Frank Kapusta Photography

New Direction… New Beginnings

With very few exceptions, my camera has sat idle for the past few of months. Under normal circumstances I could have used the excuse that most Upstate New Yorkers use…its winter. Too much snow and it’s too cold. The reality is that as 2015 started to wind down, the winds of change were picking up speed and strength that would propel each member of our immediate family in New Direction and with New Beginnings!

So, let’s begin with our daughter, Katie. With a growing family in a small house the search was on to find a larger home that would better accommodate the family. Throughout this search process, I was presented with a great career opportunity that would allow us to relocate to the Rochester area. This not only presented us the opportunity to downsize and choose a life style of less home maintenance and more travel and exploration time, but put us within a half a mile of our grandson, Vinny. If you are a regular visitor to my photograph Facebook page or my website, you will have seen the many albums of Vinny. The distance to our son, Ben, would remain the same with the exception of traveling 1 hour west, we now would travel 1hour east. So as our transition began to unfold, Katie and Greg found the home of their dreams. However, instead of being 5 minutes away, they are now 20 minutes away. No big deal, since we were travelling 4 hours round trip before.

It’s time to bring, our son, Ben into this scenario. Over a year ago, he transitioned from a career in law enforcement to fulfilling his life-long dream of starting and managing his own business. In his former career, he had the ability of changing, impacting, and saving lives and now in his new career he has the ability to change and impact lives and help provide them financial security for the future as a financial planner.

As this is a photography blog, you are probably asking what kind of pictures is he going to tie into this blog? I could put up a picture of Katie and Greg’s new home, or the sold sign on our old home, or a picture of my new office. But there is more to this blog that will define the title, New Directions and New Beginnings!

During all these changes, Ben met a wonderful person, Lindsay. Together, they charted a new course in their lives that will bring them to Virginia. It will be in Virginia where they each will start new careers in their respective fields, but more importantly, it is where they will introduce the newest member of the family…Benjamin M. Kapusta II!

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a.k.a. “Lil Putter”

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“New Direction….New Beginnings”

Why use a prime lens?

Often when a zoom lens is mentioned, what comes to mind is the convenience and versatility of a one lens do it all solution. With a zoom, light needs to pass through more glass and extra elements altering light so many times that sharpness is bound to diminish. Prime lens produces sharper images due to their simpler design, single focal length and fewer moving parts. This also makes prime lenses smaller, lighter and cheaper to buy.

Prime lenses have wider apertures than zooms therefore they can produce a very thin depth of field. For portrait photographers this allows for “bokeh” or that creamy out of focus look around your subject. These wider apertures also allow for excellent results in low light.

In my opinion, the most important reason for using a prime lens is that you have to slow down and think about your composition. As a point of reference, the 50mm prime lens is considered a standard lens as it closely provides the same perspective of a scene as viewed through the human eye. Keeping this in mind, it forces you to think about your lens choice and composition and in turn makes you go to great lengths to get the one great shot. This makes choosing a focal length one of the most important decisions when considering a prime lens.

Patience grasshopper! Since we can’t zoom into a scene, we must take our time to scout, visualize, and move around to find the best location to capture an image. The end result will be an exceptional image.

The following images were taken with prime lens using both crop sensor and full frame Nikon cameras:

Nikon D5100 – 35mm (f/1.8G): 1/30 sec @ f/1.8 – ISO 100

Nikon D7100 – 35mm (f/1.8G): 1/2000 sec @ f/1.8 – ISO 100

Nikon D750 – 50mm (f/1.8G): 1/750 sec @ f/1.8 – ISO 100

Nikon D5100 – 35mm (f/1.8G): 1/500 sec @ f/8.0 – ISO 100

My Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens

As I continue my journey in portrait photography, I knew that I had to have this classic portrait lens. The Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF-S is a fast maximum aperture lens that is perfect for taking head and shoulder portraits. Although designed for FX, it will also work well on DX or crop sensored cameras. Wide open the bokeh is outstanding. Although I have experimented in different environments with this glass he following imagets were taken in my studio using Alien Bees B800 with a 60″ octagon soft box as the key light and several other strobes as fill and back lights. Exposures were metered using a Sekonic L-478. This lens has continued to exceed my expectations. I look forward to using this in an environmental setting in the near future.

85mm 1/250th at f/16 ISO 100

85mm 1/250th @ f/16 ISO 100

Mother and child

85mm Gray 31

There is nothing more precious that the love between a mother and her child. This image clearly reflects that love and bond. This past weekend I spent two days shooting Vinny for his first birthday and first valentine day. Now that his is more mobile, it took a little more work to keep him on the set. The problem is that after 378 frames, it becomes more and more difficult to select one image over another.

The setup for this image was:

60” Octagon soft box as the key light
2’ x 4’ soft box as a fill light
Back light with a 40-degree impact grid
All strobes are Alien Bees B800 strobes

Camera: Nikon 750 with Nikkor 85mm f/1.4G lens

Metered with Sekonic L-478

Hand held in manual mode: f/11 at 250/sec.

Finally…

A very mild winter for our Upstate New York Community is vast under statement for this year! According to our local TV weather station, we have only had a total of 14″ of snow all season. Although I am very grateful for the obvious reasons of a cheaper heating season and not having to shovel or plow snow, it has been challenging to get out and chase the light, when there is no light, no shadows, or no contrast. The limited number of days where the sun and blue skies appeared together I was otherwise engaged indoors. Every vigilant throughout the week and always armed with my “briefcase camera”, my first Nikon (D5100 and a 35mm f/1.8 lens), I make it a point to get out every Sunday morning with my tripod and gear in search of that perfect image. Too often I end up just driving around the spots that I scoped out during the seek and come home with a clean memory card. Scored today! I was able to capture some nice images for my prime lens project and even exercised the super wide angle. I have loaded a three image series today and will look to update the rest throughout the week.

Launch Date

I first started to bring my photography into the public eye by adding Frank Kapusta Photography (FKP) to my professional profile in LinkedIn by creating a new work experience and adding a couple of images. The response from my contacts was incredible. I have always resisted Facebook, but understand that it is an important media tool to promote your business. Once again, the response was incredible with the number of friends, likes and comments growing daily.

Finally, I took the plunge into the world wide web and decided to build this site. After much research, I headed to Word Press and used their quick set up. After reviewing the free setup, I went right to a premium package as it included a registered “.com” domain. After scrolling through the free templates and I did move up and purchased a template. Then came the build process and this is where the frustration levels started to rise. My recommendation to anyone starting out would be to go through Word Press support. Their support is very good and the more I worked with it the easier it got. After working on this for a couple of hours a day for a week, my comfort level is much better. With the basic menu and pages in place, I am happy to go public with this website. I anticipate the expansion of the menu and pages to include additional categories into the portfolio and adding a “my gear” list to be ongoing.

So, follow me on my journey through the lens.