Ok… enough of the weak analogy.. here are the pics. The first pic on the left I turned off the bottom softbox; this produced dramatic shadows that may work for certain shots, but for this one, it fails to highlight the face.. which is what I’m trying to capture. In contrast, the picture on the right had the bottom softbox turned on… and with that you can see how the whole face just lights up. You’ll notice the neck shadows are not as prominent any more. I really like how this style makes your subject’s face pop.

Also worth noting, for this setup, I used another speedlight as an edge light behind the subject. This casts a nice outline adding more separation from her and the background. With the 3rd pic… well, I just liked how it turned out so I wanted to post it =). Anyways… I’m learning something new everyday. Hope you guys are too!

Everyone says Doan looks like a Hollywood celebrity haha! Which male actor do you think he looks like?

Here are some shots, click through to see more:

Gear used:

• Nikon D700
• Nikon D90
• Nikon 50mm/f1.8
• Tamron 28-75mm/f2.8
• SB-600 speedlight
• Nikon SU-800 Wireless Speedlight Commander

The weather was perfect (but still no clouds! darn!), she looked gorgeous in the dress… and I learned a valuable lesson: Never wear shorts in a photo shoot in itchy, weedy dry grass fields. I forgot to take a Behind The Scenes shot because it started to get dark, and we started hearing strange noises that spooked us. Here are some pictures below, doesn’t she look most magnanimous? lol (bonus points if you can guess that movie reference)

The next on-location shoot I’m looking forward to is a shoot on a dry desert lake bed. I can picture it already… the sunset, clouds, and the GF in a flowy dress standing on the cracked desert lake bed. I told her the next weekend we see clouds in the sky, we’re taking a road trip out to the desert!!

Anyways, here are a few more pics… just b’cuz they were staring at me on my desktop.

Thanks for reading, and as always.. feel free to leave comments, suggestions or any questions. Even though this stuff is still relatively new to me, I’m more than willing to share anything that might be helpful for anyone interested.

- tyger

As always, please feel free to ask any questions, I will do my best to answer them while not offending you with my strange sense of humor

So here goes my first post:
I took the new Nikon D700 on our first date. We went to Balboa Park @ Van Nuys, CA to experience the Cherry blossoms which blooms only a few weeks out of the year. Quite the memorable experience.. my first outting with the D700.

She was a workout, not very light on my hands (nor my wallet) but coming from a D40 and D90 I definitely felt like I was with the hottest girl in school. I made sure to take good care of her, keeping her to my side the whole day… feeling good (but paranoid too) as bystanders gazed by.

To ease the pain, I used lightweight 35mm and 50mm prime lens on her (actually those are our only lens so far ahaha). With the prime lens the D700 felt very “usable” in my hand.. although towards the end of the day, I started feeling the strain of the lugging her around all day (just like with any other money hungry woman huh? *dodge*). Make no mistake, the D700 is a money hungry gal… just wait til she asks for accessories! I’ll make sure to post about that as we go shopping for them. *gulp*

Anyways, enough blah blah…. here are some sample pics from my first date with the beautiful D700.

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For more photos:

P.S. I was just kidding about wanting to be a “look at me, i’m a photographer” type. I not really that kind of guy. True, I do want to learn as much as I can about photography… but the main reason I like this, is that I get to spend quality time with my 2 gals… the GF and the D700. =) So yeah.. i’m more the sappy kind of guy than the “look at me” show-off.