Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Late Evening, so Just a Note
My day started at 11am in North Baltimore (covering "back-in angle parking"), and it's finally ended at 11:25pm here in Salisbury, after a detour up to Millington, MD (taking photos of a family whose son is fighting for the country in Iraq). So, the noodles are fried, and I'm packing it in for the evening. Make sure to have a small case stashed in the back of your car with a change of clothes and toiletries, just in case. I just learned that, myself, since these assignments were dropped on me this afternoon. Always keep yourself prepared for at least an extra day. Fortunately, the hotel has some bathroom items. My day starts early Wednesday by swinging down to Princess Anne to photograph a farmer.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Early Rise=No Photos; Lumix FZ30 Shoot: Murder Suspects
I plan on posting the media clips from today's assignment; the clips right now are stuck in another location, so I'm attempting a direct link, which is a popup script. We'll see if the links to the clips (below) work, meanwhile. If they do, just follow them from here.
Police release details of arrest
Kyneita talks about what happened
My first day (I had hoped) of starting at 7AM in order to begin shooting some footage for the paper's website! The task: Meet with Paul, who works for the state, who cruises through the DC metro area (Maryland side), helping starnded motorists and accident scenes. It was a reshoot of an assignment that had to be postponed from the original shoot intended for last Friday. Calling him on my cell as asked, the call went directly to his voice mail.
Red flag number one.
Perhaps he's in the middle of helping with an emergency scene, I thought. Oh well. I left a message as I started driving south on I-95 to meet him just inside the Capital Beltway at 8am. Traffic crawled by the MD-216 exit near Laurel, but I was happy enough, gloating about the latest win for the home team in NFL football, being doubly happy that the team near Washington had lost again (sorry, 'Skins fans). Reaching the destination with a few minutes to spare, Paul's orange roadside assistance van was nowhere to be found among the parked cars and vans at the Park & Ride. A call to his cell went directly to his voicemail again. Leaving a message, I waited, finally feeling a little impatient after 30 minutes had elapsed with no return call. Since the shoot was for a daily story, I waited some more, firing up my PowerBook to copy some images from a recent shoot onto the desktop.
Finally, I'd had enough. At 9am, I called the picture desk and Jeff said to pull the plug. On the way back to Baltimore, I made a detour to Clarksville to grab a quick photo of a high school athlete of the week, then rolled straight to city police headquarters for some kind of presser. The time wound up being pretty tight as I parked the buggy on the sidewalk across from HQ behind some TV trucks. It was Lumix Day, I figured. Any press conference would be ideal to try shooting some video for the web. Since the accessories - especially the 100GB recording drive -- hadn't come in, I figured I'd use just the FZ30 to capture stills and video during the announcement.
Baltimore Police announce the arrests of 2 children,
charged as adults in the stabbing death of Nicole
"Nikki" Edmonds, 17.
Five minutes after arrival and the press conference began. The police made an announcement that two suspects - both children - were being detained, charged as adults for the murder of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds, who had gotten stabbed to death after getting off at a light rail stop with her brother. The two were returning from Anne Arundel County, where they worked until midnight, and I understand that officials have accused at least 4 people of taking part in an ambush in order to take a cell phone. The FZ30 silently captured footage as they gave their accounts of how the boy and girl were found and arrested, and I switched over to the still mode to shoot some frames for print publication after feeling that enough footage had been recorded.
By 11:30am, a CD of the raw clips were taken to Steve, who started editing for a web post. Meanwhile Gus, who had been working on the story took me along as we tried to find the families of the ones accused of the crime. Striking out at our first location, we tried another 2 homes north of downtown. The door opened and then shut for several minutes as we waited outside as those within the home made up their minds. Eventually, we were allowed to come in.
The glum faces told the story as loved ones struggled to cope with the fresh news that someone they knew and loved had been named a murderer by the police. The family opened up slowly as we started to learn more as Kyneita began sharing more about her sister, 16-year-old Lataye.
The toughest part a journalist has is having to document the survivors dealing with the loss of an untimely death. But that's one of the aspects of being a journalist. And Kyneita refused to have her picture taken when I first asked.
Letting the interview continue, I listened to every word, because the job remains to exhaust every possibility to complete the story. Eventually, I asked again, expecting "no" for an answer. And that's when I had to tell her about what we had to go with if "no" was her final answer.
