What is new!?

So spent a bunch of time in the holidays working on things specifically my negative to positive conversions.  Found that taking pics of negatives is really time consuming but it is quite nice to see the old pictures, gives me a chance to go through them again and relive the moment so to speak.  I have since been out to elbow falls and start to experiment more with the exposure techniques I learned over the holidays.  This concept of exposing for high lights.  Seems a bit odd at first but I have programmed the camera now and it works pretty easy.  Can't say I am disappointed in the images but there is really a bit of art that you need to learn here. It has also changed the post processing a bit for me which is the hard part as it gets too easy to blow up the pictures with contrast and such.  Beyond that I finally had a chance to use my ND filter.  It is an ND 400 so it is about 8 stops of light I think.  I have considered an ND 1000 which is 10 but I figured lets try the 400 first.  So I did a bunch of longer exposure, 6 seconds or so.  Wow I loved it.  I enjoyed the energy it created for me the anticipation as the time went and the challenge of shooting and shooting again with a few adjustments to get it right or maybe a bit wrong.  So with that there is this thing when I was shooting these shots.  It felt so awesome.  I really feel like it is what I love of my photos.  It is the process the opportunity to create.  The chance to get it wrong or right but to try and do something creative.

So this is the one image that I fell in love with.  it is a crop of the bigger shot and it is obviously black and white.  But I keep looking at it and going, I created this, never thought I would make something I enjoyed like this.  Now it is not the best photo ever taken but it is in my books awesome.  That to me is the reason I love my creative side it is the expression, I love it when I create something I like/love.

Here are a couple more example from the shoot, these are exposed for the highlights and then processed based on a method I am trying to follow.

So again it is not really the best shot or the most interesting shot but I am just trying things out and in the end that is the best part of Photography in my opinion.  I really think that maybe a couple of these will make the wall in the frame but you never know. It is challenging to put pictures into print it seems.  We decided that we are going to do a photo book this year for 2014 as it is great way to get the pictures out and in the place where you can enjoy them.

Now that we have the pictures out of the way and creative stuff I am thinking a lot about cameras and lenses again.  Seems never ending.  I think I mentioned an old macro lens there are a couple out there the old vivitar 1 series look for those Kiron made vivitar lenses they are really good stuff.  I have seen one that my father in law shoots with and they are very sharp lenses fully manual but great images coming out them.

I am however concerned about my camera as it is a d600 which for those that know the history on this model it suffers from an issue with oil getting on the sensor.  Nikon did a warranty replacement on the shutter causing the issue which I can attest to seeing in some of my images from back in spring 2014.  I know it was there and I did send the camera in and get it repaired but I am seeing some spots on the images again so I will be trying out some tests to determine where are they coming from hopefully it is not on the sensor if it is then I know what is happening to the camera it will go up on the block and I will find a new one.  Some may say that is bit harsh but I am not interested in suffering from issues and having spots on images that mean a lot to me.

Anyway that is about it for now enjoy the pictures please.  I enjoyed creating them and had fun playing with them in photoshop.  They are not 100% done yet on the editing side I usually take a break and come back to them after a few days just to get a fresh look and make minor adjustments.  But hey there are always photos to take..... :)