Hi, I'm Glenn and I'm a Blog-a-holic

Hi, I'm Glenn and I'm a Blog-a-holic.

It's been more than a month since I last posted and I'm going through withdrawal. Well not exactly, but it's heartening to look at all the messages I've received saying, "what's going on, I haven't seen a blog post from you in a while?"

Mostly I post on Facebook. If it's just a picture, with no real story to tell behind it, it's easier. And I've gotten in the habit of logging in there because I help moderate the Photoshop and Photography group, and I spend (too many) hours in this computer chair.

Don't get me started. I wear a Garmin Vivofit so I can look and see, "oh, another day I didn't do very many steps". It motivates me occasionally, but my entire life revolves around my bed, my computer chair, my couch, my car seat... and other places to sit and lie down. I've started walking a little bit to prepare for my summer Newfoundland trip, but not enough. I've complained about leg pains of different sorts and they have to come from sitting too much!

So the personal stuff:

• my house is still for sale. I'm sure the price is right but the right buyer hasn't come along. In my humble opinion, the ideal buyer is an older couple who want a place to retire outside the city that doesn't take a lot of maintenance, has plenty of room and is not TOO remote. The Inn across the road is a good thing. So is the one-level layout and the lawn you can mow in half an hour. If that sounds like you or you know someone, go to the listing here. Take the Virtual Tour, Anthony added some cool drone photos and we adjusted the price for a quicker sale.

• My grandson, 2nd Lt. Ryan Davenport, RCAF has completed his level 1 flight training, mid-winter in Manitoba! He's now riding a desk for a while before he goes back to his college studies and continues his journey towards becoming a fighter pilot. As I write this, he's off to do land and sea survival training... I don't envy him that one!

Here are a few pictures he sent me, and said I could share:

It's interesting that in the military, the pilot flies the right seat, not the left as in civilian aviation. I read somewhere that has something to do with having access to the cyclic and other controls in a helicopter, but I'm not sure. 

Apparently after you solo, you get dunked in a bathtub full of icewater, an RCAF tradition that's been going on since the very beginning almost 100 years ago. Maybe even the same bathtub. In Manitoba, in the middle of winter! Brrrr. 

• Medical and dental aging are ongoing. I don't want to dwell on it, but I'm still here!

• I've officially given up painting. My easel and supplies went to my art teacher who will pass them on to other students. I found it too frustrating, since I wasn't very good at it and it took a big effort to set up and paint: oils take forever to dry, it's a mess to clean up... maybe I'll take it up again, but perhaps acrylic or watercolour (there's a watercolour artist in St. John's that I've known as a photographer for a while, hoping we can hook up briefly while I'm there. His name is Darrell Heath, look for him on Facebook. He's really good!)

I have, however, kept my sketchbook and charcoals/pencils. Again I'm not very good but if the urge takes me, it's not a big chore to sketch something. Here's the latest:

Canada Goose and a pair of blue-winged teal.

Here's the digital sketch I based it on. 

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Raptors yeah!

Look at me. You KNOW I love basketball. I'm 4'20", I outweigh most NBA players and when I jump, I sometimes can ALMOST get my toes off the ground! What's not to love about that game!

PS as I write this, they just beat the Bucks. I'm not buying a "Ran the East" shirt because I'm waiting for my NBA CHAMPIONS shirt!

Go Raptors, Go. 

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a mini-commentary on our times

I keep reading rants online about how the Walmarts of the world are eliminating jobs by installing self-checkouts.

I'm NOT with them on this one. When was the last time you pulled up to a gas pump and an attendant came out to fill up your car, check your oil and cleaned your windshield? Some stations offer that service but you pay extra for the privilege, makes sense, right? After all they do have to pay that attendant... when you go to a restaurant, do you still line up at the cashier to pay cash on the way out, or does your server bring over that portable credit card reader so you don't have to get out of your chair to pay for dinner? Oh and it offers to calculate the tip for you too, if you want. When was the last time you stood in line at a bank for the teller? Or do you do your banking online or at an ATM? Do you even carry cash any more?