The only thing that anyone would know about her little sister is that Lataye was charged as an adult. The only thing people would see are images of a police mug shot. The only thing that people would hear would be what the police accused her of. Gus pulled out a photocopy of her mugshot, which was a hard dose of reality for them, as each family member wept when they saw an image of someone that they all loved, reduced to the label of an accused murderer.
Kyneita, 19, weighed her options and finally agreed to be photographed.
Kyneita, 19, pauses while talking about her younger
sister, Lataye, 16 following Lataye's arrest, charged
in connection with Nikki's murder.
Responsible journalism means trying to understand the whole story, and not just what any one party says. It was only a day since the boy and girl were charged, but some, like Lataye's family, wanted to let people know that it's not her nature to do the crime that she's been accused of. A big piece of the puzzle is missing, they said, saying that the adults said to have been part of the crime may very well be that big missing piece.
Taking her to a window near the kitchen, the FZ30 silently captured photos as Kyneita pondered about her little sister. Finally as we ended the interview outside, Kyneita shared some of her own thoughts in digital footage that she wanted to say to those who can't grasp why anyone had to be murdered at all.
Returning to the office, I burned another CD with the new footage to add to the short package and I edited the photos of Kyneita and the copies of her sister, who had posed while 12 years old, in images frozen in time as she had pictures taken of her in her cheerleading outfit, proud and outwardly happy and at peace for that moment in her life.
Lataye cheerleading at 12 years old.
As I was about to leave the office for the day, Chuck finally told me what had happened with Paul, the roadside assistance guy that never returned my calls. "It turns out that he was on vacation," Chuck said.
Police release details of arrest
Kyneita talks about what happened
My first day (I had hoped) of starting at 7AM in order to begin shooting some footage for the paper's website! The task: Meet with Paul, who works for the state, who cruises through the DC metro area (Maryland side), helping starnded motorists and accident scenes. It was a reshoot of an assignment that had to be postponed from the original shoot intended for last Friday. Calling him on my cell as asked, the call went directly to his voice mail.
Red flag number one.
Perhaps he's in the middle of helping with an emergency scene, I thought. Oh well. I left a message as I started driving south on I-95 to meet him just inside the Capital Beltway at 8am. Traffic crawled by the MD-216 exit near Laurel, but I was happy enough, gloating about the latest win for the home team in NFL football, being doubly happy that the team near Washington had lost again (sorry, 'Skins fans). Reaching the destination with a few minutes to spare, Paul's orange roadside assistance van was nowhere to be found among the parked cars and vans at the Park & Ride. A call to his cell went directly to his voicemail again. Leaving a message, I waited, finally feeling a little impatient after 30 minutes had elapsed with no return call. Since the shoot was for a daily story, I waited some more, firing up my PowerBook to copy some images from a recent shoot onto the desktop.
Finally, I'd had enough. At 9am, I called the picture desk and Jeff said to pull the plug. On the way back to Baltimore, I made a detour to Clarksville to grab a quick photo of a high school athlete of the week, then rolled straight to city police headquarters for some kind of presser. The time wound up being pretty tight as I parked the buggy on the sidewalk across from HQ behind some TV trucks. It was Lumix Day, I figured. Any press conference would be ideal to try shooting some video for the web. Since the accessories - especially the 100GB recording drive -- hadn't come in, I figured I'd use just the FZ30 to capture stills and video during the announcement.
Baltimore Police announce the arrests of 2 children,
charged as adults in the stabbing death of Nicole
"Nikki" Edmonds, 17.
Five minutes after arrival and the press conference began. The police made an announcement that two suspects - both children - were being detained, charged as adults for the murder of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds, who had gotten stabbed to death after getting off at a light rail stop with her brother. The two were returning from Anne Arundel County, where they worked until midnight, and I understand that officials have accused at least 4 people of taking part in an ambush in order to take a cell phone. The FZ30 silently captured footage as they gave their accounts of how the boy and girl were found and arrested, and I switched over to the still mode to shoot some frames for print publication after feeling that enough footage had been recorded.
By 11:30am, a CD of the raw clips were taken to Steve, who started editing for a web post. Meanwhile Gus, who had been working on the story took me along as we tried to find the families of the ones accused of the crime. Striking out at our first location, we tried another 2 homes north of downtown. The door opened and then shut for several minutes as we waited outside as those within the home made up their minds. Eventually, we were allowed to come in.
