The Stories of Kensington Market

Got that macro lens!

As I mentioned last week, I'm really loving macro. The extension tubes are OK but they force you to choose between macro and regular distances (so when a hummingbird hovered nearby, I couldn't shoot it). I decided to bite the bullet and I bought the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR macro lens. Took delivery on Monday, and have only had a chance to shoot a couple of images with it. Here's one:

This image is straight out of the camera. I didn't do ANYTHING to it beyond my normal RAW file import preset in Lightroom, not even crop it.  Well, except for 'spot removing' a couple of blemishes in the flower. 

Did you notice there's a wee spider lurking in the centre of the flower? I didn't, until I looked at it onscreen!

Rogers Wireless. First they refused to admit they had (have) a problem with their tower up here despite the fact that at least a dozen of us have the same symptoms: the audio on incoming calls is breaking up even with 5 full bars of signal strength. Admittedly my iPhone 4s is getting old but I'm not the only one.

Then they offered to charge me almost $400 to upgrade the phone to the iPhone 5s. They tried to sell me on an Android phone. But they couldn't convince me that it would sync with my Outlook calendar and addressbook and sure enough, my own research revealed that it will NOT without third party software, which I would have to purchase.

In the end, they said they'd discount me $75 because I've been a loyal customer for 12 years. Whoopee.

Costco and the good folks at Bell. After waiting hours in Rogers stores with staff who are more concerned with the state of their fingernails and a thimble full of computer knowledge, I left and went to Costco. This for an iPhone 6 not iPhone 5, same plan (plus 50 minutes of US calling), cheaper price AND the phone cost was $149. If I switched to Bell, which I readily did.

20 minutes later I was live, they transferred my existing data from the old phone and I got on the road back up North.

The reason I went with Rogers in the first place was because of mistreatment by Telus and the fact they had no usable signal up here in the Highlands. With Bell, I've got 4 out of 5 bars sitting at my computer. The iPhone 6 is nice, same look and feel as the 4s but faster.

I just ordered this "Tough" iPhone case through RedBubble with my own image on it:

It's a pretty dark image (intentionally), looks good on screen and I hope it will print well. Cost me about 60% of the cost of an Otterbox, by the way.  

In a rut?

Here's a link to a series of ideas/exercises that might drag you out of that funk:

http://petapixel.com/2015/07/16/13-exercises-for-photographers-that-can-help-jump-start-creativity/

...or you could get out of your comfort zone and do something different, like street photography!

Street Photography Outing

Seven strong, we headed down to Kensington Market on Monday. All street photography newbies. We knew that it was supposed to rain around 2pm but we hung in there anyway. Trying to get everyone in the same place at the same time was like herding cats. It can't be done! Holly and Chris were in a 'horticultural' shop, learning how to plant certain kinds of "seeds". Maggie went into another shop and bought earrings. Sharon was doing her own thing. Wendy turned left when we turned right. It was a challenge! Amin and I stayed together most of the time, though.

First thing I shot was an onrushing streetcar on Spadina. Slow shutter speed, zoom while shooting. Kind of trite and overdone, but I like it! The streetcar driver wasn't too happy with me standing on the track in front of his moving vehicle!

Then there was this guy...

He was sitting there, giggling and laughing to himself. There was a lot of that going on in Kensington: I usually get the munchies too, when I get the giggles... anyway he got real serious and gave me the eye when he saw me shooting his picture. 

I didn't want to make it all about shooting characters. I wanted stories. So I actually approached this next guy (after I took his picture!) and asked him, "how do you sound"?

He said, "I don't know, I haven't played in a long time". I'm not sure what he was on but... He asked to see his picture on the camera then wanted me to email it to him! Either he wasn't what he seemed, or he was...

Then the rains came. 

Another guy walking along laughing loudly at some internal joke 

This was one of my favourite pictures of the day.  

But this one tops my list:

Tolerating the rain? Enjoying it? Reveling in it? In a hurry to get out of it? I didn't make this one black and white because I think the colour adds to it. In fact, I might make this the basis of my first attempt to paint a person. 

I have several more images to process from that outing. Hang in there!

Twinkle, Twinkle...

The other night I went out to photograph the Perseid meteor shower. Good news and bad news: I saw lots of meteorites but I didn't capture many on the camera. However I'd like to share two images.

