Product Test: Nokia Lumia Icon (Verizon Wireless) - Holy Hill

After visiting a friend near Holy Hill, I decided to take a quick detour. For those of you who aren't aware, Holy Hill is the National Shrine of Mary. It's a gorgeous church set atop a beautiful hilltop in Erin, WI. The views from Holy Hill are stunning. Especially during the evening and sunset, which is when I was there. Below are a few of the photos that I shot while there. 

    

I ADORE trees, and the way the light comes through the trees. Simply beautiful.

Seashell Filter in Nokia Creative Studio

I think this was a Twitter filter. Either way, beautiful.

 

Stunning colors. Natural.

   

The curve of the road, and the curve of the clouds, the way the colors blend are gorgeous.

This is by far one of my favorites. I did NO editing, this was how the camera captured the colors!

All of these were taken on auto settings, as the sun was setting quickly and I have very little time to capture the shots and setting the camera for each shot! I also did NO EDITING for any of the photos. These are straight out of the camera. I'm impressed!

About Me

I figured it's probably time that, if you don't know me, you might be interested! Who IS this "Clarissa Rodriguez" and WHY should I care about her blog? Well, simple answer... okay so there is no simple answer. But I'm going to tell you who I am anyways!

The Basics

Name: Clarissa Rodriguez
Nicknames: C-Rod, clarissarod, theclarissarod, Rodriguez, Iron Man
Twitter: Follow me here
Instagram: Follow me here
Flickr: View my work here
Likes: yoga, reading, coffee, travel, sarcasm, technology, music, movies, beer, The Green Bay Packers, and bacon
Dislikes: mushrooms
Preferred Camera Brand: Canon
Who I've Worked For/With: BMA Milwaukee, Startup Milwaukee, Division BMX, The Soup Market, Stack'd Burger Bar, Greater Milwaukee Committee, Digital Measures, Milwaukee Bonecrushers, 4PM Magazine, MKEWired.com, and more!
Greatest Accomplishment: beating cancer (cancer-free since August 1, 2007!)

My Photographic Journey 

To be honest, I never considered photography as a "career" well... ever. It just sort of happened! Back when I was around 12 or so, perhaps younger, I remember going shopping with my dad and him buying a digital camera. At this point, we still had a FILM VIDEO CAMERA, so getting a digital camera was AWESOME. Certain technology my dad was quite the early adopter on, and others, not so much. We still purchased VHS for a few years after DVDs came out. That one was rough... but back to the story. So we go to American (yes, there's a store called "American" it sells electronics. or rather, used to. it's out of business now.) and my dad purchased a Canon G2 (this is where my love of Canon came from, it's the first [digital] camera brand I was exposed to). My dad is kind of a strict guy, when it comes to certain things anyways. This was one of those certain things. I was not allowed to even TOUCH the camera. There was no way that his 12 year old daughter would be able to mess with his $1000 camera. I know. Talk about early technology, a thousand dollars for a G2. Go ahead and google the specs on it. I'll give you a minute........ back? Yeah. I know. Well, needless to say, I wanted to know more about it.

Fast forward a couple years. I've always been artsy. I decided to participate in community theatre, A Christmas Carol. It was getting closer to show date, and I wanted to take pictures with all my friends! Keep in mind, this is still years before cameras came on phones. Or, decent ones at least. So what I wanted for Christmas was a digital camera! And I got one! A Canon Powershot A520. It was a point and shoot, but slightly more advanced than that. It wasn't just a literal point and shoot, I had setting options that I could change: Manual mode, Aperture priority, Quick Motion, Night Time, etc. Now I really started to get into photography even more. Still never thought of it as anything more than a hobby. 

