So, I have mentioned before that I am currently in Africa. Monrovia, Liberia to be exact. It's been a little over a week and I feel as I am just getting the rhythm of life over here. On this trip, my school, who I'm doing this through/with, let us borrow some equipment to be able to work over here. We each got a Nikon d800 and some audio equipment. I was a little disgusted with the size of the RAW images that the d800 takes. (I'm not even sure if I was disgusted in a good or bad way) For example, I think one file for the d800 at the highest resolution was 75 mb. I suppose if you have the space, it doesn't really matter. So I was sorting through my photographs today and I came across this photo of this little boy Kwaku with a beautiful reflection in his eyes. I was in Lightroom, so I zoomed in 1:1. It was a crisp and clear reflection of myself. I zoomed in farther, 3:1 and was astounded at the clarity of the reflection. There I could see myself, my classmates, Jim and Jess, and my professor sitting in a chair. See for yourself.
The clarity is astounding and I was pleased for an example to give people who are thinking about investing in a d800. They are incredible studio cameras with the ability to blow up for large scale prints. I believe the image size for a tiff I was working on was 170 inches by 95 inches, and I know they can be much much larger in size as well. Once again, I agree with the statement that d800's make spectacular studio cameras. They might not be ideal for travel because they are heavier and slower that the d600 but I'm appreciating the full frame on this trip!
I would also like to take a moment and say I recently bought a new macbook this past fall. I was using one from 2007, a computer that wouldn't update nor would it run Final Cut X or some other programs. I kept having to borrow a macbook pro and I felt guilty always taking their computer. So this year I decided to invest. I researched the hell out of the regular macs vs the retina, the ibook vs the MacBooks, etc. It was a long process, but after looking at my blog, side to side, one with the retina and one without I realized I needed the one with. After all it's probably the most useful for people like myself who work on images, photos, or designs. This new MacBook Pro uses 2880x1800, which equals a more than 5 Megapixel image. In terms of sharpness, it figures out to almost 221 pixels per inch. It's ridiculously sharp. I can only describe it by saying my photos are so vivid and sharp they almost look wet on the screen. If you're a photographer, it's worth the extra money to see your photos on the retina screen, in my opinion. Maybe I'm just trying to justify this decision, but I'm happy with the one I made.
Anyways, I am in Monrovia until Friday just trying to soak all of this in until then. Internet here is like it was in 1999, so I haven't been able to upload large amounts of photographs. I encourage you to be patient until my return. These photos and stories are worth the wait. Hope everyone is enjoying their new year. It's a clean slate, so try and make your life a positive one! Happy New Year everyone.