New Gallery Site

I’m setting up a new gallery site on Zenfolio. In celebration of that, here’s a slideshow of some of the best images there.

*edit* Hmm, my blog hosting is stripping out embedded Flash movies. Well, you can watch it on my Facebook Fan Page or on my Tumblr blog.

As if that’s not enough, I’ve got coupons for you! That’s right, save some money.

If you want to have your own top-quality image hosting & sales site, use this coupon: Z7S-NSU-VSX.

I’m offering a promotion for the holidays (*sigh* yes, it’s time to plan ahead, haven’t you seen the Halloween stuff in the stores?) so that you can give prints of my work as gifts. The following coupon will get you 5% off all orders over $25: kwp09holidays

Have a great week everyone.

The Mystery of the Slow Shutter

I shot a wedding a few weeks ago, using on-camera bounce flash, and I really struggled with too slow shutter speeds. I was on Aperture Priority, as usual, and I was trying to use fast apertures for shallow depth of field. I kept getting 1/15th, even though my aperture was 2.8 and my ISO was 800 – this is with flash helping out! I was shooting for my friend Jack, who has the same camera but a slower 18-200mm lens. He was getting 1/60th, f/5.6 at ISO 200!

I’ve tried everything I can think of. Active D lighting on? No. Minimum flash sync speed (setting f2 in the D300) too low? Well, yes, it was, but that didn’t solve the problem. Lens aperture sticking closed? No. Matrix metering – check. Auto ISO? Off. Auto ISO on and set to 1/60th minimum shutter speed? No effect.

I had just about given up. Actually, I gave up.

I was just testing using the SB-800 as my master (instead of the pop-up) and noticed that I was still having that problem. I fiddled around with settings here and there, and suddenly, it was fixed!

USING REAR CURTAIN SYNC ALLOWS SHUTTER SPEEDS SLOWER THAN THE “f2″ SETTING SPECIFIES IS THE MINIMUM SHUTTER SPEED!

By turning off Rear Curtain Sync, my shutter speed would no longer dip below the “f2″ setting I specified.

Nikon Lenses for Sale

The following lenses are now up for sale. Email me at: “kevwil” at that Google email system (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, no spam please).

*SOLD* Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G AF-S N – well cared for, about a year old, in ‘excellent’ to ‘like-new’ condition.

*SOLD* Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR – well cared for, about 1.5 years old, in ‘excellent’ to ‘like-new’ condition.

*SOLD* Nikon 20mm f/2.8D – barely used, in ‘like-new’ condition

*SOLD* Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED AIS – was purchased used, body and lens hood have some cosmetic marks but glass and mechanics are perfect.