MudEyes

Ok! We have been real busy for one trying to get these workshops up and planned. It has taken a lot of emailing and organization which are areas which have been hard for me but everything is working out.

I just wanted to give you some updates since I haven’t put anything on here for a while. Lets start with last weeks 52!

I know hot right? This one is week [9/52] And I call it “Fun w/ Facial Hair / CreepyMcCreeperton” Like it says I am just having some fun before shaving my full beard off from when I was freezing in Grand Haven doing my last construction job, so don’t hide your kids! I am a nice guy under there!! I did shave it off like 5 minutes after i made it that way because we were shooting Brent, and Steph’s wedding that Day!

They were a pretty fun couple as you prolly saw from the slideshow that was up earlier. I took it off because I didn’t know how to keep it from auto playing. Which is annoying every time you open mudeyes.

That week it was beautiful out! So we decided to take a walk down to subway for some lunch! FYI ranch isn’t good on turkey =&. On the way back Holly asked me if I wanted to stop in the apartment office to see if the corner unit above us was vacant. She has been kind of going crazy (as was I) because there just isn’t enough space for what we need it this one bedroom. (For those of you who don’t know we both work from small one bedroom apartment there ya go!)

Anyway, we went in there and told us the end unit in the building about 50 yards from our building just opened up and if we want it, we could move in by the 18th! Sooo we are moving into an end unit in the next building =) This is been a pretty impulsive week.

It might have been that night I was looking on the apple site and I saw what I have been waiting for!!

Ho-ly-crap that thing is awesome. Here’s the tech specs for all the tech geeks like me. I can’t explain the way the new processors work but it’s much faster!! =) We got the 2.26 8(!!!)core “Nehalem”Processors 6GB RAM (awesome) a terabyte HD and the new 24” LCD Cinema Display!

This is Holly’s new workhorse so I had to spoil her a little bit so hopefully she will enjoy editing 25+ weddings and who knows how many seniors and families! I got the hand-me-down this time with a crappy tricked out 24″ iMac. I know life’s not fair. Anyway it arrives this Tuesday when we are the most busy with packing. So I won’t even be able to play with it! Dangit!

That Thursday we were at Andy and Nicole’s always fun office party and they just got a new 42″ Philips LCD TV which was great to watch The Office on! We got to talking about it and how I have never had a big TV and how we only had a sweet sweet vintage 25″ that was about 15 years old! They told us the got it from Sam’s club for under 600 bucks!! I was stunned that it was even possible! Soooo you can prolly guess that we went out the next day to Sam’s to see if they had any re-furbs laying around, which oddly enough they did! I told you it has been a impulsive week! But really they are all things we have been thinking about doing for a while and when opportunity knocks, I guess I love to swing the door open!

I love how all the things we would get in normal life is business related and a tax right off! I think I picked the right profession!

(NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**

I just wanted to say that by me putting this all on mudeyes, I hope you guys don’t see us as Braggy-McBraggertons. I have to give thanks to the Lord for one that he showed me my talent and put things, jobs, and people in place to be successful, and gave me a wife that I couldn’t do any of this without! I am not really bragging, I am just so excited about how much we are blessed. I haven’t always had a perfect life and God has put both Holly and I through a lot so that we could learn from it and help other people. I just want you guys to be excited with us!! We love you guys and we wouldn’t be were we are without a lot of the people that read this Blog so thanks you for encouraging us enough to be so successful!

Ok how about a sweet random macro shot of Holly’s eye I took with the Canon 100mm macro lens at f/8 handheld at 1600 iso!?

pretty sweet right?

And to end off this Random update entry, I leave you with our 10th week of 52 portraits. If you haven’t seen the movie Coraline, this is what she is going for! I guess the theme for the last couple weeks has been scary and creepy =)

Great right? hope you weren’t about to go to bed! That movie was a lot freakier then I thought it would be. But an awesome visual movie nonetheless!

On one last Random note, The workshops are coming up quick! And I have been setting up a fall workshop tour with a few people Down south before thanksgiving! Good thing I have some contacts that are willing to help me out! It is looking like we will Start out in Columbia, SC on October 24th-25th. Thanks Dan! Next we will be heading to Jacksonville where Dana Goodson will be helping me out, Then down to West Palm Beach thanks to the wonderful and talented soul of Liz Leighton! (big fan of hers) Next is Tampa/Clearwater which is still up in the air where I dont have a for sure contact just yet! The last stop before Thanksgiving would be in Little Rock, AR where Todd Owens is going to be helping me organize! Its going to be awesome!!

We still have spots open in out Dayton workshop this April 4th and 5th! Hit me up for some more info!!

