I feel naked

I'm a disembodied spirit. On Monday, I drove to Mississauga and left my D600 body at Nikon. Hence, "disembodied". My D300 has gone on to its new forever home with Pete (give it lots of love, feed it only the best of CF cards and battery juice, but make sure it knows who's Master, Pete. Treat it like you always did your hunting dogs and it'll be there for you!), and without my D600, the only body I have left is the one connected to the bottom side of my neck!

According to Sarah, the vivacious young Nikon service counter representative (she might be reading this so I thought choosing my words carefully might help the cause!) 5-10 working days, but I smiled bravely as a tear rolled down my cheek and she promised to see what she could do.

So why did I bring it in? Well I've been reading about the dust accumulation issue and the dust on my sensor looks just like the image on dPreview. Dust builds up mainly in the upper left quadrant. Small, almost invisible spots — certainly invisible to the naked eye but clearly there under the loupe — in sufficient numbers to make spot removal a chore in Lightroom.

I like Nikon, don't get me wrong. But one annoying practice of theirs is their penchant towards secrecy. The rumour mill says there are 3 likely causes for this issue: (1) the material on the back of the mirror, (2) excessive grease around the sensor mount, and (3) a gap in the shutter assembly that sucks dust in every time you trigger it. I told Sarah, if all they're going to do is clean the sensor, well I could do that myself. But if they're going to fix something... all I saw was her pretty smile and nothing else. In the end, I know they're not going to tell me what they did, they never do.

When I first got the D600, I thought it didn't autofocus as readily as my D300 did. So I figured while I was there...

All I have left is my iPhone.

At the Richmond Hill Camera Club on Monday night 

HDR Presentation
I had fun. I did an hour presentation on HDR to the RHCC as I mentioned last week, and I think it went well. I certainly enjoyed being there and rekindling friendships with people I haven't seen for a long time, and I think my message, which was "HDR's don't have to be over-the-top" and "Don't run with scissors is the only rule you have to follow", came across OK. Several people said they were going to give HDR a shot.

Link to the slides (soon to be an eBook!) and the resources mentioned in the presentation: http://www.photography.to.

RHCC runs out of a nice facility: a big, airy room, excellent technology (although I had a few issues with trying to get a Lightroom slideshow to run on the projectors). I'm going to really have to try harder to attend some RHCC events.

It just ain't right.
I haven't been paying attention, have they been talking about this for a while and I didn't notice? It seems that Hasselblad has come out with a new camera, the "Lunar", a repackaged Sony NEX-7 with optional fancy gold plating and wood-grained finish, and curves and textures which are supposed to remind one of the simplicity and elegance of the 500C.

I'm sorry. a 24 Mp APS-C sensored mirrorless camera Sony knockoff bearing the Hasselblad nameplate? What were they thinking? They got the price right, at $6500 though...

The Artist Project
This show was down at the Ex- on the weekend (non-Torontonians: that's "Exhibition Place" where parking is only $14 (tongue firmly embedded in cheek...). Great show. I talked to some of the exhibitors who said they might have gotten better sales at the One-of-a-Kind show, but less exposure for their art. Exhibitors here were split between painters and photographers, and there were some outstanding images on display and for sale. Several that I myself might have considered buying were I not a starving artist myself!

I walked around with my D600 and 17-35 lens and was physically stopped by an amazing number of people who wanted to know what I thought about the camera. I guess the big yellow "D600" on the camera strap was a giveaway. Interestingly, lots of people were taking pictures, but with iPhones or P&S cameras, I didn't see any other DSLR's there. One artist/exhibitor asked me to take his picture with one of his works, for his Facebook page. When I obliged, he INSISTED on being dead centre in the picture, looking straight at the camera. Not my fault!

A little selective tone-mapping, some perspective adjustment, and voilà! Reflections were impossible to eliminate, so I blurred the background. We'll see if he likes it. 

When you first came into the show, you were greeted with a wall of "Faces". Rosa says they took one image from each exhibitor (if they had one of a face). Some excellent work.

It was quiet at first, then got a bit busier later.

