Bridget is in need of some new eye wear, and I thought a geekier style would be appropriate for her bangs. So off we went to try some on:

Talk about an interesting place to go try on some frames, or you know, pick up a typewriter…or 50-year-old box of nails

Still undecided. Well have to go back to try a few more!

Images: Fuji X100

If Suki was as big as she thinks she is, she’d probably look just like Champi, the most adorable Akita ever! We finally had a chance to meet this giant puppy over the weekend.

The best way I can think to describe Champi is, well….she’s like a massive Shiba.  She looks like what would happen if Suki ate one of those Super Mario mushrooms. Can you hear the sound effect in your head?

Look at that face! So cute it’s ridiculous. Whenever Champi would get close enough, I’d try to give her a great big Akita hug. But just like Suki, this pup is well versed in the art of evading human affection.

Evasive maneuvers!

A couple of Japan’s national treasures right here, apparently discussing which smaller dog to chase together:

The larger, Clifford-sized Champi would periodically take breaks from all the action, unlike the smaller Suki, who prefers to stay on her feet.

Despite the sun being out, it was freezing at the dog park, and high winds blew dirt all over my camera as well as Suki’s eyes. Not good for allergies (or for lens changing).

Trying to get both dogs in the frame is harder than you might think. More often than not, Suki and Champi would be moving in opposite directions. Most of my shots from the meetup look like this:

We humans had to duck, spin, dive, and spray bursts of frames to catch these two together!

Make sure your you check out the very epic 52 Weeks of Champi project! Of course, Suki has one as well

All Images: Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-30mm & 30-110mm VR lenses

Sunday was such a beautiful day in the city. The weather was perfect, and as is typical in the winter time on days like this, the light seems to have a crisp, dramatic look all day long. A walk in the park was a must.

I keep forgetting how large Golden Gate Park is. We started at the south-east corner and trekked our way to Spreckels lake, which is a little less than 3/4 of the way to the west entrance that intersects Ocean Beach. The entire journey took us between three and four hours, covering around five miles. We loved every minute of it, and Suki,  who unlike her human companions could have easily walked the length of this park a dozen times over,  was especially happy.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10mm | ¹/160 sec, f/8, ISO 100

Spread out among the large, open recreational spaces are dense areas of trees and local plant life. Small gardens, large groves, tons of areas to explore. Places where light takes on even more drama, where your image data gets slammed into either end of the histogram. Places where you wrangle your camera’s EV dial and white balance settings. I love these places.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 30mm | ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 180

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10mm | ¹/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm | ¹/60 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 30mm | ¹/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 24mm | ¹/80 sec, f/5, ISO 200

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 30mm | ¹/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 360

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10mm | ¹/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 11mm | ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100

I love working with the RAW files from the V1 because the experience is so familiar to me as a Nikon shooter. Every manufacturer has its own look, its own way of handling colors, and the V1′s files are decidedly Nikon. Therefore, much of my work flow in handling the V1′s output is nearly identical to how I process my D700 files. Awesome!

The ability to easily carry an entire system on a trek this long is one of my favorite things about the V1. I had a camera body, flash unit, and three lenses covering a 27-297mm equivalent range in my bag with room to spare, and I could barely feel the weight on my shoulder the entire time. I couldn’t possibly carry that range with my DSLR system without destroying my back. When I do head out with the D700, I usually select only one lens to bring along in order to keep weight and bulk to a minimum. No compromise in that regard with the V1. Take it all!

Nikon V1 +  1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10mm |  ¹/125 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100

Running into other Shibas is always a treat, more so for us than for Suki, who was only mildly interested in this five month old puppy.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 30mm | ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100

As the sun continued to fall, beams of light became more and more visible in areas with densely packed trees. Right after I took the shot above I thought, “there’s something missing in this frame….”

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 30mm | ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100

Ah yes, a Shiba Inu. =)

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 | ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100

With the lenses currently available for the 1 system,  you won’t be throwing backgrounds way out of focus, though getting in close with the 10mm pancake can deliver some pleasing results.  Nikon is said to be releasing some fast primes for the format soon. I want them yesterday!

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor  10mm f/2.8 | ¹/800 sec, f/4, ISO 100

Nikon V1 + 1 NIKKOR VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 at 110mm | ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 140

Lens changing is pleasantly fast with the 1. Large, easy to see lens markings line up at a 12 o’clock position at the mount, and the rotation required to lock the lens into place is much shorter than I expected. Going from a wide shot of the lake with the 10mm and quickly changing to the 30-110mm for a close up of the duck felt just like switching things up with my F-mount system, only on a much smaller scale.

Nikon V1 + 1 NIKKOR VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 at 110mm | ¹/400 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100

Small cameras have come a long way. Using the V1 system lately has made me realize that for a lot of what I shoot, a DSLR can often be too much camera than I actually need or am willing to carry. These smaller systems will only get better and better, and I personally am much more excited about the future of cameras like the V1 than I am about what’s next in the DSLR realm.

My great nephew Julian is now a touch over one month old, and wow, kids grow fast! Last night, he met up with the entire family for the first time. Of course, uncle Jonathan has a camera in tow.

