Las Vegas Part 3: Major Signage

One of my favorite places to see in Las Vegas is the downtown Freemont Street Experience. I've seen the show on the canopy several times. Incredible is the main word that comes to mind. With all of the LEDs and the wonderful sound system. But this time I saw something that I've never seen there before.

The promenade also moonlights as an outdoor museum with all of the major historic signs on display. Most people have seen the marquees of places like these:

But the better ones are a little further down. I only took these pictures because I thought the signs looked bad ass. I wasn't going for anything artistic. Well anyways... Here they are. 

These last two are modern signs but thought they looked great too.

All in all, this reminded me of driving around looking at christmas lights on the houses. My short attention span loves all of the bright colors and the flashing lights. I would recommend a quick stop by here to check out this snapshot of history that has now been forgotten. I would fairly appreciate if you checked out my other two series from my 4 day trip to Sin City here and here.

In the very near future I will start writing more how to guides and useful information on commonly used tools processes and some history of photography. And I have a set of pictures from Universal Citywalk that have been through my first cut and will be editing fairly soon.

Las Vegas Part 2

For Part One, Click Here.

This is part two of my short trip to Las Vegas from a few weeks ago.I have an easy time trying to figure out what I can do there when I am still home, but when I get there it all goes right out the window. Most of these shots were from the 3rd day of hotel looking over by Caesar's Palace. Mostly of the Belagio and the newish hotel/city Aria. There are a couple from downtown, Excalibur and Planet Hollywood thrown in there too. Hopefully I can go back soon when I don't need to throw on copious amounts of sunscreen to survive outside.

I just remembered the other day that I do have a part 3, which is mainly Downtown and some of the old nostalgic signage from the old advertisements and hotels. I think I shall drop that one around Sunday. Also, check out my other pictures on Smugmug here. And please leave me your thoughts in the comments section below. Even if you think my pictures suck. I need some learning to do and that is the easiest way for me to get some improvement.Thanks for dropping by.

Best Tool for Correct Exposure

Soon, I'm going to start using one of the most important tools in the field for a photographer, The light meter. It's used to tell you how to make the correct exposure for whatever scene you are shooting. It comes in several shapes and forms and has been included in most, if not all, 35mm cameras since the 70s and several medium format cameras from the 60s and 70s.

An older version of Matrix Metering

The main types of meters used this day are spot, incident, center weighted and matrix. Several current DSLRs include spot, center and matrix, and most common and inexpensive meters have incident and center weighted. Each type has their own use and the right time when they should be used and hopefully I can explain these uses well.

This one has all 3 meter types

The most common metering, these days are center weighted and matrix metering. They come on all current DSLRs and are fairly simple to use. Center weighted is used when you are in manual focusing mode.It takes a reading of the light reflected off of the object that is in the center square of the viewfinder and judges the aperature and shutter speed needed to make the correct exposure. Matrix metering is the same but it uses one of the several boxes around the viewfinder, set by either the photographer or selected automatically and judges the exposure of the picture based on that box. Its very useful if you want to zone in on your subject as opposed to the other way where its the object in the center. Sometimes the center weighted gives either over or underexposed shots for the whole frame instead of just certain objects.

Incident meters are useful in the studio or if you are trying to go for a certain look in the field. These meters judge light based on the light hitting the actual subject as opposed to the light reflected off of the subject as with the two previous. In order to find the exposure in the studio, you want to plug the flash sync cable from your power pack into the flash (PC Sync) terminal on your meter and hit the exposure button. From my experience, this is a much easier way to set the exposure because it can see the flash easier than the reflected meter. Out in the field, you can use the incident meter if you are trying to get some different types of lighting effects. a great example would be like a sun shaft or if you are trying to get a certain type of lighting in a portrait or even a building.

Standard reflective and incident meter

The last type of meter is the spot meter. This is probably for the more advanced photographer. Many people use these meters for Large Format landscape photography or any type of subject that has more drastic light shifts. The field of view of the spot meter is very narrow. You basically have to meter several spots and kind of take the average so you can get an all around reading of your subject. I think its mainly used with landscapes. You would use it with the advanced type of metering system called the Zone System, which you can read about *here*.

Spot Meter made by Pentax

There are some other tips and tricks that you just pick up over time. Many photographers can just eyeball a situation and can tell right away which exposure to use. some other tricks are the sunny 16 rule and using the 18% grey card. The sunny 16 rule is to set the shutter speed to whichever is closest to the ISO number and set the aperture to f16 if the sky is perfectly sunny and you should get a decent exposure. The 18% grey card is to meter the card so you can expose for the whites and blacks without going way over or underexposed for either color.

If you are looking to hit the next level with your photography, buying a meter is the way to go. It is one of the many ways to slow you down and to think about what you are shooting as opposed to a pay and spray method that people use way too much these days.

If anybody has any questions, as always, drop a comment and I'll get back to you with an answer. Also, check out my most recent set of pictures I took on my short trip to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Part 1

A few weeks back, I drove up to Las Vegas to attend the tv taping for one of my top interests ever, Monday Night Raw. This trip was quite different than my last visit in 2011 where my camera broke almost before I had a chance to use it. These pictures don't follow a specific order, they were just pulled from the pool at random. I have a second half because going from 150 images down to just 20 is really hard. It was hard enough to get it down to 38. Part 2 will drop on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Back to the Basics

I was editing my most recent set of pictures from my four day trip to Las Vegas. I'm kind of having a problem with the pictures I've been taking as of late. And its the same problem I've been bitching about since I bought my digital camera. I haven't really been shooting any film recently except for the occasional shot here and there, and I'm not liking how my white balance and composition have been coming out in my shots. The rejection from the stock agency has kind of magnified my thoughts on this. And it might not even be  an issue of what medium I'm using. I really haven't set any parameters on what I am shooting at a given moment. Whatever I see that's interesting is usually what gets shot.

What I'm going to do first is buy one of these

which should allow me to use my main film camera without having my DSLR hanging inconveniently on my shoulder and focusing on shooting, and then I am going to set some more strict parameters on what I can and can't shoot. So, it looks like I am going to have an easier time since more of my niche will be showing up instead of blind pay and spray shots which have been coming up as of late.

You may all return to your regularly scheduled programs. .................... Now!!

Odd Stats

I'm stat obsessed. I look out the stats for this site on the blogger panel and google analytics a countless number of times a day. I think its more of a what part of the world are they from kind of thought than anything.

A few months back I was referred over to StatCounter by Chris over at Bad Boy in Japan. This one is different than the others that I use because it has the ability to track a pageviewers IP address, country, service provider and how they were referred here. I was checking it out today for the "first" time today and came across this gem:

How cool is it to have your site crawled by the Library of Congress? Pretty darn. I was trying to draw an emoticon next to there, but it ended up being a whole face. You can tell the face isn't mine since it has hair. :-)

Editing my next set of pictures from my trip to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. In the meantime, why don't you check out my other galleries over on my page on smugmug