Hells Belles at the Fox

It has been several years now that I have shot Hells Belles. It started off with a simple phone call and after I showed them my first shots I have been shooting many of their local shows ever since. I like the challenge of using the “natural” light of a venue. Some venues are definitely more of a challenge than others and some lighting tech’s are more challenging than others.

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The Belles are always good fun to shoot and they really do put on a great show! I hadn’t shot them for about 2 years when I finally got a new camera recently and figured it was time to stretch its legs! So how about we see what I got!

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Check out that guy smiling…kinda seems out of place doesn’t he?

Anyhow, The new camera is great, sharp pix. I find it to seem a bit less sensitive than my old camera, so I find that I have to shoot a bit lower shutter speed. I also think it really soaks up the reds a lot. so I may have to adjust a bit to that, overall i’m fairly satisfied with the results.

Here are a few favorites from the past several years with the old 1DMKII
Jamie

Jamie

Jamie

Adrian

Jamie

Adrian

Adrian

Anyhow, if you have never seen the Belles, check them out. They put on an amazing show and it is always worth the price of admission! Hells Belles Website

I’ve got a new camera!

Well, it has been a long time coming but I sold my 1d MK II and bought a 5d MK II! Here is a bit of a background for you.

Jonathan

I held out for a long time when it came to converting to digital. I made a point of waiting until the cameras that were available would provide the appropriate quality, but also would provide high speed autofocus, frames per second and a decent crop factor. I made a pact with myself that I would get a digital camera as soon as 8fps was available and as soon as that was available in a quality body. Turns out Canon came out with the 1d MK II and I just happened to tear my ACL at the same time. Well, under the influence of pain killers and boredom from recovery I clicked the buy button and a week or so later I had a new camera! The incredible thing is the price. That camera was $4595! I can’t believe I clicked that button!

That camera took me through a huge number of adventures. Nearly every published photo I have was shot on that camera! I think we can say that it paid for itself, possibly a few times over. When I finally sold it it had nearly 50,000 photographs and never once gave me a problem.

Unfortunately it isn’t like the days of film where the primary reason to upgrade was simply because you want a new camera. Nowadays a camera goes out of date fairly quickly and it was time to upgrade. My old camera shot 8 megapixel photos and my point and shoot camera shoots 12.1 megapixel photos! So I bought a 5d MK II. I haven’t been shooting a outside of product shots at work, and we have a camera at work, so it is a bit tough to justify this purchase. But I also can’t bring myself to not have a nice SLR. So how do I justify it? Well, I sold my old camera, it paid for half of the new one and my tax return, well that pays for the other half. The camera is also multipurpose. Not only does it shoot 21.1 megapixel photos, but it also shoots full HD videos with interchangeable lenses! This opens some doors for me! Now, if I want do do a bit of video work, well I have options!

So I’ve had the camera for about a week and it has already begun to inspire me to shoot photos. I took it to Georgetown to go ice racing. I only had a few chances to take a couple shots, but it was a good start. Then yesterday I helped out a friend with some photos. We started out in the studio and I just helped him set up everything for his own photos. Then I took him out of the studio and we shot his custom motorcycle out in the real world. I’m looking forward to more opportunities but here are two shots for you to check out initially.

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Jonathan