Well it took me a week or two longer than I wanted, but I put together a collection of what I think are some of my better images from 2009.  These images represent a cross-section of the places I visited and some projects I experimented with.  Highlights include a two week trip to China, vacation in Montreal, and a road trip from Albany, New York to Dallas, Texas.

This idea was inspired by a series of posts on this blog which I read from time to time.  Here is a specific post with a bunch of other “best of” posts and gallerties.  Enjoy.

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I am back from my road trip to Dallas, stay tuned for a final write-up on that.  I had a great time driving down with my brother and helping him get settled in his new place.  I finished editing this video before I left but didn’t have a chance to post it before I left.  This was the first video I put together where I planned out the shots I wanted and roughed up a storyboard before I started shooting.

I had a great time filming and thoroughly enjoyed the hike.  The views from the top of the firetower were spectacular.  The firetower on Overlook Mountain is one of the few remaining firetowers left in the Catskills Mountains where hikers are still allowed to claim to the top.  From the top you have a great 360 degree view of other Mountain tops, Albany and can look in the general direction of New York City.

Overlook Mountain Hike 9-6-09 from Michael Holtzman on Vimeo.
Click the link above to watch in High Def.

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My road trip to Texas started today after work.  Around 3:00 today I realized that I wasn’t going to get everything done that I wanted to for the day.  Actually I realized that around 10:00 but I tried to convince myself it could happen. 

I did take a break after lunch to open a package I was expecting.  It contained my new Canon 50mm F1.2 lens.  I will write a post after spending some time with the lens but after mounting it on my Canon 5D Mark II, all I can say is WOW.  This lens/body combination just feels right in your hands.  The weight seems perfectly balanced.  (more…)

I know I have posted in about a month, it has been a busy summer.  Weddings, work, enjoying the nice weather once the month of rain was over has gotten in the way of posting some new content.  Never fear, I have some new projects and ideas planned which I will be sure to post about here.

Some of you  probably know that my brother is moving down to Texas  to accept a promotion at his company.  The time has finally come, he will be leaving in a week.  Instead of letting him drive down straight through I decided to turn it into a little road trip and make the drive down with him.

I haven’t been to this part of the country so I figured I would make the most it.  We are planning on extending the trip by a day or two so we have some time to stop and enjoy sites along the way. (more…)

This weekend I got to test out my one week old Canon 5D Mark II.  First off, yes this camera is awesome.  I’m not going to write a review on it as there are tons already out there that go into extreme detail.  Suffice it to say the high ISO images, superb images on the full frame sensor and the 1080p movie mode are welcome improvements from my Canon XSi.  I’m not knocking the XSi, I still plan to keep it around as a backup and to let the girlfriend use it.

Back to the fireworks.  Last year for the fourth I shoot fireworks up at Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands.  You can see that flickr set here.  Overall I was impressed with some of the shoots, but I was excited to see what I could come up with this year.  The fireworks in Albany are set up from the Empire State Plaza.  I decided to set up shop just across the Hudson River.  I had a perfect view of the fireworks along with the larger buildings to better frame the shots.

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Recently there was a discussion started in the Strobist Group on Flickr talking about use a Sekonic L-358 light meter to remotely trigger a camera which in turn would trigger the remote strobes.  The original poster could not get the set up to work.  I knew this was possible as I have done very similar set ups (albeit at the time I didn’t have my light meter).  I went to work later that night on a mock set up to prove this will work.

My goal was to use my Sekonic L-558R to trigger a Pocket Wizard on the camera body causing it to trigger the remote strobes and take a picture.  Pocket Wizards have this feature built into their units, it’s called relaying.  From the manual of  Pocket Wizard Plus II, here are the steps in relay mode.

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Finally, after almost a week of collecting, sorting, pruning and editing I have finally posted our main photo gallery for the vacation. 

I tried to pick out images that captured the country we were visiting, from the tourist destinations to people in their everyday lives.  For most of these images I did very basic edits:  crops, straighten, adjust levels.  I also made use of the Lightroom presets in the Develop module along with some presets I downloaded from Camera Dojo.  I used the free Lightroom Essentials, though they also have additional presets you can purchase.

Now that I have these up, I flagged a bunch of images that I want to revisist and spend some more time with processing them.  I will post some of these to my flickr stream.

Without further ado, please head over to the gallery and check out the pictures.  Please post your comments about the pictures or the trip.

It’s been about a week since I last posted about my upcoming preparations for my China vacation.  I am now down to a final weekend before I need to get up at 5:30am to catch our bus down to JFK.  I think I got everything squared away at work, or I at least I did as best I can.  I am confident things are in good hands while i am away.

I probably should have started to do some packing in the last day or so to see if I am missing anything.  Well I didn’t, I did pick up a new lightweight rain coat though in case of rain.

Here is a more complete itinerary for our trip.  I plan on keeping a journal while I am away so I’ll write up detailed posts when I get back.

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After playing around with my new Pocket Wizards and lighting equipment for most of the past week, I decided to go outside and take advantage of some nice sun we were having for a change.  As it was already mid-afternoon when I made up my mind to head out, I knew I couldn’t go far.  I decided to try and take advantage of the Golden hour that was quickly approaching and head into Albany for some city shots.

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Just a quick note that some new gallery images have been posted.  I have been having lots of fun playing with my new Pocket Wizards.  The only issue is I need more strobes now!

Here is a sample from a very early Saturday morning session.  Note my brother is not happy about “modeling”.