OK! there is one last thing I forgot to mention.
You know how we have been going broke buying everything at once? Well there is one more thing. We decided to sell our last zoom lens, the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L. We got this one right before Christmas along with 10 grand of Canon Equipment with our switch from Nikon. We actually switched to Canon for their Fixed focal length lenses, but thought we needed this Lens for the range. Buut being a prime lover I tried the 135mm f/2L and I am willing to part with this zoom in favor for the 135mm. I dont even like zooms but if you are going to have a zoom this is the one!

You can see more pictures and such here.

I was going to wait until I sold that but with the workshop and and wedding coming up next weekend I went ahead and ordered the Canon 135mm f/2L yesterday!! You may remember when I rented it for the Colorado wedding i had a month ago but I love it!! I mean come ON look at the bokah.

Fageddabodit!

So I really would love to sell that zoom to help out. It is listed for $1699 at most every online retail store so I am asking $1,600 since I only used it a couple times and it is a US lens with existing warranty! Please email me at Ryan@RyanRichardPhoto.com if you are interest!

Until next time, mucho loveo!

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I just put up new items in my etsy shop!

Save the Dates, Graduation Announcements and Invites, Original Paintings and more!

They will only be up for sale for a limited time, so be sure to check it out! Once wedding season starts up again with photography I will be pulling everything down again.

I hope you find something you love!

-holly

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Hey Guys! we have been getting a great response for the workshop and I have been rounding up some models for us to practice on and found a great location that hopefully the city wont mind me using! I can usually get away with sneaking around abandoned places but its a little harder with like 16 people =) There is like one spot left in the kalamazoo workshop and a few in the Dayton one so I am really pumped to have some fun soon!

Holly has really been nailing the editing process which is great for all you workshoppers! So without further adue, here is Jessie!

Man I wish I could post them all this big but it barely gets cut off of the right side. Dont worry we are planning to get a new fancy blog soon with big pictures for all! heres some more =)

I don’t know why but I always like seeing pictures of people on shoots. So I thought I would share one of my own!

Wasn’t she great?! Now I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but this is a NON zoom, prime lens ONLY workshop! I may have someone bring a kit lens or even a pro zoom but only to illustrate how much better a prime is. Notice also that I am close to my subject using a 50mm. I have seen a lot of workshops where they all stand 10-20 feet back as if there was a line, but that is not going to happen in ours. You will be pushed out of your comfort zone to get different angles and get close, because primes loooove to get close!

Hope you enjoyed this! We have a hair and makeup artist come in from Detroit that is actually one of my brides so our subjects are going to look edgy and stunning! Get excited!!

p.s. I only put 10 on here because I dont like to log jam my blog but if you add me as a friend on facebook, you can see 27 of them! =)

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Details for the Kalamazoo and Dayton workshop have been set! We are still working out locations and the fine details but here’s the story!

I have been really getting pumped about getting sponsorship from borrowlenses.com and if these two workshops go well I would really love to do some traveling around the country and do a workshop tour. I sure know enough people in a lot of states to make it possible!Here are some of the cities where workshops could happen this fall:

Salt Lake City, UT
Detroit, MI
Denver, CO
Dallas, TX
San Francisco, CA
Cedar Rapids, IA
Nashville, TN
Phoenix, AZ
New York, NY

So if you are a fan or a friend and would like to see us come down and do a workshop for you and your friends please let us know! Wish us luck =)

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So Holly and I went down to Dayton to visit with her friend Konrad, get her hair did, and while we are down there have a lead meeting with a potential wedding client! Being Valentines day I figured I would check out good ol’ Orbitz to see if there was any fancy hotels for a reasonable price. I found the DoubleTree down in Miamisville down near Dayton. Check out my romantical skillz!

I got in trouble the next day for eating her cooking =( good thing it wasn’t valentines day anymore!

The inside said, oh well spelling is for losers, wanna make out? 😉

While she was getting her hair done I went to the room and unpacked everything and made everything look nice for her arrival.

It was a pretty fancy place we enjoyed it!

That night we went to Cincinnati to meet up with our friends Brent and Katie. Katie designs all our albums and she is great at it. We thought we would show our appreciation but hooking them up with a free Valentines day shoot! It helped that they are a fun good looking couple 😉

Heres a few that i teased them with before we finished them all!

I had to scale a wall and hang off a fence to get this wonderful upshot!

We found some really cool places found earlier by Brent. Client’s suggestions never work out like this.

After some cool industrial shots we headed downtown for some urban/night shots.

We needed a break from the cold and stubbled into this banquet building location that begged for the fisheye!

We actually ended up spending our valentines Dinner with them at Steak N’ Shake and it was a great time !

On Sunday we had lunch with Holly’s friend Konrad from Cedarville, and then called up a couple friends to have a photo adventure in yellow springs! My friend from flickr Thor and Holly’s friend Cameron and his wife came along just to see what we could see and have some fun!

