Sarina's Bat Mitzvah {Los Angeles Bat Mitzva Photographer}

If I'm not mistaken this was not only my first time shooting a Bat Mitzvah, it was my first time actually at a Bat Mitzvah!

And what a party it was. The decoration and general awesomeness should be attributed to the great work of event coordinator Jenny Kdoshim.

Normally I write more, but I'll let the photos do the talking.

Enjoy!

Should I have posted this many photos? Probably not. Will I do it again? Yes. Why? Because I could. If you have any more questions (such as "where" or "how much") please let me know.

St. Louis Wedding {Jewish Wedding Photographer}

Many years ago in a place far far away, there lived this wonderful family. A father a mother and a few little kiddos. One snowy morning a Rabbi and his family popped into town. It was love at first sight. And while eventually both moved to opposite sides of the continent they kept in touch. First via snail mail and telephones. Then by cellphones, email and eventually jetpack.

One fine day, son of said family met and fell in love with a wonderful girl from St. Louis. She said yes, he called dad, dad called rabbi and there was much rejoicing all around. Then dad calls rabbi's wife's brother, who's blog his wife's been following and asked him to photograph the upcoming celebration.

Rabbi' wife's brother was quite nervous, as this was only his second wedding and dad of bride was a photographer himself. After consultation with his wife and a beer or two, said brother if rabbi's wife agreed.

And what a beautiful wedding it was. Rejoicing, dancing, eating and only a bit of crying.

My shoulders were sore for weeks.

Thank G-d the family was very happy with the photographs. What was funny is that during the event I got many comments about what a good photographer I was (I was all over the place, running around like a nut) and not one of them actually saw any of my pictures beforehand.

The part I was most worried about was the formals. I do not yet have that mush experience with that sort of thing yet. The dad was kind enough to bring some of his studio lighting and helped me out there. I am used to California where I could always go outside and find somewhere nice, but in St. Louis it was cold and miserable out there so that wasn't really an option. I'll get there.

f/8 and be there (up north and black again)

When I first got a dslr (Canon Rebel) and picked up my first decent lens (50mm 1.8) I was blown away. The sharpness combined with the narrow depth of field offered me opportunities I never knew existed. It also started an obsession with fast lens that is still biting me in me left back pocket. An unfortunate side effect was that I was relying on my lens to give my photos interest and to separate them from the pack. Almost any face shot with an 85mm 1.4 will look awesome.

To cure (to an extent) my reliance on my equipment to creat interest I picked up an el cheapo 25-50mm manual focus f/4 lens that isn't really tack sharp until f/8. And I started working on my compostion. And I'm glad to say it's helping quite a bit.

Here are (as usual too many) some photographs I made on my last trip up North (here's part 1, 2 and http://zalmyb.com/?p=414). Most were shot at f/8 or higher unless it was too dark. All were shot with old (and therefore cheap) manual focus lens.

On the way up I stopped off in San Francisco and picked up a few more lens. One of the seller was kind enough to drive me around Marin County for a few hours. We chatted a bit (he has quite the assortment of manual focus lens) and shot a bit more.

Thanks for looking.

Reading Stories & Telling Stories

I posted a while back how pictures do not have to live on their own. Joined together they create storylines, plots, and tales. As a photographer (or as someone who just takes pictures), telling a story should be the point. Wether (how do you spell that, my mind is drawing a blank. On my dictionary its telling me its spelled right but means a "castrated ram". ) its the story of children making cookies or a child reading a book, when you are photographing the scene have in mind what you want to be part of the story.

Zevi was reading some books to himself (it's quite funny how he does so), and I wanted to capture it in a series. I tried to make each photo tell a different aspect, and to that each one should add something to the mix.

It took a lot of whittling down (with some help from some kindly folks on the forums), and here is the end result.

I'd really like to do this sort of thing for clients. Just tag along on an excursion (or even at their house) and just tell the story of their everyday, mundane (yet delightful) world.

On another note these Beautrix Potter books are wonderful. The language it uses is just magnificent.

"...and 'ticed him to eat quantities"

"No breadth at all, and cut on the cross; it is no breadth at all; tippets for mice and ribbons for mobs! for mice!"

Ah, the good old days.

Stops, Focal Lengths, and Sensor Sizes, Oh My!

Warning: For geeks and nerds only. If you do not follow into one of those categories fell free to scroll down to the photos below.

