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 > "Lady Liberty"
I thought this a proper image for today as we gain a new President to lead our nation into the next 4 years. Hopefully our country will better itself and turn the economy around so that we can all once again enjoy life and our children can look forward to a prosperous life ahead of them.

Lady liberty who stands tall above the Hudson River has been the perfect symbol of freedom & a better life for millions of people and still to this day represents all that America has to offer to all who pass under her. As an American soldier & police officer who has guarded what she represents all my life, I say on this day - "God Bless America"

** I've also added (5) new colorful images to my POD EXTRAS gallery today if your interested CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Thank You 
~Bill Pador~
Bill Pador > 2/4/09 0630hrs. Est. Good Morning - Well "I'M BACK" 100% Today !(well maybe 99.6% but who's counting LOL) I am feeling like a million bucks compared to 48 hours ago, real tired since I've been up for 2 days with no sleep but my pain is fully under control and after I post this image I'm off for a few hours of sleep. Thank You all for the wonderful encouraging comments & prayers the last few days during one of my monthly DOWN TIMES LOL. Hell I gotta laugh about it now, since I couldn't laugh 48 hours ago. Hopefully I will stay comfortable for a few weeks now.

This Young Lad is my best friends Mom's New 12 Week old kitten that I took a few shots of last night since he's so darn cute. Forgive me for now but I can't remember his name (*OH It's "FUSSY"), but he was certainly a very cool cat, plays nice and has one of the most soft & beautiful tiger decorated coats I've ever seen on a cat and those eyes just beam all kinds of yellows & greens. I have a few more shots of him I have to develop yet but once I find a good one of his full coat I'll post it so you can see how cool he looks.

BTW: Any of you Cat Experts have any idea what type of kitty he may be with this coat & markings ? UPDATE: (*response by LaneM) - "Bill,Your cat is a Silver Tabby. Notice the black "M" stripe just above his eyes. This is the definitive marking for a Tabby Cat" = 'Thank You Lane for your help in Identifying this cute little guys breed'~Bill~

Have a Wonderful Day Everyone, It's Great to Feel GREAT !!! Nightie Night :0

~Bill~
Bill Pador > "A VERY Close Call"
OK This image shows why you should NOT go outside during a lightning storm holding an umbrella over your camera equipment and yourself to get a shot. I was on my way home last night when it started pouring violently and began to give off an awesome light show. By the time I got home, rushed into my studio to grab my equipment and set it up the storm had calmed down a lot. I went out onto my back deck set the tripod up along with my wired release and opened the lens real quick before I got the proper settings just for a TEST SHOT to see what settings I was going to use. All of a sudden a HUGE BRIGHT LIGHT flashed before my eyes and almost immediately a crack of thunder that was deafening exploded above me. Well I just about soiled my trousers (think that's what they say in the UK I believe right Johnloquk?)

Seems my TEST shot was a LUCK shot, not only lucky I got this wild lightning shot hitting the tree in my back yard which is about 40' away from me but lucky I'm not dead or burned to a crisp. If you notice the light was so bright where it hit in the tree it basically OVERLOADED the camera sensor to where there is loops & whirls of light and if you look closely at the bottom left corner you can see the lightning bolt traveling through the trees from the one in the center to the one on the left corner. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would hit so close and so fast since the storm seemed almost over, the rain had slowed considerably and I had just gotten outside.I have a Type "A" personality and I'm an adrenaline junky, but I can honestly say I haven't had this close of a call or a jolt of excitement like this since I retired from being a cop 8 years ago. Honestly I was VERY SCARED but felt so alive at that very moment but Needless to say this is the only shot I got because I grabbed my equipment and RAN inside and called it quits :) LOL I may be dumb but I'm NOT 'Stupid' !

I'm not kidding about it being my lucky day, not only did I not get killed here but I got 3 out of 5 numbers on the Jersey Cash 5 Lottery tonight and won a whole $12 ! Hope you like it, I know it's not exposed properly but I don't know if I could have gotten anything different with so much light hitting at once so close, I attempted to scale the exposure down using levels etc. but I had not set the camera on RAW yet so my adjustments were very limited and I was too scared to try again for the night. Lesson Learned, BE CAREFUL OUT THERE Folks ! "Sorry Mom"

~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 > 8/26/09 - Hi Everyone, I finally got out into the field to run the NEW Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II XR Lens through it's paces. Needless to say after reading all the fantastic reviews and Editors Choice Awards this lens was winning I was excited to add this fine piece of glass to my collection. So here's a great shot I grabbed with it. I was out driving around up in the mountains by my home, it started off sunny but partly cloudy but the light was great even during mid afternoon. As I drove around I spotted this lake with cool walk bridges scattered around it. I shot this hand held from one of the bridges as a huge storm was coming in from the south east being pushed into the area while the violent hurricane "Bill" (how cool) was off our shores turning up the seas with a 16'-18' storm surge.
~ ~ "BEST VIEWED LARGE or X-LARGE" for best detail ~ ~

So I got out of the car and started grabbing shots of the incoming storm in the distance while having the sun shining from my back onto the tree line making it glow. This lens is SUPER SHARP, Auto Focus is blazing fast and spot on even in low light and the colors & detail it produces are amazing, all for a mear $449 Shipped to my door from B&H Photo. 

