary..

[K-9]

I don't like they way the camera balances when holding it by the grip on the side. I'm just use to shooting 1,000s of portrait shots over the years with my hand up top. It's like part of the shot for me to do it that way and it's more comfortable to me. Changing that, doesn't feel like I'm taking my best shot. Guess it's a mental thing, too.

[Ash]

I recently did an event shoot with a 5D MkII. Ergonomically it's not the easiest body to handhold. It balances reasonably well but it is bulky and definitely weightier than APS-C counterparts. My neck began to feel the weight after 3 hours of having the camera slung around it.

Nevertheless the camera really does shine in focusing in low light and direct E-TTL exposures. Never missed a beat in the toughest of night-time conditions where my K-5 did struggle, particularly when I had an external flash mounted on the hotshoe (blasted crappy spotbeam). It also is quite fast with live view. I dislike the user interface of the 5D though - cumbersome, not very intuitive and makes simple tasks a little too involved (such as zoom magnify). It took me a while to figure out how to change aperture in M mode (what's with the one e-dial?). The shutter release button is also not as firm, poorly differentiating between half-press and full-press. At times the shutter would release even though I thought I was just depressing the button lightly.

What I was also not too impressed with was bounce flash exposures in E-TTL. If there are deficiencies in P-TTL, E-TTL is not all that which it's cut out to be - this is with a 430EX speedlite. I'm sure Nikon would be a better system in this regard. Overall, the results I got from the event came out well, and its ISO 800-1600 performance is very good.

[Rory]

I'm surprised you had success with the 5D MKII AF. I haven't used one, but know several people that switched to Nikon because they were frustrated with it.

Pentax was easy on my neck, but the D700, I use the R-Sport, and don't have an issue.

[Bart]

Some B&W...











A lot of people are always going on about how big a FF set-up is.
Well, I don't have big hands. On my K10D, my right-hand pink just doesn't fit the grip. On a D700, it does - just. Not all that much of a difference.
And for lenses, most of my Pentax lenses are FF anyway. Besides, you can go small and light on Nikon as well. How about a Nikkor Ai-P 45mm f/2.8. Take a look at the product photo on Photozone if you're not familiar with this one. How's that for a walk-around lens?
The second photo was made with this lens.