There are tasks and jobs that kids haven't even heard of, unless they read about them in history books, made obsolete by technology. Buggy whip manufacturers, do people still have jobs plucking chickens or delivering ice blocks? Do they still milk cows by hand? When was the last time you saw a bunch of guys with scrapers and brooms come out and clean the ice between periods of a hockey game? We have machines for that.

There are new jobs arising every day which nobody ever thought of until now, and which most of us older folks can't even imagine. The world is changing, get with the program.

Get over it, ladies and gentlemen (and people of other non-binary genders). The world our grandparents and parents grew up in is gone. The world WE grew up in is gone. The world our kids grew up in is evolving. Ten years from now, people will not remember what a taxi driver was, or a flight attendant (stewardess!), or a cashier.

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FAC First Aid is sold!

I know that the new owner is committed to keeping up the tradition of selling only the best products and providing great customer service. Here's the website, I know he's working on it but it functions.

The phone number that belonged to the business went with it, so you can no longer reach me there. If the phone number you have for me starts with area code = '416' and you don't know my real number, please contact me via this link and I'll get right back to you with the current information. Just trying to stymie the Nigerian Royal Family and assorted telemarketers, I know you understand!

By the way, I made it so you can still create an emergency medical card to laminate and carry in your wallet. NO INFORMATION GOES OUT OF YOUR COMPUTER, you're merely filling out a pdf form and printing it. EVERYONE should carry one. Here's the link: https://faczen.com/medcard.pdf. I need to rewrite the interface but it still works.

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Newfoundland trip is coming together!

I'm excited to get going! Scheduled departure is July 1 and the ferry date booked homeward bound is August 18th, although that's flexible. This year I'm mostly on my own but I'll be hooking up with 3 or 4 groups of people for a couple of days here and there. That includes my son and family from New York, Trudy and Jeff, Dr. Ron and Ricki, maybe Jacqui and Arjuna. Let me know if anyone else wants to meet up, I have 2 bedroom places almost throughout the trip.

Here's my route map again. 

Itinerary:

• July 5 arrival, drive to Stephenville via Codroy, hopefully sunset at Cape St. George
• July 6&7, Port au Choix
• July 8-15, Burnt Cove in Raleigh. This is a HUGE Iceberg year.
• July 15 one more night in Port au Choix
• July 16-30 at Crow Head, Twillingate
• July 30-August 2 in New-Wes-Valley,  Greenspond
• August 2-8 in Bonavista, last night probably Trinity
• August 8-15 at Pouch Cove.

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I bought a new camera!

I got a Nikon Z7 mirrorless, with the 14-30mm f/4 Z-mount lens and the adapter to accept all my F-mount Nikon lenses. This will be my landscape and general purpose camera. My trusty D800 seems to be better for birds and long telephoto stuff — or I'm just not far enough along the learning curve on the "Z". We'll see...

Here's a silly "unboxing video" I did. It's traditional!

My D5500 and 18-55mm lens is for sale. LOCATED IN CANADA. Comes with the kit lens (18-55), two batteries and charger. In EUC, never had any problem with it. I have the box, the manual, a guide book, a Lowepro case, a wireless ML-L3 remote, the strap... shutter count is only 18,235. I'll throw in a 32Gb SD card or two.

 The strap mounting point on the top right side (looking at the back of the camera) is broken. See the third picture. I don’t remember how but the camera’s never been dropped. I think when I took the regular strap off — I’ve used a BlackRapid style sling strap mounted to the tripod mount almost since day 1. I’ll throw that in too.

I bought it as a backup to my D800 2 years ago. Now my D800 is going to be my backup camera to my new Z7.

 Henry's wants $650 for the used body only plus $160 for the used lens plus taxes... You do the math.

I want $600 CDN total. That's Canadian Dollars. Like $450 US. Plus shipping if I'm shipping it. Paypal’s good.

 PS: I'm using the strap right now on the D800, waiting for the new one I ordered for the Z7 to arrive in a few days.