I'll be posting more shots taken with this lens in the following days so be sure to check them out, they all turned out pretty awesome IMO. I'll be writing a full review on the lens in my blog some time next week and will post a note when it's finished for any one interested in buying this fantastic wide angle f/2.8 glass.

I also just purchased the Brand New 'HONL PHOTO" Professional Series Flash Accessory System (Light Modifiers) www.expoimaging.net that has been getting great reviews from Pros the world over and will be  writing a review on them as well. I bought every piece in the system all at once so I'll be able to test it all out properly. Some really cool stuff to say the least !

Hope your all doing well and having a great week

Best Regards,
~Bill~
Bill Pador > I was on a landscape shoot yesterday driving around town looking for new things to capture when I passed this old church that I've seen many times and stopped to shoot it out the car window. This image was actually shot in "Broad Daylight" and then brought into LightRoom 2 for some magic.

I took the exposure down, brought up the blacks and applied some custom filters I've developed to get it down to a night scene. Then I used the new brush tool (which is very cool BTW) and painted over the areas I wanted to bring the exposure back up on. Selecting the church itself and then the wiggle pattern of snow in front of the walk way. Then touching a small amount of snow on the mountain in the background to give it some depth. Then I dropped in to CS3 and used the NIK Color Efexs Pro WHITE NEUTRALIZER to isolate the white of the building & snow to give it a more balanced color & tone along with making the snow cold with a blue hue. Finished off with a Key Line frame.

I have a bunch of other shots I took yesterday that turned out good and so many others I've taken this winter that I'll post in a new 'Winter Landscape '09 Gallery' that I'm making now, I'll announce when it's up and ready to be viewed.

**PS: Thanks for the comments on yesterdays abstract & smug problems. I still can't get my cookies to work, hopefully they'll fix that soon :(

***Some Good News*** I was contacted yesterday by the local High School who are interested in me shooting their Junior Classes Semi-Formal event & portrait session in May. I have to put a bid in for Monday & hopefully I'll win the contract. That would be a great gig to do, I enjoy doing those kinds of events and doing all those portraits would be awesome. Keep your fingures crossed for me ;) I already have the contract for their annual Fashion Show which is in 2 weeks for the 2nd year in a row!

~Bill Pador~
Bill Pador > Sorry I've been MIA for a few days over the weekend friends, I feel ill to some kind of stomach virus that lasted 48 hrs. and had my head stuck to a pillow and my knees on the bathroom floor for quite some time. Don't know where I caught it but it was not something I'd like to do again any time soon. Not eating for 3 days tends to zap every bit of energy you have and not being able to get on the dailies hurts worse LOL. But I'm back and feeling fine once again, so I have some catching up to do on all your images tonight.

I shot this half wine glass under low light in my still life studio just prior to getting ill and was having a grand old time doing it too. Maybe I should have taken a sip while I was at it LOL. I used a few small halogen lights and one hand held to manipulate the light to where I liked it to get the shot while using a cable release.

Hope you are all having a great start to your week so be sure to take a minute to smile at yourself, your are the most important person in your life you know, so take a second to be kind to yourself ;)

~Bill~
Bill Pador > I finally found some colored straws and was playing around with them for a bit. My Sweet 16 shoot went well on Friday night, some very nice people and a very well behaved bunch of kids. It always amazes me how well behaved the youngsters are at these parties and the amount of fun they have. The venue was a beautiful place with lots of great huge chandeliers and imported marble floors & walls. So it turned out to be a really fun job and the parents were very nice people. I was so glad I was able to take the job on 2 days notice for them, it's not very often I have an open slot on the schedule with that little bit of notice.

Oh Almost forgot - Today is one ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY as part of the Dailies and it's been a WONDEFUL year, the friends I have met doing this project has been nothing short of a miracle, so THNKA YOU ALL for your Gracious Support & Wonderful Friendship ! I look forward to many more years doing this ! CHEERS MATES !

Have a great weekend or what's left to it folks...

~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~
See photo in gallery

Comments

|

New comment:

Name: Email: Link:


To foil spammers, enter this code: copy this text in this box: Code unreadable?



All images in this website © Bill Pador and are protected by Federal Law. All Rights Reserved. Images on this site whole or in part may not be used for personal or commercial use without Written Permission.
Digital Watermarking IN Use © Copyright 2005-2009
Bill Pador Photography is a Member 'Professional Photographers Association of America' & 'National Association of Photoshop Professionals' Specializing in Weddings - Sweet 16 Parties - Portraits
"Have A Great Day & Thanks for Visiting Bill Pador Photography"
EMAIL BILL