Indian Girl by Sven Bannuscher
Currently I’m so busy with projects that I hardly get to post on this blog anymore, so I decided to do a quick retouch of a beautiful Indian girl I photographed last weekend.
Justin Bieber in Concert
Posted: 30th March 2012 by Svenler in PhotographyTags: Concert, Justin Bieber, Music, Photography, Pop, Stage, Svenler
Justin Bieber by Sven Bannuscher
Beauty Shoot: Beth
Posted: 6th March 2012 by Svenler in PhotographyTags: Beauty, Beth, Elizabeth, Michelle Heffner, Model, Photo Shoot, Photography, Sven Bannuscher, Svenler
Here are some pictures from my recent shoot with the fabulous Beth C. Make-Up was done by Michelle Heffner, who is also a professional body- and face painter. The pictures were taken in a conference room.
To see more pictures from this shoot, click the following link… Read the rest of this entry »
Picture Comparison: Nikon D800 vs Canon 5D Mark III
Posted: 3rd March 2012 by Svenler in Photo GearTags: Canon 5D Mark III, Comparison, Nikon D800, Photos, Pictures
After the comparison of specs (click here to see it), it’s now time to look at the sample images both Canon and Nikon provide for the D800 and the 5D Mark III. In order to be fair, I picked pictures that were taken with equal lenses (24-70 f/2.8) and shot at ISO 100.
I chose this picture from Canon:
And this one from Nikon:
At first I thought I might be unfair to Nikon, since the picture looked so dull in the preview, but a closer look reveals some staggering differences:
Spec Comparison: Nikon D800 vs Canon 5D Mark III
Posted: 2nd March 2012 by Svenler in Photo GearTags: Canon 5D Mark III, Comparison, Nikon D800
Both the Nikon D800 and the Canon 5D Mark III have been long awaited. Last night, Canon finally announced the specs for the 5D Mark III, so here is the comparison just based on specs. Please note that these are pure numbers and don’t say anything about real life performance of either camera.
| Features | Nikon D800 | Canon 5D Mark III |
| Resolution | 36.3 MP | 22.3 MP |
| Sensor Type | CMOS | CMOS |
| Sensor Size | 35.9 x 24mm (FF) | 36 x 24mm (FF) |
| Image Size | 7360 x 4912 | 5760 x 3840 |
| Sensor Cleaning | Yes | Yes |
| Processor | Expeed 3 | Digic 5+ |
| Viewfinder | Pentaprism | Pentaprism |
| Viewfinder Coverage | 100% | 100% |
| Viewfinder Magnification | 0.70x | 0.71x |
| Shutter Life | 200,000 | 150,000 |
| Exposure Metering | 91,000 pixel Matrix | 63 zone dual-layer |
| Spot Metering | Every Spot | Center Spot only |
| Native ISO | 100 – 6,400 | 100 – 25,6000 |
| ISO Boost | 50 – 25,600 | 50 – 102,400 |
| AF | 51 points (up to 15 cross) | 61 points (up to 41 cross) |
| AF Detection | f/8 | f/5.6 |
| Shutter Speed | 1/8000s – 30s | 1/8000s – 30s |
| Shutter Lag | 42ms | 59ms |
| Sync Speed | 1/250s | 1/200s |
| FPS | 4 FPS, 6 in DX mode | 6 FPS |
| Memory Card Slots | 1 CF + 1 SD | 1 CF + 1 SD |
| Built-In Flash | Yes | No |
| AF Assist | Yes | No |
| Video Output | H.264/MPEG4, HDMI (uncompressed) | H.264/MPEG4 |
| Video Resolution | 1920×1080 at 30p | 1920×1080 at 30p |
| LCD | 3.2″ FTF 921,000 dots | 3.2″ FTF 1,040,000 dots |
| Exposure Compensation | plus/minus 5 | plus/minus 5 |
| Battery Life | 850 shots | 950 shots |
| Weather Sealing | Yes | Yes |
| Body | Magnesium Alloy | Magnesium Alloy |
| MSRP | $2,999 | $3,499 |
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You can pre-order your Nikon D800 by clicking this link.
The D800 also comes as a Nikon D800E without an anti-aliasing filter, which gives you sharper images. You can pre-order that one by clicking this link.
You can pre-order your Canon 5D Mark III by clicking this link or this link.