The dimly lit house we gathered at was a great place to test out the new flash unit I just received for my Nikon V1. The lack of a built-in flash in the V1 seemed like a curious omission from the camera at first. Nikon instead opted for  a separate unit, the SB-N5 Speedlight, which attaches to the camera using a proprietary connector.

Proprietary connector?! My first reaction was “why not a regular old hotshoe I can mount my SB-900 to?” Then again, an SB-900 is nearly double the size of the camera body itself. Not a combo I’m likely to use anyway. This smaller SB-N5 unit feels way more practical in use, and what makes it rock compared to a typical built-in flash is that it can tilt and swivel, much like its bigger SB brethren.

I set exposure manually at the camera. Wasn’t too worried about the low shutter speeds since the flash would help me freeze movement. From there I just rotated the flash head where I wanted it in order to wash light off part of the white ceiling above me, relying on the camera to vary flash output automatically. The whole experience felt just like using the iTTL flash system with my Nikon DSLR. It worked, and worked well.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 + SB-N5 | 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 + SB-N5 | 1/25 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 + SB-N5 | 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 + SB-N5 | 1/20 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 + SB-N5 | 1/80 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400

Of course, the SB-95 is nowhere near as powerful or versatile as Nikon’s real hotshoe flashes, but for indoor shots with bounce and for outdoor fill, it’s a must for a V1 owner.

I seem to have difficulty visiting Photobooth SF without coming home with some kind of new photographic goodie, whether it be an awesome tintype portrait, some Polaroid film, or an analogue camera of some sort. On our last visit, we picked up the new LomoKino Super 35 Movie Maker after giving one a test drive at the shop.

This is quite an interesting camera. You start by loading any kind of 35mm film into the camera body. You can then advance the frames with a built-in hand crank that ratchets off quarter-frame exposures onto the film strip at a speed of…well, it depends how fast you turn the crank. Doing the math, a 36 exposure roll of film should net you 144 frames of Lomo goodness.

Other control points include the slider up front for adjusting aperture between f/5.6 and f/11 on the lens, as well as a close focus button that lets you focus down to about 0.6m. Up top is a flip-up viewfinder and a hotshoe.  An indicator on the side of the camera tells you approximately how much film you have remaining. That’s pretty much all there is to it!

In the image above, you can see the optional LomoKinoScope to the right of the camera. You can spool your developed film into the device, hold it up to the light, and turn the crank to watch the film in motion. Very cool.

After we unboxed the camera and figured out how to load it up, we got to shooting and ended up going through two rolls of slide film at the beach.

Here’s what the film looked like when we got it back from the lab:

We brought these strips home and viewed them in the LomoKinoScope, but wait a minute, I wanted to share this on the web! So it was back to the lab to get some scans done. Here are a few quarter frames we cropped from the scans:

This, of course, is not how LomoKino is meant to be experienced. We needed to turn these frames into a movie somehow. Special thanks to my wife Bridget, who cropped each quarter frame by hand in Lightroom before putting them together to make the following short clips:

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Interesting that my first hands-on experience with Lomography would be with their first movie camera. I think I’m beginning to see the the appeal of shooting Lomo. The results are funky and unpredictable, and the process is just plain fun. I think I’m going to take another look at that LC-A. =)

Whenever Josh and I would introduce one another to someone else, we’d always say:

“This is my cousin, but really, he’s my brother.”

Technically, he is indeed my cousin, but our relationship has always been very brother-like. The bond we built growing up together has continued strong, even though we’ve been living on different coasts for the last five years.

Well, today is my brother’s wedding day. It’s a warm, misty day in Medellin, Colombia, the city that Josh and Vanessa will now call home, and where the small ceremony is taking place this afternoon. Though I made last-minute arrangements to attend and take on the role of wedding photographer/best man, a series of very unfortunate circumstances prevented my departure from San Francisco. So for me, today has been decidedly bitter-sweet. Can’t help but be happy that they’re finally together for good, though!

As I type this, the ceremony and reception are happening. Crazy! So, to the new Mr. and Mrs. Libatique, I say congratulations. Josh, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it, but I’m proud of you and I love you man. Take care of yourself and your beautiful wife. And Vanessa, welcome to the family, hermanita =)

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Images: Nikon D700 + 50mm f1.4G | 85mm f/1.4D

Suki and I have been missing on the blog for a while, but we’re back to talk about the Nikon 1 V1!

I must admit, when Nikon first announced the Nikon 1, their first mirrorless camera system, I wasn’t terribly excited. The camera’s design is on the bland side (especially compared to my Fuji X100), and the sensor, while much larger than the ones you’d find in a typical compact, is smaller than one in my Olympus E-PL2 and other m4/3 cameras. Epic fail, right? Not at all.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G | ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200

My initial impression of the V1′s image quality is very favorable. The files are detailed, sharp, and clean. All the lenses currently available for the 1 mount (10mm pancake, 10-30mm, 30-110mm, 10-100mm) seem to perform very well. But what intrigued me most about the V1 wasn’t so much the image quality as it was the system’s speed.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 | 1/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 22mm | ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 100

The V1 is heavily specified when it comes to speed, especially in auto-focus performance. It has a hybrid AF system that can use phase-detection and contrast detection to acquire and track focus, giving the V1 a significant edge in focus performance compared to other mirrorless cameras. The dog park was a perfect place test this capability out, and I was, to say the least, floored by how fast the AF is.

