Nikon D2H/DMC-FZ30: 2006 Contest Season!!

Here we go again, another season of contest entries. The early one that Duds is lighting a fire under my feet on is the Atlanta photojournalism contest. Here it is, 4am, and I'm having yet another problem with the time, after Photo Mechanic inadvertantly copied someone elses caption information onto my photos. You know, I'm just gonna end it all.

No more editing. The CD is burning, and if there's a mistake, they can sue me! No, I have to get some sleep since I have to get ready for a trip to see my Moms Saturday. I'm excited because I can try to sell some raffles for a plasma television to benefit a friend whose sister contracted stomach cancer. I seem to know so many more people in the Arkansas area than here. I also have a paperwork problem I have to deal with at the MVA. Seems like they lost my tags that I returned.

Anyway, here's a brief thingy...



A picture on her cell phone is the only thing to remember 2-year-old Tyrese, who perished in an early spring fire in east Baltimore.





Shaken but not stirred, the driver holds his head down after escaping injury following a powerful collision that overturned an SUV.





Feroze Iqbal Porter, 6 of Lithonian holds to his mother Theresa Porter, watching as the hearse is prepared with the casket bearing Coretta Scott King.





Trying to keep the mood light while trailing in exit polls, U.S. Senate candidate Kweisi Mfume (D-Md) rushes off the stage after making a brief appearance at his election party.




Yesivette Declet, 5 gets angry as she waits for her mother Yesenia Marrero to take a 1-hour police recruiting test for the Baltimore Police, who are recruiting for bilingual officers in Puerto Rico.






Getting a taste of cabin fever, Lattice Carroll, 10 of Woodlawn has fun on the swing after compelling her grandfather, James Faulks to play as the sun sets.





Forgotten Baltimore' series: A young child peers from below the screen of his door in an East Baltimore neighborhood, ignored and avoided. (This picture story will be added here in about 2 weeks!)





Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis hammers Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Michael Pittman, who drops the pass.





Baseball fans watch off the left field line as Minnesota Twins left fielder Rondell White leaps to catch a foul ball.





Other contestants watch Miss Iowa, Soben R. Huon, gets videotaped as she dances to the music during a party for the Miss USA contestants.





There you go... I have some more images, all shot on the Nikon D2H system. But I simply have to get outta here and snooze. I'm working too hard. I had a dream that I was given exclusive access to photograph former President Bill Clinton, but he was curled up in a ball in bed, angry with me and refusing to talk more than a few utterances. I woke up as I tried to apologize. I think I covered enough campaigning for this season, and I'm glad it's over with no lingering results!

HVX200 Accessories Ordered; Plus, Be an Editor for 2 Minutes (Lumix FZ30, Nikon D2H)

And I want more.

Okay, what if I'm a gadget freak? I want the new gear to shoot better, and I love working with it when it works. The equipment's on order, and I'm waiting to add them to the HVX200. As I use them, I plan on posting some reviews here, in future entries.

Meanwhile, after working on the Senate forum earlier in the week, I realized that tripodding isn't the way to shoot for me. Sure, I'll get a set of sticks, but they won't be top-of-line. My decision turned 180 degrees after not being mobile enough to shoot the candidates at the podium. I felt more like a local television camera operator, than a visualist.

I felt impeded.
Contained.
Stationary.
Stagnant.

Chatting with Andre sealed my decision, backing away from the threat to ask Duds for a $2,000 tripod (you NEED a well-built true fluid head tripod, I warned him, or it's junk). Dre opened a short piece he shot of farmers and boasted that much of what he shot was hand-held. The drawback with doing this at all with the HVX200 is how shaky the shot looks if you shoot it without any added equipment.

Seems kind-of weird, doesn't it? More equipment would make a camera more stable? Well, it depends. And I'm learning this as I continue working with the gear.

The HVX has the typical hand strap on the right side of the camera, where you slide your palm in to hand-hold the unit from the side and base:



Doing this with a palmcorder isn't a big deal for about 10 minutes. Add more time of use. Or another 5 pounds. You'll get the shakes with the HVX. Weighing over 6 pounds, try balancing that weight steadily at he base of your open hand while holding it close to your face. The weight will not only be top-heavy in your hand, but will also want to flop to the left side, pulling the strap against the outside of your hand.

Cavision has been developing gear that I only discovered a few days ago. Unfortunately, I had already asked for some other gear, which has been ordered, but it didn't cost way too much. The company has been adding some needed accessories for not only the HVX but other indie camcorders as well. The gear I hope I can get would make the camera look a little bulky:



Add all that weight, plus a wireless mic system and external drive, and you may have a much better balance at work. The completed harness should make the unit balanced, as the shoulder supports some of the weight while holding the handgrips stabilize the camera. In all, the gear may cost another $1,000 or somewhat more. But I'll remind Duds that it's 50 percent of what I first told him that he might need!