Contact me if interested...

That broken strap mount 

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Some Pictures

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks. Enjoy!

Some devastating damage in Bracebridge from the spring flooding. Army engineers begin a mission to evaluate the damage  

The ultimate off-road vehicle — an armoured personnel carrier!

Opposition Leader Andrea Horvath talking with a local official and army major Graham. She's wearing a helmet because she came out of that APC. 

One of the first shots I took with the Z7 and 14-30mm.  

Yellow-Rumped Warbler at Carden Plain

Bobolink at Carden Plain 

Chestnut-sided Warbler at Carden Plain 

Multi-image focus stacked shot of a Trillium at the Minden White Water.  16 steps, made in-camera in the Z 

1/6 second handheld exposure in the Z. Internal image stabilization is fantastic! 

Nesting Loon on Minden Lake. Shot with the 400mm adapted on the Z 

3-shot HDR, shot with the new 14-30mm lens on the Z. This is what this lens is for!

See you next time. I'll try not to take so long!

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Good news and Bad News

...musings

First the bad news. This is my last blog posting... before I turn 70. That's happening in about 10 days as I write this. Everybody says, "70 is the new 50"; "you don't really look your age"; "you're only as old as you feel"... well guess what? I'm starting to feel old.

It's worse since the last surgery. My sleep patterns have been disrupted, I have some issues with eating and swallowing, and did you ever stretch in the middle of the night and wake up with a cramp? All the time now and not just the legs, my stomach, my back... anyway, I shouldn't complain, I'm still on the top side of the grass!

I made some life choices over the years that were probably not the wisest. But at this point, I guess I have to accept what I have and don't have, and my life style. Wishing I were 10 years younger won't make it so. So be it. That said, I look back and I've done a Hell of a lot of things in my life. More than most people, I'll warrant.

Equally annoying is that I now accomplish so little every day. Some days I say, "I have to take the garbage to the dump and go buy some groceries", and that fills my day. I don't have the energy or desire to pursue the tasks I really should be doing. But I think I can fix that. It's a question of motivation. Too bad I don't have someone to help me stay on track.

It ain't over yet: I still have a lot of things to do (remember the bucket list I wrote about a while ago?). Anyway, lots of people are telling me I should have a celebration of this birthday, that it's a significant one. Frankly I'd really rather let it slip by unnoticed. Just one more trip around the sun.

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Now the good news: today I bought myself a birthday present.

It's quite an old Starcraft Bowrider, with an Evinrude 85HP outboard. The interior is refurbished (new/old seats and some of the padded vinyl trim being redone).Hull and trailer in good shape. Motor runs well and as I write this, Bob, my ATV/boat mechanic has it and we're putting it in the water this morning (Sunday, August 28). I wanted something inexpensive but reliable. 

What am I going to use it for? A little fishing, and just an opportunity to run around the lake. I've lived here for 9 years and never been outside my little bay on 12-Mile Lake! It'll be great for viewing fall colours and just getting out and doing something different.

I'll start by docking it at my own dock but it gets pretty shallow there: yesterday I checked it out and I have 2 feet of water off the dock — knee deep. Hope it's enough. If the lake level drops, I'll have to move it to the Red Umbrella Inn's dock which they've agreed to let me use (for a price...). In winter, it'll go back on the trailer which I'll move into my garage. I'm just going to put a tarp over it — out on the dock as well so it won't fill up with water when it rains!

Update: we tried to put it in the water today. The battery was dead. Then we got it going using a Power Booster at the marina but the engine didn't settle down to a proper idle so it wouldn't run without stalling. Back on the trailer, and back to the mechanic until we get it running right. Hopefully only a couple of days.

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I've also shelved painting for a little while. I'm frustrated because I can't seem to render what I see in my mind with brushes and oil paint, but I can with my computer, Photoshop and some of the high end plug-ins like Topaz Impression. I will get back to it – just today I saw something that I want to try to paint – but for now I need to take a break from the regular weekly art class.

