This is from a Leitz brochure in the 80's.
Leica M6
I still have a soft spot for this camera. I own one in chrome and in black. This was my third Leica after a M3 double stroke and a M4-2.
WPPI 2016
My visit to Wedding and Portrait Photographers convention in Las Vegas.
Lensrentals.com The chess player in me likes this.
I had no reason to go to a wedding photographers convention but I wanted to go to the trade show. Stopped by the Nikon area for NPS members to get an introduction to the new Nikon D5. Nice camera, looks like it is time for me to update. Meeting the pro's in the room reminded me that there are a lot of not nice people in the world. Makes me wonder how some people make a living in a field where you need to be professional and easy to work with. I was very impressed with the Phase One cameras and made a contact that I may have to get more information from, I might step up to medium format. I shot Hasselblad for a lot of years in the film world. At the Canon booth Peter Hurley was speaking, he is entertaining. The show was broken into two parts, one area the big names like Nikon and Canon and Profoto, and the other area with albums and props and smaller vendors. The big name area was full of younger males lusting over the equipment. The smaller area had what I would call the working pro's. Mostly younger couples or older men and women who sounded like they had been in the business a long time. Interesting. Not as many people as I was expecting. Making a living as a photographer is hard and getting harder. Don't give your work away.
Light Painting
Back in the day I used to use light painting to obtain shadowless product photos with photo floods. In the last few years the technique has returned for creative purposes.
Nikon and Light Painting
Light Painting is relatively easy thanks to digital capture. The base exposure settings are f8 at 30 seconds with long exposure noise reduction turned on. After the exposure the camera will take another black exposure to reduce the grain in the photo. Hence the Long Exposure Noise Reduction setting. I use a Streamlight 65018 Stylus pen light for exposing small objects. During the exposure keep the light source moving and turn it on and off as needed and don't expose with your hand in front of the lens. I usually hum a song so that I have a pattern that I repeat, i.e. this area for this verse and this area for the next verse and so on.
Streamlight 65018
This is a lighting technique that I enjoy using from time to time. You can get different results by putting gels over the light or some Vaseline on a spare filter.