Cameron let me use his Canon 17-40mm f/4 and while I am not a zoom fan, using an ultra wide is fun!

Maybe I should try and make this a texture?

Thor letting me have some fun with the fisheye =)

We found a random washing machine that had a free sign on it… So of course I made Holly model on it for us =)

And finally Holly getting this AWEsome frozen leaf shot.

That night we stayed with Brent and Katie in Cincinnati. That morning we called up Holly’s friend Cornel to do a shoot with us just for fun. It turned out pretty great and we even got Katie to join in on the fun!

Taken by Holly in a fast food sign graveyard!

Playing with the focal length settings on my 580EX II

One of our greatest upshots!

Cornel and her red hot mini cooper.

The location we found turned out great! It was an old water treatment plant. Great colors! [taken by Holly]

Most all these shots taken wide open with the awesome Sigma 50mm f/1.4 HSM.

All in all we had a great time, got some great shots and we even got a big TV that Katie and Brent gave us that they weren’t using after they bought their new TV. But we have an old and busted 25 inch tv since we spend all our money on equipment!

BIG NEWS!

We set the dates for workshops in Kalamazoo[march 28th-29th], and possibility Dayton [April 3-4th]

check out this jackpot location we found in Dayton!

Here is some details.

The workshop is going to be geared toward beginner to Intermediate photographers and we are focusing on using “Prime”, or fixed focal lenses. I am going to be renting a variety of lenses like 35,50 and 85mm. Maybe even a fisheye!

Also we are going to talk about different lenses and what is best for your style. We will also be talking about exposure and some other technical issues new photographers face. We will be doing a good amount of shooting on some various models and talk about how to shoot in manual exposure mode.

The second day will be focused on editing and workflow along with some more shooting!

A DSLR is required and fixed focal length lenses are what we will be using so if you have one of two be sure to bring it! You will also be able to use anything I own and anything I rent for the workshop!

If you are interested I just need a half down deposit to hold your spot as there is only 10 spots available. The cost will be $250 for 2 days. Also please let me know what gear you are working with, and what kind of things you would like to learn about most.

Thanks I hope to see you there!!
ps heres a list of lenses I plan to rent

Canon 135mm f/2L,
Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro,
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4,
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II,
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8,
Canon EF 28mm f/1.8,
Canon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye,
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 HSM x 2,
Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF,
Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF,
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF,
Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye,
Sigma 30mm f1.4 for Nikon DX,
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM for Canon.

Please email me if you are interested! ryan@ryanrichardphoto.com

I already have 6 people interested for the Kalamazoo workshop so let me know soon! Thanks!!

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We are just getting back from our super cool weekend in Denver, where i shot a wedding a little east of Vail at the four star Westin Hotel we did lots of stuff in Denver which Holly wanted to write the post about but I wanted to show you some shots from the wedding.

I borrowed my dad’s Car to get me to the wedding which was a couple hours away and about 15 miles into the mountains i hear some loud grinding or tapping and lots of smoke! Of course! So I am stranded and my dad had to come swap me cars. I HATE being late but luckly I was only second shooting and it wasn’t a huge deal if I was 45 minutes late!!

Luckily my dad traded me this car for this mountain carving turbo rocket. =)

Anyway big thanks again to Jared Wilson who gave me the opportunity to second shoot with him at this awesome wedding. Here he is at work.

Here’s one of my first shots using the Canon 135mm f/2L I rented from borrowlenses.com I used it wide open pretty much all day and loved it.

These kids were suuuper cute so I had to take advantage of the glorious bokah that I used in the shot above.

My first assignment as a second shooter was to hang out in the lobby and take some candids of the family while they wait for the shuttles to take them to the ceremony location. Luckily there was a massive window with lots of light. The 135mm was perfect!

The whole guest list was either from Mexico or from Texas so I’m sure he had a lot of calls from people that couldn’t make it. Never thought of Colorado as a destination location but that’s exactly what it was!

This was a catholic wedding. Which was an HOUR long. but plenty of things going on the whole time.

I also rented a Canon 28mm f/1.8 which I was VERY impressed with, and I really enjoy the focal length! Here it is wide open.

Check out this church!

The Reception was back at the Westin and did not disappoint!

There was even a lounge, talk about setting the mood!! So chill.

In comes the new couple!

We Start things off with the first dance; thank you 135L!

Sweet band as well!

This is my first wedding with a real wedding planner and I have to say I wish I had a lot more, with all the sweet presentation and details they can bring to the table. I mean the bride and groom’s glasses had Diamonds in them! Diamonds!
Taken with the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro

After not eating for 9 hours this was really tough to look at =) Don’t worry they did feed all the vendors later on, and while it was a good meal it wasn’t this unfortunately!

