Dave Benham

I love having a project to aim at and thanks to Strobist and Clay Enos I’ve found one. Urban portraits!

The prospect of taking pictures of complete strangers creates all sorts of feelings. I like Clay’s approach in the video above. At some point every photographer has to overcome that barrier, whether it’s a portrait session, wedding or whatever. The subject needs to be comfortable with you, and you need to be comfortable with that process. Clay doesn’t give the subjects much time to think about the situation, and as a result comes away with some great results.

Can I translate this into a series of portraits of my sleepy New Forest village? I don’t know. But I’ll relish the challenge!

Nikon D700, 70-200 f/2.8 VR, 1/320 at f/5.6, ISO 1000

This last week has been Carnival week in Sway. It’s a great community event with everyone joining in lots of events, from treasure hunts and scarecrow making to the fete and carnival procession itself. My team improved one place in the village cryptic treasure hunt this year – second by only half a point! Next year…

For the carnival procession I bolted on my MB-D10 grip to the D700 and used the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens. As it was so overcast I had the auto ISO on, but started it at ISO 1000. I was shooting mostly in aperture priority at f/5.6 which in turn gave me a shutter speed to avoid camera shake. The only problem I had was the focussing distance – people gravitated towards the camera and I couldn’t get the shot!

I’ll put a few shots up from the carnival soon, above are the Carnival Prince and Princess who led the procession. Who needs Rio!

PDN Gear Guide featured an article yesterday on a gadget developed to stop pictures being taken of celebs (or Big Brother contestants) without their consent.

Consisting of a sensor attached to a set of LEDs, the device detects the light of a flashgun and emits enough bright light to wash out the picture. The project is a brainchild of NY University graduate Adam Harvey, who is working to patent the device and reduce the size.

Of course if you’re shooting with a D700 or D3 you could ramp up the ISO without flash and beat the system… for now.

Read the full article at PDN Gear Guide here, and check out Adam Harvey’s site for full details of the project.

Picture above courtesy Adam Harvey / ahprojects.com

Despite being a gadget person there are times when I see converging technologies built in together without proper thought. One of these, and a bugbear of mine, is video on a DSLR. Yet today news emerges of a feature film produced entirely using a Nikon D90 DSLR.

If this is true then well done guys. I’m a firm believer that you should use the right tool for the job and I’d personally use a nice 3CCD high definition camcorder. Then again I’m not a film maker so what do I know?

Reverie’s synopsis is as follows:

Set in the remote wilderness of the Illinois River Valley six years after a catastrophic fire devastated the area, a series of events draws the paths of two former friends towards intersection. Their reunion reopens the wounds of a dark past and threatens to collapse the fragile lives they have constructed since.

I bet their wounds were caused by the inclusion of HD video on DSLRs. Check out the details at IMDB.

Check out this great video from LensRentals.com comparing the different sizes of Nikon telephoto lenses. I’m never going to grumble about the size of my 70-200 f/2.8  again!

To think that wildlife shooters use a 600mm f/4 regularly as well – at least their wallet would be lighter…