Available Light and the Nikkor 50mm f1.8D = Great Portraits!

My friend Mario is a well known figure in Malmö as he goes around reaching out to the homeless and needy of the city offering them food, friendship and a helping hand. He does all this without pay, and many times without thanks, but keeps simply plugging away. A real hero in my book!

Taken handheld with a D300s, 50mm f1.8D lens and whatever light was available. An aperture of f2.8 ensured a lovely out of focus rendition of the background and sufficient shutter speed to give a sharp portrait.

For those of you that care, here are the settings I used according to the exif data:
Manual, f2.8, 1/125s, ISO 400, auto white balance, and a quick run through DXO Optics Pro 8.

Travelwide 4×5 camera (how you can get your very own large format camera)

I came across an interesting project that seems like a lot of fun and could generate some interest in large format photography for a small investment.

This is from their website:


Travelwide is the ultralight 4×5 film camera that goes wherever you go.

"Pretty amazing" — Photojojo

"Super cool" — The Phoblographer

"Ultralight 4x5 camera… ultra-friendly price" — The World's Best Ever

"My neck and shoulders already like this camera." — Mortal Muses

It's easy to fall in love with the incredible quality of 4×5 analog film, but no one loves lugging a heavy metal camera. We wanted to create a 4×5 that you could take anywhere in the world, and carry every day at home. The result is Travelwide. It's lighter than a DSLR, and not much larger—yet tough enough to toss in a side bag or cram into an overloaded backpack.

For much more info, and to check out their request for a small $99 investment to secure your very own Large Format camera, go to their website by simply clicking here -> Travelwide 4×5 camera

Putting my Light Tent and Elinchrom lights to Good Use

For the last couple of years I have been buying up beer mugs in second hand stores, and it was all started by my daughter who purchased this mug for me at a boot sale:

It turned out to be pre German unification, so it has a little age to it as well. Since then I have added to my collection and below you can find a few of them. I used my light tent with black board inside for the seamless background, an Elinchrom D-Lite-it 2 with 65x65 softbox and Nikon D300s with Nikon 40mm f/2.8 DX G AF-S attached. All manual settings for consistency from shot to shot. Post processed with DXO Optics Pro 8.