Upgrading your Camera – What you should know
Posted: 15th February 2012 by Svenler in Photo Gear, PhotographyTags: AutoFocus, Burst Rate, Camera, Camera Body, Lenses, Limiting Factors, Portraiture, Sports, Upgrade
Portrait of Chelsea Walker by Sven Bannuscher, taken with a Nikon D200, which was released in 2005 and still takes great pictures.
All the time, people come up to me and ask which camera they should buy. Usually they try to choose between the latest and flashiest model they can afford, but mostly that’s the wrong question to ask, so I ask a counter question: “In what ways does your current camera limit you?”
Barely anyone can give an answer to that simply because very few people will ever reach the limiting factors of their cameras. I still use 10 Megapixel cameras simply because I had 30×40 inch (75×100 cm) prints made with those hanging in galleries and no one ever told me that my camera had too few megapixels. Since I rarely shoot high speed sports, I also don’t need more than 3 fps and the few times I do, I deal with it. Now if my main source of income would become high speed sports, I would consider getting a camera that shoots at least 5 fps. The current limiting factors I see in my cameras are ISO, AF points, and image sharpness. I already use high end lenses, so at this point in time, my image quality is not limited by my lenses but by my camera bodies. So far I haven’t seen a camera that does all of these to make an upgrade worth it for me. However, that may change in the future and will be a major buying point for me. Since I travel a lot and use gear in all kinds of conditions, of course the body has to be weather sealed and be made of magnesium alloy. Unless all of these things come into place, I won’t upgrade my cameras. As you can see, I have evaluated exactly where I have a need and will only ever upgrade once that need is met.
If you are just unhappy with the image quality, you may want to consider buying better glass than a better camera, since that’s the limiting factor for most people.
Another question to ask yourself when buying a new camera is: “What kind of photography are you trying to do?”
Photographing a public movie set
Posted: 9th February 2012 by Svenler in PhotographyTags: Laws, Movie Set, Photography, Public, Regulations
Today I had a discussion with a few other photographers about the laws pertaining to taking pictures of a movie set in a public location. I don’t think I have ever come across a public movie set or sought one out, but it was still a topic of interest to me, since one never knows what may happen.
Now, laws differ from country to country, but here is an interesting tidbit I found online. Last year, the city of Ft. Lauderdale tried to restrict photography of a public movie set by putting up signs and having police officers enforce those signs. Several groups sued the city at the Florida State Court, which agreed that “(The city) shall not prohibit or inhibit the taking of photographs at or from any public area surrounding, near or adjacent to the film set of the production of the film, ‘Rock of Ages’.” (Source)
Don’t consider this legal advice, but all in all, I am quite confident that as long as one is on public ground, you are allowed to take pictures of a movie set. Note that this only pertains to taking the pictures. Commercial usage is a different story, but I am also quite confident that the picture can be published for documentary purposes, such as in a newspaper.
The Microstock Challenge – Which sites make you money and which ones don’t
Posted: 31st January 2012 by Svenler in Stock PhotographyTags: 123rf, Analytics, Dreamstime, Earnings, iStockphoto, Microstock, Money, Photography, ShutterStock, Statistics
I have been doing a little bit of Microstock here and there for a few years but never really applied any analytics to it. Four months ago, I set out with the goal of tracking my progress and quadrupling my Microstock income purely by spending four hours a week in the first month, two hours a week in the second month, and one hour per week in the third and fourth month on it. My first four hours were spent on researching various Microstock sites, creating new accounts and developing a spreadsheet to track my progress. The second four hours were spent tagging all the images with Metadata and uploading them. There is a nifty tool called ProStockMaster that allows you to submit to all the major Microstock sites at once. During the four months, I almost doubled my portfolio purely out of pictures I already had but never used ranging from objects to lifestyle (a rough average of what’s out there). I did not reach my goal of quadrupling my income, but I increased it by a factor of 3.5, which is pretty good.
On the way there, I found out which sites actually make you good money and which ones don’t. I also made several accounts to track different factors that aren’t part of this write-up, so here goes the summary ranked by awesomeness (which is how much money they made me). Just so you know, I have a degree in economics and finance, so I actually know about this stuff.
