Jupiter and a FJ62

Last week I was hired to shoot the New Mexico Department of Transportation nerve center.  Its referred to as the Transportation Management Center and its housed in the basement of an old mansion just west of Downtown.  The client I was shooting for was Jupiter and they were looking for shots of the giant flat screen installations as well as the server room.  The server room was actually quite fun.  It pushed my D700 to take pictures at 800 and 1600 ISO with 30 second exposures.  I won't say there was no noise but it was minimal and Lightroom 3 cleaned it up what was there.

This past Saturday I had the great opportunity to shoot an FJ62 in the beginnings of a rebuild.  The project is for a friend of Bridget's that has been station in Afghanistan.  His family and friends are getting together and providing what they can to rebuild his FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser.  My wife Bridget pitched in the photographer... me.  When asked what vehicle I would want if I could have any vehicle out there my initial response would be an M13 Half Track but a close second would be a FJ 45 pickup or an FJ40 (I'm still undecided)...  The project will probably last most of the year, so I hope to capture more of the rebuild as time goes on.

Long Live The Mantid!

Well at least long enough to pay back the small business loan for gear.  The new website is up but I'm still adding and rearranging images but I'm content enough to get off the ground.  MAD MANTIS STUDIO

I've upgraded to A Nikon D700.  Its been a long time in the making but having used the camera for the first time this past weekend I'm thoroughly impressed.  For the last three years I've worked with around Canon's 1DS Mark III (An amazing Camera by all counts) but it can't hold a candle to the high ISO performance of Nikon's sensor.  There is virtually no difference between 100 ISO to 800 ISO and 1600 ISO is nothing to cry about.  Of course the clarity of a full frame sensor, not to mention the ability to use your lenses as they were designed, is just incredible.  Luckily my brother arrived in Albuquerque for training this past weekend and I had great subject matter to play with....

For those who do not know my brother has been an eternal source of subject matter going back to the first days I discovered film and cameras.  He also happens to be a Blackhawk Pilot.  Which fits my brother perfectly.  I hope some day to fly with him.  I doubt it will ever be in a Blackhawk but for me any helicopter will do.

Next blog entry will be a little more technical.  It will deal with printing a black blackhawk and retaing the details.