Hasselblad at the Denver Auto Show

April 17th, 2012

So it was the Denver Auto Show a few weeks back and while I really wanted to check out the latest from GM, Ford and Mercury (/sarcasm) I kept getting pulled toward the old cars and the super cars.  I carried with me my Canon 5D2 but also on this wonderful day I decided to try to kill a role of Kodak 400TX that I had shot up 6 shots on already but had just been sitting around for weeks.  Let me just say, I was thrilled with the results and the fun of it, I think I got more looks with the Hassy than some of the cars did, I must have looked like some sort of alien out there.  Enjoy.

An Old Impala

A Truck that I Should Probably Know the Name of

That's Right, Lamborghini, Meet Hasselblad

And what would an auto show be without a Ferrari?

 

Initial “Impressions” with the 5D Mark III – Dog Edition

April 1st, 2012

I say “impressions” because color me impressed.  So I’ve only had a few days to play and it’s been all play, no work.  Haven’t really sat down to do side by side with the 5D2 but let me tell you, using this thing is a pleasure.  It fits better in my hand than the 5D2 (deeper grip, grippier), the AF is amazing, the ISO is amazing.  Unfortunately it’s time to learn a whole new button setup, not a huge fan of that but I’m already adapting and can see some of the advantages.  Soon I’ll be posting some side by side 5D2 and 5D3 but for now, here’s some of my favorite snaps from this weekend (I’ve spent a lot of time around dogs this weekend as it turns out).

 

First and Foremost, the ISO. Gotta guess what ISO this is before I tell you.

It's 25,600. Unreal. A little sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom, nothing special. Click for 100%, slightly reduced for the blog.

A few more samples after the break…

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How to open your Canon 5D Mark III Photos in Lightroom

March 23rd, 2012

Edit: A LR 4.1 Release Candidate has been released that supports the 5D3, you have to create a new catalog but you can plan on being able to import the 4.1 RC catalog into 4.1 once it is officially released.

 

Alright, I know some of us have our 5Dmk3 already and some of us are waiting, me included sadly.  My buddy Andrew over at AK Photo Denver  just gave me the heads up, LR 3 and LR 4 don’t support Canon 5D Mark III RAW files yet.  I guess it’s been implemented into Adobe RAW already but not into Lightroom yet, plan on it being there in the next release.  Anyway, he wrote up a quick article helping people like myself out and I figured I’d pass the knowledge along, I’ll need this knowledge very soon myself.

It’s simple really, convert the CR2 into a RAW file.

Just do this:

  1. Go grab yourself Adobe’s DNG Converter (like I said, it already supports the Canon 5D Mark III)
  2. Install it and run it
  3. Point it to your folder housing the CR2 files and set your output back to the same folder or somewhere new, up to you.  If you have Auto Import going you could output to there, as they’re converted they’ll pop into Lightroom.
  4. Now click “Convert” and wait as the conversions take place.
  5. If you didn’t do the Auto Import just import from that folder you just exported to.
Not too hard at all.  This will make your CR2s into DNGs which is a non-proprietary RAW format but still completely lossless.  Might even get a little bit of space savings out of it, some compression is done, zip file like compression, not JPG like compression.
Andrew has some screenshots and such on his posting right over here.

 

Mondo Wins! Project Runway All-Stars and popchips!

March 22nd, 2012

So tonight I got to go shoot for popchips at the Project Runway All-Stars viewing party here in Denver hosted by Mondo.  For those who don’t know Mondo is a designer who lives in Denver and was on Project Runway a few seasons ago.  Sadly he did not win but got an invitation back to compete with the All-Stars.  Well, congratulations to Mondo as he won this time, winning a much bigger and nicer prize package too.  Here are a few of the photos from the event although this is just the quick cut for the blog, more to come.

EDIT: More Photos as promised now available here http://photos.frittsphoto.com/Corporate-Photography/popchips/2012-03-22-Project-Runway/

The Winning Moment

Anyone want some popchips?

 

Another Product Photo – Bulleit Bourbon

March 21st, 2012

So I got to spend a little time with Tom Bulleit of Bulleit Bourbon a few weeks back and we got to talking about photos, banners, printing, large format printing, advertising and all that.  Well I showed him a few of the product photos I’d done in the past and he was interested.  So I took it upon myself to throw one together for Bulleit Bourbon.  Always fun to do stuff like this.

