Okay, work is out of the way for the moment, so let me see if I can get in a few more shots before we get busy again.
So while Duke and Scott were messing around with the Macro, Rusty took Jennifer and Dave into his dinning room where he had a setup for doing nice product type shots. He was showing them how to do the lighting, adding one light at a time so they could see the changes each light made.
Single flash directly behind the subject with dark background
Single dork with mirror on the wall
Softbox and reflective foam board added now. Rusty's Dad is framed by the mirror. I think this is the only shoot I got of him.
Moving to a subject inside a light box
A silent spectator
The focus on this shot totally blows, but it is the only one I have of these two trying to get shots of the mini drone in flight. Duke was in full blown machine gun mode with his D4S and I bet he fired off at least a hundred shots on this thing
Bill "DFW_Warrior" Carmickle (spelling on that last name right?)
Duke "Duke" Dixon
Scott "M38A1" Strance, refusing to give up on his efforts to make the drone fly in a somewhat controlled manner
I think Duke finally gave up... or filled up his memory card
Rusty. Nice sticker
Dave about to get sucked into trying to make the drone fly...
Scott decides to grab the Macro and head outside for some flower shots
At Bill's suggestion and under his close supervision, Duke provides lighting for Scott. Who would have thought you might need a flash in bright sunlight to take pictures of flowers and bugs?
See that bee coming in from the right... Scott got some GREAT shots of it!
Gotta be motivated to work those old knees if you want the money shot!
(Just watching made mine start aching
)
So after Scott gets done crawling around the backyard, the images are displayed on the big TV screen for everyone to see. The results are impressive!
Dave
Kurt
Rusty
Inspired by Scott, I went out to mess around with my new 70-200mm lens and shot these two shots from a STANDING position
Someone asked about the wireless flash triggering so Scott started explaining...
It was getting on in the morning and we still had Duke's Lightroom presentation to do. Everyone settled in and Duke got started. About this time, Nathan "DevientArtist" showed up and joined us. Like Scott, Duke's presentation was well prepared and full of great information. He started with a nice intro to Lightroom then covered the organizational features of using catalogs, collections and keywords. From there we moved into the developing features. These are used to tweak the images to make them look the way we want. This is the part commonly referred to as "post processing". The things that can be done are really amazing, from just making an image look REALLY good to playing around with the settings to get more "artistic" looks. There were lots of questions asked and between Duke and Scott, they did a really good job of explaining. I do believe there will be a few people ordering a new copy of Lightroom soon
Duke hooked up to the big TV for the slideshow presentation
Bill follows along on his laptop during the presentation
Scott, on the other hand, is clearly distracted!
Kurt, Jennifer and Dave all had other things going on and had to leave about half way through the day. Rusty's Dad was amazed at what Lightroom can do. We all commented about how good we have it today with current photography technology compared to the days when he first started out taking pictures. It really is amazing. No more waiting around to see how your pictures come out. The feedback loop between the shot and the results is so short now that it makes it unbelievably easier to quickly see mistakes and to correct and learn from them. Then there is that whole thing about not having to buy and develop film!
After Duke's presentation, it was time to play around again.
I grabbed Scott's 105 Macro lens and wandered out back
I can easily see myself having a Macro lens in the not too distant future...
In the meantime, I mounted the 70-200mm on my D7000. On the crop body, it is supposed to be the equivalent of a 105-300mm. So I head out back to see what I can find to shoot with it.
Duke, inspired by Scott in a manner much more fanatical than myself, heads outside to get his own bee shots. He's all in, knees, gut and elbows!
There's that instant feedback I was talking about. Note the Cactus radio trigger on top of the camera body.
Bill gets that flash right up in there! I've no idea what power level it is set at.
This dude was singing up a storm!
Nathan
Cookies made by Jennifer! (Thanks for the munchies!)
The micro drone with its .3Mp camera
If you've been reading this thread from the beginning, you've already seen Duke's bee pictures. They are amazing considering there was no focus stacking involved. The detail is just incredible! We eventually started talking about what we might do for dinner. The plan is to eat early enough that we can get to down town Austin before it gets totally dark and then do a walk around. During all the confused discussion about our plans, I grab my 35mm 1.8G DX lens. Duke had mentioned earlier that it works great on an FX body. So I thought I would give it a whirl and see for myself.
Someone got a new bike
And it is NOT Duke, but judging by this grin, it might not be long for him
Scott making vroom vroom noises
Gorgeous hunk of machinery!! (The bike...
)
Spring is popping in Austin!
The master of his domain...
Who knows what lies behind those eyes...
It's Nathan's new bike, barely even broken in.
So we finally get our act together and decide what to do for dinner. We wind up at some sports bar not far from Rusty's place. Bill, Duke and Scott order a MONSTER plate of 50 chicken wings of various insane levels of spiciness. Nathan and Rusty split a pizza. Being a lightweight eater, I just get the half off pizza roll appetizer.
I'll get to the down town shots later. Casey is supposed to meet us down there somewhere. Nathan will ride his bike and meet us because he lives down that way and doesn't want to have to go all the way back North then ride all the way back South again to get home.