The glum faces told the story as loved ones struggled to cope with the fresh news that someone they knew and loved had been named a murderer by the police. The family opened up slowly as we started to learn more as Kyneita began sharing more about her sister, 16-year-old Lataye.
The toughest part a journalist has is having to document the survivors dealing with the loss of an untimely death. But that's one of the aspects of being a journalist. And Kyneita refused to have her picture taken when I first asked.
Letting the interview continue, I listened to every word, because the job remains to exhaust every possibility to complete the story. Eventually, I asked again, expecting "no" for an answer. And that's when I had to tell her about what we had to go with if "no" was her final answer.
The only thing that anyone would know about her little sister is that Lataye was charged as an adult. The only thing people would see are images of a police mug shot. The only thing that people would hear would be what the police accused her of. Gus pulled out a photocopy of her mugshot, which was a hard dose of reality for them, as each family member wept when they saw an image of someone that they all loved, reduced to the label of an accused murderer.
Kyneita, 19, weighed her options and finally agreed to be photographed.
Kyneita, 19, pauses while talking about her younger
sister, Lataye, 16 following Lataye's arrest, charged
in connection with Nikki's murder.
Responsible journalism means trying to understand the whole story, and not just what any one party says. It was only a day since the boy and girl were charged, but some, like Lataye's family, wanted to let people know that it's not her nature to do the crime that she's been accused of. A big piece of the puzzle is missing, they said, saying that the adults said to have been part of the crime may very well be that big missing piece.
Taking her to a window near the kitchen, the FZ30 silently captured photos as Kyneita pondered about her little sister. Finally as we ended the interview outside, Kyneita shared some of her own thoughts in digital footage that she wanted to say to those who can't grasp why anyone had to be murdered at all.
Returning to the office, I burned another CD with the new footage to add to the short package and I edited the photos of Kyneita and the copies of her sister, who had posed while 12 years old, in images frozen in time as she had pictures taken of her in her cheerleading outfit, proud and outwardly happy and at peace for that moment in her life.
Lataye cheerleading at 12 years old.
As I was about to leave the office for the day, Chuck finally told me what had happened with Paul, the roadside assistance guy that never returned my calls. "It turns out that he was on vacation," Chuck said.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
Adding this camera for review is a no-brainer; I have used it to capture VGA movie clips as "B roll" for my Panasonic HVX200. It makes a great addition to those who want to shoot both large-file stills and video. In addition to my own thoughts about the cameras mentioned here, added are links to other reliable reviews (and a couple accessories) that helped me choose the cameras that I have in my shooting arsenal.
Independent Camera Reviews:
Lumix DMC-FZ50
Lumix DMC-FZ30
Lumix DMC-FZ20
Nikon D2H
AG-HVX200 Note: I've found lots of techie HVX reviews, & hope to write one that's informative and not over- technical.
Feel free to check them out as well. Make an informed decision before you purchase!
The Good:
Easy menus
Quick format changes
Ability to shoot still images or video
Silent while shooting
Zooming during video
12x zoom range
Built-in flash and hot shoe
VGA (standard TV size) and QVGA video
People ignore you when you shoot
Manual override or point/shoot
1/2000th sec-60 second shutter range
The Bad:
Digital noise over 100 ISO
no external mic option
delay doubles when shooting over 1 second exposures
(a 1-minute exposure can take 2 minutes)
A thing called "chromatic aberration" or "color fringing."
Lack of widescreen video option (the newly-released FZ50 has this)
I've had the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 for about a year, now, and have had some grand successes. I had upgraded to the FZ30 after working with the Lumix FZ20, a smaller camera that survived with me through Hurricane Katrina. For its shortcomings, which included the lack of an exterior zoom lens, I was glad to have had it.
One of the biggest boons of this low-profile camera is its method of being largely-ignored by the subjects that are covered. How often have I been shooting (or recording video), and yet the subject rarely recognizes that I'm capturing images or movie clips. I have yet to figure whether the FZ30 can have a tally light turned on (the small red lamp that blinks or glows when recording film clips), but I'd rather have it that way. How often do I pick up a camera like the Panasonic AG-HVX200, and people recognize... or want to be recognized.
