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Last weekend, I went to my first real outdoor model shoot.  The ones I’ve been doing model shoots were during the workshop which I have to elbow through the other participants to get a good shot of the model.  In this case, there is only a few of us.  No competition.  No elbows knocking me off guard.  The   subject was a 9 year old girl in a gothic theme.  Personally, I find it cute and unique.  A similar idea crossed my mind when I was thinking of doing concept portraiture to the point of renting costumes, if you know what I mean.  How nice would it be to photograph a model in a festive costume, complete with a fruit basket hat?

I realized that I knew nothing about CLS aka Creative light system.  I was not able to contribute anything on the lighting.  Almin brought two flashes that works like a master-slave with built-in flash as trigger.  Flo was using a strobe using a Velbon umbrella that works as a strobe and a functional umbrella.  Arman was angel enough ( he is not paying me a single cent for this hehehe)  to lend me his SB-800 to work as a trigger for the strobe.

As the shoot progresses, I feel like I'm hitting against the moon.  The lighting is a bit off.  I can't even change the position of the current lights out of respect of the other guys who are using it.  I got a few selected photos that I can say is decent.  Need further post processing to give further justice.

Also, I've been itching to buy a new camera since last week.  I'm starting to feel limited with my Nikon D50.  Not that I'm complaining but I feel frustrated of my camera's inferiority over Nikon’s recent offerings. The following are one of the things that D50 lacks compared with the latest cameras:

1. Low noise on high ISO.
2. Lack of wireless flash capabilities when I needed it.
3. Small LCD.  LCD view is not similar to what I see in the monitor. 
4. Color settings a bit off towards tungsten as my friend would put it.
5. Awkward menu.  Need to scroll down to change metering , bracketing and AF.
6. It can only do max of 6 megapixels especially if I crop images taken from my street photography/paparazzi sessions.  I can opt to zoom with my feet to properly compose my subject within the frame (without being noticed and losing the “moment”) or purchase expensive telephoto lens.

Having said all these things, I can always find a way to compensate to deal with my issues beyond camera’s capabilities.  This requires some technical expertise to master my camera’s limitations.   But I guess it is only a matter of time before I can finally decide to replace my D50 for good.