Bill Pador > Well today has been a great day for photography, it's was wonderful outside. Crystal light blue skies, almost cloud free and the temps at a balmy 55' but very bearable. I had a late night staying up all night processing 580 images from a sweet 16 shoot I did last week, then I had a McDonald's breakfast YUMMY and then off to play with my camera all day. I started at my youngest daughter (11) Alexa's Dance Competition (she's a nationally ranked dancer with several national titles - yes I'm a proud papa LOL). 

NO FLASH was allowed and it was very dark with just stage lights from over head and I was about 40' from the stage, so once again I had to push the D300 into it's comfort zone Focal length 105mm, 1/250 @ f/5.3 High ISO Noise Reduction set to Normal and ISO 2000 ! Yes I said 2000 and I wanted to show those who don't know about the fantastic low light capabilities of the D300 what it can truly do. This shot is 100% SOTC ! Not even a hint of sharpening, just converted it from RAW to .jpg in PS RAW Bridge and saved it. As you know noise is best seen in blacks & dark colors and especially skin tones, I've uploaded the full size file as well so you could see up to X3-LARGE size so you can see how good the D300 handles noise in low light conditions, Remarkable !!! I also only used my 18-200 VR lens which isn't even close to the sharpest in my bag (but shines at 105mm about it's sharpest around this length) and this shot IMO came out Awesome! I have 100+ others like it that I shot during her 3 minute routine LOL and they all came out great ! Oh I also was using the 51 Point 3D Constant Tracking Focus feature !

I traveled to a bunch of my favorite landscape sites along with the Horse Stud Farm. I'll post more tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend, I know I am !!!

~Bill~
Bill Pador > This abstract was shot while I was fooling around in the still life studio the other night and is SOTC. The word 'FILTER' comes from the small Halogen light I was using to highlight this wine glass and is on the glass in front of the bulb. The word was able to reflect off of the wine in the glass and thought it was pretty cool that the colors of the wine changed so much from this lighting technique. It is a red wine but when shot at an angle it changed to various shades of red with the yellows & oranges coming through as well. I hope you enjoy this one, it's a little different from my usual work but being different is what it's all about right !

Thanks to all of you who have emailed me since my illness, you have all brought great joy to my heart knowing that so many of you care so deeply about me & my health. I've been a little slow the past few days because of my back injury but today is a GOOD day finally and I'm feeling wonderful today. The cold weather here in New Jersey is getting tough to handle and I'm really looking forward to Spring, it just can't come fast enough. Hopefully one of these years I'll be able to move to Florida and not have to worry about the cold anymore, it's one of the things that affects my disabilities the most and if I move to a warmer climate I'll have much less health problems (I hope LOL). For all of you who are chronic pain patients like me always remember that you can email me when your feeling down and need someone to talk to, I fully understand how it can affect your emotions and I've learned some things on how you can turn that negative pain into positive emotion using photography. Hope you are all having a fantastic day and now I'm off to comment on your images ! Thanks Daily Group, you guys are the BEST friends a man could ever ask for !!!

~Bill~
Bill Pador > I was playing around in my Still Life Studio tonight and happen to find a really nice looking tomato in the fridge, so I decided to shoot it for one of my subjects tonight. I used an old nasal spray bottle with water & a drop of blue food coloring (to bring the detail of the drops out more) and the background is my waste paper basket which is like an iron mesh behind it. The tomato sat in a plastic cup to bring the height up to match the mesh part I wanted to put it in front of. Then I took 2 small clip on halogen lights below the tomato shooting straight up to back light the tomato, 1 desk light from above & behind, 1 light at 5 o'clock shooting up/back to give that small highlight on the lower right, then I dialed in a custom white balance to change the hue of the light to get the basic colors you see. I managed to get a blue & reddish color out of it that way but kept the tomato nice & red without changing it's color. 

Oh BTW this was shot in RAW format so I had full control in LightRoom, Once in Lightroom I did normal sharpening & contrast adjustment, adjusted the black level and boosted the hue of the blue to purple and the reddish orange hue a bit but couldn't move the sliders much or it screwed up my tomatoes color. I also adjusted the yellows which brought out the water drops a bit more and gave them some punch since the white balance I used made the light reflection of the water drops on the yellow side which was good to bring the drops to life. I also added a slight edge darkening & vignette to tone down the edge colors, then saved it.

I actually have a few more shots I'm going to post in my EXTRAS gallery tomorrow of a few different items I was playing with like a wine glass, wine bottle & glass and a dried out leaf I saved from fall time. I'll let you know when their done & posted ;)

Oh I almost forgot - "I WON the contract for the Junior Formal at the High School in May", I guess my work spoke for itself over the others, so Thanks for all your support & well wishes on that one. I'm very proud to have gotten that contract, it will give me a chance to show off my work to a lot of high school kids & parents this year. 