A few weeks ago I received a telegraph from China (read all about it here). I thought I answered his question (or what I thought the question was) pretty well. But a few days ago I received yet another telegram:

BIG STOP STOP WITTLE STOP STOP NOT ARWYAS SAME STOP STOP SOMETIMES MORE STOP MUCH TIMES LESS HEAVY LESS LIGHT MORE PHONE MANY MORE STOP WHY STOP NORMAL NOT WIDE NOT STOP PREASE HEWP GOING CLAZY LOOLOO STOP

Wow dude, you couldn't be any more clyptic?

Anyways I figured I'd talk a bit more about stops and maybe this Chinese bloke will reverse his course to the clazy house.

Two numbers to remember 2 and 1.4.

To change your ISO or shutter speed by a stop you double or half.

To change your aperture by a top you multiply by or divide by 1.4. The reason being is that the aperture refers to the size (diameter) of the diaphragm (the opening) of the lens which is a circle. When you multiply the diameter of a circle by 1.4 you get double the surface area, or in this case double the amount of light coming in.

Very exciting. So you go from 1-1.4-2-2.8-4-5.6-8-11-16 etc.

Why would you want less light coming in? Good question. A. Most lens get sharper when you close them down a few stops. B. More depth of field. C. Slower shutter speed.

Another thing that changes in increments of 1.4 is the focal length of lenses. 24mm-35mm-50mm-85mm (well not exactly), 100, 135, 200, 300, 400, 600 etc. the reason being is that, again since we are dealing with a circle the area covers halfs every time it's multiplied by 1.4. So a 35mm lens covers half the area of a 24mm lens.

Yet another aspect changes with every multiple of 1.4 (and this one is actually important) is the Depth of Field. A 24mm lens at f/2.8 has double the DOF of a 35mm lens at 2.8 and quadruple the DOF of a 50mm @ 2.8. So if you want to blur out that background you could spend $1400 on a 50mm 1.2 or $300 on an 85mm f/1.8 and the background will essentially be more blurred with the 85mm @ f/1.8 than with the 50mm A f/1.2 (and the 85 will probably be sharper as its much easier to make a 1.8 lens than a 1.2 lens.).

While we're (we being me because I have absolutely no clue who would actually get this far into this ramble) on the DOF topic I have to mention the sensor size. Each time the sensor grows by 1.4 it halves the DOF and the FOV (field of view) goes down by 1.4 (an 70mm f/2.8 lens would act like a 50mm f/2). So a 50mm f/1.4 lens on a d90 (Nikons cropped sensor) would act like a 75mm f/2.1 lens (x 1.5). And a 80mm f/2 lens on a 645 camera would act like a 50mm f1.25 lens on a full frame sensor (such as the d700). And a 300mm f/4.5 lens on a 8x10 view camera would be like a 50mm f/.75 on a full frame camera. (this is all in regards to frame of view and depth of field. Exposures don't change with sensor size or focal length).

The point being? Have fun!

As we were.

I had this awesome shoot this past week, with this great family. I was a bit nervous about the timing, as I usually like the late afternoon and am not that familiar with the harsher light of not-so-late afternoon. 'Twas tough in the beginning but we persevered (and I perspired) and we really had fun. I even got to use my new lens bought earlier in the day. A manual focus 105mm f/2.5. Yummy. And I tried a fake tilt shift.

Who's in charge?! (and no one's on second). Another pre-upshernish shoot.

Sunny, Warm Southern California has been acting awfully of late. Seems to be confusing itself with Cloudy, Cold Northern California. We planned this wonderful beach shoot for what should have been a semi-warm-semi-cool late afternoon. It turned out to be windy and cold (and windy). Kiddoes didn't like it. And no one was going even near the water. So a beach aspect of the shoot was abandoned a bit, but we still had fun (I did at least) and we got some great shots. This was my first time on the Santa Monica pier in somewhere in the vicinity of a decade. Holy Moly are there a lot of tourists!! With camera! Expensive cameras! Someone was even doing this professional looking documentary with a Nikon D3S and a 70-200 (no clue why he wasn't using Canon. Who shoots pro video on a Nikon?). Note to newbies with fancy cameras. Keep your lens cap in your pocket, not on your lens. Note #2 just because the store says you need a $20 filter on your $90 lens, don't listen to them.

All in all a great, fun, windy and cold time was had by all. (And shooting birds in flight with a 24mm 1.4 is an exercise in futility.)

After having a talk with the big boss about the recent weather, he seems to have fixed things up. It seems it was all just a big misunderestimation.