One of the great things is how this little big camera can be configured. Multiple preferences within the camera can be easily accessed, and it's user-friendly with no heavy depth of sub-menus, like the Nikon D2H or HVX200. A pro shooter can turn the camera into a manually-adjustable unit, or change to a variety of shooting styles like Aperture/Shutter priority and Program modes. The other thing that's sweet is how those who have the mindset, "don't think; just shoot" can turn the dial to an easier mode. The methods, which are combined by picking your preference in the settings inside the LCD viewfinder, can allow you to choose a host of options, including "Snow," "Food," and "Baby," which I haven't bothered. For some truly mixed light, like tungsten, fluorescent and daylight, the "Food" option has somehow delivered the best white balance than many of the other categories, so I have that one as an option.
I try to shoot as often as I can at ISO 80, but it can be really hard to keep this as an option, especially when many of my shoots are available light. If I'm forced to, I crank up the ISO and try to mildly tone down the extreme digital noise in Noise Ninja." I only use this camera in low-light situations when the job requires a quiet camera, since the D2H body screams for attention, every time the shutter fires. The FZ30 actually saved several photo shoots, like a live performance by the Annapolis Symphony. A reassurance to the director by firing the camera to demonstrate its silence when shooting allowed a rare chance to capture images during a performance, which was capable of being used as lead art in a newspaper front.
This truly sings when trying to capture an event or moment when not wanting to be noticed. As recently as 2 weeks ago, as two people argued during absentee voting, I banged off 50 images during a heated exchange. Try doing that with a large camera that makes the click-whirr sound, and one or both parties would have demanded that the photography stop.
And this chromatic aberration can make for an added amount of post-color-adjustments. There is some blue fringing with highlights, like a person wearing white, or a light point. The camera's images drift toward a blue base, and I've been known to desaturate the blues. I have also seen some red artifacts as well, and it can be a pain in the film canister to deal with this. If the FZ30 didn't have so much going for it, I'd divorce myself of it. But for everything it lacks - poor audio in noisy situations (what camcorder doesn't have that issue), I wouldn't like to leave this little bronco home. I keep it with or near me and take it on any out-of-town excursions. At any point, I can turn from tourist to multimedia shooter, able to cover virtually anything for news publication or web. The option of switching between QVGA and VGA video shooting is great for when you want to quickly web-post. QVGA (320x240 pixels) is half the size of VGA (the NTSC television standard, which is 640x480). So, get a few 1-GB or 2 gigabyte SD cards, and you're almost good-to-go. Purchase a few batteries (CGA-S006 and DMW-BMA7 work, and I've made several solid buys at Power101.com) and you can shoot until your cards fill up. But watch shooting in VGA. It can fill your 1GB card if you shoot it for 6 minutes straight. At the full 30 frames/second and audio, video always eats up card space. Many choose to shoot in half VGA, since a lot of people simply post to web, and that option offers around 12 minutes of continual video shooting.
You can turn the dial to "playback," which lets you edit your clips. You can delete one file, a host, or all of them at once. Scroll through images one-by-one, or look at them by thumbnails. This is why I call it a bronco; it's small but packs a wallop of a kick in features, way too many to add here. One added thing I got for the FZ30 is the Raynox HD-6600PRO-55mm wide angle adapter. You can purchase a ton of lenses for the FZ30 at Raynox. The 6600 I have doesn't provide "zoom-through," so you can only zoom about 3X before the image starts losing clarity. Other lenses allow full zoom-through. Again, make sure about what you want. And with any lens add-on, you can also add on a loss of clarity, but I enjoy the ultra-wide 23mm equivalent that the adapter provides.
If you've read THIS FAR, you're either having a boring day, or you've actually gotten something from my thoughts.
Adding some images of what the FZ30 has provided (these thumbs are clickable to see the larger size:
ISO 80, with wide angle adapter. Notice top left corner blur.
ISO 80, with Raynox wide angle adapter.
ISO 80, no lens adapter.
ISO 80, no adapter.
ISO 80, no adapter.
ISO 80, shot through a plane window
And if this works, I'll add some square thumbs that you can check out.
Independent Camera Reviews:
Lumix DMC-FZ50
Lumix DMC-FZ30
Lumix DMC-FZ20
Nikon D2H
AG-HVX200 Note: I've found lots of techie HVX reviews, & hope to write one that's informative and not over- technical.
Feel free to check them out as well. Make an informed decision before you purchase!