Have a Wonderful Thursday everyone, here it's been snowing all day & night. Only have about 2" but it's that wet heavy crap and everything is a mess now. Hope your bathing in the sun where you are ;)


~BILL PADOR~
Bill Pador > I caught this moon silhouette last night after seeing how cool the moon light looked creeping through the trees. It looked so eerie to me and reminded me of a horror movie. I shot this hand held bracing it against my knees while sitting on a chair. Then used NIK Silver Efex to convert it to full B&W and adjust the brightness & contrast. Then I added a slight Gaussian blur & hit it with some Imagenomic Noiseware, then finished with a small keyline frame.

PS: Has anyone been having problems accessing my site in the last 24 hours ? I received an email late last night saying my site was down but when I woke up there seemed to be no problems. Thanks

Enjoy your day all !
~Bill Pador~
Bill Pador > "Christmas Horns"

The Horn Challenge...12/22/08
The Challenge: Show us your interpretation of the word, "Horn."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), Karina Boese, The Curious Camel, Creative Deviance, Johnloguk, Lady Kate, MyKey, Karina Boese, Trevlan, and myself.
The Result:"Christmas Horns"
I had decided on a totally different shot for this challenge but due to technical difficulty I was forced to change course. I was going to use my Italian Horn necklace pendant surrounded by gems on a mirror as a macro shot but I couldn't get the clasp undone because it's stuck & bent. It hasn't been off my neck in 8 years (when I had my spinal surgery LOL) so I give you this shot. While scrambling my brain on what to do I thought I would look on my Christmas tree to see if I had any horn ornaments, bravo I did and I choose these 2 to set the shot up. I hung them staggered front to back and used a medium DOF to blur the back one out. I also used a gold ball that has a lot of texture on it to fill the gap in the middle, set a few tree lights in strategic positions to allow for nice shadows & highlights and went for the shot. I got what I needed in 3 takes and then headed for CS3. Adjusted the curve slightly and then applied a few filters in OnOne Photo Tools & NIK Pro Effex, finishing off with sharpening and a custom frame developed in Pro Frames 3.1.

So I was able to finish the challenge and do it with a holiday theme as well. Killed 2 birds with one stone, yea for me LOL.

PS: If you missed the (5) images I put up in my Daily yesterday from the snow storm (*seen in this gallery) along with the (12) images I put in my Extras Gallery here: http://billpador.smugmug.com/gallery/5243214_M8SAm/1/440721916_jq4Cr

"THREE DAYS" till Christmas - Get that shopping done !

** Please Don't forget to visit the St. Jude's Childrens Hospital "Poster Project" for some great gift ideas to support your local Daily Group Artists & the Hospital !
http://www.freethoughtphoto.com/stjude/ 
~Bill Pador~
Bill Pador > 12-16-08
Hello Everyone, Sorry I've been MIA the past few days but once again the old spine injury was taking a toll on my body & mind and I had to rest for a while. Taking a little break felt good and has recharged my batteries. This is just a simple low light shot of my Christmas Tree this year to brighten up my gallery for a change. LOL

Thank You to everyone who commented on my last few images and I PROMISE to return the favor on your images over the next 24 hours to catch up on all the fabulous captures I'm sure I've been missing during the holiday season.

~Bill~

PS: Please don't forget to visit the St. Jude Hospital fund raising project myself and several other photographers & artists have joined forces to raise money for a very worthy cause. 100% of the proceeds of the sale of the posters will be donated to the children's hospital so that they can get the best of care for their health problems and perhaps save a life through your purchase and our donations. There is some fantastic work on display so why not stop by and make a purchase to hang on your wall or give as a gift this holiday season.
To support us, help a great cause & possibly save a life please visit the following link.
http://www.freethoughtphoto.com/stjude/ 

Thank You,
~Bill Pador~
Bill Pador > Crystal Christmas Tree Ornament
Bill Pador > I wanted to do something different with a sunset tonight so I played around making this one a little different by adding an artificial fog cover and then lifting it off the page with a gradient background, drop shadow and ghost frame. I adjusted the contrast & curve, did some selective dodging & burning and a few other touch ups to finish this one off.

Have a happy hump day (Wed.) everyone!
~Bill~
Bill Pador > Morning all, I decided to put this one up today, it's an available light shot (only sun light used) I just took of my hand built Tiki Bar that I have in my basement. I was coming out of my office and saw the way the morning sun light was traveling through the window and decided to try something. I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the light rays to get this effect and by chance the light was reflecting off my old gum ball machine developing those natural light rays off the ball you see on the top of the bar. I then gave the shot a processed look and called it finished LOL. The bar has a 55 gallon fish tank built into the face of it and it has all kinds of lights in the glass block at that makes up the foot rest but I didn't put them on (I forgot LOL). Anyway you get the gist of my bar, I built it for a place to relax and listen to music with friends (since I don't drink anymore) and now it just collects dust LOL. I wanted it to have the feel of being in a tropical place which is my favorite environment with fish nets hanging from the ceiling.

