Cracking Christmas and much news

Times up for submissions to the Everything Nikon Foto Challenge 2015.
With only 5 entries making the final cut, it is a small hall but thought has been put into them making each a quality image in its own right.
It's up to you now to pick your favourite and decide who wins the top prize.
The Poll is on our front page and is linked from this journal Here. Take your time to familiarise yourself with each image before casting your own vote.
The winners will be announced on the 25th Decamber. Best of luck to them all!

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Another year, another trawl for help keeping our group super.
Donations can be made on in-my-viewfinders page collection pool or you can trade points for llamas if you so wish.
The biggest donators will get featured in January as well as much love, praise and possibly some cake.

There is no cake….

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Nikon have added editing possibilities and more to the growing list of capabilities of Nikon View NX-i. Primarily an image browsing tool, this piece of software is rapidly becoming a strong piece of do it all freeware.
Now feeling allot more like a cut back version of light room, you can comfortably browse your images and make a number of editing changes from the same place.
Nikon Capture NX-D has also received a number of improved tools and the overall feel of the program has been made to feel more like View NX-I to allow users to more comfortably move be-tween each program should they need Capture NX-D's RAW editing ability.
Head on over to the Nikon blog to read more.
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The Nikon 1 J5 is the latest Nikon product to receive an award.
The award, this time coming from the Design for Asia Awards, was a Bronze; reflecting the cam-eras superior design and layout.
Head on over to the Nikon blog to read more.
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Well it is December and something you might find yourself doing rather soon is digging your camera out at some point to record the festivities. Be it the family opening their presents or cap-turing the crime scene that is a works Christmas party, you will want to get it right on the night so here are some hints and tips for you.

Prepare

The start of any shoot means you need to get your kit ready but we will point it out every time, even if we might not labour the point anymore. You can go over to December 2013's Think journal for more general details on this.
Some specifics for this shoot however might be of interest for you:
As you are shooting indoors, you are going to need to think low light. Some strobes and jells will help freeze the action although creativity will be needed not to kill the mood in clinical white light. Higher ISO, big aperture lenses and some camera support like a mono or tripod will also come in handy.
Depending on what you are shooting, it might be a good time to dig out some creative filters that you swore you would use years ago along with that remote shutter release because you might want to get in on the action to?

Shoot them all!!!

There are probably some key parts of your day that you are hoping to capture but don't stop there.
Those little moments in between can be wonderful in their own right. Putting decorations up, pre-paring the dinner, laying the table, wrapping presents and putting the mince pies out for Santa. There are too many to list and each could be a great image in their own right or a nice link in a photo album.

Focus

We just told you to shoot more now shoot less.
Don't be tempted to ram too much into each frame. Try instead to focus in on the object that caught your eye in the first place and frame your image accordingly.
As well as closing in your frame you may also want to close in your depth of field. Wind that ap-erture open to further isolate your subject and cast everything else into blur. This can be very ef-fective with festive lights and decorations in the background that turn to orbs of colour in the bokeh.

Doing more with light

We already mentioned having them in the background but there is so much more that can be done with lights:
They can be the subject either in groups or close up.
They can be static or dynamic.
They can me reflected and refracted using mirrors, specially prepared lenses or by clever use of your aperture ring. What we mean there is you can create starburst by having a slightly closed ap-erture on older Nikkor lenses. This way the sharp edges of the aperture blades are exposed causing peaks of light to come out of light sources causing star bursts. Alternatively you can buy a star-burst lens or make your own with an old ND filter, a straight edge and a sharp blade.
This is a fun time to let ghosts and lens flares creep as well. Rather than being a nuisance, they can be a creative tool.
It is again worth mentioning here the use of strobes. If you do need to strobe a subject, make sure you blend your light well. Jells can be used to match your light or even add another complimen-tary colour. Also the use of diffusers such as bounce cards, soft boxes or even bouncing your flash of the ceiling will help allot. Another trick you can try here is to under expose your image yet over fire a focussed strobe to isolate your subject and preserve bckgroud darkness. This would be espe-cially effective with background Christmas lights. We talk more on this in our May 2012 journal on strobing.

Don't get left behind

Sometimes we can get so wrapped up with the aperture, focus, framing, lighting and endless other things that we miss those fleeting moments. At higher tempo moments such as present opening (especially with children), try to switch over to a constant motor shutter so you stand a better chance of capturing that moment. If you are shooting with a strobe then an external strobe battery pack is a must have now!

But most importantly

Don’t forget to enjoy the day as well. It is too easy to concentrate so hard on capturing memories that you end up not being part of them yourself. So don't forget to get involved yourself and once you have had a couple of Sherries maybe pop the camera away before it ends up in the punch.
Merry Christmas to everyone from the small team at Everything-Nikon whether you celebrate it or not, we hope you have a great holiday.
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