Kamoon! Rock- ja festarikuvaus -photo book's bee out over a month. You can order it here: [link] The shipping is worldwide. Unfortunately, all the text is in Finnish only, but the book contains so much photos that you can also browse it as photo book.

What else..? Hmm.  Well, I've been really busy lately, so I haven't got much time taking concert photos. I've been working during weekends around the clock and usually all the concerts are at the same time when I'm working. I have no plans for this summer's festivals yet and I think I keep it that way. I guess this summer will be the first in many years, when I'm not going into festivals with my camera. I feel more comfortable in small, dark and sweaty venues shooting entire concerts than in broad daylight struggling with stupid photo contracts and "three songs, no flash" -rule.

I'm also thinking of updating my photo gear. My reliable EOS 5D Mark II has served me well three or four years, but it's only a matter of time when it's shutter says KAPUTT. The question is, 5D Mark III or Nikon D800? The price for the new 5D Mark III is really high and D800 is almost 1000€ cheaper. But when changing from Canon to Nikon, I must buy new lenses... I've already had an offering from my Canon equipment from my local camera store and it was a quite good offering. In exchange (if it happens), I'm giving away five Canon lenses + Mark II body and in return I'll get three Nikon lenses and D800 body. I need to pay some money too.

Nowadays I'm mostly using Canon 16-35/2.8, Canon 24-70/2.8 and Sigma 85/1.4 lenses. I also have Canon 50/1.2 and Sigma 70-200/2.8 but I don't use them that often. So I'm most definitely ready to give up from 70-200 focal length since I only use it in festivals -if there at all, since last summer I bought Sigma 85/1.4 and found out that it is a very good focal length for festivals. I've never been too fond of shooting close up's from the artists. Loosing 50/1.2 is quite an "ouch" since I love the depth of field in that one when shooting f1.2-1.8 and it's really good in low light interior shootings like weddings. Using 1.2-1.8 in concerts is a bit challenging because it's really hard to have a sharp shot when band is moving a lot.  But, since the new D800 is a very light sensitive camera with low noise level, I guess I'd manage without f1.2 just fine. Or at least for a start... Conclusion: all I need from Nikkor lenses, is 14-24/2.8, 24-70/2.8 and Sigma 85/1.4.

But what concerns me, is how's D800 video is compared to 5D Mark III? I use my Mark II as a videocamera too (I've done music-, wedding- and corporate videos with it). Mark III has been taken leaps when it comes to SLR video and video image packaging and Nikon's just started to challenge Canon. I've seen some test samples shot with both cameras and to my eyes, Nikon looked quite good. But, I must test it by myself.

Let's see...