I will leave you with this shot of the bride and groom. It was weird being a second shooter but I enjoyed it. Who wouldn’t enjoy it with a great looking couple, interesting venus, and a crazy family? I do miss the bride and groom money shots but I would love to shoot with Jared again!

Double R out 😉

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Hey everyone! This is Ryan, and I was just thinking about all the blogs I stalk and how impatient I am when they don’t put new posts on every few days! So I guess I can’t really talk since I am pretty bad at keeping this thing going strong. I have a lot of exposure avenues I use and its just hard to stop and take the time to make this thing look nice.

BUT! I have great news!
So Holly has been working for me full time since, well we got married last June. I, on the other hand, had a second job which I did scale back my hours to 3 days a week. I had planned on breaking ties with Mulder Glass this spring around the end of May when wedding season starts kicking in. But they have been slow and not using me all that much so I thought about it and decided to go full time a little early! So now I will be able to spend more time in Photography mode, and I hope to write in this blog much more frequently.

I have to thank God that he has really blessed our business after one profitable year to be able to have enough work sustain both of us for a whole year! I never thought I would have my own business, let alone one I love so much and can be so excited about! We are looking into all kinds of different avenues, such as hosting workshops, lots of networking and we are hoping to go overseas this fall to start working on the photo-books which have been our ultimate goal from the beginning.

We are also doing a 52 weeks self portrait challenge! All you people on flickr Know what I am talking about, but you basically take an interesting picture of yourself that depicts a common theme, or what you have been doing or feeling that week. Some people do a 365 but that would just be hard for how busy we will be. You can really think about your shots on a weekly basis instead of churn out a new one everyday.

So we are on week 6 of this so I will catch you up. I am hoping to post them every weekend on here, to get me more in the groove of blogging and being more constant.

Before I show you those I thought I would let you know what posts I plan on writing soon!

.New 35mm f/1.8 AF-s release by nikon that focuses with the D40/D60
.Lots of lens reviews! Canon: 28mm f/1.8, 135mm f/2, 70-200mm f/2.8IS, 100mm f/2.8 macro and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4HSM
.Facebook Marketing
.Spring workshop details!
.More technical lessons

Anyway, heres the first few 52’s!

Week [1/52] Off camera flash
We had a little fun getting used to the pair of Canon’s 580EX IIs using off camera flash. There’s a whole set of fun shots on my Facebook

Week [2/52] Big Fattys!
Obviously for my 5D vs D700 review!

Week [3/52] Saucy-Snow lumber-lady
Shot in a fancy hotel I got for like 90 bucks in Cleveland the night before an Engagement shoot
This shot was available light (lightbulb from a lamp shot with a Sigma 50mm @ f/1.4)
She bought the hat because we were shooting outside the next day and it was like 3ºF)

Week [4/52] Pretty Pack-Rat
This is Holly’s Massive jewelry collection all balled up =) Shot on our bed with another lamp

Week [5/52] Facebook Marketing!
Post about this to come… but to sum it up My business wouldn’t be the same without my iPhone and without Facebook!

And finally this week [6/52] We headed to Denver which you can prolly see from the above post and had some fun with an aspiring photographer Erika Jessop She is already and excellent Graphic Designer and an AWEsome artist! But she wanted to buy a big girl camera to upgrade from her kodak super zoom. Sooo I gave her a Canon 5D Mark II with a bunch of prime lenses to play with. We did a little walk around the block and had some fun! She’s actually really good!!

Thanks for reading guys! Please leave a comment so I can know you are there! =)

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Hello again!

As promised, here are my impressions of the new Canon 5D Mark II
versus the Nikon D700. In mind my primary focus is on the 5D.

I have just been taking notes of pros and cons and I guess I will just
expand upon them and see how things go! I am only mentioning things
that are important to me as a wedding/portrait photographer and only
differences that stand out against each other. Surprisingly these are
two very different means to one glorious end. Lets start with the good
news.

Advantages:

The 5D has GREAT Image quality. I never thought 21
megapixels would make a difference, but I don’t know for some reason
there is just a magical quality! It looks especially good in the
screen after you take the picture. Of course thats with jpeg settings
applied albeit how minimal they are when I shoot. There is a lot of
room for cropping, which for me is good since I prefer using primes. I
guess that can be somewhat of a disadvantage for some since you need
the best glass to take advantage of the resolution. Which means big
cash for good glass.