The Good:
Easy menus
Quick format changes
Ability to shoot still images or video
Silent while shooting
Zooming during video
12x zoom range
Built-in flash and hot shoe
VGA (standard TV size) and QVGA video
People ignore you when you shoot
Manual override or point/shoot
1/2000th sec-60 second shutter range
The Bad:
Digital noise over 100 ISO
no external mic option
delay doubles when shooting over 1 second exposures
(a 1-minute exposure can take 2 minutes)
A thing called "chromatic aberration" or "color fringing."
Lack of widescreen video option (the newly-released FZ50 has this)
I've had the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 for about a year, now, and have had some grand successes. I had upgraded to the FZ30 after working with the Lumix FZ20, a smaller camera that survived with me through Hurricane Katrina. For its shortcomings, which included the lack of an exterior zoom lens, I was glad to have had it.
One of the biggest boons of this low-profile camera is its method of being largely-ignored by the subjects that are covered. How often have I been shooting (or recording video), and yet the subject rarely recognizes that I'm capturing images or movie clips. I have yet to figure whether the FZ30 can have a tally light turned on (the small red lamp that blinks or glows when recording film clips), but I'd rather have it that way. How often do I pick up a camera like the Panasonic AG-HVX200, and people recognize... or want to be recognized.
One of the great things is how this little big camera can be configured. Multiple preferences within the camera can be easily accessed, and it's user-friendly with no heavy depth of sub-menus, like the Nikon D2H or HVX200. A pro shooter can turn the camera into a manually-adjustable unit, or change to a variety of shooting styles like Aperture/Shutter priority and Program modes. The other thing that's sweet is how those who have the mindset, "don't think; just shoot" can turn the dial to an easier mode. The methods, which are combined by picking your preference in the settings inside the LCD viewfinder, can allow you to choose a host of options, including "Snow," "Food," and "Baby," which I haven't bothered. For some truly mixed light, like tungsten, fluorescent and daylight, the "Food" option has somehow delivered the best white balance than many of the other categories, so I have that one as an option.
I try to shoot as often as I can at ISO 80, but it can be really hard to keep this as an option, especially when many of my shoots are available light. If I'm forced to, I crank up the ISO and try to mildly tone down the extreme digital noise in Noise Ninja." I only use this camera in low-light situations when the job requires a quiet camera, since the D2H body screams for attention, every time the shutter fires. The FZ30 actually saved several photo shoots, like a live performance by the Annapolis Symphony. A reassurance to the director by firing the camera to demonstrate its silence when shooting allowed a rare chance to capture images during a performance, which was capable of being used as lead art in a newspaper front.
This truly sings when trying to capture an event or moment when not wanting to be noticed. As recently as 2 weeks ago, as two people argued during absentee voting, I banged off 50 images during a heated exchange. Try doing that with a large camera that makes the click-whirr sound, and one or both parties would have demanded that the photography stop.
And this chromatic aberration can make for an added amount of post-color-adjustments. There is some blue fringing with highlights, like a person wearing white, or a light point. The camera's images drift toward a blue base, and I've been known to desaturate the blues. I have also seen some red artifacts as well, and it can be a pain in the film canister to deal with this. If the FZ30 didn't have so much going for it, I'd divorce myself of it. But for everything it lacks - poor audio in noisy situations (what camcorder doesn't have that issue), I wouldn't like to leave this little bronco home. I keep it with or near me and take it on any out-of-town excursions. At any point, I can turn from tourist to multimedia shooter, able to cover virtually anything for news publication or web. The option of switching between QVGA and VGA video shooting is great for when you want to quickly web-post. QVGA (320x240 pixels) is half the size of VGA (the NTSC television standard, which is 640x480). So, get a few 1-GB or 2 gigabyte SD cards, and you're almost good-to-go. Purchase a few batteries (CGA-S006 and DMW-BMA7 work, and I've made several solid buys at Power101.com) and you can shoot until your cards fill up. But watch shooting in VGA. It can fill your 1GB card if you shoot it for 6 minutes straight. At the full 30 frames/second and audio, video always eats up card space. Many choose to shoot in half VGA, since a lot of people simply post to web, and that option offers around 12 minutes of continual video shooting.