This is a StarStaX composite of 100 images. There are actually four meteorite events visible in the image, look for lines that go in odd directions. But they're lost in the splendour of the star trails. I overlaid one of the foreground images and painted it in Impression

Both of these images are somewhat dark, I hope they render well on your monitor. 

This was a single long exposure (38 minutes). Partway through, I discovered that the lens was covered with dew so I carefully wiped it without moving the camera. The canoe was NOT in the scene: I comped it in after someone on Facebook gave me the idea. But the sky really did look like this, an example of real life emulating art.  

Stay tuned for more next week!

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Are you kidding me?

Big Bang Theory

It's your fault. You subscribed, so you have to put up with my ramblings. I was thinking about shooting star trails, so I got on the train of thought about why the night sky is dark, not uniformly white.

In 1823, Heinrich Olber postulated that if the universe is infinite, then there would be no direction in which there would not be a star, so the sky should be completely white. Think about that for a second. Interestingly, the first person to come up with the correct answer to that was not a scientist, it was Edgar Allan Poe! He pointed out that if the universe was so large that light from the most distant points had not yet reached us, the sky would be black.

In 1901, Lord Kelvin calculated that for the sky to be light, the universe would have to be hundreds of trillions of light years broad. It isn't, so the universe must be smaller than that, so it had to start somewhere, and that led to the Big Bang Theory! Not the TV show (which arguably is the most brilliant show on TV ever), the theory of the origin of the universe.

I mentioned Dr. Michio Kaku on an earlier blog. He is a theoretical physicist who had a lot to do with the development of string theory. I don't know how he is regarded in the scientific community, but he has written a number of popular books that discuss such weighty issues. He is definitely worth a read.

If you're intimidated by mathematics, read his "Physics of the Future". It talks about what our world is going to look like over the next 100 years. And it does it without the technical math. Do you have any idea of how many Star Trek concepts have already come to be, and how many others are in development? Nanobots? Transparent Aluminium?

If mathematics and theoretical physics concepts don't make your eyes glaze over, Read "Parallel Worlds". You'll be amazed what you will learn about Einstein and Hawking and black holes. You can gloss over the tougher parts and still know more about our universe(s). Links to both books on Amazon are above.

OK, let's get on to some lighter stuff!

So why does Steel Wool burn?

You had enough science for today. Google it.

But burn it does!

James was trying to do a face! Missed an eye... but tres cool! 

Thanks to Cheryl Smith for organizing it and to James Keller who actually did the burning and mentoring! Great job, guys, a credit to the Haliburton Highlands Camera Club.

Originally I had planned to shoot "people shooting burning steel wool" but it's so cool, I got carried away in the moment! Great fun, we have to do this again!


Are you kidding me?

I happened to click on my Google+ profile and right there it says that I've had 459,141 views! Are you kidding me? If I'm so popular, why ain't I rich?

I clicked on Vincent Versace's profile: he's over 14 million views. Scott Kelby's at 62 million. Trey Ratcliff's at 5 Billion. Feelgood numbers, right?

Cheap stuff

When it comes to the important things, I don't buy cheap stuff. Camera. Lenses. Tripods. Software. Even my Barbecue.

That's not to say I don't shop for a bargain. Once I decide what product I want, I'll search for the most economical and trustworthy vendor, which is why I deal with B&H Photo and sometimes with Amazon. Personal shopping, I favour Costco because of their no-questions-asked return policy. You know that if you have a problem, they'll take it back. Best example: an external hard drive failed, I didn't have the bill but they took it back instantly. My GPS stopped working after a few months, and not only did they take it back, but I was able to buy the same model from them on sale for $25 less!

But I have been known to purchase a few things on eBay that are clearly not original equipment, shall we say. With mixed results.

I go into a transaction prepared to lose. But the prices are so low, it's worth the risk. And except for one or two cases, I've been very satisfied. Those two: (1) I bought an Eyelead sensor cleaning kit from China, all the official sources were backordered and this was about $10 cheaper. Turned out it's a copy not the original. That doesn't mean it doesn't work (haven't tried it yet!), but it's clearly not the original and it didn't say so on the listing. And (2) I wanted a cellphone holder for my car, windshield mount that would hold it in any position so I could use the dash-cam function. It says it's 360°, which to me means it will hold it in any position: it won't. But how can I complain? It cost me $1.99 INCLUDING SHIPPING!

