As a desparation move I started to shoot at Columbia Park which is a few blocks away from the house. Not much choice really as I only had time to go here to catch the sunrise after dropping off Ashley at Magee. If I dropped off Alyssa at UBC I couldn't make it. Not the best scenenery but good enough to catch some sunrises...
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Columbia Park HDR Panorama
I tried 2 processes here. One was to stitch a panorama together and the other was to do an HDR to capture the dynamic range of light. I did this handheld which is quite amazing as I would have thought a tripod was needed but since I used a high enough shutter speed I was able to get sharp photos which the software can then stitch together. The HDR process was quite interesting as I had to learn some features in the camera that I had not used before. Initially I just manually changed the EV compensation. I tried the bracketing function in the camera which allowed one to set the number of shots and the EV compensation required. To minimize the framing changes I used burst mode to fire the camera. I then discovered that the camera had interval timer function which allowed one to fire a series of shots after specified intervals. SInce I only used one interval it was not really necessary to use this (doh). However if I had wanted to used time lapse photography this would have come in handy. I would have find a way to set the exposure (I was using manual) to use this technique. Interesting learning experience...not please with the HDR result though. It is possible to get 'decent' HDR results that don't look too over-processed but I have to find out how. Back to the drawing board.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
fall morning
This image shows how important early morning or for that matter late afternoon light is to an image. Even a simple hohum image looks terrific because of the morning sun. Have to get out there more often.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
100 Portraits
Another project that I can't seem to keep going with any regularity. I suppose it's the fear of approaching strangers to photograph them. I will keep trying...
back alley (HDR)
Have to keep trying and playing and understanding how to use this. There are times I want to make it transparent but as this photo is a bit on the so-so side a more pronounced HDR effect I thought was called for.
G+
I've been playing around with Google +. I don't like the interface, seems to be designed by techies as half the time you can't seem to do what you really want. But the content (photography) has inspired me to go out into different directions.
Columbia Park (GND Filter)
What a world of difference the use of a GND filter makes. Instead of a white sky or a black field we get both. Not the best shot but it does show the possibilities...
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Bolsa Chica shoot with Ben
Every shoot is a learning experience although the first requirement is actually a long lens. It seems like a 600mm and a 1.5X crop would be needed to get close to the birds. So how do you shoot these birds? A high shutter speed would be needed which you can do with a higher ISO so shooting at 1/200 or higher would be preferable. Surprisingly a narrow DOF is all that is needed as you can get a foot of DOF with a long lens ... more than enough to keep the bird sharp. The contrast between the white colour of the bird and the dark background is a bit of a problem. Minimizing the background would help. Rapid firing is also a good approach as the chance of momement is high. One can certainly get at least a good shot if duplicate shots are taken.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
canada day 2011
Everyone was wearing red and I thought this would be a good chance to do selective desaturation which I did. Could be better but too lazy to fix.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
China Creek Park
This wasn't quite as blue. It seems the GNDs are responsible for the shifting the colour tone...I wonder how I avoid that?
The city from Spanish Banks
This image raises a lot more questions than it answers. I took this shot away from the sun during sunset...doh...I've always shot in the direction of the sun. Having the clouds of course will bring out the light more than it normally will. My puzzle is the blue tone of this image. I used a colour intensifier and LB Neutral polarizer and a Soft GND and I am surprised by the dominance of the blue which isn't there with the naked eye. Is it the result of the filters or the natural colour of the light in the sky during this time in combination with the clouds. I will have to do some more test with the filters...
The Stawamus Chief
The Chief was one of the reasons for driving up to Squamish...the other was Shannon Falls but the parking lot was full so we never got to stop at the waterfalls. We drove around the city and I stumbled on this view of the Chief. Had to fix a little of the vignetting caused by the filters. Don't know how to make this better except maybe to go around the golden hours.
Porteau Cove
The first turnoff just before the actual Porteau Cove was this little parking lot and along the road was this little waterfalls/water runoff. Hard to position and I was so excited so I took what I can. Nice but could be nicer.
up to Squamish
I had been wanting to drive up to Squamish as I had been up there for different reasons but not able to stop for some photos. On a nice sunny Sunday Ashley and i drove up and it was real nice although frustrating at the same time as a lot of photo views was on the highway. We stopped at Lions Bay and I discovered this little beach with a view. One wonders how many of these little hidden spots exist along the way.
And again to kits beach..
A third time at Kits beach and again the sun hid behind the clouds. There was a little bit more peering through and I was able to bring out the colours with photoshop.
Kitsilano Sunset again
And again the sun hid behind the clouds. I had to increase the red in curves to get the more saturated effect.
