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Michael [mahy-kuhl] – noun
1. A male given name. 2. A witty, charming professional wedding photographer who enjoys movies, exercise, romantic walks on the beach and large pepperoni pizzas.
Maven [may-ven] – noun
1. A connoisseur or trusted expert in a particular field who seeks to pass his knowledge onto others. 2. An intense gatherer of useful information. 3. An individual who demonstrates passion for learning and teaching a specific topic, particularly through a well connected social network.
Thank you for coming to my blog! I update it regularly, so if you ever want to know what I am up to, please come by and take a peek. Feel free to leave your comments below.
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Day 171 |
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Lighthouse On Long Beach lsland |
| I love this place...its so cute! I took this and my 365 shoot after a long day of shooting for the T1i Crash Course. Update on the 580 DVD, we didnt get a green light on the final copy, trying again tomorrow, should know something by Friday or Monday. Tedious work these DVDs... :) |
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Michael's Gear Page |
Hi there! And thank you for checking out my gear page. Ill be updating it every few months and I hope it answers your gear questions. If you have a question about photography or if your question about gear isn't answered here, please check out and join: Michael's Photography Forum
One of the most common questions I get, is what point and shoot do I carry? To be honest with you, this changes about every 6-8 months, it is currently a Canon Powershot SD 780 IS which is perfect for me...for now. Sometimes I don't like carrying big cameras everywhere, so this is a very good (and extremely small option). It is Image Stabilized and has video capabilities as well.
I am a Canon user for the following reason: Lens Selection and special video needs that wont apply to most normal photographers. Having a few XL1s's with adapters allowed me to use my Canon Photography Lenses on my video cameras, and this was 5 years ago.
I am not against Nikon. Cameras are TOOLS, so this should not be an emotional issue. It would be like saying, a Phillips head screwdriver is better than a Standard Head Screw Driver. Different tools do different things, pick the one that helps you get the job done, in the end all that matters is the result, how you got there is less important.
Currently, my main cameras are a Canon 5DII and a Canon 7D . My camera bodies constantly change, and I almost always have a full frame body (which I use mainly for portraits, landscapes & macros) and also at least one 1.6x body (which I use with my zoom lenses for longer reach, mainly for sports and shots taken from afar because you get more out of your lens (200mm x 1.6 = 320mm).
If you are just getting started, price is probably your biggest concern. There are 2 Cameras I will recommend:
- Canon Rebel XSi ~ $600
- Canon 7D ~$1700
Any of these cameras will give you an outstanding start into SLR photography and training videos are available for both on my store (see links above). Sometimes you can find them as "body only" meaning without a lens, and sometimes they will come with something called a "kit lens" such as the Canon 28-135 3.5-5.6 IS If this is your first camera and you have no lenses, I recommend you buy your camera with this kit lens, its a great starter lens, and it will save you about $200 than buying it separately.
If you can only afford an SLR body and are strapped for cash, this is THE lens to get:Canon 50mm 1.8 It costs about $100, and is made of plastic, but wow...great lens
My next recommendation would probably be the Canon 50mm 1.4 - AWESOME - Portrait Lens for Intermediate to Advanced Users I still have and use mine frequently despite having many more expensive lenses.
These are my go to lenses:
Canon 16-35mm 2.8 L
Canon 24mm 1.4 L
Canon 35mm 1.4 L
Canon 24-70mm 2.8 L - This is what I believe is the perfect general use lens for the 5DII & 7D Video
Canon 50mm 1.4
Canon 50mm 1.2 L
Sigma 50mm 2.8 Macro (simply THE BOMB for macro, yes better than the Canon 100mm 2.8, in my opinion)
Canon 70-200 2.8 IS L
If I am taking a long trip, say to Haiti for several weeks and I could only bring one lens with me, this is it: Tamron 18-270mm 3.5-6.3 . In my book it is probably the best all round, general purpose lens. It won't give you the same quality as Canon L lenses, but wow...its versatility is hard to beat! (Pretty light too!)