As always I love to also share the how to.  This is actually a composite shot with the bottle of Bulleit on some black-backed glass giving it a nice reflection.  I then did some exposures moving the lights around to get rim lighting, lighting on the letters, the label, the reflection, the cap, etc.  Then I brought them all together to give me a nice clean image mostly clear of reflections.  I can go into more detail if people want me to but that’s the main idea.

Taken with my 5D Mark II (maybe my last product photo with it before the Mark III), my 100mm 2.8 macro, a tripod, a flashlight and a speedlight.

The final results

 

Canon 5D Mark III?

March 1st, 2012

  Could this be it?

After tons of waiting and anticipation, could this be it?  Canon Rumors has posted what they believe is the final spec sheet of the 5D that will be unveiled tonight(?).  The question is, do I upgrade? Do you?  Let’s break down the specs.  My thoughts after the specs.

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New server stuff again

January 31st, 2012

So life has been crazy, as per usual, business is going well, my day job, married life, keeping the house in order, learning to bake bread, I’m not sure how many more random things I can add to this list but I think any adults out there can definitely understand what I’m talking about.  Because of this I decided it was time to redo my website.  I just don’t have the time to code my own galleries, worry about free space on the server, troubleshoot when something goes wrong with the downloads, worry about links being incorrect and because of this I’ve moved the photo part of the website to Smugmug.  This is something I considered doing a long time ago but just couldn’t rationalize the cost, well now I can.  Now I’m able to just click Publish out of Lightroom and post photos immediately without worrying about coding, broken links and all that jazz.

I hope it isn’t too radical of a change for everyone but I think once people get used to it they’ll see it’s just as good or better than the old site and I can spend more time taking photos and blogging about my photos, my experiences and my knowledge hopefully with that free time.  I look forward to hearing feedback from people about what they like or dislike, feel free to tell me all about it and if you find any broken links, tell me about those too.  Thanks everyone, more blogging to come.

 

Fritts Photo and Fitz and the Tantrums in Spin

November 7th, 2011

So I got to work with popchips again, always fun, and this time to go get some photos of Fitz and the Tantrums just enjoying some popchips at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, CO.  Well, the photos made it into Spin Magazine, or at least on to their website, no word on whether they’ll go into a print issue or not yet.  See it here!

http://www.spin.com/gallery/outside-lands-gets-crunched-popchips?page=1#main

 

And a couple more bonus shots.  Fitz and the Tantrums were great, nice and relaxed, very cool to meet them.

Playing a little chip toss

Playing a little chip toss.

 

Mmmm, try this flavor!

Mmmm, try this flavor!

 

Motor Cycle Racing Photography

October 4th, 2011

So originally I was going to do a piece just on going out to the track and show photos and talk a little bit about it.  But one thing I’ve learned on this fancy internet thing is that people looking at photography stuff seem to much prefer learning about technique and how they can do something themselves.  So with that said I recalibrated my head and instead decided to talk about the actual doing of the photos and show off a little of what I did, although to be honest, I’m definitely no pro at this and really just did it for fun and had to learn as I went along.  I’d assume a lot of what I learned would apply to racecar photography too.

Real close up! 1/250s @ f/7.1, ISO 400, 125mm

So, first things first.  My buddy and I went out to the High Plains Raceway and worked the the MRA here in Colorado and got some media passes.  It wasn’t too hard to do, lots of paperwork, waivers, agreements, and all that jazz to go through (including who you’re insured by, ouch!).  If you are interested I’d suggest starting there, contact your local raceways and clubs that race and see what ones will allow you to get a pass, without one getting the really fun photos will be a lot harder.

Second, be safe, seriously and follow all the rules of the track.  You don’t want to end up getting hurt or getting someone else hurt or having your day cut short by getting kicked out.

This guy laid it down easy, with speed it really could hurt

This guy laid it down easy, with speed it really could hurt

Now, I’m going to break this blog post here, otherwise it may fill my whole homepage, click on through for more!

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Bulleit Bourbon at Interstate Kitchen and Bar

September 16th, 2011

So Bulleit Rye (a really delicious rye whiskey) can hardly be found here in Denver right now but it just so happens that there was a wonderful dinner hosted by Interstate Kitchen and Bar here in Denver that I got to attend in its honor.  The food at Interstate was very good and and bourbon complimented it well.  With that said, let’s get to the photos.

Awesomely done soup of the day, whisky

Awesomely done soup of the day

Bulleit and Interstate Together

Bulleit and Interstate Together

More through after the break as always.

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