Here is a crop from the 5D shot with a 50mm Canon f/5.6 @1/60th ISO 400 Below is the same crop with the D700 and a nikkor 50mm at the same settings.
You may be asking, why not show both cameras at 100 percent crop? Well I didn’t to show the advantages of more megapixels. At 100 percent the D700 is much softer the the same crop of a 5D. Here is a sample of the resolution difference:

I wish i could show you larger images, but this blog cant contain it! The differences are a little more subtle when viewed small like this. Which is a great achievement for both sensors since this is an extreme crop! to see bigger files go here

Also something weird it that the same conditions yielded a brighter image from the nikon or is it more contrast? Maybe both? Intriguing nonetheless.

The ISO performance is almost on par with the D700, with twice
the resolution. I never thought this would be possible
jamming this many pixels onto a 35mm sensor, but they have seemed to
make it look pretty good. They do apply a good amount of noise
reduction at higher iso even when shooting raw, but it doesn’t look
too bad. 3200 looks fine but 6400 starts to smudge a little too much
and I try not to use it unless I have to.

The Above is a very cropped image is the 5D with no noise reduction at 6400
and the below image is the same from the D700. Now I am not showing this but the shadow noise is very well controlled with the nikon but you can see a lot of smudging. The 5D has a lot of the red dot noise in the shadows, but is still pretty sharp and contrasty, while the D700 isn’t.
Keep in mind the pixels are smaller on the 5D because its not at 100 percent like the D700 is. Another advantage of more resolution.

Canon has the best prime lenses in the class. (And
the most expensive.) But like I said earlier, that’s what kind of
glass it takes to resolve 21 megapixels! This is one of the main
reasons I switched. You need as much speed as you can get shooting
weddings. The light more often then not, sucks… a lot. So there’s
just no replacement for speed.

For Nikon we have the 50 and 85mm f/1.4 along with the 135mm f/2
For Canon we start out in the range with the 24 and 35mm f/1.4. Then comes the super speed 50 and 85mm f/1.2 topping out with the 135mm f/2
Not to mention all of Canons lenses are recent designs leaving Nikon in the dust in the prime time.

The 580EX II has been somewhat impressive. Though I
haven’t used Nikons flagship flashs so I can’t say for sure if its
better. They have been fairly easy to use, as far as flash goes.

Screen is brilliant, though Nikon’s is just as good.
Not much of advantage but just thought I would throw that out there.
At least Canon is showing a little effort unlike when they tried to
pass an $8,000 camera with a junk screen!

VIDEO 1080p! with external audio out. (good because
the internal mic picks up everything going on around the camera.
especially manually focusing, and noisy IS) Though I haven’t used the
video much it’s a huge, huge plus for a lot of people. I’m sure i
could use it for certain occasions to give me a slight edge. We love
to travel as well, and photojournalism overseas almost demands video
is some scenes. I do wish it auto focussed though. It’s surprisingly
tough to compose, correct exposure and compose. Not made for full time
video, but sure is handy!! Check out this video shot with the 5D Mark II

5D Movie

The 5Ds Auto ISO knows your focal length and sets shutter
speed accordingly. This is a pretty cool feature. We don’t
normally use auto, but if you are switching from a wide to a
telephoto, this can be very helpful to limit iso when wide and still
get a higher shutter speed with a telephoto.

5D doesn’t have internal flash. Why is this a plus?
Well for me I didn’t like it on the D700. I would always bump it, even
with a flash mounted, and I don’t know, it just seems less
professional with a built in flash. I also like the look of the
shorter pentaprism cap.

Much lighter then D700 (1.8lbs vs. 2.2lbs) Yeah it’s
less then a half pound, but every ounce counts when its hanging from
your neck for 12 hours!

ISO expandable to 50 equivalent. I always find myself
wanting more when using fill flash to get blue skies that require very
little exposure. So this is nice! I’m not sure what kind of penalty it
brings being “boost” but I would be interested to know.

The 5D has a dedicated live view button. This is nice
because I would always forget I was in live view on the D700 because
its on a dial. Once I press the live view button on the 5D it goes
back to normal when I’m done. Along those same lines, I have found the
exposure simulation VERY useful because I shoot in Manual. i don’t
have to click off frames trying to get my exposure and white balance
right while my subjects think I am taking a picture.

It has strap ring under grip for more vertical use. I
haven’t dared trying this while on a job but maybe I will sometime.
Then again, I don’t find myself shooting vertically as much as with
the D700 because the grip sucks comparatively. But then maybe thats
somewhat of a plus because I found myself shooting vertically a little
too much.

Strap rings are fixed not floppy. I found this kind
of annoying with the D700. Just a little thing but a nice change.

Lens mount feels slightly more firm and wobble-less
though I still wish it didn’t move at all.

Quiet shutter release. The shutter release sound is
an acquired taste. After hearing the Nikon’s it sounds electrical and
junky and slow. Alas I have gotten used to it, and it is more quiet,
which is good for ceremonies and anywhere else you want to be ninja
like while trying to get candids. I will say the blackout time is
shorter on the Nikon.