1) Shutterstock (link)
Acceptance Rate: 60%
% of Total Monthly Income: 38%
Average Earnings per Download: $0.42
2) Dreamstime (link)
Acceptance Rate: 65%
% of Total Monthly Income: 31%
Average Earnings per Download: $1.70
As someone who produces intellectual and creative property, I am one of those people that SOPA is allegedly trying to protect from “evildoers”. Guess what, I’d rather have people steal my work than something like SOPA being implemented and effectively censoring the Internet. It’s not a bill to protect people like me, it’s a bill that will allow the government and large corporations to censor you at their will without having to prove you are guilty of anything.
Increase your exposure on DeviantArt
Posted: 4th November 2011 by Svenler in Advertising, PhotographyTags: DA, DeviantArt, exposure, GetWatcher
Now there are many ways to increase your exposure on DeviantArt (DA):
1) Participate in the forums.
2) Comment on other people’s artwork.
3) Keep uploading new work all the time.
The easiest however is a neat little online tool called GetWatchers. Which works on the method of reciprocation. You basically earn points for looking at other people’s work (something most of us do anyways) and those points will get you views in return. When I first tried it, I thought that most people would just click and not even look at your work, but a lot actually do and I’ve had some nice conversations so far with people who probably would’ve not see my work otherwise. It’s free, so you don’t lose anything trying it out: GetWatcher
Some of you know that I enjoy reading and writing as much as photography, so I decided that I would make another blog that deals with literature (mostly my own), so if you are interested, take a look at http://www.svenler.com/particles/ and let me know what you think. As always, comments are welcome and feel free to share.
In this day and age as business owners, we have to be omnipresent in the digital world, which includes being present on websites such as Yelp, Facebook, MySpace, etc. You just never know where a customer might be looking just for what you are offering. There are pros and cons to this and I just want to take you behind the scenes of Yelp’s pros and cons.
Yelp is basically a mix between Yellow Pages and a Review Site, where people can rate your business.
The Pros:
Yelp gives you a presence on their website with business hours, company photos, website link, and all the fun stuff. If you provide good service, your customers will probably leave you a good review and put you ahead of other similar businesses in your area – the higher your average rating, the higher you show up in the ranks. A lot of people use Yelp to find businesses and to see how they are rated, so if you do a good job, you might get some business from Yelp. You can also post coupons and announcements to get more business.
You can also network with Yelp, adding friends, and generally building a network of people. To do that you can write reviews, which has the pro that other businesses might return the favor and review you but may also lead to some negative reviews if you rate a bad business and are honest about it – which may also attract people for your honesty, which I always found a good approach for myself.
Retrieve your bookmarks from Delicious.com
Posted: 12th October 2011 by Svenler in UncategorizedTags: Bookmarks, Delicious, Retrieve
Delicious was sold by Yahoo to a company called Avos. The deal was that all Delicious members were supposed to be informed that they had to opt-in to switch accounts. Looking around the internet, it seems though that many people did not receive that information and are now stuck without their bookmarks. Others have opted in but still can’t access their account.
So if you want to access your bookmarks while the old database still remains intact, add the following information to your computer’s hosts file (I will explain how to edit the hosts file on Windows and Mac OS):
98.139.50.166 www.delicious.com
76.13.6.190 secure.delicious.com
76.13.6.209 static.delicious.com
Meet Author Ken Ballen
Posted: 3rd October 2011 by Svenler in PhotographyTags: Author, Headshot, Ken Ballen, Portrait, Terror Free Tomorrow, Terrorism, Terrorists in Love
When Ken Ballen called me, he said that he needed a portrait for a book that he wrote on Terrorism. He told me a little about the background and I was glad that he invited me into his house to take the pictures, since that’s where he unwinds from dealing with terrorism and organized crime.
The title of the book is Terrorists in Love and can be pre-ordered from Amazon (click here)
Ken Ballen by Sven Bannuscher
This is my favorite picture of Ken, but the publisher chose a different one that you can see here.
Meet Actress Jyna Maeng
Posted: 3rd October 2011 by Svenler in PhotographyTags: Actress, bethesda, Headshot, Jyna Maeng, Portrait, Washington D.C.
This weekend I had the great pleasure to meet Jyna Maeng, who recently graduated from University of Virginia with a Bachelor in Drama. She has some experience with theater movement and comedy but I was amazed how quickly she was able to adapt to anything I asked of her. I like to ask people to do different things, so we have a wide range of emotions and looks to pick from and she nailed everything on the first try.
Model: Jyna Maeng, Make-Up: Thomas van Dyke, Photography: Sven Bannuscher