Articles from Lee Morris

Photographer turned wet-plate artist Ian Ruhter basically dropped everything and cashed in his life's savings to follow his passion, morphing his van into a massive camera and making enormous wet plate prints as he travels the country.

Pye Jirsa from SLRLounge.com recently sat down with Peter Hurley for an exclusive interview. Peter talks about his history as a photographer, his DVD, his favorite gear, business techniques, and PH2. Peter is a huge character and as always he makes the interview a pretty entertaining watch.

So you are one of the lucky ones who got a Canon 5d Mark III this week huh? After taking 15 iPhone photos of the camera box and it's contents to upload to Facebook (bragging rights) you finally take some test shots.

Are you ever on location shooting and the background is a bit boring? Why not add smoke? In this video Jay P. Morgan shows us how he uses a smoke machine in the woods to liven up his shots. Using some materials from your local hardware store you can make the smoke go exactly where you need it to be.

Even though both Patrick and I purchased the Nikon D4 and D800 the day the preorder became available (and we are NPS members) the cameras still have not been shipped to us. Ironically B&H was kind enough to send us a 5DM3 for review and we should receive it by tomorrow.

What is going on with cameras these days? First we learned that the $6000 Nikon D4 is not a significant improvement over the D3S in terms of resolution or ISO performance. Now we are hearing that the Canon 5D Mark III is not a significant jump in video quality compared to the 5D Mark II that was released 4 years ago.

Most car guys would be happy just to see a McLaren Mp4-12c in the flesh. Getting to hang out with one for a day, while also being paid to take photos of it, would be "dream job" material. Clearly Dallas based photographer Brian Braun is living the dream!  In this b.t.s.

These days RC helicopters with video cameras are becoming more and more common because you can control and land them in almost any terrain. Have you ever wondered how you have to land an RC airplane when there are no available runways? Apparently you have to fly them directly at yourself and then snatch them out of the air with your bare hand.

The Nikon D4 may not be a huge improvement over the D3S in terms of image quality but as a video camera there is no comparison. The most important updates include audio controls that allow you to dial in silky smooth sounding audio from an external mic as well as an audio out jack for headphone monitoring.

As a wedding photographer I was really never interested in the D800. 36mp in ideal light for commercial jobs sounds fantastic but shooting thousands of images in a dark reception hall and having to deal with massive files horrified me. Because of this I purchased a D4 hoping for high ISO performance in a more manageable 16mp file.

Last night we put 3 Nikon cameras up against the new Nikon D4 in a studio ISO test and the D3s won. Don't get me wrong, the D4 files look fantastic, and beyond ISO 6400 the D4 did have slightly less color noise compared to the D3s but when we compared the images side by side we saw a pretty significant drop in contrast and sharpness.

Yesterday I shot a full wedding with the new Nikon D4 that LensProToGo was kind enough to send me since mine isn't here yet. I was extremely pleased with the way that the camera performed and although I haven't gone through the images yet, I picked out 6 random shots that were taken at high ISO so that you guys can see the noise in real world situations.  

Yesterday we got a call from LensProToGo.com and they told us that they had gotten in the new Nikon D4. Both Patrick and I bought the camera but it isn't due to show up before Monday. LensProToGo said they would over night the camera to me so that we could get a head start on reviewing the camera and now I will be able to shoot a real wedding with it tomorrow.

It's already been an exciting month for gear enthusiasts. Obviously, the major camera body announcements from Canon and Nikon have taken most of the spotlight. We have also seen new Pocket Wizards, as well as a shinny new version of Adobe Lightroom 4 come out. But what about the glass? Sure, Canon revised a few lenses, but I'm talking about a whole new lens.

Commercial photographer Dean Bradshaw provides us with a unique perspective of his recent photo shoot for "Startrac". The shoot involved a handful of athletes being shot while mock competing in their individual sports.

If you are a beginner in terms of lighting, or looking for some quick and simple light setups, then Don Giannatti has you covered. Don (a.k.a.

Rick Genest (aka Zombie Boy) is nothing if not intense.