ISO reading is always in status bar. Those times with
the Nikon when I find I have been shooting at a higher iso speed then
needed are very frustrating, so this is a nice addition.

More room for fat thumbs in horizontal (but much
worse in vertical) This isn’t a huge deal, because the nikon is still
sufficient but just nice to have a little extra room.

All the Preset white balance settings have their K value next
to them(In the menu). Since it’s harder with Canon to shoot
with manual Ks this may be handy to memorize k value at pre-
settings.

The Custom user mode is pretty awesome! There is 3
spaces on the command dial (C1,C2 and C3) This is great for me,
because you can prepare yourself for different settings beforehand;
not with people waiting, or with you missing the shot! Like when we
run out of the ceremony to get a shot of them walking out of the
chapel, the next place you are trying to shoot is much different. You
can preset the exposure, white balance, iso, pretty much everything as
far as I know. The only drawback is that if you switch settings while
on one of the custom modes at some point they go back to what you
originally set it to in the beginning. If you want to change anything
permanently you have to register it in the menu. But nonetheless a
really cool and useful feature!

With the 5D you can use different sized raw files.
which can be helpful to save room while shooting images you know they
wont blow up. But then maybe you wont have the same cropping ability?
We haven’t really used it yet but it’s a nice option to have.

Disadvantages:

21 megapixels. We have found that shooting with that
much resolution is surprisingly not as easy to edit(At least
creatively). We use Adobe Lightroom 2 and it just seems so far, that
it takes more of everything to affect so many pixels the way we are
used to with the D700. We find ourselves maxing out the slider without
much happening. I don’t know if thats just lightroom not being
powerful enough, but hopefully others are finding the same and will be
fixed sometime in the future. Bottom line, maybe good maybe bad, but
you can get some great results it just takes a lot more effort.

Battery Grip feels cheap and not nearly as good as
the 5D Grip and not even close to the MB-D10. It feels like the old
D200 grip which was even better then the Canon grip. Nikon has a leg
up on that front. Maybe its a marketing choice making the D1s look
like it’s worth the extra money. I know I would pay more for a grip
that felt like the Nikon’s does.

Look how nice the Nikon grip is. The curved thumb, and curved grip show nikon gives a crap how things feel. You can see how soft it is compared to the Canons. I also really like the stalkless design. For some reason both batteries put in the canon drain at the same time unlike the nikon that does one at a time. Who cares? Well sometimes you dont use both batteries so you dont want to have to charge both. With Canon, you dont get that option.

The 5D body’s rubber is not as soft and grippy as D700. (see above). strong> This was something I really loved about the Nikon and it will
be missed! Seems like a no brainer to me Canon. Again, maybe the D1s
has good soft rubber so hooray for capitalism!!

Can’t manually select WB with out going into the menu. strong> THIS is a biggy. I mean come ON! I am a wedding photographer,
I don’t have time to go into a menu for that! What pisses me off more
is that in the 1D series you can assign the “set” button for white
balance but can you in a cheaper camera? Oh no. You gotta pay
thousands more for that! 10,9,8,7… Ok I am calm… they did
make up for it a little by being able to adjust WB in live view where
I can nail it pretty well. But its still much slower then the way
Nikons change Ks manually.

You can’t view last image magnified without pushing play
button first. This is my other big beef. The D700 was awesome
for checking focus. you just press the center button after the shutter
releases, and you are looking at a magnified image, and on to the
next. With Canon, I can assign the set button to review, but for some
reason I have to press the set button even though the image is already
displayed if I want to zoom in. Not to mention after i press the
center button, you have to press the zoom button like 5 times to get
the mag. of the Nikon’s one push. Something that could be easily done
Canon! I hope I am helping them with the next firmware update. Heh,
boy do I wish that was true.

Focus points often get lost in dark situations and
unused points litter the viewfinder. Another thing the D700 is way
ahead on. 90% of the time I use the center point, and on the D700 even
if it got lost in the dark, (which i don’t ever remember happening) it
has the little ( ) things surrounding the focus points to give
you some reference. The 5D also doesn’t light up the focus point as
much when the shutter release is half pressed. I just can’t believe
Canon hasn’t updated their AF from the old one. I’m sure the 1Ds is
much better don’t worry.

Build quality not up to par with D700. It is still
pretty good, but once you handle them side by side you can just tell
the Nikon is a brick! And as I said earlier, the soft rubber is a huge
plus for the nikon. Ergonomics are much better then I thought they
would be on the 5D so at least it’s got that going for it.

Shutter sound is horrible compared to D700. As I said
before, Sounds not nearly as tight or professional, but it is more
quiet. So pick what you would rather have.