This was originally a picture of a purple clover, but Impression helped me make it look like what my mind saw. 

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Nice visit

My daughter and her two kids came to visit the other day. It was a little boring for them, we tried a little fishing but there was nothing biting... then just hung around the house for a while. I didn't take pictures, I preferred to be with them rather than documenting their visit! I did do a couple of iPhone shots, though:

Kelly's a beautiful 13 year old, super smart and precocious and going to break some hearts when she gets older! She's very much an actress.

Ryan will be 17 by the time you read this. He definitely doesn't have my physical genes: every time I see him he seems to be taller and taller. Somewhere between 6'2" and 6'3" now, I get a sore neck looking up to talk to him. Size 13 feet, and he thinks he isn't through growing. An "A" student too, he plays hockey and is on the swim team (really has a swimmer's body!).  

Neither Ryan nor Kelly play the guitar, they were just goofing around with mine. Ryan was able to play a version of "Smoke on the Water", though.

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I wrote the following for the group who are joining us up in Wawa for the Gales of November workshop at the end of October (link: www.photography.to/gales). I thought it might be interesting for others to read here.

NEUTRAL DENSITY FILTERS 

I'm seeing a number of ads for this new kickstarter funded company, just in business since May. What I'm reading is all good. If you read through their website, you'll find that neither the B&W filters (warm) or the Lee system (cool) are really neutral*. Here's the link: http://breakthrough.photography/about

I HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH THIS COMPANY. 

Pricing is higher than B&W (a 77mm 10-stop is $179 vs. about $100 for the B&W). Lee is of course more, with all the hardware you need. Both the Breakthrough and B&W are made from Schott glass.

If you want to shoot long exposure moving water or even clouds or smooth out landscapes, you need some sort of ND filtering. The variable ND's will lay a diffraction pattern (that looks like a huge "X") on your images at anything but the lowest densities; using a cheaper brand would be like smearing the front of your expensive lens with vaseline. Trust me, you don't want to. I went through all that until I settled on a B&W 10-stop in 77mm (which fits all my lenses with stepdown rings).

 If I didn't have the B&W, I'd probably go for the Breakthrough 6-stop. I would add a Xume magnetic adapter. When you shoot a dark ND, you have to take off the filter to see through the camera, to compose or to focus... try doing that 10 times, unscrewing the filter without moving the camera, getting the threads jammed, etc. The mag mount lets you snap the filter on and off. The downside is you do get some vignetting with your ultra-wide angles; I get it up to about 20mm (full-frame) on my Nikkor 17-35 f/2.8. The Xume starter set at B&H is here: http://goo.gl/K7jeBu

 Dr. Ron Goodlin will be doing a talk on shooting long exposure water on the first night of our workshop (I'll do it in week 2). If you don't already have some ND capability in your bag for our trip, you're probably going to want some.

* Yes, I know you can compensate for white balance when shooting in RAW. Sort of. Sometimes. Without degrading anything else?

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Picture Time!

I haven't been shooting much in the past couple of weeks: busy with other things, including spending time working on the upcoming "Gales of November" workshop (it's going to be great! Still some spaces on the second weekend, check it out!).

At a club event, a "scavenger hunt" kind of evening, I wanted to practice with off-camera flash. Jack didn't bring his camera (tsk!) so he became my VOLS (voice operated light stand)!

I added Jack into this picture in post-processing. Is he inside looking out, or is it a reflection? 

 I did a couple of people pictures:

Here's a head shot of Dianne. I used a Westcott diffuser on the flash, still pretty contrasty.  I used a couple of techniques I read about from Peter Hurley. Still doesn't make me a people photographer!

This woodstove was on the scavenger hunt list. But I added some Topaz Glow to make it more interesting. 

A few days later, I took out my light tent and spent a couple of hours working with my 105mm lens and off-camera flash.

I started with this shot: no flash but I had some fresh-picked tomatoes and they needed to be in pictures!  

