So because it is completely unreliable I’ve had to save and wait till I could afford another camera. A few weeks ago I finally was able to buy one. This time around I found that the best bang for my buck was to go with a Canon Rebel T2i. So far it’s turnign out to be a great camera. It’s got an 18 megapixel sensor and does full HD video which looks stunning The only thing I don’t like about it so far is how you change the aperture. I’m used to having a thumbwheel to do that so that I don’t have to take my eye off the viewfinder. With the Rebel you have to pull your face away from the viewfinder while you change the aperture setting. The downside to that is that you can’t read the light meter as you make changes. You have to make the change then look, pull away, amke another change then look again. It slows me down a little. On my last shoot I found that instead of shooting in full manual, shooting in Aperture priority allows me to use the index finger wheel to change aperture while the camera adjusts shutter speed. It was faster for me although I’m not sure I want the camera deciding the exposure for me.

Despite that one problem, it’s does take wonderful looking pictures and again I’m really impressed with the video quality. I don’t do a lot of video but I might end up doing more of it now. We’ll see how it goes.

As many people know the tsunami didn’t just affect Japan, It’s affects were seen in Russia, Canada, the west coast of the U.S. and Hawaii to name a few.  Here in Hawaii, We were lucky to only receive minor damage in comparison to what I’m seeing coming out of Japan.  The affect of all of this leaves me feeling like there might be something I can do to help… I’ve decided to help through my art.  Any sales of my artwork will be donated in full to organizations that are helping the relief efforts in Japan. Prints can be purchased through DeviantArt.com And I’m also opening up my paypal account to take donations for various organizations who are helping the people of Japan.  I’m not sure which organizations I’ll be donating to just yet but I will find the ones that are doing the most good for the area.

If you’d like your contribution to go to a specific organization leave me a message when you donate and I’ll make sure that your contribution goes where you’ve asked.

Donate in USD	Donate in Yen

Thank you for your support,
Jason Tag

In the mean time my other books are available at blurb.com

Beauty Project

The second shoot of the weekend was for the “Beauty Project”.  The woman who posed for me wasn’t a model, but she could have been.  We mostly shot with trees although we did do a few shots around a stream.  The previous shot had wore me out as far as water was concerned.  It was on this shoot that my camera started acting funny and I thought my camera was going to die.  It didn’t and it’s ok now.  But I did manage to lose about 75 shots because of the weird camera behaviour that came about that day.  But again.. the camera is ok.  I’d rather lose a few shots than a camera any day of the week.

So this weekend I’ll be shooting again for my “Beauty Project”.  Shooting with non-models to create images that focus on the fact that we are all beautiful regardless of how we look.  The project itself is going fairly well although I still need lots of people to get involved.  If you’d like more information on it, give me a call at (213) 254-5824 or email me at jasontag@jasontagphoto.com

More…

Jazz photographer Herman Leonard dies at 87 (ap)
hermanleonard.com
Herman Leonard Wikipedia article
Iconic Photographer Of Jazz Musicians, Has Died (npr)