So not to confuse with HDR, because this hasn’t seen any HDR (and no, it’s not just about dragging the saturation slider to +100) 
If you’re intending to over-do it, with pictures that are suitable, it’s actually quite fun…

D700, ISO200, 1/1000 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 50mm, and some serious Photoshopping...

Last Friday night there was a big Classic American car tour in Helsinki. Lots of nice cars: old ones, newer ones, new ones, small ones, bigger ones, huge ones… Great photo opp! Usually the drivers/owners of the cars also dress up to match the era of their car. Unfortunately this time I didn’t see much of that, and there were so many cars and so many people crowded together that it was next to impossible to get pictures of the whole car without getting the background or foreground completely cluttered. So I stuck to the beauty of the cars. Even the simplest car can turn into something artsy if you know where to look

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/3.3, Nikkor 50mm

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/3.3, Nikkor 50mm

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm (and some serious cross-processing in Photoshop)

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D700, ISO200, 1/350 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 50mm

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

DNA-results are printed straight from the laser printer within a couple of minutes

No, seriously…
Sometimes the boss has to go to work in the weekend, and since I have nothing better to do in the weekends I’m a good boy and drive her. As a reward I get to shoot some pictures.

D700, ISO200, 1/125 sec @ f/2.0, Nikkor 50mm

D700, ISO200, 1/10 sec @ f/8, Tamron 90mm macro

D700, ISO400, 1/125 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 50mm

We’ve had a good amount of snow still in the past week, but temperatures are going up and it looks like -slowly- spring’s pushing its foot in the door.

It’s going to take awhile still before all the snow is gone and I’m sure I’ll get a few shots of “winter” still, but in case I might not have the time (if I get buried under a load of work or something *G*) I went out for a little shoot yesterday.
It wasn’t cold, actually it was quite pleasant to be out. I should do that more often…

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4.8, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/5, Sigma 10-20mm

We spent the weekend in Stockholm, doing some touristing. Once every now and again we just hop on the ferrie and take a 2-day cruise.
Last time we did it is already a couple of years ago and we were in Stockholm on a Monday. That day all the museums and cultural things are closed. This time we planned better

This time we visited the Royal Armory, part of the Swedish royal castle.
Very nice, indeed. And very much worth the visit.

We strolled in, I with my camera bag and tripod and down in the basement where the whole history of carriages is set out, I set up the tripod to take some nice pictures.

D200, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/9.5, Sigma 10-20mm

So after the first few pictures we moved on to the next part. We noticed another guy coming in just after we continued to the next part and it was only a short while later when the alarm went off. The guy who had just come in strolled on and told us he’d “probably stepped too close to the fence”.

Half a minute or so later the guard came rushing in. He came straight at me.
He was very polite, yet very strict and told me I was not allowed to use a tripod. Professionals paid extra for the privilege of using a tripod, so he said.
We checked and double-checked at the entrance, but we found no note or sign which stated that the use of tripods is prohibited.
Owwell… He didn’t confiscate my memory card, so I have at least two images with tripod. Wooohooo! *LOL*
The rest I was forced to shoot with flash (ugh!).
Did give some nice effects here and there, though (with some rear-synch flash, or a spooky white balance setting…)

D200, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/4.5, Sigma 10-20mm, camera's own flash

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4, Sigma 10-20mm, on-camera SB-800

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4, Sigma 10-20mm, on-camera SB-800

I had to get something small from the local camera store…
And I walked out with…

Myeah… dream on…
But it was there for real. And it looked massive, heavy, but oh so sweet.
And if the price tag had only shown one zero less, I would probably have walked out with it and forgotten all about the small thing I had to get.

Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 / 400-1000mm f/5.6

Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 / 400-1000mm f/5.6

But yeah, at € 16,000 I would’ve kind of maxed out my credit card, so I decided to let it pass this time.
*ahem*

But it was purdy.
Oh, and I did get my sync cord in the end. That was only € 29

Yah, I have something with darkness. And lightness.
If only I had my camera with me last night. Don’t you just HATE that? Always when you go out and you don’t take your camera you see something that’s worth shooting and you can’t recreate it.
There was a snow storm going on and the world was dark. Not only because it was night, but also because the snow was coming down so bad that you couldn’t really see anything.
And then it started thundering and there was lightning. Never seen that before during a snow storm. The lightning lit up the sky and because of all the snow in the air the sky had this neon blue-ish purplish color. Absolutely gorgeous.
But owwell… No camera… And even if I’d had it with me, I’d probably be too late anyway… *sighs*
But I got something else, that night that I went out shooting. While my buddy was lying on his stomach not 10 meters to the right of me shooting lights there, I got these.
It’s light, like in my previous post, but a whole different kind of light.
In color it looks totally boring, but in black and white it’s really dramatic, I think.

D200, ISO100, 1 sec @ f/6.7, Tamron 28-75mm

I went on a night shoot with a buddy of mine and we passed (among others) by the Sibelius monument. It actually looks as interesting by night (if not more) as it does by day. It’s lit with a good number of strong, bright lights. My buddy came up with the idea to bring a couple of colored gels to put over the light sources. Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all! I will have to try that some time…

D200, ISO100, 2 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 3 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm

Photography can lead you into several directions. All creative, all unique (supposedly). And they all come with a certain set of rules.
Take for example product photography. Open any style magazine and you’re buried under adverts displaying -among others- watches. It’s such a big thing these days to have a massive, expensive watch.
In photography school we were taught how to properly photograph watches.
You know, photographers were way ahead of their time. Already well before the first official mentioning of a smiley face photographers were taught to put the pointers of a watch on 10 past 10 to create a smile and make the picture look positive. And that’s what we’re still taught.

Image courtesy Hamilton (ripped out of Men's Health November issue)

And when you keep an eye on it, it’s everywhere… EVERYWHERE! To the point that it’s annoying. 10 past 10. The magical time.

But that’s where most of the photographers stop thinking. Watch – photograph – 10 past 10.
But wait! What about…
If it’s not only a watch, but someone’s wearing it?
No matter… Watch – photograph – 10 past 10. It’s the golden rule.
Or is it?

What about…
Hehehe… The funny thing is, when people are wearing a watch, it’s not positioned the same as when it’s just a watch set up for a shot in a studio. It’s upside down.
But apparently this hasn’t occurred to most photographers. And they stubbornly set the watch to 10 past 10 on their models and shoot the shot, because that’s how they were taught.

Image courtesy Hugo Boss (ripped out of Men's Health November issue)

Image courtesy Chanel (ripped out of Men's Health November issue)

But wait!
What happened to the smiley face? Of course… When people wear a watch, the watch is upside down, thus the smiley face turns upside down with it. And turns into a very unhappy face.
Little improvisation for photographers: if you shoot a watch while it’s worn by a model, set the pointers to 20 to 4 or 20 past 8, if that makes you more happy. The ad will end up a lot happier, at least. That I can assure you

D200, ISO100, 1 sec @ f/22, Sigma 10-20mm

What more can I tell you? It was a good trip