Hope you all have a wonderful day

~Bill~
Well today has been a great day for photography, it's was wonderful outside. Crystal light blue skies, almost cloud free and the temps at a balmy 55' but very bearable. I had a late night staying up all night processing 580 images from a sweet 16 shoot I did last week, then I had a McDonald's breakfast YUMMY and then off to play with my camera all day. I started at my youngest daughter (11) Alexa's Dance Competition (she's a nationally ranked dancer with several national titles - yes I'm a proud papa LOL).

NO FLASH was allowed and it was very dark with just stage lights from over head and I was about 40' from the stage, so once again I had to push the D300 into it's comfort zone Focal length 105mm, 1/250 @ f/5.3 High ISO Noise Reduction set to Normal and ISO 2000 ! Yes I said 2000 and I wanted to show those who don't know about the fantastic low light capabilities of the D300 what it can truly do. This shot is 100% SOTC ! Not even a hint of sharpening, just converted it from RAW to .jpg in PS RAW Bridge and saved it. As you know noise is best seen in blacks & dark colors and especially skin tones, I've uploaded the full size file as well so you could see up to X3-LARGE size so you can see how good the D300 handles noise in low light conditions, Remarkable !!! I also only used my 18-200 VR lens which isn't even close to the sharpest in my bag (but shines at 105mm about it's sharpest around this length) and this shot IMO came out Awesome! I have 100 others like it that I shot during her 3 minute routine LOL and they all came out great ! Oh I also was using the 51 Point 3D Constant Tracking Focus feature !

I traveled to a bunch of my favorite landscape sites along with the Horse Stud Farm. I'll post more tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend, I know I am !!!

~Bill~
Bill Pador > Well today has been a great day for photography, it's was wonderful outside. Crystal light blue skies, almost cloud free and the temps at a balmy 55' but very bearable. I had a late night staying up all night processing 580 images from a sweet 16 shoot I did last week, then I had a McDonald's breakfast YUMMY and then off to play with my camera all day. I started at my youngest daughter (11) Alexa's Dance Competition (she's a nationally ranked dancer with several national titles - yes I'm a proud papa LOL). 

NO FLASH was allowed and it was very dark with just stage lights from over head and I was about 40' from the stage, so once again I had to push the D300 into it's comfort zone Focal length 105mm, 1/250 @ f/5.3 High ISO Noise Reduction set to Normal and ISO 2000 ! Yes I said 2000 and I wanted to show those who don't know about the fantastic low light capabilities of the D300 what it can truly do. This shot is 100% SOTC ! Not even a hint of sharpening, just converted it from RAW to .jpg in PS RAW Bridge and saved it. As you know noise is best seen in blacks & dark colors and especially skin tones, I've uploaded the full size file as well so you could see up to X3-LARGE size so you can see how good the D300 handles noise in low light conditions, Remarkable !!! I also only used my 18-200 VR lens which isn't even close to the sharpest in my bag (but shines at 105mm about it's sharpest around this length) and this shot IMO came out Awesome! I have 100+ others like it that I shot during her 3 minute routine LOL and they all came out great ! Oh I also was using the 51 Point 3D Constant Tracking Focus feature !

I traveled to a bunch of my favorite landscape sites along with the Horse Stud Farm. I'll post more tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend, I know I am !!!

~Bill~
Well today has been a great day for photography, it's was wonderful outside. Crystal light blue skies, almost cloud free and the temps at a balmy 55' but very bearable. I had a late night staying up all night processing 580 images from a sweet 16 shoot I did last week, then I had a McDonald's breakfast YUMMY and then off to play with my camera all day. I started at my youngest daughter (11) Alexa's Dance Competition (she's a nationally ranked dancer with several national titles - yes I'm a proud papa LOL).

NO FLASH was allowed and it was very dark with just stage lights from over head and I was about 40' from the stage, so once again I had to push the D300 into it's comfort zone Focal length 105mm, 1/250 @ f/5.3 High ISO Noise Reduction set to Normal and ISO 2000 ! Yes I said 2000 and I wanted to show those who don't know about the fantastic low light capabilities of the D300 what it can truly do. This shot is 100% SOTC ! Not even a hint of sharpening, just converted it from RAW to .jpg in PS RAW Bridge and saved it. As you know noise is best seen in blacks & dark colors and especially skin tones, I've uploaded the full size file as well so you could see up to X3-LARGE size so you can see how good the D300 handles noise in low light conditions, Remarkable !!! I also only used my 18-200 VR lens which isn't even close to the sharpest in my bag (but shines at 105mm about it's sharpest around this length) and this shot IMO came out Awesome! I have 100 others like it that I shot during her 3 minute routine LOL and they all came out great ! Oh I also was using the 51 Point 3D Constant Tracking Focus feature !

I traveled to a bunch of my favorite landscape sites along with the Horse Stud Farm. I'll post more tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend, I know I am !!!

~Bill~
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Bill Pador Photography is a Member 'Professional Photographers Association of America' & 'National Association of Photoshop Professionals' Specializing in Weddings - Sweet 16 Parties - Portraits
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