New toys...

I miss my 70-200. I miss it a ton. I knew I wanted something with more reach, and the 1.4x teleconverter I was using did sap some sharpness. All last summer, I didn't go for bird walks, nature hikes, zoo trips and the like because I had sold it and lacked a telephoto option.

I thought I wanted a 100-400mm but the push/pull zoom seemed unnatural to use, and the lens is starting to show it's age when you compare it to some more modern options. Financial constraints also meant that I wasn't going to be buying a new lens last year.

Lo and behold cash flow is a bit better, and Canon has launched this little beauty. Since you lose a stop with the teleconverter, compared to the 70-200mm f/2.8L the max f/5.6 is not a huge hit, the IS is generally a bit better, and the autofocus should be faster without the teleconverter. It also takes me from 280mm at the long end to 300mm which is not a huge difference, but it is a little bit longer. I might have to push the ISO up a stop indoors, but for outdoor work it should be a great lens.

So the 70-300L came to the Zoo today for a test run:













And since I have posted any pics of them in a while, here are the kids!







So far, I'm happy with the lens! Tomorrow we are going to try Fort Whyte Alive for some more telephoto fun!

Fort Whyte, macro style...

I know I've gone shooting at Fort Whyte Alive quite a few times, but it's a nice place just to go for a walk.

Today, to change it up I went with one lens only, the 60mm Macro. This sort of backfired since we had a windy day so flowers, bugs and the like were nearly impossible to get and keep in focus. Having said that, it made me look at my photo opportunities differently and got me thinking about how I was shooting again.

Here is just a sample of the shots from today, starting with the kids, and then a few flowers that I found striking in colour and texture.

Thanks for reading!









Four days of shooting this week. Must be something wrong with me!

Hey guys!

No project, just some pictures from the backyard.

I figure you probably all forgot what my kids look like by this point, so what the heck. A couple from the backyard swingset, playing around with wide angles. Shot at ISO 100, 17mm focal length:





This little guy has an elaborate little web on the kids slide and decided to stay still long enough for me to switch to my macro lens.



A face only a mother could love. A horrible, drooling, furry spider of death mother anyhow.

More Gym Kids

As Christmas draws closer things are getting busier but I've been getting the camera out regularly, and have been shooting whenever possible. Today I did some promo shots for a friend's band that I should be able to process and post tomorrow.

Tonight I managed to process some shots I took yesterday at my daughter's final Gym Kids session. I shot some earlier this year but this time I brought a flash to deal with some shutter speed and exposure issues.

Just more pics of my kids, but I thought I'd share them.







Thanks for reading :)

They grow up so fast!

Nothing technically or artistically interesting today, but tonight I shot a few pictures at my daughter's first Christmas, oops I mean 'Winter' Concert.

I didn't expect too much, as I was dealing with horrid lighting, a position too far away at a bad angle, a spotlight moving all over the place, harsh direct flash lighting, and a microphone stand that looks like it's coming out of her head in some shots. Still, I think she's cute :)







All shot at 200mm with the 7D, 70-200 f/2.8L IS locked in at 1/100th shutter, f/2.8 at ISO 400 with the flash in E-TTL mode a +1/3 stop. Can't complain!

Impish

My Daughter started kindergarten this year (and I've been sick every week since she started!) and her two new best friends both have short hair. Of course this means that she went in to the hairdresser and had a foot of hair lopped off this weekend.

I think she looks rather impish with the new cut:



Of course, the expression might have something to do with that.

I needed my fill light (camera left) a little higher as there is a bit too much shadow on that side of her face, but I like this shot a lot :) This was shot with the 70-200, a four light setup (primary, fill, background and hair) and processed in a vintage style. Fairly standard for my portrait stuff now.

On the business side of things, there *is* no business side of things at the moment. I'm okay with that, it's there if I need it, and all it costs me is $13 a month for hosting at the moment. I don't have as much time to devote to it as I'd like anyhow, so another year or two of practice won't hurt me.

A few birds and a girl...

So the family illness continued until Sunday afternoon, and on Monday we were all eager to get out of the house for some fresh air. We opted for a drive back out to Oak Hammock Marsh because that's the kind of thing that we do at our house :)

Before going, I had to try and get a nice goose shot at the little park at the end of the street. There were thousands, and all flying low so you could shoot some nice clusters of them:



Oak Hammock was a nice walk but it was geese, geese and more geese, so I wasn't particularly thrilled with the shooting opportunities, except for *one*. Right when we arrived and hit the first trail, we apparently startled a Northern Harrier in a nearby bush and it took off with gusto. It was only fifteen feet away or so, but I didn't have my camera in hand, and my settings were not all dialed in yet, so the only shot I got was pretty disappointing:



*Soooo close* I have to say that the 70-200mm is great, but the 1.4x really kills the AF speed and it's killing me when shooting birds at a distance. I'm still going to try, but the limitation is noticeable. That 400mm f/5.6L is in my future, even if it's ten or twenty years away.

Anyhow, it was a fun walk even though it was short since we had no energy to speak of. My little girl was in the best mood, and immediately started collecting sticks as is her tradition. She's a bit of a butt sometimes, but I still love her, so she got a picture in today's post:



I would have posted all of this last night, but the boy started exploding with puke again and we were off to Children's ER. He's still going tonight, but the docs say it's just a bad case of Gastroenteritis.

Poor little guy :(

Blowing the dust off...

Hi everyone!

I'd be lying if I said that I'm not a bit embarrassed about my lack of posting lately, but man have things been busy. The good news is that I actually have real paying customers lined up for family shoots in October, so things are not a total disaster in photography land!