Who doesn’t love watching the X Games? Those athletes are crazy. Just as captivating, though, is this behind-the-scenes two-part video on The Northface and X Games Baldface commercial. Director Todd Jones pulls out all the stops in this two part BTS documentary, breaking out a Phantom HD Gold, a helicopter, and building one really enormous jump.

Fstoppers.com has featured some great behind the scenes videos over the years and showcased amazingly talented professional photographers in our Fstoppers Originals series. Recently Patrick and I were invited to Scottsdale, Arizona to expose the secrets of commercial photographer Blair Bunting.

I thought I had seen pretty much every type of water drop photo over the years, then I stumbled upon these. Markus Reugels is a floor installer in Marktsteinach, Germany as well as a part-time photographer.

Just about everyone I know is hooked on critically-acclaimed series Breaking Bad. (A high school chemistry teacher with cancer turned meth dealer? How could that not be interesting?) But as TV still photographer Ursula Coyote will tell you, shooting  the show can be even more exciting than watching it.

With the Oscars taking place tomorrow, it seems like the perfect time to present a b.t.s. video of an Oscar related photo shoot. The Hollywood Reporter has made a behind the scenes video for their most recent photo shoot, entitled:"Oscar Icons". The "Icons" include Helen Mirren, Michael Douglas and some guy named Charlie Sheen.

Via: The Hollywood Reporter

Photography: Is It Still A Man’s World?

Marcus Nilsson thinks outside the box. A former chef, Nilsson stumbled into food photography and ended up being one of the photographers who shaped our contemporary approach to cuisine.

Today we can finally wrap up the Fstoppers 2011 behind the scenes video contest. This contest ran for 4 months in 2011 and ended on December 31st. In January Patrick and I watched each of the 120 video submissions and narrowed our favorite down to 12. We then sent those 12 videos to our celebrity judges and they chose their favorites. without further adieu, these are the top 3 winners.

It seems the crew over at Phase One is in a particularly giving mood this week. They have decided to sell their flagship software title at 50% of its retail price. In fact ALL their software is 50% off. The catch? It's this week only. Capture One Pro is arguably the go to software for tethered shooting and high quality raw conversions.

Photographer Michelangelo Di Battista recently shot actress Kirsten Stewart of Twilight fame for Italian Vogue. The behind the scenes video of the shoot takes the viewer through the set and shows us quite a few different light setups.

When photographers think about their dream shoot, it usually has more to do with Angelina Jolie and a Ferrari than painstakingly positioning a piece of cooked cauliflower.

In a scene I can only imagine making an amazing Hollywood heist movie (especially for camera nerds), it seems the official Nikon trade show van has been stolen in Dublin, Ireland. At this point there are few details available as far as how the robbery went down. It does seem like the thieves knew what they were getting though.

The Nikon D800 was just announced and the 36mp powerhouse is being sold at the extremely reasonable price of $3000. Like many photographers, I planned to buy a D800 and the grip together. Once again Nikon has created a proprietary grip for the D800, the MB-D12. The biggest surprise was that this grip is double the price of the most expensive grip for the previous camera. Why?

London Fashion Week is fast approaching and GQ magazine in the UK decided to put together a shoot sponsored by Mercedes-Benz. Instead of the "usual" shoot that includes models and luxury cars (think of every music video ever made), GQ chose to go in a slightly different direction.

National Geographic photographer Boyd Matson takes us on a 25 minute journey through the 2.5-mile Hang Son Doong cave along the Vietnam-Laos border. This cave is 3 times the height of Niagara Falls and has a complete Jungle growing inside of it. If you have any interest in photography, biology, or geography, you have got to check out this video.

This is the best deal I have seen in a long time. You can currently get a Canon T2i for $399 after you use the code "S1234567" at Adorama. You can also buy a Canon Pro9000 printer and because you bought it with the camera, you are eligible for a $400 rebate which makes the printer totally free.

Surfing photographer Chris Burkard spends his days traveling to some of the planet’s most magnificent beaches, where he navigates all sorts of technical complications in search of the perfect surfing shot.

I think it's safe to say that a large percentage of photographers are Apple users. I believe that a lot of those same users don't enjoy importing their photos using USB 2.0 card readers. Making matters worse is having to hear their PC friends brag about their fast USB 3.0 card readers.