One thing’s for sure, I never expected to take a shot like this with a camera other than a DSLR:

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 22mm ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 100

Not only is the AF blazing fast, but the camera is capable of some ridiculously high burst rates. Switching from the mechanical shutter to the electronic shutter, which incidentally has a maximum speed of 1/16,000, allows you to shoot as high as 60fps in full resolution, though at that speed you lose the ability to continuously focus. However, you can do single-point, continuous autofocus at 10fps, which is more than enough to keep up with Suki at the dog park:

In a scene like this, the V1 doesn’t stutter, hesitate, or second guess itself. You hit the shutter release and it just goes. Brilliant.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200

The dog park is relatively small, and I wanted to up the ante. Suki runs much faster in a bigger, more open area, so we headed to the beach for more Shiba Inu running action. To minimize lens changing in such sandy conditions, I used the 1 system’s super zoom, the 10-100mm VR, though I’m sure my telephoto 30-110mm Nikkor would have performed just as well here:

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 10mm | ¹/160 sec, f/8, ISO 100

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm  | ¹/500 sec, f/8, ISO 400

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 40mm | ¹/640 sec, f/5.3, ISO 100

Left: Suki at impulse speed. Right: Suki at warp speed.

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/1,000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320

Again, the camera confidently kept Suki in focus, even when she was running straight at me:

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/1,000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 280

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/1,000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/1,000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 220

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/1,000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 220

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I haven’t done too much video with the V1 yet, but it’s spec’d well in that area as well: 1920 x 1080 30p or 60i, 1280 x 720 30p with full manual exposure control, as well as some high-speed capability at lower resolutions: 400fps at 640 x 280 or 1200fps at 320 x 120. The high speed is played back at 30fps, giving you the ability to capture slow motion video. The one above was shot at 400fps. Pretty cool stuff!

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 10mm |  ¹/125 sec, f/4.5, ISO 180

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320

Nikon V1 + 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100mm | ¹/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 560

My x100 has been sitting in my carry-everywhere camera bag all by itself lately. Not any more!  I can now supplement the Fuji’s excellent low light, high ISO ability with the V1′s  high performance video capabilities, fantastic focus and burst speed, and lens changing flexibility. Well, actually…. the Fuji is getting repaired right now (an entirely different story), so the 1 is all that’s in the carry-everywhere bag for now…

Which isn’t all that bad so far. The V1 is flat out fun to shoot with, the build is super solid, the metering is spot on, the image quality is surprisingly good, and boy is it fast. Will return with more impressions =)

Even though I’ve been listening to her music for a long time, I’ve never actually had a chance to hear Priscilla Ahn sing live. So I was pretty stoked when family treated us to tickets to see her at Slim’s in SF last night.

Fuji X100 | ¹/60 sec, f/2, ISO 2500

We pretty easily got a spot right in front. Yessss.

Fuji X100 | ¹/60 sec, f/2, ISO 2500

Fuji X100 | ¹/40 sec, f/2, ISO 3200

Her performance was phenomenal. I always thought her voice was awesome just from listening to her albums, but hearing her live brought me into a whole new understanding of the incredibleness of her instrument. Her singing has got to be one of the most special, beautiful sounds I’ve heard in my entire life.

And she totally rocked out on that kazoo. =P

Fuji X100 | ¹/40 sec, f/2, ISO 3200

My little Fuji did great here with its silent leaf shutter. This wasn’t exactly a rock concert, so I know the loud shutter slap of my DSLR would have been a distraction. High ISO performance continues to impress as well.

Fuji X100 | ¹/60 sec, f/2, ISO 1600

Hope she comes to see us in San Francisco again! Check her out:

www.priscillaahn.com

Her blog is pretty cool too.

Life is pretty good for this Shiba Inu. The day begins on whatever soft surface she decides to sleep on through the night.

“Please don’t bug me with that camera.”

Next is usually some dog-centric outing, like a run along the beach:

In return, she has to tolerate her photo-geek dad chasing her around with cameras and lights. I think she gave me as much attitude as she could in the photo below. Can’t you see it on her face?

And of course, the day always ends where it began:

Yup, a good life for a Shiba.

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Images: Nikon D700 | Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G AFS

Call me weird, but I pretty much never use camera straps. Whether on a photo walk or a paid gig, carrying a point and shoot or my dslr, what’s most often keeping the camera at my side is the death grip I keep on it. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like they just get in my way.

But my goodness do I love this new “Gordy Strap” I just got in the mail for my Fuji x100. It’s a highly-durable, simply-beautiful, hand-made leather strap. This wrist strap that I got is just one of the many different kinds of customizable products available at Gordy’s website. I just might need one for my dslr now. Hmmm.

www.gordyscamerastraps.com

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Images: Nikon D700 | Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G