Federer Photography - Minnesota Wedding Photographers

Due to popular demand…

I’m having some color profile issues rear their ugly heads, so the lovely Love Sac that Kona is on for some of these pictures is being rendered as pure black.  Unfortunately, I don’t have time to make the needed changes and still get this post up before I need to get on the road…  I’ll edit when I get back, so just look at the doggie.

p.s.  Once a dog has gotten over his curiosity about the camera, it is suprisingly difficult to get them to look into the lens.  I need a noise-clicker thing, those work magic.

Dog, photography, small puppy, small lens cap, image on photograhers blog… it seems right.  I am now realizing this is the only image in this post that doesn’t include the Love Sac.

Do I really need a comment for this one?  Best caption for this image wins a prize - comment below.

This was actually taken on day one of bringing him home.  Colleen perhaps still had tears in her eyes.  Originally thought it was a throw-away but it’s growing on me more and more.

Christa wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t include a picture of her. So here it is.

Rest up little one, rest up… Big life ahead of you.

Nikon D300

Another new backup body arrived.  Significantly happy about this purchase.

Inside the box:

Comes with everything you need other than the compact flash card.  Happy suprise to me, it uses the same battery that the Nikon D80 does.  I also managed to get in before the promotion on Capture NX ended – got a free version of the conversion software that produces the highest image quality possible (but is slow as molasses… oh the struggle…).  Woot!

Picked it up with the Nikon 18-200mm VR lens.  Not really fast enough for truly critical low-light work, but great for scouting and such.  It was really much more solidly built than I expected and, given decent light, produces images plenty good enough for walk-about, travel, and stock photography.  With a 27-300 FOV equivalent, VR, good built quality per price, and high quality images – If you only had one body/lens combo for traveling the world – this is probably the combo you should have.

The D300 is very solidly built, though the buttons don’t quite have the authoritative and convincing feel that the D3 does, but at less than 1/3 the price… meh.  The fact the controls, focus system, menus, file sizes, and other aspects are identical to the D3 makes it a natural pairing - allowing seamless transitions between the two to best utilize the wonders of FX and the benefits of DX-sized sensors.  Once you break ISO 800, you really should be looking specifically at the D3…   I’ll make a post sometime with more specific comparisons with regard to noise, FoV, DoF and all that fun gear-jazz that probably bores most of you.

Spring = Sprung

… for many reasons…  The typical flowers:

.. have sprung up all over the neighborhood. 

I feel like I should l live somewhere warmer, even though Minnesota is fantastic and I love the fact we have four truly different seasons, just because then I could see these Easter-pastel flowers during Easter-time; it’d be more appropriate.

These flowers are certainly more MY real flower-based sign of spring.  But I think, here in Minnesota, the TRUE sign of spring is this:

Correcting the pup size

I have had quite a few complaints from people seeing the new puppy for the first time: “I didn’t realize he was so small” and “he looks bigger in the picture on your blog”.

So I made an image during breakfast while he lay at my feet for size comparison:

Sadly, he already seems to be getting bigger and his hair more coarse.

Colleen is really digging the ‘snuggle up and be cute and little’ phase… being that she is cute and little, I can relate.  I’m trying not to take too many Kona pictures – I’d like the dog to bond with my face, not with a camera lens.

Turned my wife into a mother…

Decided it was time…. to get a dog!

A really early morning resulted in my being able to suprise my wife with a new dog on mothers day.  It’s a brittany spaniel… same as the dog of my childhood.  We don’t yet have a name, but have narrowed it down to: Kona, Jax, Freckles, Pluto, Bingo or Cosmo.  Kona is in the lead because that’s where we honeymoon’d, but we’ll see…   Votes?

After 5-6 hours of getting used to his new home, he started to pep up.  Quite the runner, considering his legs are about 4 inches long.  Expect to see this blog inundated with dog pictures.  I’ll do my best to keep a reasonable balance; but don’t hold your breath… at least until puppy stage is over. ;0)

Sunday on Summit, Part 2

There is this same image with more of the Cathedral (of St. Paul), but the sky was just so staggeringly beautiful on this day, with the capital hanging out in the background - this image captures the day a bit more for me.  When their wedding goes down in about a month, there will be plenty of ‘church’ shots to go around.  Let the sky have it’s day. ;0)

There Is a story behind this image… lets just leave it at that.

Rachel’s veil reveal… everyone agreed, it’s a good’un.

Tom is a fun guy.  I do believe this might have been a Jump-out-of-the-car, see me, and scream, “hey take my picture” first-shot of the day.  But it actually captured his mood throughout the session quite well.  Good times.

Incidentally, this is the first of my new 750-pixel wide blog photos.  I’ve revamped the blog to hold them nicely.  Bigger image = Better.

Just an impromptu shot of the happy couple after leaving their reception site.  It’s an old mansion on Summit ave in St. Paul, just a block down from the Cathedral.  It’s going to be a really good time.

Rachel and Tom

Two of the rockin’est people in the world walking from their reception site to their ceremony site during a scouting trip we did Sunday.  There wedding is going to be a really good time.  Just a scouting session’ but still got some good images… Will post a few more over the next few days. 

MN Open Source Photo gathering…

A bunch of wedding photographers got together.  Talked shop, messed with equipment, look at styles, took photos of each other, etc.  It was very informative – but more than that, it was downright fun.  Minnesota is blessed with some rockin’ photographers who also happen to be great people.

This is Daniel Snow, a great guy and fellow Nikon shooter.  He also ran around shooting his Holga with his flash mounted on this stick.  I ‘stole’ his flash on this shot and popped it off with my camera to make for a fun effect.

This is a shot of Jenn C, of Minnesota Image.  Great, fun person who worked quite a bit as our ‘model’ – danke!

All around good time, and it was great to meet every one of you…