I know at least one of the people who reads this is a photographer, but I figured I’d throw this out there in case anyone wanders along.

I’m looking for a “fast-normal” lens recommendation, probably $200-$400 range, for a Nikon DX format camera. Here’s what I’m thinking my kit is going to be:

• Tokina 12-24mm
• Mystery Lens around 28 or 35 (prime is good, f/1.8 or f/2 also good)*
• Nikon 60mm Micro
• Tokina 80-400mm

The 12-24mm I own, the others I’m replacing existing gear with. Also, if anyone has the 80-400mm, I’d love to hear what you think of it.

*Poking around on BH, there’s the AF Nikkor 35mm f/2, which seems to fit the bill, but I’d still like to hear anyone’s suggestions.

Update 1: Well, DH’s link to me has certainly helped this thread (wasn’t expecting it when I posted this). Looks like the 35 f/2 will probably fit my bill, and I’m checking into the new Nikon 70-300 VR (that’s cheaper & lighter than the Tokina). Assuming a certain client of mine pays his invoices, all but the long lens will get purchased this month. I rented the 35 f/2 this weekend, but the aperture was sticky and I wasn’t really able to play with it.

Both shooting “huge quilts” (10′-6″ x 8′-0″) and a whole bunch of them. I photographed 16 quilts this weekend for two different quilters. I put together some time lapse videos of the shoots. There’s a two-minute abridged version of the setup & two quilts:

Short Form Movie

And a longer five-minute version that shows a lot more of the pre-shoot setup and three quilts:

Long Form Movie

You get to see largely how much work (and pinning) goes into photographing quilts nicely and evenly. The two main lights I’m using are AlienBees B800’s with muslin socks to even out the light. The smaller light is a Nikon Speedlight SB-600 and was mostly on the floor to provide texture in the wide shots, or on a stand to one side to bring out the texture in the close up shots.

The big board things I’m hanging in the beginning are 4′x10′ homasote covered flats, which are then wrapped in batting and a slightly fuzzy fabric. We then cover these with a 128″ wide seamless grey fabric. The batting and homasote let us pin right into the backdrop, and it worked great (this was the first shoot we were trying this method).

I typically shoot quilts upside down. This is because I want the texture light to be coming from “above”, but it’s hard to hang a light up there and control it in this space. What I do is hang the quilt upside down, then light from below (which is the top of the quilt), and then flip the image when I process it. Occasionally something on the quilt won’t permit this, but on most quilts it’s a fine way to photograph them.

It’s certainly expansive– her sculptures are staged in the living room, and brought into the office/studio to shoot:

They’re coming out pretty nice, we did 6 hours on Sunday, took a break to eat some tasty beef, and tonight I’m shooting the rest. Here’s a sample I processed blue for a friend’s desktop background:

Salt and Pepper

Originally uploaded by blp1979.

I have a Macro lens this weekend for doing shots of Sarah Lowe’s portfolio.

So I’m playing with it. This lens (Nikon 105mm Micro) will do 1:1 magnification– this means that the objects show up as full size on the negative. It’s pretty cool. However, you can also screw a reversed lens onto the front of the Macro lens, and make it into a microscope.

This is a shot of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. I was amazed how brown and gooey the pepper looks at this magnification.

These are some of the dancers in L1FE, a collaborative project between Freeplay Dance Crew and the Sarah Bush Dance Project. It’s playing at the Mission Dance Theater March 16th through 18th.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/11334

It’s a great group of people. This shot is on the roof of a building in downtown San Francisco, about a 1 second exposure to catch the buildings beyond, and two battery-powered strobes to light the dancers. Part of a larger shoot because they needed a promo image for a feature bit in the local free weekly paper. And had a half-hour window to get the shot.

I started playing with simpleviewer, which is a cool flash-based gallery application. I’m probably going to replace my online gallery with it.

Check it out, and comment below.

From the people who make simpleviewer, is also Autoviewer, which I did the same run of images here.  Which do you like better?

So I shot about 15 tables over at Fred Null’s studio today. The setup was the most complicated I’ve ever done– it felt a lot like doing a theatre production.

We wanted a consistent look for the shots, and so we set up this little shooting booth. You’ll see some of the shots from it show up tomorrow.

Now, I’m going to lay on the couch and watch TV, I was shooting for about 6 hours today, shot around 570 images.