Jobo's Beach

Local fisherman found in Jobo's Beach which is located in Isabela, Puerto Rico, North-West side of the island.

Canon EOS 30D

Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec

Aperture: f/4.5

ISO: 160

Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 100mm

Ruins

This was taken while I was on Aguadilla, PR for vacation. These are some ruins at Ramey Air Force Base which is now open to the public so we can enjoy the beaches.

Canon EOS 30D

Shutter Priority: 1/2500 sec

Aperture: f/5

ISO: 160

Lens: Canon EFs 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm

Cabo Rojo Lighthouse

I took a vacation to visit my family in Puerto Rico. My uncle and cousins are photographers as well and I told them that I wanted to run around the island taking pictures of points of interest. This was taken in Cabo Rojo which is located on the West side of the island (West Side!!!!!).

Canon EOS 30D

Shutter Speed: 1/3200 sec

Aperture: f/5

ISO: 160

Lens: Canon EFs 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm

Intense

This is at the USF vs Pittsburgh game in 2006. I just completely fell in love with shooting football and got to do it a few times. This was right after USF lost to Pittsburgh and I wanted to capture the expression on their faces as they walked to the locker room. I think that I succeeded don't you?

Canon EOS 30D

Shutter Speet: 1/1600 sec

Aperture: f/6.3

ISO: 400

Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 400mm

Taking care of business

That's me on the right at my regular day job. I work for an environmental remediation firm and get to play with hazardous chemicals all day long. I can't complain, it pays for all of the camera gear. This is part of the clean up activities for Hurricane Katrina.

Canon EOS Rebel XT

Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec

Aperture: f/14

ISO: 400

Lens: Canon EFs 18-55mm @ 50mm

Looking Into Brooklyn

I was granted permission to go to the roof of the hotel I am staying in while in NYC so I decided to set up the tripod and try a nice long exposure shot. Very happy with the results and will be trying more from different angles in the future.

Canon EOS 40D

Shutter Speed: 13 seconds (bulb)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

Lens: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L @ 24mm

Low Light Photography

Today's DSLR's have some serious technology built into them and their performance is amazing. One of the big improvements I see is in high ISO performance. This gives the photographer the ability to shoot in low light conditions with out the need of a flash. I took this as an opportunity to experiment with my camera and push it to the limits. In my opinion, it is very important to know and understand your equipment and its capabilities because you never know where your next shoot is going to be. You have to be able to get that oh so important shot when it counts and the sun is going down. You have to quickly adjust your settings in order to properly expose your subject and cranking up that ISO is just one way to do it. You don't want to tell your client that you couldn't get the shot that they were looking for or that it didn't come out right because you lost some much needed light. Sure, most can be fixed with a little PP but personally, I like to get the shot I want in-camera. I want to do as little post processing as possible as it can be very time consuming and lets face it, time is money. For this shot, I was waiting for the subway train to come and decided to take the shot with out the use of flash. Now, anybody that has been in the subway knows that the light isn't the greatest down there. I cranked the ISO to 800 (I normally don't like going past 200 if I can help it but felt the need to push the camera) opened the aperture all the way (f/2.8 on Canon's 24-70L lens) and pulled the trigger while the train was slowing down. As you can see, the noise performance is great and honestly I could've cranked the ISO a lot more by looking at the results. I was able to set the shutter speed fast enough (1/160) to stop the train's movemet and get a decent exposure under these low light conditions which makes me love my camera even more. All in all, the moral of this story is to experiment with your equipment and learn to push it so it helps you get the shot that the other photographers missed.