I pre-ordered this beast as soon as it popped up on the online retailer website. Amazon was my first choice, since I’ve got Prime…and that meant free 2 day shipping. It finally shipped last week and I received it on Friday…just in time for the weekend (and its first use at Cameron & Amy’s). This is what the 5D MKII was supposed to be. When I first picked up the body, it was much more ergonomic and satisfyingly solid than the MKII. Definitely felt more like my 1D MKIII. They also finally fixed the fatal flaw of the 5D2…the crap AF system. This new 61pt AF system is similar to the 1Dx, but doesn’t have a separate DIG!C 4 chip driving it. But its still awesomely fast and capable. Lightyears ahead of the 5D2. The new screen is great, the 6fps is finally fast enough, the 100% viewfinder rocks…its pretty much the sum of a bunch of small changes that makes this camera worth the entry price. I almost don’t need a 1D…but I’m still keeping it :) The high ISO capability has been improved too, with native ISO up to 25,600 and expansion to 51,200 and 102,400. The image quality at those ISOs isn’t great, but useable in a pinch. In any case, I decided to take some photos of new toy.
04/03/2012
The Bruery
The day after the dinner party, we rode our bikes to The Bruery for beer and food truck goodness. Unfortunately for me, I had an extra few miles to ride to get to their place. It wasn’t terrible riding the 17 miles up to Placentia, but the ride back was insane, crazy headwinds the entire way back. Plus I didn’t carb up enough and ran out of steam 2/3 of the way back.
Cameron and Amy’s Dinner Party
Cameron and Amy cooked up a huge dinner to celebrate Amy’s upcoming birthday. The menu was ridiculously high end and delicious. Prime rib, risotto, truffle mashed potatoes, bacon wrapped asparagus, handmade pretzels and cheese sauce, etc…and lots of home brewed beer. Good times were had for all, and I got to give my new camera its first outing.
Amy’s brother, Chris (far right) was in town for the weekend on hiatus from school.
OC Food Truck Goodness
Met up with Moo during the week to hit up the OC Food Truck fair at the OC Fairgrounds. Moo had a Yaki-dog from Dogzilla, I had Kim Chi Quesadilla…but the real champion of the evening was the Loco Moco fries from Dogzilla. Fries with grilled onions, spam, fried eggs on top, and nori. Probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten.
Also saw this hot beetle conversion in the parking lot.
Autocross in San Diego
Went down to San Diego the other weekend to help my friend Moo shoot his cousin driving at an SCCA Autocross. I also went to help Marc with a baby shoot, but he made the mistake of having all 5 babies over at once. It was chaos, got a few good shots, but none of the kids were cooperating. I didn’t really shoot
03/25/2012
Bang in the OC
My buddy Bang visited his sister in law in the OC the same weekend of St. Patty’s day. Since I haven’t seen him in probably over 5 years, I made every effort to meet up for dinner. We met up in Little Saigon…being that he’s Vietnamese, I figured he could lead me to some good food. And I was right.
St. Patrick’s Day in San Diego
Went down to San Diego last weekend to celebrate St. Patty’s day and an early birthday party for my buddy Marc. We spent the weekend doing photography stuff…taking pictures of Marc and Ericka’s baby girl and of course having a good time eating, drinking and hanging with friends. I even got to eat a Bacon filled waffle :) Rest of photos here.
03/12/2012
Working with Models Workshop
Since I moved out to Cali, I joined several photography Meetup.com groups. Last weekend I attended my first workshop, Working with Models. I’ve never actually worked with a real models before, so this a going to be an exciting new experience. Unfortunately, with last weekend being Daylight savings and me being an idiot and turning my clock back instead of forward, I missed the first half. But luckily, it was just the seminar portion, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. My friend Moo recorded it for me to listen to later, so I didn’t miss a whole lot. There were several lighting setups so that photogs and models could move around. Unfortunately, the light setups weren’t very interesting, so I found my own corner and setup some lights that we pooled together with some other guys.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from the shoot.
Here are some shots of the our light setup, Beauty Dish key light with 64” Paul C. Buff PLM on axis fill. We also had a few bare strobes on the background to give some accent light. (Moo running around in the background)
Keith and Joe (who provided the AB1600 and Beauty Dish), we were all on Cyber Sync triggers, so it made it easy to shoot together.
Some of the other setups the workshop leaders setup.
03/10/2012
Beachwood BBQ
Met up with some friends in Huntington Beach then rode our bikes over to Seal Beach. They were regulars at Beachwood BBQ…but didn’t bother trying the bbq, as I knew it wouldn’t be as good as Texas BBQ, so I got the Buffalo Sloppy Joe instead. It was delicious, so was the beer and deepfried pickles.
Bike Ride Portrait
I have been wanting to da shot like this for a while, and I just never had the right equipment to do it. But now that I have a fisheye, I decided to spend a few minutes to see if I could pull this off. I think its pretty cool.
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