Well, it has already come. The pre-party for the 2009 Ironman Canada. And this one was great.

There where three stages, but I will admit I had the most fun at the middle one.

And the view from being on stage during the performance. My thanks to the band for making me get on stage!

Although this young lady had an amazing voice.

And of course, what street fair is complete without the people making them unique?

PS: This is a quick edit, but a very important one none-the-less. We finished up the Pano from last night as well. As you can see, the sky was amazing! It was a great night for a party. (And for a lot of us, the party kept going once the downtown was closed.)

Well, this should look familiar to anyone who uses Nikon. Its one of the best lenses in the arsenal, the wonderful 50mm F/1.4. I must admit, this was a lens I lusted for when I started out in photography, but I was using the 50mm F/1.8 at the time, just because the cheaper lens price meant I could get more lenses on my budget.

Now, there is nothing wrong with the images this lens produces. I have to stress that. A lot of people get the wrong idea when I talk about adapting lenses and tone curves and colours, etc. This lens has a certain magic to it. But heres where the real world gets in the way. Nikon lenses were made for journalists. They have a strong contrast, and love saturation. Not as much as some brands, but they are over-saturated for my tastes (Keep in mind, I started using Minolta, and then Olympus film gear. These brands are known for lower saturation, esp. the Olympus OM lenses.) Now, while that is great for a lot of work, esp. Street style work, and esp. Journalists who are looking for good reproduction with minimal processing, for those of us who are looking for a more subtle image, and have the time for editing, and lens like this can destroy a lot of the data in the file.

Now, in the image above, I will have to say the red is a bit high. But thats more to do with me and less to do with the lens itself. Both the very top image, and the one directly above, have been cropped down to web resolution, and roughly the same view. Thats it, no other processing of the files. All taken from the same camera, about thirty seconds apart from each other, in .NEF format. So, what’s the big deal then? Now thats the great question.

The second image was taken with a converted Olympus OM lens, the 28mm F/3.5 to be exact. I love that lens both for its colour, and also for its tiny size. It does not come out past the grip on my D700. Talk about small. The Nikon 28mm F/3.5 in the studio is twice the size! But thats a different point. My real reason for using this lens is the colours it shows. They are more muted, more subtle. Now, while this may seem odd, I can of course bring them up in an image editor to get the richness of saturation that is shown in the Nikkor image at the top. But try to bring the top image down to the colours of the Olympus, and you realize just how much data is lost in that image. If your trying to get the best range of tones out of a digital sensor, or even film, a lower saturation lens will give you more choices later, if creating more work. However, I like the images of that lens, straight out of camera, so I dont have to process all that much.

Now, I hope that helps some of you with why I like to use adapted lenses. It can be a pain, but most f the time, its just great fun. It gives you limitless creative options, and gives you access to a whole range of gear that you may not have had earlier. And its fun to get back into playing with your gear, instead of always looking for what is newest. Often times, there is something many times better, that came out years ago. So go out, look around, and have fun adding new lenses to your arsenal.

Steven

Well, things here at the studio have been rather hectic.

First off, we have received our city license, so our doors are now open. Don’t feel bad about that though, the official Grand Opening is scheduled for the first of September.

Secondly, our first artist is also up and displaying. We highly encourage everyone to come out and support Matia Theodosakis, a very talented young lady who has seven pieces on display in the gallery.

And last but not least, we FINALLY have internet in the studio. So we apologize for not being in better contact with everyone, but now we can at least check our email daily.

Steven