You're the Editor; Which Image Would You Publish?

......................

Before heading to the inner harbor, I had to swing by the site where the BGE work crew dug beneath the city street to repair a natural gas leak in their line, which caused an explosion in the manholes in the area. Boy, imagine working on the sewer line when THAT happened!

I shot images with both the wide and telephoto perspectives. Hop into my Flickr images and respond, or feel free to jot down comments here or in Flickr. Tell me what you like or don't like about each image. Critique me.

FZ30: Cancer Survivor; D2H: Weeping Tree; School Shooting

Here's a shot taken with this Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30. Like I said, it does well with both videos and stills, a great portable and adjustable multimedia camera. I have to save the image to a lower file size in order to save on my monthly allotment, but the file size is incredibly large for such a camera. Read through the earlier post a couple days ago, there's a posting that gives much more detail about the FZ30. Panasonic now has upgraded the camera as well, and I'll dig that out for you. No, it's not a main camera, it's a do-all camera, and one as a terrific back-up for emergencies when you're out of town.

So on the conclusion of another week of shooting, quite a a few interesting scenarios worked themselves out today. I had to cover a sports portrait, a photo of a weeping tree, and then a football game. Sports was kinda cool, having to capture a field hockey player before her practice. The first thing to look for is a good lighting setup and the second is looking for background. And if you can't find good light, make good light.

In front of the subject was an interesting pattern of shadows from the awning above the building, so I banged off a shot there. But I also wanted to shoot some portraits using the "floor bounce flash" technique. I simply love the effect it has on the subject. The light just comes from a direction not usually seen, yet it's not only pleasing, it's also in a strange way, natural-looking. I say "strange," because light normally comes from above.

I took the player to a walkway near the field and asked her to kneel down so I could place a flash just to the other side of her body and in front of her. The light was rested aiming towards her knees, set on the ground to allow the light to travel right along the walkway. Doing a couple tests, the light pattern looked good enough to finally make the portrait.

Taking a look at the detail, you can clearly look at the sharpness in the hair and eyelashes as well:



My next shoot was capturing a "weeping tree," reported by a resident near Patterson Park, who had posted a query about it on a website. It turned out to be a challenge to shoot, and I returned to shooting with the Nikon D2H. I actually had hoped that there wouldn't be such a thing, because I wouldn't know off hand how to shoot it. As we stood in front of his home on Baltimore St on the clear fall afternoon, I felt some droplets hit my face and hands, so I knew that the challenge was on. But he lived on the block facing north, which didn't get any sunlight.

Fortunately, he knew about a weeping tree on Lombard Street, where the sun shined on it in the afternoon, so we went over to the North side of Lombard at Madiera, where maple showers rained on the walk. I love shooting backlit, and this was the perfect op to let the sunlight catch the rain:







Never one to be satisfied with just one image, I worked on getting a different view to give a more rounded perspective of what was happening. Okay, what's your opinion of this phenom? I'll give you my take at the end of this blog.

Heading back to my turtle, Chuck bounced me from the football game to head for Frederick Douglass High for a shooting, which might have made the victim of a student. The shooting happened a couple hours ago, I was told, but I figured that investigators would probably still be there.

Crime scene tape surrounded the grassy front lawn on the school grounds as investigators gathered evidence and tried to piece together what happened and who did it.

Another shooting at a school.

That's what played in my mind, along with the Amish school shooting. And the shooting in North Carolina. And the other recent events throughout the country. The only image I could picture that might be dfferent was a shot of crime scene tape literally blocking the front of the school. Some students leaving the grounds walked just where I had wanted to capture some images, and I banged off a frame as they headed home from a football game.

The reporter, Jonathan, told me about where the student might have ended, but against the suggestion of investigators ("Why would you go there? There's nothing there."), we headed south on Payson to where the student headed. An elderly woman sat on a picnic chair as he asked her if she had seen anything. I was interested in the cool tabby that moved about near my feet, and started petting it, ignoring my allergic reaction to felines. Kitty was cool, and looked like a young version of Nikolas, who passed away a few years ago. "Mister, can you grab him for me?" a voice said twice, to my left. Grabbing kitty by the scruff and beneath his belly, I returned Tigger to his thankful owner who stood on the steps of her home several doors down. She had been trying to get her cat back for a while.

Jonathan, coming up empty with his first subject, asked the lady with the cat if she knew anything about the shooting of the boy. "Yes," she said. "He ended up here, at my front doorstep," Sandra said. Troy made it to her home, injured by the shooting at the school. He was taken to Shock Trauma, where he is at this moment, she said. Only a short time later, Sandra watched TV to learn that the shooting on the news was about her nephew, who turns 14 tomorrow.

Perhaps thankful that I caught Tigger, Sandra gave us more information about what may have happened, and let me take some photos of her with Tigger. "Send it to me through the mail," she said as we returned to edit what we had.