You can turn the dial to "playback," which lets you edit your clips. You can delete one file, a host, or all of them at once. Scroll through images one-by-one, or look at them by thumbnails. This is why I call it a bronco; it's small but packs a wallop of a kick in features, way too many to add here. One added thing I got for the FZ30 is the Raynox HD-6600PRO-55mm wide angle adapter. You can purchase a ton of lenses for the FZ30 at Raynox. The 6600 I have doesn't provide "zoom-through," so you can only zoom about 3X before the image starts losing clarity. Other lenses allow full zoom-through. Again, make sure about what you want. And with any lens add-on, you can also add on a loss of clarity, but I enjoy the ultra-wide 23mm equivalent that the adapter provides.
If you've read THIS FAR, you're either having a boring day, or you've actually gotten something from my thoughts.
Adding some images of what the FZ30 has provided (these thumbs are clickable to see the larger size:
ISO 80, with wide angle adapter. Notice top left corner blur.
ISO 80, with Raynox wide angle adapter.
ISO 80, no lens adapter.
ISO 80, no adapter.
ISO 80, no adapter.
ISO 80, shot through a plane window
And if this works, I'll add some square thumbs that you can check out.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Transferring the MySpace Blogs!
I've been posting alot in MySpace, but my efforts have been made in a site largely used for dating popularity. Fortunately, however, I've been regularly keeping up with the postings. I plan on transferring my posts here in order to maintain a blog that documents the effort to change my job from photojournalist to visual journalist. Heck, I don't even know what to call the job title. Some call it "platypus," but I hate that term.
I'm not even doing such a thing, juggling different cameras and equipment. The gear is already available, and I have them. Funny thing, they're both made by Panasonic.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30:
A small camera that can zoom a 35mmm equivalent of 35-430mm and also shoot video. I can change the still image format from 3x2 (standard 35mm film size, aka 24x36mm) 4x3 (NTSC television shape) and 16x9 (widescreen HDTV format). This is my go-anywhere camera. I use it whenever I go on vacation (packing my passport and PowerBook as well) and can shoot for publication by being ready for travel virtually anywhere in the world, if ever needed.
Panasonic AG-HVX200:
An HDTV digital film production camera that shoots 1080i (1920x1080, interlaced). I've been known to shoot news, features and sports with this camera, which records up to 60fps (slow motion) while also recording stereo audio. Frame grabs can be taken from footage I capture and edited and toned in an image editor such as Photoshop or Aperture.
I've just figured how to transfer my posts here, while being able to preserve the dates, so I'm in business. I hope this weekend that I can deliver the process and begin posting here.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Lumix DMC-FZ30: Short on Words; Long on Eye Candy
I'm posting today from a tough location to transmit from, the Skyland Lodge off the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. It's so tough to keep in touch with the outside world, that a message was left on top of the television set in the room: "This is the only channel this TV gets this Building has no cable or satellite. "Rabbit Ears ONLY"
I managed to have posted some images in my Flickr page, which you're welcome to look at. These were all taken with the Panasonic DMC-FZ30.
Here are some clickable thumbs!
A real simple view from our room as the rough storm passed by.
The sign at Skyland, the highest point on Skyline Drive, near mile post 42.
Long Range Binoculars at Skyland Lodge.
A Natural smile, seen in a tree stump.
A fawn, caught by the camera and some friendly afternoon sunlight.
Okay, I misspelled lichen. So I may have to butcher the page to clean it.
A view of the Massanutten Mountains nearby.
Another deer, checking out who's behind her.
Where I'm staying. The afternoon Sun cooperated well today!
The rest were shot from a pasenger jet on the way in to Baltimore:
Clouds just above, and well below.
Look at the large size to see the detail behind the clouds.
A quick grab as a break in the clouds revealed container cranes in SE Baltimore.
The setting sun creates a myriad of colors in the late afternoon.
On the flight path in to BWI Airport, this view was captured, possibly looking down on the Pasadena area in Anne Arundel County.
Dad and I may return a little early, since he discovered that his home is still without power following the powerful storm that swept through the region.
Friday, November 10, 2006
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!
Thursday, November 9, 2006
HVX200 Sports: College Basketball
Look Out!!
Terrapins fans watch Maryland Terrapins guard DJ Strawberry head for a crash landing as he hustles to retrieve the ball that he slapped from the possession of Vermont Catamounts guard Jason Green in the first half of the College Hoops Classic men's college basketball in College Park Wed., Nov. 8, 2006.
I guess this is my first "official game," shooting with this HVX200. And please, read below, for a statement that I may post in my main page.