Slow frame rate. I don’t use this a whole lot except
for jumping shots and such, so it’s not a huge deal. 8 frames per
second was pretty awesome on the Nikon compared to “3.9”. Good thing I
don’t really shoot sports.

Nikon has worlds more customizable options in a menu
that is easier to use. I expand upon this below. Not a deal breaker,
but really nice to have!

Can’t leave embedded comment or copyright info out of camera. I’m sure you can do this in lightroom or something, but
something nice to have to prove the images are yours.

Cant Keep the backlight “on” lighting the status window. strong> This is pretty annoying. The Nikon’s backlight comes on every
time the meter starts so I can see what I am doing in the dark.
Another easy fix if they were thinking at all.

Can’t reverse main and sub dials. As a D700 user, I
use the front dial for aperture, and the back for shutter speed. And
the highly customizable Nikon even lets me switch! Not the Canon
though… it is donkey backwards. I will get used to it, but man it is
frustrating for now.

Can’t change file naming. This was nice for Holly and
I because we could tell who shot what by the prefixes on the file I
liked to use RRP_xxxx.NEF or R27 yatta yatta… not a big deal just
again, nice to have.

Doesn’t have interval timer shooting. This is a
feature that is really awesome if you like time lapse. You can’t
program a release schedule like on the nikon. Hope you have a
timer…Kind of weird that they don’t have that… set it and forget
it for the nikon!

No option to shoot compressed or lossless RAW (d700
has 23mb 14-bit lossless uncompressed files) I am guessing that the
Canon shoots compressed raw files because they are pretty consistently
25MB give or take. If they were uncompressed they would probably be
like 35MB. It may be a bigger deal to you more then me because they
don’t offer 12-bit like the Nikon, but they make up for it with the
sRAW file sizes.

Deleting a photo is a 3 step process for every image.
Unlike the Nikon which you can double push the trash button as fast as
you can. Canon makes up for it by letting you erase select images. For
example, you go through and check them off and delete all the selected
files at once. Which is almost better because you can uncheck
something you didn’t mean to check. You can’t un-delete something!

Cant Switch ISO as fast but not a big difference.
With the Nikon you Hold the button and turn the dial with two opposite
thumbs simultaneously. With the Canon you push with your index, and
then turn the dial with the index.

Well that’s about all I have found… There is a lot of differences
don’t you think? Seems like the companies would adapt the smaller
advantages just as much as the big selling points. It seems to me that
Canon puts all their resources into sensor and lens development, while
Nikon took more time to refine every aspect of the body to be more
useful when shooting making it a joy to use. But then they are way
behind on lens development.

Really they are 2 great cameras! I would say if you don’t need the
resolution, video, or super fast primes, get the D700 you will love
it! If you DO need those things there’s just no better then the 5D. I
am very demanding of cameras, and wish there was much more improvement
with the Mark II generation, but I may just have the wait for the
fourth generation 1Ds update, and hope they don’t go pixel crazy, and
work on ISO performance. One can only hope. Now I just have to save up
6 grand for a set of L primes! Wish me luck! And Feel free to comment
on any fixes for my problems or add any plus or minuses.

8 comments

post by: holly

Christy and Garret were our last wedding of 2008 and the first one with our new Canon 5D markII gear.

Getting their wedding really was a blessing for me. I had been tossing around getting a job somewhere during the few months where we didn’t have any work and then Elisa (their wedding preview is coming) had told I believe Christy’s aunt about us so that is how she found us. Last minute weddings are exciting for me, I feel like they seem to come right when I am just itching to go out shooting so it is always good timing. Anyways, back to my story… I was so happy to get them because this keeps me working for another month. I certainly like doing this more than just any job at a store or something. On top of that, it was a pretty great wedding! I did awesome on it and have a lot of keepers, which was another blessing because I was kind of worried about the new Canon gear. I feel like it usually takes me a long time for my hands to learn things as I don’t have the best coordination and Canon is basically the complete opposite from Nikon but I adjusted really well. I have noticed that I learn best when I HAVE TO and at a wedding you know, you only get one shot at getting it right so it was a miracle how quickly I got used to it.

I loved her flowers in her hair. Flowers are such an awesome accessory. I wish I would have thought about that for my wedding. I don’t know how she stuck them in there, but those roses stayed in there until we left the reception which is pretty impressive.

This girls dress was awesome. That is all that needs to be said.

We had so many awesome dress shots. The big stained glass window was as awesome place for them.

Ryan calls the one below “doves delivery” haha he is a genius!

I thought this was pretty hilarious. I didn’t even see it until I looked through all the photos. This is a very good idea though, boys tend to forget things easily….such as washing themselves…thoroughly.

Since it was a winter wedding, she was all ready for the misery of Michigan in December. She had the fancy gloves and a fur wrap and even a fur muff!