So, very nicely done. I'll be back next year and, you read it here first, maybe, just maybe, as an exhibitor. I'm planning to 'get my feet wet' in Haliburton in June. Watch this space...

See you next week. Hope I have a camera then!

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I'm really bad at multi-tasking!

How do people do it?
I think if one has to admit to a failing, my inability to multitask is a big one for me. Iris, my SO for a few years a while ago was a master (mistress?? LOL) at it. To the point that it would be annoying, she would constantly be doing several things at once. I could only concentrate on the task at hand. Those who believe in horoscopes say it's predictable: Virgos have that characteristic. I'm not a believer, I only know it's true of me.

I've been working on my presentation on HDR techniques, scheduled for next Monday at the Richmond Hill Camera Club, to the exclusion of pretty well everything else. I want to do it right, and since I don't do them very frequently, I spent a lot of time in PowerPoint (one annoyance: I haven't been able to find text styles on any menu bar. Sure would be nice to have a place to click to make text the same throughout the presentation). Writing it was easy: preparing it for presentation was not. Anyway, it's almost done and I think people will like it. I plan to publish the talk as an eBook right afterwards. I still have to finish my presenter notes and reference material links, and I'm done.

If you're an RHCC member, see you there! Or if you're in the North Toronto area and you want to attend, I'm pretty sure I can get you in as a guest. Drop me an email.

I'm a bit behind schedule on other stuff, I had to spend a few days in Toronto last week on personal business, but I expect to get caught up in the next couple of days. The preliminary schedule for photography workshops is at the top of the list after the HDR thing is done.

Winter at last!
I know a lot of people hate winter, but I don't. Sure, there are some things about it I don't like (short gloomy days being one of them) but with the huge weather variations we've been going through, it hasn't seemed like winter here, really.

We got a significant snowfall a couple of weeks ago so the world is white, as it should be. Snowmobiles are buzzing around, ice fishermen are patiently hunting those elusive icecubes and Bergy Bits (I know, I know. They SAY they're actually trying to catch fish, but the fish aren't stupid: they're all spending the winter in Florida!), and I get to go out on my ATV and plow the driveway. My neighbour, Jim, did his in about half an hour, then stopped to say hi as he drove by, saying "you're STILL out here?". I was having fun! I can do a basic job in about 20 minutes, but if you want to smooth out every little bit...

Anyway, it's nice to look out the kitchen window on a pile of snow in my neighbour's driveway taller than I am, and at heavily laden pine tree branches drooping so low you can't walk under them. As I write this (Tuesday morning), it's snowing heavily, and it's reasonably temperate at -3°C  (it's been cold at night. Down close to -30°C, crisp and clear. I've had a roaring fire going behind me as I toil away at the computer). Oh, goody! I can go out and plow the driveway in a little while!

Here come da Judge!
I had the honour of being invited to judge a photo competition for Toronto Camera Club last week. It was a thoroughly enjoyable event and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take their photography to the next level. Looking through and evaluating hundreds of images, all of which are meaningful to the makers and represent their best work, you learn where you yourself place in the grand scheme of things. Sobering, sometimes, and, I have to admit, somewhat encouraging.

The other good part was to be able to work with some real pro's and get new insights. Thanks, Lance and Nella and Anthony and the rest of the TCC support staff. If any of you want to get involved in judging, take the CAPA course. You can probably track one down through your local club. CAPA is Canadian... I'm sure there are equivalent organizations everywhere in the world.

I don't shoot for competition any more. I seem to bend the rules more often than not. I created a composite clipart image for my HDR presentation, that says it all:

A new lens!
New to me, that is. A bit of a story (there always is... LOL). My old buddy Pete is an outdoor photographer/writer and we're in reasonably frequent contact. Turns out he had an FX wide angle lens that he was using on his DX-sensor camera that wasn't wide enough... and we agreed that a great swap would be my D300 package with the great 12-24 DX lens, for his FX, 17-35 f/2.8 lens.

So we agreed to swap and did it via Canada Post (it is winter, you know! And we live about 400km apart!). I shipped my package to him, and he did the same. The lens arrived first. Turns out that Canada Post will deliver to my door when a signature is required, but will only leave a card and I have to go to the post office if I don't have to sign for it. Makes sense, right? Not to me either...

