Gurkha Exhibition opens in Salisbury

"For nearly 200 years, the Gurkhas have helped to fight Britain's wars and keep the peace. They have won 13 Victoria Crosses and served in most of Britain's conflicts during that period. Through an exhibition of his work, Robert highlights the spirit and honour of this incredible generation of Nepali people who served for England during World War Two. Robert is based in the heart of the Cotswolds and travels widely, nationally and internationally, in his work. The images for this exhibition were taken during a visit organised by the Gurkha Welfare Trust, whose office is in Salisbury."

The exhibition runs at the Salisbury Arts Centre until 15th June 2009.

See the festival's website.

Antarctic training in Norway

It's been too long since I spent anytime updating my site and now I find myself in Norway on a superb project - a training expedition for the Antarctic.  I'm shooting stills for the Commonwealth Woman's Antarctic Expedition - www.commonwealthexpedition.com.

We're in the middle of the stunning Hardangervidda. I say stunning, thus far we've had nearly three days of white-out and blizzards which meant the only access is by Ski-do or snow plough.

The girls arrived late yesterday and today is the first day of training - so some nervous faces all round.  I'll be updating my blog as I get the chance.

Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is currently playing at the Egg theatre at the Theatre Royal Bath. It's a lovely shot with a stunning set by Hayley Grindle. It gave me a chance to try out the D3 in tough lighting conditions - low light from a mixture of sources from incandescent, discharge and LED.

Here the D3 is at ISO3200, 1/160 @ f/2.8 on the 70-200mm. The colours are lovely and punchy and good highlight and shadow details. The grade in post is to crush the blacks mainly and pull the mid-tones. Auto-focus on fully auto was accurate and fast given the low light. Details is high in the shots (can easily count eye lashes on the girl on the left). Forgive the lack of 100% crops as I'm a little tired at the mo and can't face prepping them!This shot will give you an idea of the set - a two storey dolls house. Shot on the D3 at 2500ISO, 1/200 @ f/2.8 on the 24-70mm. Again, no problems at all with ISO or focus. The WB was on manual as it was making a hash of things in auto!

I love the colours here. A real fairy-tale feel has been created by LD Sonic Harrison.

By way of a test, this shot was on the D2x at 1600ISO, 1/60 @ f/2.8. Again, without a 100% crop you can't see the huge difference, mainly in detail. The D3 has bags more detail at 100% at 1600ISO over the D2x. That said, after a good grade the two cameras produce images of the same look and feel. The only thing is that the D2x produced nicer looking shots straight from the camera. The D3 generally produced shots which need a grade to make them 'zing'. However, Nikon have released profiles for the D3 to make it shoot shots like the D2x. I'm in the process of trying these out and will report back.

In the meantime, grab your children and take them to see the show. It's enchanting.

Christmas with Nikon D3

Friday evening saw me at the Banqueting House in Whitehall for a Christmas party. It was day two of my D3 which is a new camera to me, if not the world. I shot the D3 along side the D2x on the evening; the D2x was on a tripod doing mostly long exposures on wide shots and D3 was reportage at high ISO. This shot was done on the D3 at 1600ISO, f/2.8 @ 1/50th second on the 24-70mm @58mm. Minimal grade done in post - mainly just a tweak of levels and crushing the blacks. Although I've not done a 100% crop I can assure you there is no noise to speak of and the colours are saturated and plenty of tone and contrast, all at 1600ISO.

The above shot of champage was shot in ambient light on the D3 at 800ISO at 1/100th and f/4.5. The one thing I did notice is that on test the D3 didn't cope well on auto WB. I always use the camera in manual for every setting but I'm testing the D3 so I'm seeing how it copes in auto. WB still is erratic - in a series of shots the WB will vary so it's much easier still to shot in manual WB and correct one in post and copy the WB correction to all subsquent images. This shot though shows no noise and razor sharp.

For comparison, here's a shot from the D2x. If the D3 says anything, it says that the D2x is still a force to be reckoned with and I'll continue to use it regularly (just never above 400ISO!). This shot is a comp of about 8 taken on a tripod at 12mm, 100ISO, f/8 at 3 seconds. WB was manual on incandecent and didn't need touching at all in post. I love the difference in lighting between the ceiling and the uplights around the room.

The one cracking thing though about the D3 is it's full frame. This is at 24mm on the 24-70mm, ISO1600, 1/15 @ f/2.8. Lovely colours, punch and good blacks and hightlights. Plus, it's at 24mm which is a nice focal lenght to be back working with.

Carthage Must Be Destroyed

The production of Carthage opened last week at the Theatre Royal Bath on their Ustinov Studio space. Here are some of the production stills. Shot on my Nikon D2x and D200 with a variety of lenses but primes wherever possible owing to the low light (the D2x is no D3 in low light - anything above 800ISO and you're into mosaic territory!).

There was a working bath on stage too which has to be a first.

It's a great production and runs until Christmas. Go along and see it. Lighting is by Sonic Harrison.

Nikon D3x - official at last thanks to accidental leak

Today in the post i received the latest Nikon Pro magazine. I was suprised to read in it the full spec of the new DSLR, the D3x. I checked their website and there was no mention of it so I rang them asking for a date when it might be on the shelves. I was told that it didn't exist! It transpires that they by accident mailed out the new magazine weeks ahead of schedule, therefore leaking info of the new camera.

So, there is no mention of the D3x (as it will be called and not the D4 as some thought) on any Nikon website but I can confirm it's a D3 on steroids... 24.5 mega pixels, ISO 50-1600 with boost to 6400. 5fps in FX mode and 7fps in DX mode (which gives a 10MP file). Apart from that it's a D3. Better HDR in-camera. Aimed at "fashion, commercial and landscape".

I'll try and scan the magazine pages tomorrow and upload. In the meantime think a D3 with higher resolution and worse high ISO noise, although I've not seen any sample images. Nikon will presumably bring forward any launch date given this embarrasing mistake. That said , I've never understood the secrecy - it's only a camera and not a state secret. Even today on the phone Nikon refused to comment at all on something which is as good as in the public domain. Makes no sense when I'd give them money today to own one!

Autumn Colours at Westonbirt

I'm fortunate to live not far from the fabulous Westonbirt Aboretum near Tetbury in the Cotswolds. I normally try to spend a few days there each autumn but this year I only managed a few hours and those were less than ideal as shortly after I arrived a crash of thunder rang out and it tipped it down for the rest of the day.
I managed to get a few shots though before I got too wet. As the sky was overcast I wanted to avoid sweeping wide angles in which the sky would just have blown out. So I tried to look for the detail instead.

The shots havn't been fiddled in any way bar my normal workflow from raw (NEF) to jpg in Capture One. I shot in Adobe colourspace and then converted to sRGB for the web versions to ensure accurate colour transitions.

Lenses used were Nikon 24-70mm and 20mm prime. The former is Nikon's new (well, came out in January 08) standard zoom and is in everyway flawless. You can use it at f/2.8 in any condition, shoot into the light and it will give you tack-sharp results with superb contrast and colour. No CA either, even with point-sources. The 20mm is a new lens for me, but a very old one otherwise. I picked it up in a second hand area of the LCE in Bath. It's a real cracker - fully manual and fabulous optics. You don't need new glass to take good pictures, but I do believe Nikon have always had great lenses.