Dustin Diaz Photography

279/365. The Hero of Time — is just a boy

This is Link, The Hero of Time, whom remains one of my all-time fantasy heroes. Over time, I've found many similarities between myself, and this fictional character. Thus the reason my profile avatar has remained unchanged for the last seven years. But for time reasons, I won't go into detail on that stuffs now.

Anyhow, still a day behind and basically need to do another shot tonight before falling asleep (still jet laggin').

and now for lighting geeks...

setup, camera, strobist info: see here

217/365. Look Mah! I'm a model — Except not really ← (really does look best large)

Your requests have been answered. MANY folks have wanted to see video footage of just my general process without (many) edits. So tonight I put together a nice "strobist info" + "my general workflow and thoughts" + "how to shoot a self-portrait" video. It's roughly 15 minutes and only available through download from my website.

BUT, for the record — and to my unfortunate dismay, iMovie '08 kinda sucks and makes me never want to do this again. And by suck, I mean, it just stopped doing photo overlays. ever. Which was part of the whole educational process and purpose. I had to recreate projects over and over for them to "sometimes" work.

ANYWAY, as I'm writing this, I'm still exporting the second half after waiting what seems like an hour. In the end, I promise it will be worth it

strobist info text: SB-900 @ 1/1 @ 17mm into 60" umbrella.

camera text info: Nikon D3 | 24-70mm(ƒ/2.8G)@44mm | ƒ/8.0 | ISO 200 | 1/60s — Tripoded via timer and pocket wizard ii's

Strobist info video: Download part 1 (~ 230mb), part 2 (~ 70mb)

158/365. She said let me go ~ Let me go (Cake)
(catch a cab)

This is Emily. She was gifted a prepaid photoshoot with us for a few hours. Not to mention we got lots of awesome food inbetween the session at Spork, San Francisco (if you like food — follow @sporksf on Twitter).

Earlier in the day we also had another shoot with Mathemeticician Geoff Davis, who will be featured in Science Magazine. See a preview of that on Erin's stream.

Lastly, regarding strobist and setup information — I'm going to cut back on posting duplicate setup information and simply point folks to a previous setup that was similar, but with perhaps different power settings depending on conditions.

So...

strobist info: SB-900 @ 1/64 @ 17mm w/ 1/2 CTO gel

camera info: Nikon D3 | 85mm(ƒ/1.4D) | ƒ/1.4 | ISO 400 | 1/30s — Handheld via pocket wizard ii's

setup information: see similar setup

143/365. And then God said... ~ Genesis 1:3
(let there be light)

After yesterdays photo, I often forget what it's like using wide angle lenses for more than just documenting my single focus telephoto strobist shots. Not only that, we get some nice looking skies when the fog rolls in at night.

For this shot I left the shutter open for a just a tad over a second so I could get a little bit of motion blur with my hands since I wanted them to look semi-translucent as if I were whipping up light commanding the two light poles to shine upon the building... as if I had these awesome Godly powers.

On another note, so far the D3 has been treating me well. I am considering selling my D700 once it comes back from Nikon. I love the compact (yet full-sized body) of it, which makes for some good ergo. And I say screw the D3Axe! That's way too many megapixels jammed into the same sized FX sensor. No thanks.

Finally, strobist camera nerds... keep on keepin' on.

setup, camera, strobist info: see here

139/365. Alcohol may be a man's worst enemy, but the bible says "love your enemy" ~ Frank Sinatra
(large on black)

Today I thought I'd throw together a "special edition" strobist info shoot seeing as how Erin let me borrow the 5D2 again — I figured I would take advantage of its video-taking capabilities. And lucky for you, Flickr limits videos to just 90 seconds (otherwise I would ramble on forever).

Other than that, it was a long work day (from home). I didn't come in to work because of a strained achilles... my guess is that I'm not used to walking (to work) so much. By the end of the day, however, I felt I simply had to get out of the house to snap a quick shot around the corner.

So all you camera lighting setup nerds - this ones for you

camera, setup, strobist info: see the video

132/365. I consider skateboarding an art form, a life style and a sport ~ Tony Hawk

It's no secret that I love skateboarding. Been doin' it since preschool. Nevertheless, tonight was frustrating despite it being perfect weather and zero traffic in this alley (I could have posed nude (Ha, yea right)! The exposures just weren't turning around right... and I finally figured it out in the end, that I never set the ISO (it was at 1,250)... even that rim light at 1/128th was coming out too bright (I thought). Oh well, the life of a 365 goes on.

One particular thing to note is that everything else you see (broom, roses, detergent buckets)... they were all found lying around in the alley. Figured I could make good use of 'em.

Other than that, you strobofenes can read on...

setup, camera, strobist info: see here

128/365. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor ~ George Carlin

May he rest in peace....

Tonight was interesting because I literally took a gamble. I packed three lightstands, three flashes, three gels, and the stubby (and of course my camera). I left the umbrellas and softboxes at home and really thought "what the hell am I going to do?"...

Even after I decided I liked a spot, I setup each lightstand still not knowing why... then randomly found a paper bag on a bench with an empty bottle of Patron inside. I pulled it out, set it on this water drain grill thingy, then spread apart the lights... took a snap.... liked it... slightly adjusted the lights, then snapped again... and this is what you see now :)

You lighting rehab clinic folk read on...

camera, setup, strobist info: see here

127/365. 2 legit 2 quit ~ MC Hammer

It's not every day you get to hang out with MC Hammer. But today it happened at the Twitter HQ. Oh, yeah, and the guy on the right, that's Britt... he's been around since Twitter was like 5 guys.

Anyhow, I may have been the only person in the office that at one point in time memorized every single word from his Please, Hammer, Don't hurt 'em album.... and then went on to do family dance offs to Too Legit to Quit (hey, I was eleven).

Regarding this particular photo, if you ever have the chance to shoot a celebrity (with a camera), you do not want to waste time baffling with settings. Therefore I dialed in to what I was hoping to be a perfect exposure... and I came pretty damn near close (considering I shoot full manual across the board (shutter, aperture, iso, WB, flash — JPEG)... and on that note, strobist setup junkaholics read on...

camera, setup, strobist info: see here

125/365. The moon doth shine, and our ballast is old wine. ~ T.L. Peacock (1785-1866) Nightmare Abbey

So today marks a buck and a quarter :) And with the colder misty weather outside, I decided to stay inside (but mostly because I'm lazy and didn't want to put on a shirt).

Nevertheless, we picked up this wine near Sonoma in Healdsburg at J Vineyards. This is their dessert wine. It's awesome.

My favorite part about this photo is the natural rust appearance coming from the window (no post-processing filters required!). It really made that giant moon bokeh ball stand out quite nicely

And to the final point, strobaholics, read on...

camera, setup, strobist info: see here

122/365. 1000+ ~ Google Reader

If anyone uses Google Reader, you'll know exactly what this shirt means. I was able to nab one of these shirts at the SxSW conference last March, it's awesome.

Anyhow, I decided to at least be a little more creative with the new studio... afterall, this is what 365's are all about; practice, practice, practice. Soon we'll both have a giant pile of tricks to do pretty much anything in here.

Nevertheless, fear not, my true spirit remains outside in the city. Thanks Don for the tip on the Portraiture plugin for photoshop.

lighting freaks... do what it is you do...

camera, setup, strobist info: see here