The lovely bride.

Time to eat! Something to note about this is the left photo is an extreme crop. I am pretty impressed with the cropping abilities of the 5D markII

I just love this photo, the colors and composition are so interesting to me. Her dress was fabulous as well. It was something different and that was refreshing.

ok last bride shot…but I had to include it, I love it!

The girls being tough in the cold..wind…and rain.

…enough being tough…time to run back inside!

The mens.

This wedding was different from all the rest we have had and thats good for us, it keeps us sharp. I was following the girls back to the room where they were going to walk out of to go down the isle and we walk in, and there is Garret! Typically, the groom is already up there so I was kind of shocked. Luckily, I was able to get this great shot of his face upon first seeing her!

I love how we can get shots from different angles of such great moments like this. The ceiling in this place was amazing which always makes me happy since I always do the shot from the back. 🙂

There was a glass overlook on the top floor of the church which was really exciting for me since I love when places allow us to do some different things.

This was right after the ceremony. He just had enough I guess. He perked right up for the reception though, he was crazy!

See? I told you.

I love how soft this is, a cloudy day really makes things all kinds of magical.

I hate to use this word again so quickly…but seriously, this really is magical. 🙂

They really were troopers with all the rain we had that day. After we took these shots, we went to go back inside as the rain was getting worse and we realized we didn’t wedge something in the door and locked ourselves out. Nobody was around there so I ran around the church to go open up the door and found that the quickest way around included jumping off this ledge in my heels that was like 5 feet off the ground. If you follow my posts, you probably know I am not all that coordinated but surprisingly I didn’t fall. Landing in those shoes sure wasn’t comfortable, but i’ll take that over falling down into a big puddle.

The bridesmaids gave this to Garret at the reception. Not sure of the story behind that…but I thought it would make the greatest ring shot.

The reception was held in a theatre so they had the catwalk going around on top which made for another sweet shot from above!

Haha yay! They love our logo!

The light was seriously crazy in this room. It was black everywhere so our flashes were having problems so I just ditched it and I glad that I did. It really captures the mood so much better with all the crazy lights everywhere.

Haha…oh how I love the comparison.

Ryan took the shot of the woman on the left and showed me and so I told him to go up to this guy who was collecting the money for the dollar dance and hold it out and make a crazy face as I had a feeling it would be pretty nuts…and I was right. This guy was crazy, If only I had video of everything because it was pretty funny.

Overall, it was a great wedding and had lots of fun things to photograph. I am finishing up editing it today so I will give a preview of Gruss soon. 🙂

3 comments

Pst by: holly

One very important and very interesting thing I learned in college is that when you have a million things to get done, you accomplish so much more than if you have only a few things to get done. Well, at least that seems to be the case with me. I think it is the pressure and the structure that really gets me naturally motivated.

After college, life has not been all that structured and even though we had a crazy summer, it has been more relaxing than school ever was which has been a nice break. 2009 is going to be nuts for us. Ryan is going full time with me in June and we are just about non stop until October. We are already starting to plan out how we will schedule our days and I am looking forward to it. I feel very ready to be structured again and am SO excited for him to be full time photography with me! It will be great for him to just be in “photography land” and not have to think about construction anymore. With both of us full time I think my workload will be much less stressful. We work well together so it is gonna be awesome.

I have been on a journey to get in shape and the goal is to be feeling good by June. I have never really committed to exercising…ever…but then again I never felt like I needed to which I realize is ridiculous.
It is about weight, but then again its not. I am not overweight for my height, but I just don’t feel good in this body and I know I am not as healthy as I know I could be. I want to run without getting winded in a few minutes and I just don’t want my body to limit me from certain things in life. It is always best to catch things before they get really bad and I want to be in the best shape of my life for this years wedding season. I believe that if you feel good about yourself everything else in life gets a little easier. So that is really what is keeping me motivated.

I am almost done with the Talarczyk wedding and will hopefully be starting the Gruss wedding tomorrow. See…that really isn’t a ton to get done but If I really push and get them done soon then I get to do other fun things! I have really been hoping to get this blog looking awesome lately and I found the perfect guy to build it for us for a price we can afford, so that is next on my list. I have big hopes for this blog this year. I promise to be better about posting for 2009. That is certainly one of my goals. I love looking at other photographers blogs so I realize this is really an important part of the business. I love learning about other people and their lives so I assume perhaps people would enjoy getting to know us too. 🙂

Ok…seriously…gonna get back to work…AFTER I do a preview post from the Talarczyk wedding. 🙂

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note: I did in fact copy and paste their last name every time I referred to it, haha. I have no idea how to pronounce it, I tried to listen for people saying it at the wedding but that didn’t happen. Most challenging name yet and I thought people had a hard time with Gauper… 🙂

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