Next I set up this still life. I thought it was a little boring so Topaz Impression to the rescue 

While shooting the still life, the batteries in the flash gave up, so I changed them. PROBLEM. Now it doesn't work right. Sometimes it flashes, sometimes it doesn't: and sometimes when it does flash, you can't see the light from the flash in the image. It's like it's not syncing with the camera. I still can't figure it out.

The flash should have fired in this shot but it didn't. 

And yet it worked when I shot this juvenile ruby-throated hummingbird at the feeder.  

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{big sigh}. I wrote all of the following stuff several hours ago and though I thought it saved, obviously it didn't or I wouldn't be complaining and having to do it all over again. 

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So even though I said I hadn't shot much, everything is relative. My camera is always with me and it's very rare that a day goes by without some sort of pictures. In the past week or so I've shot 3 times: two events and a day with the light tent.

Here's the second event: I went into Toronto with a group of people (Fred, Chris, Dianne and Larry) from the Haliburton Highlands Camera Club to repeat our outing last year, shooting street photos. This time (a) four people are easier to herd than seven, (b) we added the Distillery District to the Kensington Market venue and (c) despite following each other bumper to bumper, Larry got lost, then couldn't find his car. I did hear that he got home eventually!

For me, this wasn't my best outing. I wasn't seeing the pictures I wanted, especially in Kensington Market where I wanted to focus on "stories", not individuals. However I did manage to test a couple of concepts, and I did get a couple of keepers. Ansel Adams stated, "twelve significant photographs in a year is a good crop"!

We started in the Distillery District. 

Notice how nice and square everything is. Something like a good tilt-and-shift view camera might record it. That's not an accident, that's carefully done in post-processing, primarily using an often-neglected tool in Photoshop called "Perspective Cropping". Also there are only 2 people in this picture – there were a dozen (left there because, (a) they provide a place for the viewer's eye to go and (b) they were too hard to remove!). There's a technique in Photoshop called up via Scripts→Statistics→Median which I tested but you need probably a dozen images taken over time and on a tripod for it to work well. This was only 3 images. For toning, I used Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 and a touch of Topaz Impression2, with the "Cezanne" preset as my starting point.

Another shot along the way was this one where again I removed some people. I liked the way the flowers and the receding pavement lead the viewer's eye to the distant building, but there was 'way too much detail in the shot. So I used Topaz Simplify  and Impression to make it more abstract.

We don't have a lot of graffiti or graphically painted walls up here in the Highlands (although there's the odd tastefully done wall like the Minden Library or the old beer store...). Check out this hugely creative basketball court wall near the Distillery District!  Also check out the perfect form on this young lad's jump shot. Yes it went in. Nothing but net. His ball handling skills were also awesome: bet we see him in the NBA in 10 years or so!

Is that his sister? Coach? Mentor? She knew what she was doing but couldn't keep him from getting around her and scoring! Click the photo to blow it up.

I was struck by the fact that EVERYONE has a smartphone. Did Rodenberry foresee this on Star Trek? I'll bet he didn't think about "Selfies"!

This girl took several shots of herself in front of the big heart, fluffing and fixing her hair, posing and making a pouty face for each one. Bet they're for her Facebook profile! (you can click any picture to blow it up to see it better).

Lots of Selfies. Everyone was doing it. They're everywhere, they're everywhere!

But MORE ubiquitous were the people who were so involved in their smartphones that they completely ignored the world around them. I think this picture really tells that story:

I don't need to caption this. These self-absorbed people (who happened to be synchronized in step, good capture, Glenn!) were not even aware of these musicians playing 6 feet away. And they were good, too.

This was a carefully processed image, lots of photoediting time to make it right. It's what I saw.

Here's another shot from the same spot. This one's about the colours. Maybe THIS is what I saw.

OK, 'till next week. Boating pix, I hope. Sign up for "Gales", you know you want to! And Happy Birthday to my dear friend Lori who just keeps getting younger and to my favourite grandson Ryan!

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An Eclectic Week

I know the word "Eclectic" is an adjective (well it could also be a noun...) but but I wonder if you can use it to describe a week! Oh well, I just did. So there.

