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tenoverthenose · April 16, 2011

Two days ago I shot my first wedding of the year in Yosemite and it felt sooo good to be back. The couple was wonderful and the pictures were just flowing. I love that. Here's a few here, with tons more on my yosemite wedding site.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

denisegoldberg · April 16, 2011

I love the second shot!

By the way you might want to take a look at your web site on IE9 - it doesn't work at all for me there, although it's fine on both Firefox and Chrome. What doesn't work? The words are missing from your navbar, and the slider on the bottom of the window does nothing.

--- Denise

Agnieszka · April 16, 2011

Shut uuuuuppppp! You again ... haha ... #2 is to die for!

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! Thanks for sharing!

Kinkajou · April 17, 2011

agnieszka wrote: »

shut uuuuuppppp! You again ... Haha ... #2 is to die for!

gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! Thanks for sharing!

+1!!!

divamum · April 17, 2011

All beautiful, but #2 is really a stunner. How far away from them were you (lens?). Wow. Just..... wow.

tenoverthenose · April 17, 2011

Thanks everyone for the love! This was the first shoot I have done there after winter has cleared a bit - so nice to be able to walk into meadows without being waist deep in snow!

#2 Was shot with my 85L probably about 60 feet away @ 1.2 with a big soft box hiding behind a tree on the left. I really love that lens from a distance and used wide open, it takes on such a magical effect in the right application. Of course, I had to take almost 20 pictures to get one in focus.... but it was worth it. For reference, #3 was taken with the same lens, at about 70-80 feet away @ f5 (natural light only).

heatherfeather · April 17, 2011

tenoverthenose wrote: »

I had to take almost 20 pictures to get one in focus....

THIS is fabulous intel. I thought that was just me!! I love to shoot shallow but sometimes it just takes a couple tries to get it right. I hate it when everything except the focus is perfect... its almost painful to reject those ones.

#2 IS fabulous. Worth all those deleted frames.

divamum · April 17, 2011

Of course, I had to take almost 20 pictures to get one in focus.... but it was worth it.

THIS is fabulous intel. I thought that was just me!! I love to shoot shallow but sometimes it just takes a couple tries to get it right. I hate it when everything except the focus is perfect... its almost painful to reject those ones.

This makes me feel so much better! I shoot shallow DOF as often as possible because I love the look, but it does mean a lot of "almost-but-not-quite" shots (I have an alarming collection of those - like you, HF, it sometimes HURTS to ditch them when they're sooooo close. And it almost always seems to be the ones with the best expressions where it misses the focus

). I tend to overshoot like crazy to ensure at least *one* nails it but thought it was my technical ineptitude rather just than "the nature of the beast". :giggle

Pat, the bg bokeh on that is nothing short of amazing - beautiful choice, beautiful shot. How big was the SB? (I DID figure out you had something added in there, so at least I got that much right!

)

tenoverthenose · April 17, 2011

Shooting wide open is tough at best and will more than likely lead to lots of OOF shots. Especially at distance where your subjects are smaller in the frame it's difficult to lock onto them. Or maybe it's just my Canon body...

I don't shoot too much wide open for this reason. Nothing irritates me more than ruining an otherwise great shot because I thought I had to shoot it at f1.0. I like to give myself a little wiggle room in focus, but sometimes I know it's worth the risk. Now I just need to figure out how big to print that for the studio

The softbox is a 30" square box about four feet from the couple. It's this box here that I use for most of my work in the field. It's big enough to make big soft light when I need it, but not so big that I can't walk around with it and throw it in the back of the car without breaking it down.

tenoverthenose · April 17, 2011

FWIW, here's a pull back showing the softbox - taken just before I realized there was a softbox in the frame. I guess it is a bit more than four feet away...

divamum · April 17, 2011

It amazes me that even from that far away the 85L gives that kind of shallow DOF wide open - amazing. Almost looks tilt-shift when you have the blur fore and aft. Great stuff

Do you use the 4-square loaded up 4x, or does it work just as well with only 1 (2 or 3)? Looks like a great piece of gear!

tenoverthenose · April 17, 2011

The foursquare is a great setup that works really well for me. I use it loaded with four lights almost all of the time. I work outdoors in full sunlight, so I figure I might as well load it up. It's pretty cool to hi f16 with a soft box or push it into HSS if I chose. If you're working with less ambient light you definitely do not need all four lights though.

Shima · April 18, 2011

#2 is just amazing, steller, don't have enough words for it... I love that shot, softbox or no softbox!

Matt's Camera · April 18, 2011

Beautiful work. The whole series is stellar. And thank you for the insights as well.

Moogle Pepper · April 18, 2011

I already posted on your blog.

I probably asked, but, do you carry a carrying bag for your light stands?

tenoverthenose · April 18, 2011

Thanks everyone for the love

Ted I don't use a bag for my light stands. I really only use one light at a time (for most of my location work) because/so I can carry it in one hand. The rest of the time they are either stored in a stack in my studio, or bouncing around the back of my car. Yeah... I use my equipment.

Matthew Saville · April 19, 2011

You have the best job in the world, Patrick. Simply stunning...

=Matt=

David_S85 · April 19, 2011

Awesome stuff, Patrick, as usual. Thanks for sharing these here on DGrin.

Matthew Saville · April 19, 2011

divamum wrote: »

This makes me feel so much better! I shoot shallow DOF as often as possible because I love the look, but it does mean a lot of "almost-but-not-quite" shots (I have an alarming collection of those - like you, HF, it sometimes HURTS to ditch them when they're sooooo close. And it almost always seems to be the ones with the best expressions where it misses the focus ). I tend to overshoot like crazy to ensure at least *one* nails it but thought it was my technical ineptitude rather just than "the nature of the beast". :giggle

Pat, the bg bokeh on that is nothing short of amazing - beautiful choice, beautiful shot. How big was the SB? (I DID figure out you had something added in there, so at least I got that much right! )

Biting my tongue hard in an effort to avoid mentioning how *magic* I have found the Nikon 85 1.4 AFS + D700 to be, at nailing focus 9/10 of the time. I feel for you Canon shooters! (I do shoot with the 85 1.2 often, as well. Beautiful results when in focus, to be sure, but I honestly don't know how you guys put up with it...)

;-)

=Matt=

tenoverthenose · April 19, 2011

Straight up Matt - we all have the best jobs. Supporting our families by creating art with good people? This is as good as it gets.

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Biting my tongue hard in an effort to avoid mentioning how *magic* I have found the Nikon 85 1.4 AFS + D700 to be, at nailing focus 9/10 of the time. I feel for you Canon shooters! (I do shoot with the 85 1.2 often, as well. Beautiful results when in focus, to be sure, but I honestly don't know how you guys put up with it...)

;-)

=Matt=

Yeah...well... umm.. yeah... shit.

Moogle Pepper · April 19, 2011

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Biting my tongue hard in an effort to avoid mentioning how *magic* I have found the Nikon 85 1.4 AFS + D700 to be, at nailing focus 9/10 of the time. I feel for you Canon shooters! (I do shoot with the 85 1.2 often, as well. Beautiful results when in focus, to be sure, but I honestly don't know how you guys put up with it...)

;-)

=Matt=

We have the patience of saints. That's how.

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