I don't understand how they do it. The lowest cost for shipping a package here in Canada (bigger than a letter envelope) is around $7.00 and that's domestic! Triple it if you want to ship to the US. But these people in the Far East will ship you a $2 product for free!

So what have I bought that I'm happy with? A shutter release cable for my D800 for $4. A replacement battery for my laptop for $17. Two EL-EN15 Nikon batteries (OK, not OEM) for $20 each. A couple of lens caps for $3. And most recently, the keyboard I'm typing on right now for $25. The keyboard is a great example. It's illuminated (sometimes I don't want to turn on the lights when I'm at the computer). It feels pretty good, although I have to get used to it, just got it yesterday! The one complaint: the card that came with it is in Chinese and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn on the illumination (it's the Scroll-Lock key. Damned if I know what that does, anyway)! My old keyboard had worn-out markings, I touch-type so it didn't matter much, but the big thing was the intermittent spacebar. The same keyboard at Staples is $70, plus tax so really $90!

Anyway, I won't be buying any external hard drives or Nikon lenses at discount  prices from the Far East, but for the little stuff? You can't beat them. And if something isn't perfect, just throw it out! It cost next-to-nothing anyway!

How do you like your Pines?

I like mine tall, and straight up.

A little zoom action while dragging the shutter for 1/10 second. 

Shooting Stars

The Lyrids meteor shower peaked on April 22. It was cloudy but April 23 was clear so I went out to look for meteors.

So my interest in shooting star trails and star fields was rekindled. There are a couple of images here, but really I'd like to send those of you interested in shooting star pictures to my technical blog where I posted more of the story and lots of pictures. Here's the link.

I went out twice that night, the second time just after midnight. That's when I captured this image (remember, you can click on any picture to blow it up):

Photo details: D800/17-35 f/2.8. Exposure 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 800, F=17mm. The golden glow is from the lights of Minden, some 10km away. Now to let the cat out of the bag: the meteor? 5 minutes in Photoshop. A simple brush tool on a fresh layer with black background, with pressure sensitivity, and an extra bit for the head, then a Gaussian Blur and Lighten blend mode. Another duplicate layer flipped and set to low opacity gives the almost invisible reflection in the water.

I shot this on Sunday night.  Completely different technique, merging multiple images using StarStaX, a freeware program that helps you do these merges and has some neat tricks up its sleeves! Check out the Tech Blog to learn more and where to get it. 

RTFM*

Somebody posted on FaceBook that he was having trouble autofocusing on a subject, but because his lens didn't have an AF-M switch, so he couldn't focus manually. He was using a Nikon D3200. I took pity on him, downloaded the D3200 manual to see where the AF-M switch is on the body: there isn't one, you do it in the menu. It was right there in the manual, on page 55 and again on page 62. Took me 2 minutes to find it. Now if he had just read the manual... you don't have to memorize everything, you'll remember that you saw something and know basically where to look. Just sayin'...

RTFM*

* If you don't know what that means, Google it.

Challenges

Not for you, for me.

Oh, OK. I have a challenge for you. But first let's talk about me.

Due to some family matters, I literally haven't picked up my camera in over a week. Which implies that the photos in this blog are older than that! So that's been keeping me busy for a while. Then I got home and turned on my laptop and, "boing". That's the only word I could think of that wouldn't end up with this blog getting x-rated.

Without dwelling on the details, it's dead. I was lucky enough to be able to recover my data. I had done a backup to an external drive about a week before, and if you're not using Dropbox, you'd better start now. Click the link. Saved my bacon — I had gotten into the habit of copying my critical files, especially my Quickbooks accounting file to Dropbox and there it was when I needed to recover.

So I went computer shopping. I really wanted to get a Mac, but in the end, the price of changing over was too high for me. Not only the hardware, which is close to double what you pay on the PC side, but also all the little bits and pieces of software that I would need. I stayed on the Dark Side.

This is not an endorsement for either the manufacturer or the store, but I bought an HP laptop at Costco. When I transport stuff, it's in the back of my Subaru Forester SUV so size doesn't matter (in computers as well as other things...) but I have to admit that the 17" I bought is HUGE. In fact, when I got home I discovered that the big leather computer bag I've been using for years is too small, it won't fit in! I had to buy a computer backpack (at Costco again... OK, I do endorse them!). Anyway, a quad-core i7 processor, 8Gb of RAM expandable to 16Gb, 1.5 Tb of hard drive storage in the form of two discrete 750Gb drives, and a 2Gb NVIDIA video card. All of which I'm sure will be obsolete in 6 months!