I spent a lot of time this week on business and administrative tasks (especially with the new Camera Club) and it was nice when some friends came up and dug me out of my computer chair to go out and shoot some pictures. A day or two in Toronto and Uxbridge with family and spending some time with a friend who's a bit under the weather (me too, for what it's worth), then back home and at the keyboard again!

Although it's a nice day out, I don't feel like going outside. I think the most commonly heard greeting here lately has been, "so had enough of winter yet"? I have. Been a Hell of a year.

At least I have a ton of pictures to write up here. But before we get started...

Nikon/iPad?

Do you have a Nikon and an iPad? there's a free app out there called "Nikon Manual Viewer 2" that lets you download any Nikon manual and view it, formatted perfectly for the iPad. Very slick. The more you read your manual, the better you know your camera. Not only DSLR's, but also mirrorless and even P&S cameras, plus all the Nikon Speedlights. Thanks to Moose Peterson for the find.

Topaz DeNoise promotion

Topaz is running a 50% promotion on Topaz DeNoise until the end of March, their image noise reduction plug-in is designed to fix heavy image noise and grain.

"Other NR software tend to strike a good balance between processing speed and quality. By contrast, DeNoise focuses entirely on the quality of the results you get. (The trade-off is that it takes longer to process an image in order to get better results.) For example, notice below that the books stay sharp and that there's no soft edges or smudged details: http://topazlabs.s3.amazonaws.com/mktg/books.jpg"

This technology makes DeNoise useful for "tough" cases of image noise. It can save photos that photographers might otherwise throw away.

Use this link to go to the DeNoise page where there are great examples and even a tutorial at the bottom: 

To get the 50% discount, enter the coupon code 'mardenoise' when ordering. You can also do a 30 day free trial.

Here's a shot where I used Topaz DeNoise. Indoor hockey arenas are notoriously difficult to shoot in. This shot was taken at 1/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

In this shot I did NOT use DeNoise, I did the best I could with the Noise Reduction in Lightroom 5, which is generally very good, but not as good as DeNoise! By the way, the title of this picture is, "If Looks Could Kill". Coach not happy. 

So who takes photos of referees at hockey games? People whose grandsons ARE referees! He works really hard at it. And it's hard to be unbiased: he penalized the home team in this championship match with less than 3 minutes left in the game. Fans not happy!

By the way, Ryan PLAYS hockey too. He played in this game and 15 minutes later was refereeing in the other rink. 14 years old, almost 6' tall, work ethic... hmmm.

He promised me a goal. Didn't keep his word :( . Can't say he didn't give it a try, though!

Some wildlife

I actually shot this one last week.

I was asked whether I got these deer to pose for me. Of course I did. You don't think they'd line up perfectly like that without a little direction, do you? 

In almost the same spot, a week later. This wild turkey tom was a bit less cooperative, I couldn't get him to 'display'. In fairness, Maureen and Jon feed these critters in winter, so they do hang out around their house.

Myrtle and Joe came up for the day last week. We tried to get the deer but weren't successful, but we did get to shoot some other neat stuff. 

I've been away from skiing for many years so I shouldn't be shocked at innovation on the slopes. First of all, there are kids doing things on skis and snowboards (which didn't even exist when I skied) that aren't natural. These shots were all taken at Sir Sam's Ski and Bike (they do crazy stuff with bikes in the summer!) near Haliburton.

And I bet these kids never even HEARD of a rope tow! Now they have something called a "Magic Carpet" which they stand on like a moving sidewalk, sheltered from the weather, no less!

Everyone wears a helmet, some cooler than others!

I took my camera for a ride up the magic carpet, then Joe and Myrtle did too. 

In case you're wondering, I walked down that walkway on the right. I miss skiing, but my knees certainly do not! 

One more shot. This kid was too cute...

I have other 'keepers' but I don't want to bore you too much!

OK, that's enough for today! I have to save some stuff for next week, you know!

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