Expo Days…

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Jody over at Roberts Camera about something they used to call Nikon Expo.  Every year Nikon has a weekend at Roberts where the reps bring all the toys and let everybody and anybody play with them.  All the toys?  Yup. D4‘s, D800‘s, 600mm VR lenses, 200-400mm Zooms, everything down to the new Nikon D3200 with the 18-55DX lens.  But why did he call me about this?  Jody knows how much I like snacks, and they WILL have snacks and refreshments at Robert’s (on opposite days between Downtown and Carmel); but that wasn’t why they called me.

(File straight out of the camera, RAW converted to Jpeg only. Nikon D4, 100ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@112mm.  1/250th@F11.  Single Dynalite M1000 set to full power shot into the seamless triggered by magic eye. Single Dynalite M1000x set to 1/2 power shot through  a 40″x8″ strip softbox to camera left fired by a Pocket Wizard TT5.  A Photogenic 750 watt light shot through a 40″x20″ softbox to camera right triggered by magic eye.)

They called me, and the Indystar advertising department, because they needed an Ad for the Nikon Expo Weekend during the days of May 18th and 19th at their downtown and Carmel locations.  That’s obviously not me, in fact his name is Corey and he works at Roberts.  I did shoot the Ad though, which is why I was called. (to tie up that story).   I’d be lieing if I said I’ve never been seen like that at an event; in fact I’m probably regularly carrying more stuff than Corey is in that photo.  The other morning I was out at the speedway photographing one of our writers for marketing purposes and another photographer snapped a photo of me wearing my speed belt with an umbrella slid into it like I was wearing a sword.  I’m sure I looked like a fool, and honestly I felt like one because even though I had the umbrella I didn’t even use it for the portraits, or the “hero shot” of our Indystar writer in front of the IMS Pagoda in Pit Row.  There were lots of other things wrong with the shoot that prevented the light modifier usage, and the fact that there was no crowd at the Speedway bothered me; but I digress.

(The Final Ad on the front of the four page piece in Sunday’s Indystar Newspaper)

That’s what you can see in the paper, and the photos will go various other places such as online ads, as well as zone newspaper related ads.  All shot using the new Nikon D4 and all the shots shown here are straight out of the camera.  You can tell because of the slightly vignetted edges thanks to the hood of the 70-200.  We also had lots of other goodies in the studio including another D4 (as shown above, and below), as well as one of the new Nikon D800‘s.

(File straight out of the camera, RAW converted to Jpeg only. Nikon D4, 100ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@112mm.  1/250th@F11.  Single Dynalite M1000 set to full power shot into the seamless triggered by magic eye. Single Dynalite M1000x set to 1/2 power shot through  a 40″x8″ strip softbox to camera left fired by a Pocket Wizard TT5.  A Photogenic 750 watt light shot through a 40″x20″ softbox to camera right triggered by magic eye.)

Lot of neat stuff to play with.  I hadn’t had my hands on a D800 to that point, and I’ll tell you what; it’s a beauty.  Not sure if I could handle 75mb RAW files out of the camera from EVERY shot that I take that’s not in the studio, but for in the studio it’s glorious.  The 9 shots that I took with it equated to about 700mb.  Normally I like big files but I can’t imagine shooting an event with something like that.  That being said we did use the new Nikon D800 in the studio, and not just as a prop.  The guys over at Robert’s shot this behind the scenes video.  It was shot using the Nikon D800 using the Nikon 24F1.4 N lens, and the Nikon J1 using the 10-100mm Lens.  Videographetizers were Nick (Roberts Mail order Ninja) and Derek (Roberts Web Guru/Tortured Artist).  I didn’t include many shots from the shoot in the actual video because the punchline is; they were all Corey here on white doing whatever it is he’s seen doing in the video.  The light setup never changed, and neither did the camera setup.  Sometimes that’s the best part of shooting in the studio on white.  I’m not sure how the D800 and J1 were set up, but there were a few shots underexposed in the video despite being a bit shaky at times too.  Either way, hope you enjoy it.  Special thanks to Mary Jane Olinger from Roberts for Art Direction, Indystar for keeping me employed full time and allowing me to do projects like this in the studio while at work, and FreePlay Music for the cheesy Jazz piece playing on top.

And there you have it.  Probably the closest I’ll ever come to actually shooting an Ad for someone like Nikon, but that’s ok.  Love their gear, which is why I own Nikon gear when Canon gear is provided for me at work.  If you’re not a believer, this upcoming weekend Nikon will be at Roberts in Carmel AND at Roberts downtown.  You should check it out, as they will have reps on hand, and they will have bunches of everything to play with and get your mits on.  Nothing smells or feels like new gear (probably all the drool from people handling it so much, but that’s shouldn’t stop you from checking it out).  Speaking of getting excited about gear.  I leave you with a test shot/BTS shot of Nick from the shoot because I think it’s awesome…. More Soon.

Also for more information regarding Expo Days, Call them at 1-800-726-5544.  Or Just check Roberts Website.

(Nikon D4, 100ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@112mm.  1/250th@F11.  Single Dynalite M1000 set to full power shot into the seamless triggered by magic eye. Single Dynalite M1000x set to 1/2 power shot through  a 40″x8″ strip softbox to camera left fired by a Pocket Wizard TT5.  A Photogenic 750 watt light shot through a 40″x20″ softbox to camera right triggered by magic eye.)