A day after staying at work late, and I was still a little groggy because of lack of sleep. Honestly, I feel the effects of some clinical depression, which makes it somewhat tough to keep up the enthusiasm. But Chuck made me feel so good when he told me that I'd be covering a Maryland Terrapins men's basketball game in College Park. It was a preseason against the Vermont Catamounts (I always think about amber maple syrup when I think about Vermont) which was supposed to benefit "Coaches vs Cancer." After shooting my first job (a quick portrait of a high school football player), I drove through the mist and afternoon rush hour traffic from Lake Clifton-Eastern to the basketball arena, with a Nikon 300mm lens in tow, intending to shoot some stills.
But something in my mind made me switch to the HVX200, while I gathered my gear from the back of the car. A shooter from the Washington Post walked with me, asking about the elections and how things are at work. Still carrying my 2 still cameras as backup, I parked my gear in the photo room, set up my laptop, and went to the court to take some test shots of a consolation game going on.
The lights are a little dark for shooting high speed shutter, so I wound up cranking the gain all the way to -12db. "Gain" is a term that makes a camera more sensitive to lower light situations. It forces the scene to brighten inside the camera, but the drawback is that the image quality degrades. But I had tried some gain-up before, and figured that I would give it a whirl, which allowed me to crank up the shutter speed to 1/500th second - fast enough to stop moving action without much motion blur. An Associated Press shooter scoffed as he saw the digital camcorder in my hand. A freelance photographer sitting beside me shook his head. "You'll never get me to shoot with one of those," he glared. "I'd retire before using that."
I had once thought the same. I never knew that the profession would go so digital. I didn't think it would happen so many years before I considered even imagining this time. Back in the mid-1990's, we had a staff shooter named Perry who was issued a Canon XL-1 digital camcorder. Our boss Jim gave him the task of shooting video for the web, a task that newspapers hardly gave a thought. But suddenly, after a short period, the effort was scrubbed. Just to think what inroads might have been made, had we continued.... Perry was so far ahead of the curve, but the curve is now here. And I'm catching grief or stares from the still shooters as well as the TV videographers. How ironic that I'm in the middle, and what I'm doing is merging the two mediums together. I just sat quietly, adjusting my butt to the hard floor, while the game continued, trying to shoot while manually focusing the lens, anticipating plays on the court.
The far basket? The HVX showed it was 121 feet to the net. Midcourt, about 60 feet. The near hoop, 19.1 feet, all shown in the lower right corner of my digital viewfinder. Missing the first basket since I was shooting horizontally, I began flipping the camera to a vertical position. Soon, I was getting into a groove, shooting the Terps attempting a defensive trap at the far basket, capturing the hustle after trying to steal the ball at mid-court, and leaping to slam dunk on the near side.
It's quite a change after learning to anticipate and squeeze the trigger of a still camera. And the process of extracting a movie file, dragging the file for a moment in Quicktime, copying the frame (Apple C) and pasting the image (Apple V) in Photoshop adds several more steps than simply dropping images from a digital card and editing them. Adding to the ingredients would be saving the first images as raw files, then using Photo Mechanic to add captions on them, then opening the files again in Photoshop to prepare them for transmission. Yesiree, it makes for more work. Will that change? Perhaps if someone comes up with some kind of program to automatically work out the steps. Or maybe create a "droplet," which can be programmed to automatically do certain steps for the user.
But the automatic steps can happen only within Photoshop, and can't be flopped over to, say, Quicktime. If I had to work on a short deadline, I doubt if I'd be ready to do all the steps, unless I know every file's contents in order to zero in on a moment.
As I wound up my shoot in the first half, I stopped at the other end of the court to shoot a little of coach Gary Williams. At first, I had thought about shooting some still frames with the Nikon but abandoned the idea, since such a decision would be the same as not trusting your effort. A rather bull-headed way of looking at it, but hey: The game action was captured all right on the HVX200, do you think?
Do I seem like some kind of plant to sell people into purchasing this camera? Perhaps some might wonder, but I'm simply writing about what I'm shooting with. The equipment has been issued through where I work, and nothing is donated. None of the gear has been sold to us at some kind of discount that I know of, unless it's volume discount. And I'm not being paid to write anything here.
Terrapins fans watch Maryland Terrapins guard DJ Strawberry head for a crash landing as he hustles to retrieve the ball that he slapped from the possession of Vermont Catamounts guard Jason Green in the first half of the College Hoops Classic men's college basketball in College Park Wed., Nov. 8, 2006.
