Knuckledragger

NSFW if you look closely: Tony Alva 1975.

The Third Eye, a pinhole camera made from a 150 year old human skull.

You know what I haven't done in ages? Post any bloody photos in this thread. First a quick story. The weekend before last, I ended up in a bit of a sticky situation. I was on site at a rave, having been hired to take photos. I had my now nearly 5 year old EOS 30D, an EF 50mm F/1.4, EF 17-40 F/4L and 580EX speedlite. I use this combination or one similar to it all the time, and I'm well familiar with virtually every aspect of shooting with it. As anyone who has looked at my photos knows, I shoot almost exclusively available light, and generally at lower ISO settings that one might expect. My technique depends on being able to hit proper focus in bad lighting conditions. The AF assist beam produced by 580EX is essential to the way I work. For a variety of reasons none of which are worth explaining, I was rushed out the door to the gig. I had packed my camera bag the night before, and I knew I had the lenses I needed, freshly-charged camera batteries, and empty memory cards. When I got the venue, I discovered what I was lacking: fresh flash batteries. The 580EX chews through AA batteries, 4 at a time. I get longer life out of the batteries than most shooters, as I rarely take flash shots. Unfortunately for me, the batteries in the flash were basically dead on arrival. I usually keep a spare 4-pack in my camera bag, but I must have used them at some point and failed to replace them. I went around and tried to scrounge up a fresh set of 4 AAs. The crew I was working with produced a total of 4 between them, but they were pulled from remote controls and LED flashlights and lacked the juice to drive my flash. I asked another event photographer I know, who does nothing but flash shots. He said he was on his last set himself. So there I was, with my 30D and its questionable autofocus abilities, without an AF assist beam to bring it line. Worse still, I opted to bring my EF 50mm F/1.4, not my older 50mm F/1.8. I have an original 1987 Mark I 50/1.8. It's optically identical to the current production "nifty fifty" except that it's made out of metal and has a distance window. It's build quality is very similar to the much loved 35mm F/2. I use it over the more expensive and 2/3rds-of-a-stop faster 50mm F/1.4 USM because it has a larger depth of field, and hits focus much more readily. Even when stopped down to F/1.8 or smaller, the 50/1.4 has an annoying tendency to misfocus (usually it backfocues.) Additionally, the 50/1.8 has a hard infinity focus stop. This means if I switch it to manual focus I can hit infinity focus instantly. This is essential for long exposure night photography and can be help indoors as well. The 35mm F/2 does this and I use it all the time (especially now as the AF motor on my poor 35mm is blown.) Using the 50/1.4 without an AF assist beam, in bad lighting conditions is a combination I would never voluntarily use, yet I was stuck with it. I also had the 17-40L, which is always sharp and virtually always in-focus, but it lets in 1/8th of the light that the 50 does. I only use it for wide shots with a super slow shutter speed. So what did I do? I planned my shots carefully, and took far more "safety" exposures than I normally ever do. I ended up taking in excess of 1500 shots over the 4 1/2 hours I was working. That's 2-3 times as many as normal. I did end up with a bunch of usable shots, but sifting through them has been headache inducing. Now, a few shots from that night and a couple others: 50mm F/1.4 @ F/2, 1/60th, ISO 800. DJ HeavyGrinder and the crowd. 50mm F/1.4 @ F/1/4, 1/30th, ISO 800. DownLink the brostep headliner. 50mm F/1.4 @ F/1.8, 1/40th, ISO 320. 50mm F/1.4 @ F/2, 1/60th, ISO 800. EF 17-40 F/4L @ 17mm, F/4, 1/8th ISO1600 The lighting and visuals crew at work. 50mm F/1.4 @ F/2, 1/40th, ISO 1250. That last one is the Atomic Babies, a techno "live PA" act from Brooklyn. They used to bring drum machines and synthesizers with them when they performed. Now they use two MacBook Pros running Ableton Live. Never have I been so sad to see performers using Macs. All of the above shots are from the night I described at the beginning. I've got a bunch more photos to post, but it's a gorgeous day out and I'd really rather not stare at the computer screen any longer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sjiJtyKOtg

What do (both of) you mean by "higher aperture"? Higher number? That's a smaller aperture. Larger aperture? That's a lower number. This is why most photographers say "bigger" and "smaller" when referring to aperture. Depth of field math gets very complicated very quickly. Aperture value is important when determining it, as are focal length and magnification are, but not in the way one might expect. I do not claim to fully grasp the math behind it, but I know how to apply it to what I'm trying to do. There was a series of excellent articles on the subject at The Online Photographer a number of years ago: Depth-of-Field Hell Depth of Field Hell—The Sequel Depth of Field Hell: The Coda They are well worth one's time to read. From the above:

Trufax: The guy The Joeker is confronting is Vermont senator Patrick Leahy. The guy to whom Cheney said "go fuck yourself."

Excesively Large GIF theatre:

The new Commodore 64

wank while you wank.

Welcome to Up Entirely Too Early Theatre. This shooting schedule is killing me. This photo contains nekkid women is and is NSFW.