I took my daughter to her new GymKids class today and brought my camera with me:

Marching and Shaking the Shakers


Stretching Time


Parachute Game


We went to St. Vital Park in the afternoon as well, just to go for a walk, but I was lucky enough to see a male wood duck that was pretty much fearless and came nice and close for a portrait:



I'll try to post again sometime before the next three weeks :)

Pics from the weekend

Had a couple of trips out this weekend, and here's a few favourites.

We went back to the zoo for the third time this summer, this time with friends and their son. I promised them at least one family picture, but their little guy was not in the best mood and basically refused to make eye contact with the camera. Still, I managed a fairly nice shot:



The goal in this shot was just to keep it informal and loose, but still a nice family shot. I just wish we could have got a smile out of their little dude. He *did* smile for me later, in a shot that I like much better that was taken on the playground in the zoo:



Where was that big grin earlier in the day?! I took a candid shot when he was racing his father as well, and I think it's cute:



My daughter would simply not allow pictures to be taken without her chance in front of the lens, so she decided to jump for a picture:



Yeah, she's a goof.

A few animal shots from the day as well. First, a gibbon who decided to stare me down:



And our Zoo's newly arrived Lioness, who was napping at the time:



I think there is a universal rule that the coolest animals at the zoo are always asleep. They might be stuffed, I have no idea.

Our other day trip was back to Oak Hammock Marsh, but there were some high winds so despite it being migration season, most of the birds were hunkered down. Didn't shoot much and what I did shoot was just too far away for the 70-200 even with the teleconverter. I'm looking forward to the day I can land a 400mm+ lens for these birding trips.

I *did* take another bee/flower shot that had a nice colour contrast though:



Thanks for reading!

Rainbow Toes

Day 184 was a day of much happiness around the house. Apparently, my daughter had never really realized that people could paint their finger and toenails. When she figured this out, she *flipped out*.

I promised her a picture so here it is:



Taken on the front lawn at ISO 200, f/7.1, 1/100th shutter. Tough shot since the lawn needs to be mowed, and this was one of those shots where the idea works, but the image isn't what I envisioned. Shooting it again wasn't really an option, I was lucky enough to get her standing still long enough to shoot this one!

I have a lot of shots like this lately, and it is what it is. Inspiration has not come easily as of late.

Kersplash! Pre-and-post...

I didn't have a lot of time to shoot today, but my daughter was splashing in her pool in the back yard when I got home and I took some pictures just for the family. This turned into a good opportunity though, a chance to practice some post-processing and evaluate my technique. Tada! Day 180 post!

First off, here is the shot I kept straight out of camera:



As you can gather, if this is the best shot that I took, the rest were not very good :) She doesn't like getting water on her face, so her expression was always equally demented in the other shots.

Anyhow, post-processing was:

- Straighten
- Crop
- Fix white balance
- Sharpen
- Curves

Here is the result:



The curves adjustment is from an action set that I liked from DeviantArt, but dialed in to my own preference, and normally toned down to about 30% opacity. It just looks right to me this way.

So, this is the process I go through, more or less, for all my shots. The curves adjustment is not always applied, but this is the natural light set that I prefer for portraits.

Thanks again for reading, your comments are always welcome!

It's a swing thing!

It's day 177, and I had an idea for a shot, but opportunity gave me a chance to reshoot something from earlier this year.

I did a shot of the kids on the swingset back in april. I was using some different post processing techniques, and I was still shooting with the XSi. When my kids were out back today, it seemed like a good chance to reshoot and see what I could do:



A few notes that I think made a difference in this shot. The post processing style I'm using now is much gentler to the skin tones, and the composition seems better to me. I've done a better job of framing her face, although I still have a busier background than I would have liked. In this case, you don't have a ton of options, there is going to be part of the swingset in the frame somewhere!

A better shot to my eye, and her expression is as cute as all get out in it. :)

Miscellaneous vacation shots...

Well, I'm back home but I'm not quite ready to take up the mantle of the 365 again tonight. Unpacking, laundry, settling the kids... Well, my night is pretty full.

Anyhow, I have a few more miscellaneous shots from the vacation to share, and just to get back in the rhythm one of them is a backyard songbird!

We visited a hobby farm called Puck's Farm which I remember visiting from my childhood. The place seems a bit more rundown than I recall as a kid, but that may just be the haze of childhood nostalgia at work.

Here are two landscape/animal shots I took that day:





I took one family shot there as well. My mother and daughter were sharing a quiet moment in an old building on the back side of the property, and I wanted to shoot it as a silhouette. It worked out fairly well, but the foreground was still fairly strongly lit:



When I was shooting the backyard portraits, the kids were also quite enthusiastically enjoying the swingset, and I took a few shots from the deck at the long end of the 70-200, and I liked this little gem:



Finally, as promised, a backyard bird. My parents are also bird lovers, and they are lucky enough to have some wonderful specimens visit their house regularly. On this trip, a male Cardinal was visiting quite regularly, but he never got particularly close. This was the best shot I managed with the 70-200 and the 1.4x TC:



Thanks again for reading!

Portrait Day

Well, shooting the grandkids' portraits went pretty well all in all. There was a certain amount of time that was spent herding them, and trying to get them all to look in the same direction at the same time, but the results are good overall.

The rental studio was set up with four AB400s which were very nice to work with, two softboxes for the key and fill lights, and straight reflectors for the background lights.

Here are the best of the shots taken today, all taken within 40 minutes or so. We got in and out way faster than I expected:





This has a guest appearance by Po, the stuffed Hippo:






Another guest star, Javelin the stuffed cat:


Mid-air shot!


Mid-air, part two!


Any comments are welcome!