I guess this is my first "official game," shooting with this HVX200. And please, read below, for a statement that I may post in my main page.
A day after staying at work late, and I was still a little groggy because of lack of sleep. Honestly, I feel the effects of some clinical depression, which makes it somewhat tough to keep up the enthusiasm. But Chuck made me feel so good when he told me that I'd be covering a Maryland Terrapins men's basketball game in College Park. It was a preseason against the Vermont Catamounts (I always think about amber maple syrup when I think about Vermont) which was supposed to benefit "Coaches vs Cancer." After shooting my first job (a quick portrait of a high school football player), I drove through the mist and afternoon rush hour traffic from Lake Clifton-Eastern to the basketball arena, with a Nikon 300mm lens in tow, intending to shoot some stills.
But something in my mind made me switch to the HVX200, while I gathered my gear from the back of the car. A shooter from the Washington Post walked with me, asking about the elections and how things are at work. Still carrying my 2 still cameras as backup, I parked my gear in the photo room, set up my laptop, and went to the court to take some test shots of a consolation game going on.
The lights are a little dark for shooting high speed shutter, so I wound up cranking the gain all the way to -12db. "Gain" is a term that makes a camera more sensitive to lower light situations. It forces the scene to brighten inside the camera, but the drawback is that the image quality degrades. But I had tried some gain-up before, and figured that I would give it a whirl, which allowed me to crank up the shutter speed to 1/500th second - fast enough to stop moving action without much motion blur. An Associated Press shooter scoffed as he saw the digital camcorder in my hand. A freelance photographer sitting beside me shook his head. "You'll never get me to shoot with one of those," he glared. "I'd retire before using that."
I had once thought the same. I never knew that the profession would go so digital. I didn't think it would happen so many years before I considered even imagining this time. Back in the mid-1990's, we had a staff shooter named Perry who was issued a Canon XL-1 digital camcorder. Our boss Jim gave him the task of shooting video for the web, a task that newspapers hardly gave a thought. But suddenly, after a short period, the effort was scrubbed. Just to think what inroads might have been made, had we continued.... Perry was so far ahead of the curve, but the curve is now here. And I'm catching grief or stares from the still shooters as well as the TV videographers. How ironic that I'm in the middle, and what I'm doing is merging the two mediums together. I just sat quietly, adjusting my butt to the hard floor, while the game continued, trying to shoot while manually focusing the lens, anticipating plays on the court.
The far basket? The HVX showed it was 121 feet to the net. Midcourt, about 60 feet. The near hoop, 19.1 feet, all shown in the lower right corner of my digital viewfinder. Missing the first basket since I was shooting horizontally, I began flipping the camera to a vertical position. Soon, I was getting into a groove, shooting the Terps attempting a defensive trap at the far basket, capturing the hustle after trying to steal the ball at mid-court, and leaping to slam dunk on the near side.
It's quite a change after learning to anticipate and squeeze the trigger of a still camera. And the process of extracting a movie file, dragging the file for a moment in Quicktime, copying the frame (Apple C) and pasting the image (Apple V) in Photoshop adds several more steps than simply dropping images from a digital card and editing them. Adding to the ingredients would be saving the first images as raw files, then using Photo Mechanic to add captions on them, then opening the files again in Photoshop to prepare them for transmission. Yesiree, it makes for more work. Will that change? Perhaps if someone comes up with some kind of program to automatically work out the steps. Or maybe create a "droplet," which can be programmed to automatically do certain steps for the user.
But the automatic steps can happen only within Photoshop, and can't be flopped over to, say, Quicktime. If I had to work on a short deadline, I doubt if I'd be ready to do all the steps, unless I know every file's contents in order to zero in on a moment.
As I wound up my shoot in the first half, I stopped at the other end of the court to shoot a little of coach Gary Williams. At first, I had thought about shooting some still frames with the Nikon but abandoned the idea, since such a decision would be the same as not trusting your effort. A rather bull-headed way of looking at it, but hey: The game action was captured all right on the HVX200, do you think?
Do I seem like some kind of plant to sell people into purchasing this camera? Perhaps some might wonder, but I'm simply writing about what I'm shooting with. The equipment has been issued through where I work, and nothing is donated. None of the gear has been sold to us at some kind of discount that I know of, unless it's volume discount. And I'm not being paid to write anything here.
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