LENS CAPTURE

Today's post is written by guest blogger and friend, Conrad Tinney. A former film shooter, Connie's been "hooked on digital" for the last 3½ years since moving into the high-end dSLR arena. Conrad recently attended the Nikon School during its tour through New York City. Here's his account of the day.

On March 22, 2009 at the Pennsylvania Hotel, here in the great city of New York, The Nikon Corporation held one of its many seminars. The title of the aforementioned gathering was, “Next Steps, Color, Light, Technology”. The guest speakers were Reed Hoffman and Bill Durrence. Both of these gentlemen are long time professional Photographers of great renown, and have been instructing for many years as well.

Photo: © Conrad Tinney
Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye in Brooklyn Bridge Park

The following six hours were bliss, the audience that included both Professional and Amateurs, film and digital shooters, had many of their photographic questions answered by these masters. Discussed were many of the basic fundamental photographic skills that are the mainstay of the art, and we were continually reminded that we as photographers should always stay focused on the basics, even with the ever-growing digital camera transition.

After the noon lunch break (included with the price of admission) the lecture, combined with a few demonstrations continued. The topics that were covered went from workflow to how to pack for a field trip, resizing images for output, the latest software, and its effect on RAW images. There was also a short talk on lens and how to choose the correct one for the situation. We were given a rather cool demonstration concerning the use of remote flash technology and the benefits of not mounting your flash on the camera hot shoe.

And like any other seminar, Nikon had a product table set up and it was loaded with all sorts of goodies, there was the new SB-900 (which I ran right out and purchased), the 35mm f/1.8GAF-S lens along with the D700 (yum!) and D90 –etc, etc, I could go on for hours but I won’t, what I will do is suggest that the next time Nikon, Canon, or any other camera company or software or anyone having something to do with photography announces that they are scheduling a seminar near your home town, “GO” you might learn something and meet so very interesting people, I did.