As a side note : I dont carry an Canon 85mm 1.2 L , rather I put the 50mm 1.2 on the 1.6 body and it becomes an effective 80mm 1.2, which is close enough for me. :)
Other gear I absolutely have with me on a serious shoot:
Lowepro Computrekker Backpack (BTW- all of my main gear, including laptop will fit into this bag)
Bogen 055CX3 Tripod with Bogen 486RC2 Ball Head
2 Canon 580 EXII Speedlites
Canon ST E2 Transmitter
Canon RC 1 Wireless Remote (works with Rebels and 5DII)
Kenko Macro Extension Tubes
Kenko 2x Extender
Merkury 2700 MaH Batteries
Sandisk Extreme III 16 GB CF Cards
Gepe Card Safe
For Studio Lighting I use 2 Alien Bee 1600W and 3 Pocket Wizard Plus II Transmitter Receivers
My computer is a 15" Mac Book Pro , with 4 GB of RAM, and I LOVE the Lexar Firewire 800 Card Readers . I have also developed a healthy obsession with Western Digital 500GB Passport HD - Portable FIrewire 800 Hard Drives . I cant tell you how many of these guys I have. No additional power cable needed.
Ive been a PC user my whole life and cannot recommend the Mac Book Pro higher, even though Ive had a few hiccups with it. Apple has been amazing.
I use the entire Adobe Production Bundle in my work, Photoshop, Premeire Pro, Sound Booth, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and After Effects get the most love.
Other goodies I own and use include:
- Zoom H4n Audio Recorder
- Joby Gorilla Pod ZOOM |
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A Big Thank You to my Volunteers! |
| I wanted to throw a shout out to my very friendly volunteers today during the workshop. We did a shoot on the beach and wanted a change of pace, so we found these 2 really nice surfer guys who agreed to help us out. The technique we were working on was shooting into the sun, and adding enough fill light to balance the subject out. A very tricky skill if you dont know what you are doing, but once you have it down...its cake! So yes, this is with a Speedlite. |
Also ran into a very nice family down by the dock. They were crab fishing, and I grabbed one quick shot of them before we left. This is not as good a picture as I had hoped. The problem was the DOF, to get them AND the crab in somewhat focus, I needed a very thick DOF, so: Aperture ; f10, added Speedlite to fill (the sun was already down), the mistake? Shutter Speed 1/20, my hand movement caused the blur! It looked great on the screen, not so much when I got home, but I promised to post it...so here you go! :)
I offered this family a free shoot tomorrow after noon, so if you guys are still interested, just shoot me an email! Thanks again! |
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Day 170 |
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My Trip So Far.... :) |
So sorry about the hang up, was driving all day yesterday, had a WONDERFUL workshop today on Long Beach Island in New Jersey (about 40 minutes from Philly). It was a great time, many great images to come shortly. So far, this is the map of my travels, Ive covered about 5500 miles driving up to this point. The beautiful thing about going with the Prius is that I am getting about 50 miles per gallon, and about 500 miles per tank, which is costing me about $27 to fill up. This translates into about 1000 miles per $53. Deciding to drive the Hybrid was a much better choice than what I was considering....renting a huge RV.
Tomorrow I start on the T1i DVD, should be getting green light on 580 Speedlite tomorrow or Wednesday, Pre-Order opportunity to follow shortly. :) |
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Day 169 |
| Wow....what a busy day today. 8 hour drive tomorrow. Looking forward to Philly workshop on Monday. I may opt to stay in Philly for a week before heading up to the NY workshop. Planning T1i DVD shoot this week. It never seems to end. Never enough time in the day....I feel like I have to RUSH everyday if I want to finish everything I have planned for the rest of my life. I cant remember the last time I sat around being bored or wondering what I could do to stay busy, in a way, I miss a day or two of that- but not by much. It feels great to know where I am going and to feel 100% confident there is nothing else I would rather be doing. :) |
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Slash Flim |
My editor Adam tipped me off to this great blog called Slash Film, it has a TON of information about upcoming film productions. Very cool! If you are into movies, you will probably enjoy it. Check it out: Slash Film
As always, if you ever find any information on the internet, websites, etc and think its worth sharing on here, just shoot me an email. If I like it...Ill post it! (Technically free advertising!) :) |
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Day 168 |
| Almost made it from Alabama to NC tonight, about 9 hours of driving. Dead tired (as you can see). Why is driving so exhausting when all you are doing is sitting there? Doesnt make any sense. Additional, 7-8 hour drive to Philly on Sunday for Monday's workshop. I find it somewhat ridiculous to think that shooting for the next DVD project will start on Tuesday. |
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Day 167 |
| Speedlite DVD project is all completed and sent into disk manufacturers, now its just a waiting game. I have about a 9 hour drive to North Carolina tonight. Need to be in Philly on Monday for the Pa workshop...lots of driving the next 3 days (16 hours to be exact). I have a great image coming for the 365. :) |
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