Last night there were some patches of clear sky and the moon came out. I decided it would be a good opportunity to try out the 400mm telephoto lens and a 2x converter. I experimented with various settings, the shot above was ISO 400, 1/60, F8. It is surprisingly difficult to focus on the moon, you can’t just set the lens to infinity, but need to make micro adjustments. A more significant issue is that as the lens itself is mounted to the  tripod, the  rear converter and then the camera are hanging mid air. I think I could gain extra stability and sharpness by having the body mounted on a separate tripod, although this will make any changes in angle a pain. (The other option would be a custom double mount but I imagine this would be prohibitively expensive.) One of the other key points about this exercise is that sometimes smaller sensors are very useful. In this case, the advantage of having a large sensor was made redundant by the fact I was …

A simple item that didn’t come with the 645D camera was a remote control.  The Pentax O-RC1 is a simple device that allows you to fire the shutter without pushing the shutter release button. This is great for self portraits and family photos as it avoids the self-timer dash. More importantly for me,  it means I can eliminate any micro wobble that may occur when pressing the shutter release button on a tripod mounted camera. As a bonus the remote control is waterproof, which in rain soaked Okinawa is probably a good idea. The remote control also works with other 2010 Pentax cameras including the Optio W90 .

Yesterday I assisted my friend Eboh on a shoot for jewelry designer Suzanne Somersall.  Nikki J, Ursula and Suzanne modeled the various rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings while Kim Clay did makeup. It was  interesting to meet and collaborate with the client on the shoot. As photographers, our job was to make both the models and the client’s products look their best. I took a couple of shots myself, this one of Nikki came out really well.

A couple of days ago I put up one of the images from Jessica’s shoot on Flickr. Normally I check my Flickr account every few days to see if people have been viewing the images or if there have been any comments from people.  The amazing thing that has happened with this photo is that after a couple of days it has been viewed 4653 times, commented on 35 times and added as a favorite 57 times. It even made it into Flickr’s Explore section for July 5th which showcases the most interesting images of the day. 🙂

A few more images from the shoot with Jessica. Jessica really reminds me of the character Leeloo in the movie The Fifth Element especially in the shot above. And this is the reaction you get when you ask for a few more photos 🙂 And finally a photo of Jessica and her daughter Sarah. One of my favorites from the whole shoot. (I love the beauty dish catchlight in each eye.)

Yesterday I set up the studio lights and took some photos of Jessica. It is fascinating being able to sculpt light with various grids and diffusers, and of course, it also helps to have a beautiful model to work with.  My friend and fellow photographer Annya Eyestone joined me on the shoot, while Kim Clay worked her magic with Jessica’s makeup. Remove the reflector, adjust the angle of light, and reduce the exposure and you get a more moody portrait. I’m really pleased with the results, detail is incredible and the skin tones are very good. The modeling lights on the strobes really help when manual focusing the 67 lenses, and when you get it right and the results are razor sharp. One a side note, I have been using Adobe Bridge as part of my workflow to select the best images. With film, this inital process of editing used to be done on the light table, but now Adobe Bridge fills this role before I move on to Photoshop. The above images are simply …