The Nikon Df on Assignment
So I’ve been shooting non stop with the Df for the past few days, exposing its weaknesses and revelling in its awesomeness. My original “paradoxical” concerns have all turned out to be true. π But, it’s all trumped by the joy it is to shoot, its amazing image quality as well its killer good looks π I’ve been doing lots of candid stuff of the kids, low light tests and a had a chance to use it on a shoot. I still primarily used my D800 but I wanted to see how the Df would do. It did fantastic! I had my lighting setup for a corporate headshot. Here’s a BTS shot of the setup, noting that my rim light had already been taken down when I remembered to make this shot. A sheet gaffer taped to the wall (DO NOT USE DUCT TAPE)Β was my background in a confined office space. Umbrella key, background light and a hair light was the 3 light setup. I tuned it all and shot with the D800 then simply swapped my SU-800 commander to the Df. Other than max shutter speeds being different (1/250 on D800 and 1/200 on the Df), everything operated the same. The metering between both cameras was spot on as well.The other cool thing I wanted to try with the Df is it’s spot white balancing ability in Live View. This is a super rad feature for nailing a white balance. Just pop the camera into live view, switch the White Balance to PRE, hold it, then measure your grey/white surface in the lighting conditions. It’s really, really accurate and pleasing! It’s not really in step with the “pure photography” mantra but I’ll take it nonetheless. It’s slick!
It was also nice to edit smaller RAW files than the D800 megapretzel madness. I was quite happy with how the Df rendered skin tones and colour. It seems to be a wee notch up from my other Nikons, which is a plus. I look forward to using the camera on assignments in the future! π
I bought a Nikon Df
My Df showed up today in the mail. I was totally stoked! I ordered it last Thursday. It shipped Friday and was here today after a long weekend! Thanks to the great folks at The Camera StoreΒ in Calgary, Alberta. I’ve bought all my cameras there for the past two years and I love the store. The staff rock the set. Buy all your gear there. π So I had my old 50mm f/1.8 AF-D lens still kicking around. But I don’t use it much anymore since I bought my 50mm 1.4G. But it’s still a great little lens. Soft wide open with lots of nice chromatic aberration. But whatevs. It was my first prime and I love it for nostalgia reasons. It’s a perfect match for the Df. I bought the camera straight up without the kit (on account of my 1.4). And at first it appeared that I couldn’t use the aperture ring to change aperture. But thankfully you can change that. If you use setting f7 in the menus you can in fact use the Aperture ring on the AF-D lenses for that sweet manual touch and feel. (more…)
Ken Hamm at the Happy Nun
We went to my all time favourite restaurant and all-round place of awesomeness, The Happy Nun on the weekend. As always, the food was AMAZING. And the talent is likewise fantastic. To kick off the deep winter blues festival was Forget, SK resident and Juno award winner Ken Hamm.Β He’s a tremendous guitar player and I really enjoyed the sound of his vintage tin guitar. It took me back to my Edmonton days of Β Blues on Whyte.Β It’s really a tremendous genre of music full of soul and reality.
Speaking of soul and reality, my noble Fuji X100s was in hand for the event. I love how the fuji can capture the colour so well. Ken was being lit by 2 overhead lights, one CTO as the main on his left side and the other CTB for a fill on his right. I love that look. The vastly different colour temperatures work together to really give the atmosphere a great mood. I shot the rest of the event at a very warm Kelvin temperature. I was really digging that CTO look. That said, I probably should have dialled it to blue to emphasize the Blues. heheehhe… next time. π