Kits Blue
Again the sun hid behind the clouds and I got a lot of blue on this sunset shot. Interesting effect in this image is the subtle way the light comes across the middle even though the sun is hidden behind the clouds. There is just enough light slipping through the breaks in the clouds to make the effect.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Siwash Rock
Guess I like this one the best. At least I got some sidelighting but what I really wanted to do was get on the rocks to the side and get the Siwash Rock on "white" water. No such luck. No rocks to get into from where the light was more balanced and where the rocks were to stand on would be against the light and result in a silhoutte...which it did with the images I tried.
3rd Beach rocks
Well not this image. Too far away from sunset made for lousy lighting. Technicall Ok but otherwise not very good.
3rd Beach
Still can't figure this one out. I guess it's just because I shot too early in the day (outside the 2 hours before sunset) and also shot into the sun. Not a good result except the composition was nice. Had to climb up some rocks to get the vantage point.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
sunset of our lives
A beautiful sunset in one of my favorite spots to shoot..Kitsilano Beach. In the sunset of our lives...one of my cousins passed away 2 days ago.
Whytecliff Park light
A tough shoot at Whytecliff Park., Even with filters it was hard to balance the light. The direction of the light also gave me fits. This was my favorite from the shoot primarily because I got caught up to half the knee by incoming waves. The neutral density filters was not a problem but the graduated neutral density filters was a problem as the scene was not a regular line and needed to use the soft GNDs. I had light leaking into the image because of the long exposure but that was remedied by closing the viewfinder. There was also flare so I used my hat to provide cover on the lens. Have to study the images again and learn how to cope with the light.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
lady on the rock
I wanted to go back and try the sunsets at the old places I used to go to..Kitsilano, Jericho, Sunset Beach and try out the new techniques that I have started to get comfortable with. This image was a bit of a lucky one. A few days ago I decided to try the reverse GND and warm polarizer at work and it came in handy on this day. I was lucky the lady climbed to the top and at the same time I wanted to try and block the sun with the rock and the lady and it worked.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Stanley Park seawall
Never thought this would come to much but I suppose it was just overcast enough to get some colours although it was sunny most of the time. Low tide and all the rocks appeared. Intended to go to Siwash Rock but never made it as I just kept shooting here. Used the whole works - colour intensifier. circular polarizer, graduated neutral density filter (hard), 5-stop neutral density filter and the 4-8 Variable Neutral Density filter.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Queen E Sunset
Didn't really feel like it but sure glad I dragged myself out to take this photo. I wanted to try and capture some sunset photos since it's been such a long time since I've done so. I was quite pleased with the result although the location wasn't all that good. The combination of the colour intensifier, circular polarizer and reverse grad worked to put life in the image.
impatient tourist
Stumbled on this little area and I knew I had to take a shot so I grabbed my wife and unwilling as she was I managed to take this capture which I dearly love.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Cloudless day so I took this morning as a day to experiment. I first tried shooting without the intensifier and polarizer so I could see if the blues would be less and to get a wider shot as each filter adds to unwanted vignette. Tried it for a little while and then added the intensifier and polarizer to get a slower shutter speed. Eventually I just went with the 5-stop and 10-stop NDs to get the slow shutter speed. Wasn't that successful as I was unable to get the right shutter speed. Seems like the two needed at least 4 minutes to expose properly. Need to try this again...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
brisk morning
Interesting result with the slow shutter speed blurring the clouds that were moving on this windy day. Love the effect...
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
workflow
Finally remembered all the steps in this morning's shoot. Set the manual focus by determining dof for the focal length, checked the diff exposures so I can use the correct GND filter, attached the trigger release to eliminate shake, closed the viewfinder to eliminate stray light, checked the focal length to make sure there is no vignetting and finally made sure my finger was not in the shot(!).
Monday, May 02, 2011
dof and focus and sharpness
Macros have the additional problem of sharpness as it has very narrow depth of field. One has to be aware of the dof and when it is sufficient it will be nice and sharp like this image. If not, focus stacking may be necessary.
focus stacking
A camera/lens only has so much depth of field specially when working up close as with a macro lens. To get more dof requires "focus stacking" whereby one takes different photos with different focus points and then blends them all with software.
Friday, April 29, 2011
3
Wanted to blur the clouds so I needed to add 2 ND filters to get a 2-3minute shutter speed. It kind of worked although it is a little darker than I want. However the big problem is the white streak across the image which I believe is caused by light leaking through the viewfinder. So I closed that and it seems to be the source of the problem. Have to see if the dark image is caused by the filter.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Mountain View in the dark
Early morning shot at the cemetary. There was a crew shooting a Smallville episode for TV. I liked the smoke they were using to provide some mood I guess. The morning was fairly sunny and bright and I thought a darker mood would be better. So I underexposed by 2 EV's and got this dark mood.
breakfast for one
Something clicked with this photo. Tried to overexpose the shot and thought it came out quite well. Nice and bright for a food shot...
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