More telephoto fun...

Took the new lens out to Fort Whyte today hoping to get some new critters. I found some of the expected critters like Muskrats, Turtles and Geese, but I got my first Yellow Rumped Warbler and I managed to get nice a close to a Chickadee who posed for a nice shot as well.

Here is today's collection:

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!

Band Promo Shots

After about two hours of shot selection, post processing and re-post processing, I've got a series of promo shots and headshots for my friend's band. I've shot them before but this was outdoor shots, and properly lit indoor work as opposed to the dive bar from last time.

The band members have changed up a bit too, so I was shooting some of them for the first time.

First, we did a quick series of headshots for promo use. I shot this with a three light setup: Key to camera high left, fill to camera low right and hair light subject high right and behind, all fired with pocket wizards. The key light was shooting through the Lumiquest SB3, the fill in a 43" shoot-through umbrella, and the hairlight was snooted with a Honl collapsable snoot.

All headshots were taken with the 70-200 at focal lengths around 130mm.

Lead singer - Jack


Lead guitar - JJ


Bass - Keith


Drums - Mitch


After, we headed out into the Winnipeg winter and shot some outdoor group shots. We hit the back roads and went looking for trucks, tractors, or wide open spaces.

Initially, we shot a bit on a nearby back road, but there was a bit of a lack of interest in the shots. One worked well enough to keep, but Mitch had stepped slightly forward in the frame. Not a huge deal, but noticeable and annoying in the shot to my eye:



A quick note on this shot and the following ones. I sharpened in post, cranked up the contrast and colour and then applied a very light texture from Totally Rad Actions called 'Dirt Bag'. This is a bluegrass band, and they wanted a rough look to the shots, and I found that this touch helped to capture the feel.

Our big break came when a friendly trucker gave us ten minutes or so to shoot with his rig while he was in a service station. We moved quickly, picked a few angles and started shooting:







My favourite shot of this session was taken down low, at a wide angle, with (to my eye) the best composition of the session. I'm quite fond of this one:



I just wish I had got that one boot all the way in frame! Gah!

Anyhow, thanks for reading, I'd love any opinions on these shots!

Backyard Buns!

Hey all!

Another length of time between posts, but this is just a matter of lack of free time. My passion to shoot is surely back, but I'm realistic about just how busy the next month will be.

I had a good opportunity today though. We fill our bird feeders all winter, and one reason is actually the bunnies! It's quite a sight to see, the rabbits dig in the snow for fallen seed, and when they leave, the birds come and scope out leftovers in the burrows. All winter long we have little guys popping out of the drifts.

I'm sure the rabbits know us by now, they are pretty fearless and he let me get quite close:



It's nice to see wildlife in the backyard, especially in the winter.

Taken with the 7D and 70-200mm at 200mm, AV mode at f/5.6 and ISO 100. Post processing to dull the blue in the snow, heighten contrast and sharpen.

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 :(

Respect!

Every have one of those days where to take a silly snapshot of a goofy co-worker, you take it home and apply way too many filters, and end up with something odd, slightly disturbing, and completely unexplainable.

I have.



I don't know what this is, but it make me giggle and feel a little bit creeped out at the same time.

A quiet fall walk...

Have I mentioned that we like to go to Fort Whyte Alive? I think this is our fourth trip this year.

It's nice to get out, walk for an hour or so with the kids, take the camera out for a while, and get some fresh air. I didn't spend as much time shooting this trip, but I still managed a few shots that I liked:

Autumn Path


Curious Red Squirrel


Shaking Off


Three posts this week. That has to be some kind of record :)

Fort Whyte Again!

Okay, okay I know that I've done this before, but my daughter loves Fort Whyte, and it's always a great place to go for a photowalk. So, day 186 is more pictures from Fort Whyte Alive!

The day we went, however, was a scorcher. We saw very few critters, and even the ducks and geese were hanging out in the shade. We saw two mallards actually sheltering under a bench, and they didn't move even with us within three feet away or so.

So here is what I managed to get for keepers. From critters:



To birds:



To blooms:





To bugs:







I just wished I got that last one when the Dragonfly was heading towards me. The silhouette is nice, and I did get a Dragonfly in flight (which is *NOT EASY*) but it could have been so much better!

All taken at f/4, ISO 100, aperture priority on the 70-200 with the 1.4x extender. That in-flight shot was a nice, crisp 1/2500th shutter speed, the others varied on lighting, from 1/125th to 1/1600th. I find I use aperture priority 90% of the time in natural light now, that might change if I get a chance to shoot some outdoor sports this year, but for now it's the most natural method of exposure for me.

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!

Master of his domain!

Looking for Macros on day 179, and in the backyard I went hunting about the various spiderwebs.

I thought I would find something a little bit bigger, but all my arachnid pals were hiding... except one.



This guy is *tiny*, like half the width of my fingernail. Getting a shot in focus was a challenge, because even at f/6.3 the slight breeze would take it in and out of focus. This is the best of about two dozen clicks of the shutter. This was also taken at ISO 400 so there is a bit of noise, the higher ISO was required to bring up the shutter speed due to the aforementioned breeze.

Even though he (she?) was small, he just strikes me as a bad-ass. You can tell he totally owns his little stalk of Catmint.

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. :)

Growth in the Garden

I saw a few things in the garden on the way home today, so I went for a wander with my Macro lens to see what I could see for day 171.

Here are two lessons I learned:

1. Wind makes shooting macros of flowers pointlessly hard.
2. No matter how hard you try, the Dragonfly knows you are looking at it, and will fly away if you come within five thousand feet of it.

Having said that I got a few shots I liked, and I'm posting two that are both themed around growth.

First, a Poppy Pod from the front garden. This will likely bloom in the next day or two so you have a limited time to shoot them:



Second, the same Blackberry bush from this shot has started to lose it blooms and grow berries. I took a different angle and opened the lens wide to get a shallow DOF shot of the last full bloom and some of the new berries:



Sadly, the bloom blew out in the shot, so the very slight purple tone was lost in the shot. Damn auto-exposure!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? NO!

On day 160, I was enjoying the realization that I still don't have to go to work for three more days, but the running around and errands seem endless after a vacation.

So, I needed a quick shot but I specifically wanted to do something experimental. I've been thinking about using supplemental flash in daylight shots and this seemed like a nice day for it with blue skies and white clouds.

By the time I got my idea together, and my subjects ready and willing, a little gray had entered the white clouds, but I still like the shot:



It's Super Baby! I think every kid on the planet likes this game... This was shot in the shade at 1/125th, f/16 (sunny 16!) and ISO 100. The shot is done in shade, with the 580EX II on-camera at 1/2 power, using the LumiQuest SBIII softbox. The effect is what I was hoping for, with a properly exposed foreground and the sky a nice shade of blue with definition in the clouds.

What more can I say about this? I had an idea, and it worked the first try! The shot itself could use a little more artistic flair, but getting the technical elements right is a challenge and a thrill in itself.

I have some portrait time scheduled with friends who are getting married soon, and this is valuable experience for that shoot.

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!

Sunlight portraits...

So, today was one of my first chances to really take any pictures. I've been shooting snapshots, but nothing really worth sharing at this point.

However, in my sisters back yard I managed to corral all of the kids for a minute or two and got them to sit down for a couple of natural light portaits.

My son and daughter are the first two shots, my nieces the latter two. All shot with the 70-200 at f/4, ISO 100:









I'm pretty happy with all of these, although the focus on my son is a bit soft. Tomorrow we are heading to the Royal Ontario Museum so there should be photo opportunities galore!