Anyway, I'm sure you don't want to read about the endless trials and tribulations of getting software installed and configured, it's a daunting exercise. But it can be a Sisyphusian task (look it up!) if you don't do it right from the beginning, which is why I brought the computer up to Jim's place before even taking it out of the box! Jim is a workflow guru and I think we got things set up in the best possible way. Thanks, Jim!

Photography Courses in the Highlands

They are up and running. I have at least two sessions booked in the next two weeks. All as a result of this ad placed in the Haliburton Highlander:

For those of you interested in taking such a course, I'll be running these here in the Highlands or in the Toronto area for now. Please use this link to contact me. Or you could, of course, pop over to the photography.to website. Or even phone me!

If you're interested in TEACHING such a course, my Train-the-Trainer manual is coming along nicely and if all goes well, it will be ready in a month or so. Please contact me via this link to get on the list of those who will receive a FREE copy of the manual when it's ready.

Rosa is a smart lady

So she deserves a subheading of her own in this blog! Kathy and others will remember the difficulty I had trying to collapse my light tent so that it would fit into its original dinner-plate-sized bag. Kathy did it last summer in about 3 seconds but try as I might, I just haven't been able to do it.

Rosa said, "Look on YouTube. I'm sure you'll find how to do it there". I was skeptical. She is a smart lady! There are a number of tutorials on there that show exactly how and I DID IT! Her insights into a thousand different things amaze me. For a right-brained artist, she sure knows a lot of stuff. She's even challenging me on Quantum mechanics and string theory. She doesn't "get" the Big Bang Theory, my favourite TV show, though! LOL

Business Cards

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I have a source for full-coloured, double sided, high quality business cards at ridiculously low prices (like $20 for 1000 cards!). Since then, we've ordered a number of them for people and they've all come out exceptionally well. If you're a photoshop type, you can do the whole thing from start to finish yourself, if not, I can help you with it. Go back and check out the previous article or contact me if you need some.

A really Excellent presentation.

I watched a presentation by Scott Kelby a couple of weeks ago and it caused me to recompose some of my teaching points in my course, but more importantly, to rethink some of my practices when shooting pictures. It was called "Crush the Composition" and it was recorded on YouTube. It's an hour long, and worth watching -- make the time. Here's the link.

One of the things Scott touched on in his talk was "Working the Scene" and it's a fabulous concept. In three words or less, if you've stopped to take some pictures of a scene, don't just take one or two snaps, work it. Your original picture may not work out, but there are bound to be others that will, if you take the time and make the effort to try different perspectives or views of the same scene. He documented a great example, when he visited the Taj Mahal... but I'll let you hear it directly from him instead of trying to paraphrase it.

A few days later, I stopped at a canola field that caught my eye. I already showed you one image a couple of weeks ago, but here's the one I had in mind when I originally stopped there:

In the spirit of "working the scene", I mounted my 400mm lens and took this shot:

and this one:

And this one, which I did some additional work on:

I used some of the new tools in Photoshop CS5 to move the plants around to form a better arrangement,
then the oil paint filter to add some texture.

Back to my 70-200mm lens, I created this layered looking panorama

and now a deliberately slow shutter speed and panning action on that smooth gimbal mount produced this:

I call this one, "Yellow". I wonder why? I'm contemplating making a very large print of this for mounting and display. The one before as well.

Are you bored yet? I'm not. Half-a-dozen totally different images, all from the same stop at a yellow field of canola plants (actually I stopped twice, about a week apart).

My challenge to you

Next time something catches your eye and you stop to take a picture, pause and look around and see what other images you can create from the same spot. Post your pictures somewhere and send me a link to where they are, I'd love to see you stretching yourself like I think I did!

I had originally intended to come up with a theme for you, but I don't want to impose any limitations except that you should try to capture some totally different images, all from the same location.

I'll try to find some time this week to shoot some pictures. I'm working on the course, and I have to prepare for my CRA audit (shudder) next week, but I'll be baaack!

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