A couple of years after that, so around age 17, a good friend and I were working at Summerfest. Since we mostly had the earlier shifts, we usually stuck around the rest of the night and walked around. We stumbled across some sports shows going on: Division BMX. Neither of us were really ever interested in BMX, she skated occasionally, I didn't. Our middle school and junior high days were when PacSun was big, and skaters became prevalent. Nevertheless, we were interested. If anything else, these guys were hot. I brought my camera with me nearly every day just because it was fun and this was our first experience working at Summerfest. Heck yes we're going to take pictures! Well, I liked the fast pace of the show and I started to experiment with how my camera worked. There was even a video camera setting so I shot some video. My dad had some software that I was able to edit the video and create a (VERY) basic video for the guys. I sent it to them along with some photos that I had taken. They loved them! We all ended up becoming friends and I would go to other shows during that summer and do photo and video. I'm not sure what drew me to photography as opposed to videography, probably less work to edit a photo versus a video, but I became even more interested in photography.

Later that year, 2006 or so, I ended up getting sick. All my hobbies went by the wayside as I focused on regaining health. Though I wasn't nearly as focused on taking photos, I still took a few. It was something I could do to take my mind off of things. Slowly, but surely, I got better. I started college, got a new job, things were looking up. I decided it was time to pick up photography again. I decided to purchase a new camera at this point, a Canon Powershot S5 IS. I needed up up my game!

I started photographing concerts, still photographed sports, got into landscapes and nature. My photography developed as my interests developed. Over a few years I started doing more portraiture work, and focusing on live events, as that's where I felt I captured the best photos. Another new camera came, a Canon Rebel XS, and my favorite lens, a 50mm 1.8.

In 2011, I registered with the state of Wisconsin as a sole proprietor. It was official, I had my own business. I continued to shoot concerts, sports, portraits, but still focused on live events. In 2013, I became the photographer for Startup Mke, GMC, and BMA. I continue to hone my craft, focusing my talents on live events, concerts, and portraiture. I look forward to soon purchasing a Canon 60D, and a 24-135mm lens too (I'm always accepting donations to the fund!).

Any other questions, let me know! I'm an open book. :)

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about my photographic journey, and why I love what I do. 

Product Test: Nokia Lumia Icon (Verizon Wireless) - Retirement Party

My specialty as a photographer lies in in events. I got my start in photography with sports teams (shoutout to the Division BMX Stunt Team based in Milwaukee!). Because of the quick action shots that I had to learn how to take, I quickly became versed in speed and being able to capture the shot quickly and efficiently. This translated well to events, where being able to take a quick shot was much needed. (I'll do more of an "About Me" and how I got started a little later)

The first event I shot with this phone was my dad's retirement party. What better place than a dimly lit bar/restaurant with a lot of people moving around to test the capabilities of this device. And so I did. Overall, the photos weren't too bad. (Camera settings were on auto again)

 

The largest turnout this place has ever had for a party. Everyone loves my dad. He's awesome :)

 

The flash on the camera isn't too bad. Decent lighting, but it seems to have a delay to it.

The guys bought my dad a shot. It was hilarious.

This phone has some pretty neat editing capabilities. In terms of filters and coloring and the like. Though I don't remember what filters, etc I used for this shot, I think it turned out pretty darn neat :)

Product Test: Nokia Lumia Icon (Verizon Wireless) - Misc Shots

I decided to take a few test shots with the camera to get a feel for how it worked and operated. This is a Windows-based phone, which I am not at ALL familiar. What I like is that on the home screen, you're able to customize the tiles and how they're set for you. I thought that was nice, as I'm used to customizing my other devices (both Android and Apple). However, since I've never used the interface before, it took a little getting used to. I ended up being able to pick it up pretty quickly though. 

  

The camera was easy to focus, and quickly auto-focused to what I wanted it to. For the test shots, I left all the settings on auto (though they are customizable: more on that later).

 

One thing I noticed as I was scrolling through photos on the phone after I had taken a few shots, was the difference! Every shot I took (or very nearly every one!) had a double. I was very confused at first. Then realized they had different names they were saved under. While each shot had the same beginning of the name, the ending was different. One was "Pro" and the other was "Pro High Res". And I could immediately see which was which. The clarity and crispness of the PHR photo was AMAZING. And while the Pro image was great, it couldn't hold a candle to the quality of the PHR photos. 

