Author Archives: Monico

About Monico

I am a photographer located in Northern Virginia but my clients are across the USA. I specialize in on-location photography and utilize Adobe Photoshop to fully realize my artistic vision and the vision of my clients.

Sony A7R III Announced | the High Res Sony Camera Gets an Update

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Sony A7R III Officially Announced

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– Today Sony Officially announced what I consider to be their most eagerly awaited upgrade to the A7 line of cameras, the Sony A7R III. The A7R III is the third revision of the highest resolution camera in Sony’s full frame E-Mount lineup and, even though the final resolution is identical to the A7R II version, it’s received some substantial improvements – including a pixel shift system that will deliver a much higher quality 42MP image. In this article I’ll take a look at the A7R III  design, specifications, expected availability and price. I’ll also share my thoughts about what the RIII version of the A7R camera means to me and I’ll give a few predictions about the rest of the Sony mirrorless lineup.

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial | Featured Image of the Week

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial  |  Featured Image of the Week

Vietnam Veterans Memorial | Featured Image of the Week

Click here to see a larger version of this image on 500px

Recently I watched the brilliant 10 part documentary about Vietnam by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and, like every documentary I watch from them, I had a completely different feeling about a memorial I’ve been visiting for almost a decade. The documentary was difficult at times but it was definitely worth the effort. I’ll truly never look at the marble wall of names the same way again.

While the war in Vietnam is certainly a questionable time for our country there’s no denying the power of the memorial to the veterans of the war. Seeing all those names puts a real human cost to war and it makes visiting this special place on the National Mall is a requirement when traveling to Washington, DC. In this Featured Image of the Week article I’ll share a few more images and some tips and tricks I use when I photograph the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

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Family Portrait Shoot | Featured Image of the Week

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a Family Portrait Shoot

Family Portrait Shoot

– For this weeks Featured Image of the Week I wanted to share a shot from a recent Family Portrait Shoot with Sam, John and baby Syd. The core of my business photography is corporate and product photography and my personal photography passions are travel, landscape and wildlife so this might seem out of place. But like all photographers there’s more that we do that isn’t always shared. In my case I shoot plenty of portraits, headshots and sometimes even weddings. I rarely share those images because my company branding requires me to stick to my core products – but today I’m going to go ahead and talk a bit about shooting family portraits on location.

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Upcoming Gear Reviews

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Here’s a a Quick Preview of Some Upcoming Gear Reviews

Gear I'll be reviewing soon

 

– Things have really picked up for me and I’ve been super busy once again. As my business continues to grow I’ve been doing a considerable amount of video work for my clients to go with my still photography and design work. As my video business grows so does my collection of gear necessary to do my work. And that means there’s lots of gear I can write reviews about. Recently I’ve been working with new equipment from SmallRig and Aputure and there’s also been a bunch of gear I’ve used for a long time that I’ve never reviewed. In this article I want to give a quick preview of some of the new reviews I’ll be sharing in the weeks ahead.

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the London Eye in Motion | Featured Image of the Week

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the London Eye in Motion

the London Eye in Motion

– for this week’s Featured Image of the week I want to combine two of my favorite things, travel photography and long exposure photography, and talk about the delicate balance between getting a shot and enjoying a vacation. The image is of the beautiful London Eye and, as much as I love the shot, it does demonstrate why it’s so hard to capture every shot you might dream up when you go on a trip.

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Flaska Reclinata | Featured Image of the Week

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the Flaska Reclinata at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

the Flaska Reclinata at Disney's Animal Kingdom

– Disney World’s newest land, Pandora – the World of Avatar, was a long time in the making but being able to see it within days of the official public opening proved that Disney Imagineers don’t take a back seat to anybody in the theme park business. I was lucky to be there during it’s opening week and while I had my doubts about an Avatar land belonging in Animal Kingdom, seeing it changed my mind. What I quickly realized was this place could only exist in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. For this week’s featured image I want to talk about a shot I took of one of the first things you see when you enter the land, the Flaska Reclinata.

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the Tree of Life | Featured Image of the Week

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Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life in HDR

The Tree of Life

– After my appearance on the Resort Loop podcast I listened to the show and one thing I said really stood out to me. Bob Coller Asked me how many pictures I take on a typical Disney World visit and I answered by saying: “Between 3,000 and 4,000 pictures“. Even though I know how I arrived at those numbers I realized I must have sounded crazy to anyone listening to the show. Since I have both photographers and non-photographers who follow me on this blog I thought today’s Featured Image of the Week would be a good chance to explain how and why I take as many vacation/travel pictures. This HDR image of the Tree of Life (at Disney’s Animal Kingdom) is a great way to explain what happens to some of the many pictures I take whenever I’m traveling.

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Disney World Fireworks | Featured Image of the Week

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Disney World Fireworks

Disney World fireworks

– Recently I was a guest on the Resort Loop podcast where we talked about photography in Disney Parks. Of course, any time the subjects of Disney and photography are brought up it never takes long until someone asks about photographing fireworks. On the podcast I talked about my personal tricks to getting fireworks shots inside Disney Parks, but an audio podcast doesn’t always tell the entire story (especially when the topic is so visual, like photography).

For this week’s Featured Image of the week I wanted to share a picture and some behind the scenes information about how I like to capture great Disney World fireworks shots.

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Timeless Moments: Grand Canyon National Park by David Muench

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Timeless Moments: Grand Canyon National Park by David Muench

Timeless Moments Grand Canyon National Park by David Muench

 

– When Farcountry press reached out to me to see if I was interested in reviewing a copy of David Muench’s new book: Timeless Moments: Grand Canyon National Park, I instantly responded with an enthusiastic “you bet I would.” A little over a week later I received a package1 and I dove right in.

I knew it would be about the Grand Canyon, but I chose to do as little research into David’s work or the famous National Park before I received the book. Instead I opted to experience it “fresh” in the same way as someone who might pick up the book at their local book store. In other words, I wanted to see if I could be surprised by what was inside instead of building up any expectations.

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Sony DSC-RX10 MK IV Announced | Sony Updates Their Superzoom Camera

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Sony DSC-RX10 MK IV Officially AnnouncedSony DSC-RX10 MK IX Front Three Quarter View

– Yesterday (September 12, 2017) was another big day in the world of photography gear industry news announcements. The biggest announcement came from Apple (iPhone 8 and iPhone X both look amazing) but a few hours before Apple had their keynote Sony had an event of their own. The RX0 was the first announcement (I wrote up a quick article here) but the big news was the Sony DSC-RX10 MK IV superzoom camera. In this article I’ll talk about the history of the RX10 series, go over the headline specifications of the latest version and I’ll share my thoughts on the RX10 Mark IV (as well as if I’ll be ordering one for myself).

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