The Best Kind of Camera

Canon? Nikon? Minolta? Sony? What is the best camera? C'mon, you know the answer to that, but before I launch into that, can I say a word about the weather? I'm over summer! Seriously. June is supposed to be the wettest month in Houston, and so far its proved to be the hottest. Today was a high of 96 deg. F and from what I hear, we're supposed to see temperatures in excess of 100 tomorrow and Thursday!

Why do I dread it? Well, today I had a shoot in a teeny, but old building set close to downtown, but it had no air-conditioning whatsoever! We brought a few fans along, ice, iced water, etc., but by the time I left I was dead.

The other good news is that I got my new IPhone 32 MB phone this weekend, notwithstanding a tummy ailment that I was suffering from because of a rather serious bout of food poisoning.

The line wasn't long at all. One of the reasons that I was excited to get the phone was because of a number of functions: a 3 megapixel camera, a video, GPS and the ability to geotag. That is brilliant. Consequently, I have had to start taking it on myself to follow my own advice, and the advice of others that the best kind of the camera is the one you have with you! I've taken some fairly decent photos with it already, two videos and some really crappy photographs that will never see the light of day! Here is a photo that is half-decent. The subject is nothing special, and the camera is my Iphone that is about it.

We were all gathered at my son's house for a braai (the South African word for a BBQ) this past Saturday afternoon as I was trying to get the hang of it. Previous to this, I had had a another brand that didn't sync with Mac and attempted to be some kind of berry, but well, 'nuf said about the past. My son had asked me to bring my camera with to take photographs of him playing his guitar. I obliged, and this is the result.

See if you can figure out the lighting for yourself. I'm not used to all the Stobist "talk", but here it is for those who may be interested: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L on my 5D, 1/80 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 640. I turned the bedroom light off and opened the blinds (camera right) to make use of natural light, but that left the part of his body facing the camera quite dark. I put my EX580 Speedlight flash on, dialed it onto iTTL and then set it way down before diffusing it. Even so, you can still see some shadows around the right-hand side of the guitar on the wall, but they are soft and I don't find them obtrusive. Oh, I processed that in Lightroom 2.0 and then used an action I have in Photoshop CS3 to make it smaller.

Let me know your thoughts. I haven't forgotten to put up photos of the studio I work in as well as other things, but will do those on a dry day! :) Sure they will come.