Pro

Pro High Res

One thing I thought was interesting was this was NOT the case for EVERY doubled photo. 

Pro - looks clearer

Pro High Res - doesn't look as crisp

Product Preview: Nokia Lumia Icon (Verizon Wireless)

A few weeks back I was contacted by a good friend of mine, Chelsey from Core Creative, and as asked if I would be interesting in product testing a phone for Verizon Wireless, to test the photography capabilities of it. She knows me as a photographer through quite a few mutual friends, and thought of me. I was honored and thrilled! We got together, and she showed me the beauty: the Nokia Lumia Icon.

I was impressed. This this is gorgeous. The styling of it (me being a very aesthetic person, I tend to notice the physical design of things first) I fell in love with. It's very lightweight, has a nice large screen, easy to access buttons. Everything physically is something I like and would enjoy having in a phone (I personally have a Samsung Galaxy S4, and I'm in LOVE with that! :) )

More tests (and images) to come!


Here's some basic tech specs for you (straight from Nokia's website, the more detailed specs are available on the site):

• Main camera sensor: 20 MP, PureView
• Display size: 5''
• Display resolution: Full HD (1920 x 1080)
• Processor name: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 800
• Maximum talk time (3G): 16.4h
• Battery capacity: 2420mAh
• Wireless charging: Built-in (Qi standard)

• • Main camera
    • Main camera sensor: 20 MP, PureView 
    • ZEISS optics: Yes 
    • Sensor size: 1/2.5 inch 
    • Main camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4 
    • Camera focal length: 26 mm
    • Camera minimum focus range: 10 cm
    • Camera image formats: JPEG/Exif 
    • Flash type: Dual LED flash 
    • Flash operating range: 3.0 m
    • Flash modes: Off, Automatic
  • Main camera features
    • Main camera - other features: 6-lens optics, Backside-illuminated image sensor, High resolution zoom 2x, Optical image stabilization, PureView
    • Digital camera add-ons: Panorama lens, Bing vision, Cinemagraph lens, Creative Studio, Nokia Camera
  • Photography apps
    • Nokia Camera7: Nokia Camera brings together the features from Nokia Pro Cam and Nokia Smart Cam modes into one application. It gives you the whole exclusive Nokia camera experience with fast access to editing and sharing. 
    • Creative Studio: Get more out of your pictures with this quick and easy photo editor. Creative Studio’s editing tools let you quickly adjust color balance, remove red eye and apply filters. Then, share your pictures directly on Facebook and Twitter. 
    • Cinemagraph: A magical blend of photo and movie-like animation, creating pictures that seem almost alive. Helpful on-screen assistance lets you select the animated area of your picture and easily create and edit a cinemagraph. You can share your cinemagraph with friends via social media, email and messaging. 
    • Panorama: Get the bigger picture with Nokia’s easy-to-use Panorama app. Simply take your pictures and the app automatically stitches them into a picture-perfect view. Once you’re done, share your panorama directly to Twitter and Facebook. 
    • Nokia Storyteller: Nokia Storyteller organizes your photos into stories on an interactive HERE map by time and place. Cinemagraphs and smart photos play automatically. See points of interest around the photos taken and pull up contact info, call or email directly from Storyteller, enabling you to authentically re-experience your entire journey when the time comes. 
  • Image capturing
    • Capture modes: Video 
    • Scene modes: Automatic, Sports, Night
    • White balance modes: Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight
    • Light sensitivity: Automatic, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200, ISO 4000
    • Photos viewed by: Month, Photo editor, Album, Timeline, Camera Roll, Favorites, Nokia Storyteller, Photos from social networks
  • Secondary camera
    • Secondary camera resolution: 1280 x 960 pixels
    • Secondary camera - other features: Video recording, HD 1.2 MP wide angle, Still image capture, Video call

Whoa.

Here I am, deciding to BLOG again! WHAAAAAT?! Let's hope it goes better this time! :)

This will be a forum for me to show off tested products, current projects I have going on, and some things that I just like! 

So, here we go!