April 2010

d700 – reviews and comments

by Victor Augusteo on April 29, 2010

I was waiting for this package for weeks! Can't sleep, can't eat, always dreaming about it!

The Nikon D700 is Nikon’s, and the world’s, best serious digital camera. – Ken Rockwell

So, how awesome is it?

Oh, if you are upgrading from d80, this crazy camera is really the best ever. I really love the feelings on my hand. Here I will list some of the difference that I felt when I first hold it and turn it on.

  1. Its freaking fast! at 8fps, d700 beats my d80 to dust!
  2. ISO 6400 looks nice and sharp! probably its the same quality as the ISO800 on my old d80. Thus making low light photography a cake!
  3. There is no auto mode! Thank god :P
  4. It uses CF card, which is probably faster than SD card on my old d80 ya.
  5. Freaking heavy! almost double the weight of my d80 when the d700 is paired with the battery grip.
  6. LARGE 3″ screen. photos look sharp and bright, lots of info can be crammed, awesome.
  7. Extra complicated menu controls. Took me couple of hours reading Ken Rockwell’s guide to fully understand the whole menus :P

How do you feel when you first open it?

Simple question, hard to describe in words.
I was esctatic. Smiling from ear to ear. Can’t stop showing my teeth around and keep on screaming ‘WOWW WOWW WOWWWW’. Just ask my bro and sis, haha.
Before arrives home, I was away shooting cosplay for uni’s anime club. It was long long and tiring day, setting up the lights and backdrop, shooting, coreographing, editing, printing, and counting money. I was feeling down and pissed off after that. You know the kinda stress you got after a long day work.

But when I see the package on top of the table, the whole stress just dissapeared! POOF! GONE! I am feeling like a child opening my first present.

So hows the shots?

It was awesome. I’m really still trying to get used to the awesomeness of the majestic d700. The menus are different from d80. It has millions of new features that I am not familiar with. I did a fun photoshoot with Nikki and Candice yesterday at the Melbourne Uni, turns out alright, and will post the photos soon.

You mentioned ‘the cheapest on the internet?’

Yes it is. I researched this for weeks and definetely found the cheapest place. It is the BlueFlyMobile store. Price in amazon are around 2,800 while in physical store is more than 3,000. BlueFlyMobile was selling it for 2,200.

Cheap must be bad right? Thats what I thought first too. Looks shady.

But then I went to research some more on Whirlpool forum and other random forums. Turns out that people actually give positive review! Congrats BlueFlyMobile, you got a new customer. yay!

In short, d700 is super freaking mega awesome.

Difficulty of Using Adobe Lightroom, or Lack Thereof

by Victor Augusteo on April 17, 2010

Elise.Studio

Today, I taught a workshop about photo post-processing with Adobe Lightroom beta 3 to several Monash University student.
It was quite fun.

Most students never used Lightroom before, so we gotta go from the start.

I covered:
- Importing
- Flagging (Pick, color, star)
- Croping, Brush, Graduate Filter, Spot removal
- The basics of sliders on develop module
- Exporting
- Develop presets and Exporting presets

To my surprise, the whole thing only took less than an hour. I use 11 sample images to show stuff. Couple of landscapes and portraits.

Seems to me that people always tries to compare Lightroom to Photoshop. We had to explain the concept of ‘non-destructible image editing’ as opposed to layering in photoshop.

All in all, it was fun and I will record a screencast of the workshop on my mac later. Stay tuned.

New Portfolio Website

by Victor Augusteo on April 12, 2010

Behold! My new portfolio!

Yeap, I just redesigned my whole portfolio website. It used to be flash based, now its jquery based.

Mainly because the old flash website doesn’t play on iPhone or iPad . And flash is slow, and it hogs the memory, and i’m using a lot of ands.

anyway, let me know what you think, and how does it look on your screen.

Vics out.

My Studio Setup

Yeap, I set up the studio to replicate Zack Arias ‘White seamless’. It was awesome. The white seamless cost US$40 in Adorama, but I got em at AU$120 at the Dragon Image store in Melbourne. So yeah, if you can find a cheaper price or willing to wait for a long long shipping time, feel [...]

Read the full article →

Photographer Series #1: Teddy Tan

You know, I rarely post about other photographer. The first one I did was about Yann Arthus bertrand. As I met and interact with more and more photographers, I’m planning to make a series of review and recommendations on this subject. Okay, the lucky number one is: Mr. Teddy Tan Who is he? I met [...]

Read the full article →

New photos from my studio.

Click the link below for the whole album http://www.flickr.com/photos/augusteo/sets/72157623740280368/

Read the full article →

30 DPI #4 Basic Studio Lighting

Victor Augusteo’s30 Days to Photography ImprovementDay #4 Topics:- Light Stand, Umbrella, and Speedlight- How to use them to produce properly exposed, shadowless, and diffused photograph Follow me at http://twitter.com/augusteo

Read the full article →

New Studio, New HD DVR, and future d700

Victor Augusteo’s Vlog Episode #2 – How I got a cheap studio space – New cheap 1080p DVR that cost $140 only – Cold call from my dad asking if I need a new camera, SHOCKING! – Possible future workshop Follow me at http://twitter.com/augusteo

Read the full article →