So the lens was delivered. I eagerly tore open the package. A Nikon box, and a hard lens case inside it... rubbing my hands together, I opened it, only to find a Nikon 28-70 f/2.8 lens inside! Pete shipped me the wrong lens! My first reaction was to Google the value of that lens, but then I decided to call him and straighten things out. I finally got the right lens yesterday (more to the story, but I've bored you enough!).

Of course I threw it on the camera and went out in search of pictures! Didn't find much yesterday, but I did do a couple of shots.

Not a serious shot, just trying to see how wide it actually is. This was shot from around 3 feet away from the ATV and it's a 3-shot HDR (as if the cogniscenti can't tell! Don't criticize the halo, I was just playing, OK?). 17mm, f/8, ISO 100, Nik HDR Efex Pro 2, Topaz Adjust 5. Focus was on the back wheel and you can ALMOST read the fine print on the label on the back of the plow!

By the way, there were a lot of sensor dust spots in the sky... they come out to play when you do an extreme HDR. I thought my sensor was clean... going to have to look into that.

Here's a more serious shot, I visited my friend Vic and took an HDR sequence inside his living room. THIS is what a wide angle lens is for!

Heavily edited, of course. That's what I do! Vic said one of the things he loved about his house was the rich glow of the woods and I agreed with him. That's what I was trying to achieve in this shot. The room is fairly big: there's about 6' between me and the back of the chair in the foreground, but that's a full width, 12'-ceilinged window wall. FWIW, I metered on the wood in the centre, opened the middle exposure up about 2/3 of a stop and did a 2-stop differential burst. f/4 at ISO 640. NIK HDR Efex Pro and again Topaz Adjust, but I used a preset that emulated a retro film effect which added saturation, glow, some graininess and the vignette. 

I convinced Vic to let me take his picture too. I sat him on the couch on the left and used available window light with the 70-200mm lens at around 100mm.

Serious look. I have to get him moving around a bit next time. You have to love the lighting! Tack sharp, considering it was 1/80 sec at f/4.5, ISO 640, handheld.

Great Deals from B&H Photo
If you have a hankering for a new lens, Nikon is discounting many legacy pro lenses individually (up to $350 off!) for the first time in many years. The sale is valid until March 2, 2013. Here's the link.

For Canon-istas, there are some other hot deals right now at B&H, check it out here!

A rare visitor
The other morning I was treated to a rare visit from a Pileated Woodpecker. She graced me with her presence at the suet feeder long enough for me to (a) put the freshly charged battery in the camera, (b) change to the 70-200mm lens, (c) select "U1" as the closest usable camera mode preset (auto-ISO, AF-C focusing, spot metering), (d) shoot a few frames through the glass door, (e) open the door a few inches and (f) shoot a couple of frames through the gap. Then she flew off. So here she is:

Female Pileated Woodpecker (dryocopus pileatus). Males have red under their chins too. Technobabble: 1/250 sec at f/4.5, ISO 6400. Cropped from D600 image.

For what it's worth, I've got a constant flow of black-capped chickadees, white- and red-breasted nuthatches and the smaller hairy woodpeckers at this and my other feeders. I used to get a lot of blue jays but I haven't seen one in literally months! I wonder what happened to them?

Here's a chickadee (poecile atricapillus) enjoying a black sunflower seed from my other feeder. (S)he took it to a branch in the pine tree, held it in its claws and pecked to get at the meat inside.

A Hairy Woodpecker  (picoides villosus) waiting her turn on the feeder. She showed up just as I was typing this! Females don't have the red spot on the head. The Downy Woodpecker is similar but with a shorter bill. Your wildlife education for the day. 1/400 at f/8, ISO 6400.

And finally, here's a red squirrel hanging out on the split-rail fence on my deck.

Red Squirrel (tamiasciurus hudsonicus) Pretty common, but he came out to watch me take pictures of the chickadees so I had to take his picture too, since he obligingly posed for me! 

Until next time!

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