Maxwell Kruger Photography

This shot amuses me.

It took me a lot of time, but I finally finished the majority of my photo stuff from Peru. I still have a lot of panoramas to stitch together, but I’ll do that when I’m bored – probably over the summer.

(Canon EOS 40D, 17mm, 1/40, f/4, ISO 800)

I carried a GPS receiver with me throughout the trip which logged everywhere we went (usually, depending on if it could get reception).

Similar to my European trip this summer, I combined the photos and GPS data into a Google Maps application. This time, it is enhanced with photos, GPS, my trip journal, and a new interface. Sorry, no Internet Explorer – it just doesn’t work in that browser.

home.maxwellkruger.com/Peru08

My photos are accessible in a gallery: http://photos.maxwellkruger.com/Travel/Peru/

Peru

(Canon EOS 40D, 17mm, 1/160, f/4, ISO 400)

People of Peru

(Canon EOS 40D, 135mm, 1/800, f/2.8, ISO 200)

Inca Trail

(Canon EOS 40D, 17mm, 13, f/5, ISO 800)

Inca Trail: The Porters

(Canon EOS 40D, 50mm, 1/50, f/1.8, ISO 800)

Lake Titicaca and Jungle

(Canon EOS 40D, 135mm, 1/160, f/2, ISO 1600)

Well, it went live in late December, but I’ve been too busy to announce it.

My latest client, professional mountain biker, Chris Eatough just launched his new site. Chris is an amazing mountain biker and a really cool guy to work with. He wanted a new web presence to talk about himself and help promote his new coaching business.

Site design, front end, and back end – all done by me.

Take a look!

Penn State Men’s Basketball had a huge win over Iowa yesterday. Last minute comeback to win 63-59. There were a lot of questionable calls and the fans were extremely pumped up.

Probably the best I’ve ever shot basketball and I’m really happy about my images. I set up a remote on my 5DII in front of me using a battery stand. I’ve done this before using a mini tripod, but the battery stand really makes things much simpler and easier. Another photographer had his pocketwizard on the same channel as me at the beginning of the game and we quickly figured out why our cameras were going off randomly. The remote brought in some really cool shots and added a lot of variety to my images, especially since I was shooting so wide and then could crop in on the 21mp image. The 5D never ceases to impress me; I was shooting ISO 3200 because of the f/4 lens and the images are probably less grainy than the ISO 1000 images from my 1DII (cause I was shooting at f/2 on that camera). The only problem is the 17mm isn’t quite sharp enough for the 21mp sensor so 100% crops are a little disappointing. I think my next investment will be either the 14 2.8 or the 24 1.4, but I can’t decide between them.

Below is the same moment caught from the remote and my handheld camera. Hit the jump for more images.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/800, f/4, ISO 3200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/1000, f/2, ISO 1000)

(more…)

Today I shot the Penn State Women’s Swimming and Diving teams compete against Rutgers. I had some fun with slower shutter speeds on the diving. All shot with my 135 f/2 but an IS lens would really help get more keepers. More after the break.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/40, f/2, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/40, f/2.5, ISO 200)

(more…)

Sorry for the absence here lately. I just got back from almost 3 weeks in Peru and now I’m back at school. I traveled around the country, first visiting Cusco, then spent 4 days hiking the Inca trail ending up at Machu Piccu. We visited lake Titicaca for 2 days and got to see some of the man-made reed islands. Then, we jumped on another plane down to the Amazon basin where we spent a few days in the jungle. Ended the trip with a few days in Lima. All in all, the trip was amazing, and now I’m gearing back up for school. I shot about 75gb of photos, which I’m still going through and will post when I’m done in the next few weeks. I have some really good stuff.

This is my ravaged passport that’s been through so much. These are the Peru pages, though I’m not sure why Australia has found itself onto the page. Also don’t know why the US immigration officer decided to stamp where he did.

In other news, my 5D Mark II finally came this morning and I had the opportunity to play around with it for a while before the battery died. Amazing camera, I can’t wait for the battery to charge back up. ISO 6400, full frame, and video. I love it.

Set up a sticky pod on the side of my car tonight with the help of a magic arm. It had to use 2 little metal adapters to connect the magic arm to the sticky pod and I didn’t have much confidence in them not snapping in half so I was limited to 10mph speeds with 5-10 second exposures. I always seem to clean my car right before these experiments.

These were of the first and only 10 photos I shot. The moment I readjusted the camera, refocused it, and got back into the car, the cool lights in the parking lot turned off and we were forced to return home.

(Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, 19mm, 10s, f/4, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, 19mm, 5s, f/4, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, 19mm, 5s, f/4, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS 40D, 50mm, 1/4, f/2, ISO 1600)

(Canon EOS 40D, 50mm, 1/8, f/2, ISO 1600)

Joe McNally came and visited Penn State last Friday. Gave a great light workshop. He recognized my face from when I saw him in Vegas a few months ago at Photoshop World and asked me to help grip for him during the workshop. Got to hold some diffusers and a softbox for him, which was pretty fun. He lit a really great shot of a Penn State student modelling for him in the theater in about 15 minutes. He’s so enthusiastic and he gets so into it. His mind never stops coming up with ideas. Really motivating and inspiring.

(Photo by Andy Colwell/Penn State Public Information)

Saw him again on the sidelines of the football game the next day with his wife. Great guy.

(Photo by John Beale)

Update: Joe’s blog about his visit here. You can see some of the shots he took during the session. He seemed to really enjoy Penn State.