I went out to Pasadena on Saturday with a mission to test out my newly acquired Nikon D700 camera.  Let me tell you if you don’t know yet, this camera has many awesome features.  It truly is a difference of night and day when comparing the D700 with my D50!  Everybody should know by now that the D700 is a full frame camera, has live view, and I believe everybody also knows that it can go up to 25,600 ISO.  These three I expected to perform awesome which it did.  What I didn’t expect (and no review I’ve read talked about) were:

• kelvin temperature adjustment: you can really dial in the white balance with this.  You can also shift the white balance so you can expose your image to a higher temp or cooler temp, thus shifting the colors warm or cold.
• multiple exposures from 2 – 10:  creating multiple exposures in camera is really fun and with the options of having 2 – 10 exposures on one image can really challenge your creativity.  I’ll need lots of practice with this one.
• interval timed shooting: you can set the camera up to take a shot every x-number of seconds.  Great for time-lapsed photos!
• lots of custom saving banks: you can save your settings into custom banks.
• d-lighting: this has been reviewed at other blogs, but basically it balances your images when there are extremes in lighting darkening your highlights and brightening your shadows.

I’m sure there are many other features that I have yet to discover, but am looking forward to.  Of course, this wouldn’t be complete without images…

During downtime and in-between client projects, it’s important to keep motivated and keep shooting.  Thus, personal projects.  For me, it’s developing my documentary skills.  FocusedOut.com came about because I wanted to document a place that I think is being forgotten…Chinatown.  Sure, it’s filled with tourist every weekend but aside from the Chinatown that tourists see, I wanted to document the real Chinatown, the zero generation that call this place their home, the history that’s currently being lost.

This will be an ongoing series for I don’t know how long.  I also want to practice being more intimate with my documentary subjects…so check that site often.  You can also signup to be emailed of any updates.  Feel free to leave me any feedback and comments.

http://www.focusedout.com

The redesign of my logo…DONE!
The redesign of my business cards…DONE!
The redesign of my site…DONE!

Thanks Jen for all your help!  Go check out the website if you haven’t yet:

MarvinYan.com Website

Up next…

• marketing.
• portfolio building.
• networking.
• accounting software.