Marvin Yan Photography » Personal

Testing Out My Nikon D700

Marvin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:13:01 +0000

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…

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Personal Projects – FocusedOut.com

Marvin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:04:28 +0000

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

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Help-Portrait Los Angeles Flyer

Marvin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:12:51 +0000

Here’s a flyer you can print out, use, and forward to anyone and everyone. Remember, this event is for this Saturday December 12th, 2009 from 9:30am to 2:30pm. Come out and volunteer or come out and have your portrait taken…either way, come out to the event!

: Help Portrait Los Angeles Flyer

You can download the flyer here.

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Rain… huh … what is it good for … absolutely something …

Marvin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:05:22 +0000

Sorry for the darkness and grainy-ness…this was taken by my first gen iPhone! But this bad boy made an appearance today for about 10 minutes…huge and bright! So I guess rain is good for something!

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Help-Portrait Los Angeles

Marvin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:56:27 +0000

Help-Portrait Los Angeles

“Help Portrait is a movement of photographers who are using their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those who are less fortunate this holiday season.”

I will be volunteering my services to a great cause on December 12th. Help-Portrait. Why? Because I can. I am very fortunate and grateful to have what I have today…a job, a car, a roof over my head, food, and wonderful friends. Whenever I get in a funk and start wishing I had this and wishing I had that, I usually take a step back, stop thinking of what I want and start thinking about what I do have. No matter how bad my situation is, there are always other people that have it much worse and Help-Portrait is just a start for me of beginning the process of giving back and helping others.

Help-Portrait is not restricted to only photographers, anyone can join and volunteer. It is a movement that’s happening across the globe. Go to their website to find the closest location near you.

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Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival

Marvin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:56:29 +0000

Woke up at 3am and drove down to Temecula for their 26th annual Hot Air Balloon and Wine Festival. Why so early? …so we can capture the hot air balloon setup and lift off which was starting at 6am! It was well worth getting up for even though it was cloudy when we first got there. They moved the launch area about 2 miles down the road because it was a bit windy where we were. By the time they were launching, the clouds parted and we got some sunshine which made for fantastic shots! Check it out…

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Pasadena’s Doo Dah Parade

Marvin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:49:25 +0000

Ahhh…the Doo Dah Parade. A bunch of crazy people walking the streets of Pasadena! Interesting people, interesting costumes, interesing day. See for yourself:

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POV, Patterns, and Colors…Oh My!

Marvin — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:31:41 +0000

3 essentials that I keep in mind when I go out and do some photowalking. This time, headed over to LACMA as they are having a Vanity Fair Photo Exhibit (being displayed until March). Exhibit consisted of portraits from their magazine from 1913 to 2008…very interesting collection. Do check it out if you have a chance.

Went and shot around outside afterwards…and of course, interesting architecture around the museum:

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Old Town Pasadena

Marvin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:00:04 +0000

Did some photowalking yesterday in Old Town Pasadena and got a couple of shots off. The telephoto lens I was using wasn’t all so great…think I need to get a better one. It wasn’t all that dark yesterday and the biggest f-stop I could get was 4.5…even with that I had to go below 1/60th for these shots…hence the blur. I’ll live with it for now…my next purchase is going to be a wide-angle lens.

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Happy New Year!

Marvin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:06:08 +0000

Happy New Year to everyone. Hope this year will be THE year! I’ve got big hopes, big goals, and big dreams…one of which is to update my blog on a regular basis. So, here’s my first post of the year…and a picture to go along with it.

This is the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Didn’t get to go in as they were doing some retrofitting…but the view from the outside was nice. This was taken with my iPhone…not bad huh?

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