Challenge Yourself!

In the past few weeks, I've felt myself getting stale. The fall colours should be inspiring, but you know the expression BTDT (Been there, done that...)? I've lived up here for 6 years and there's no doubt that this is a spectacular place to be this time of year, but I had the feeling that I needed to find a new approach, to shoot something different.

The message here is the trite phrase, "Get out of your Comfort Zone". Do something you're not used to doing. Try some new stuff.

I wasn't really successful. Like I said last week, I'm in a bit of a flat spot. That's not to say I didn't get some images I liked: I did (see below). But I want to find something different. This isn't over: I'm going to look for some stuff I haven't done before.

I did three things this week that I don't normally do: I went out on an ATV ride with some neighbours, experiencing some more challenging riding than the usual, I stopped at a high school football game to shoot some pictures, and I did a small indoor studio shoot for a client.

In reverse order: shooting jewellery without a macro lens and without proper lighting is an exercise in frustration. I was able to produce the image he was looking for, but not up to my quality standards. There are a couple of reasons why I can't show you those pictures here, but trust me, it's all about the light and I didn't have it.

I was driving back from Haliburton and came across a football game. I got there with half of the fourth quarter remaining, so I only had about half an hour to shoot. Now I know that the goal in football photography (and other sports too) is to capture the emotion of the player(s), some outstanding physical effort, and tell a story. And try to get both a face and the ball in the same shot. My excuse is, I didn't have time. I got a few shots I liked, though:

I used some of the new features in Lightroom 5 to enhance the lighting in this shot. If you're shooting sports, set your shutter speed to something REALLY high to freeze the action. This shot was 1/1600 second at f/5.6, F=400mm. He was running right towards me and I just held down the shutter release, using AF-C focus tracking. This was the best of the burst.
  

I know it's not my place to comment, but I will anyway – this is MY blog, after all! The Red Hawks were the home team in Haliburton, the Griffins are from Peterborough. So as a Highlander, I tried to get some good shots of the home team:

The Red Hawks quarterback was an able passer. And this shot shows an offensive lineman doing what he's supposed to do in a classic position protecting his quarterback. A second later he fended off a charging defensive player. 

But you could see the difference in determination between the two teams. I commented to a Red Hawks coach (he coached the younger team that was playing next) that what I missed, as a long-ago player, was the sounds of pads clashing and the almost reckless giving-up-of-the-body, the concept of running through someone, not at them. His comment? "Oh, the game has changed. It's all in the hands now". Nonsense. You've got to want it.

You only need to look at the faces, folks. Looks like the Griffins' running back is about to get levelled, right? Nope. The Red Hawk tackler tried to armtackle him from behind instead of getting his shoulder in front of him and low, and the result? He missed the tackle and 20 yards later, TOUCHDOWN!  

I know. Not my place. And my time on the field was almost 50 years ago. But hey, it's MY BLOG and these are my "sporadic musings"!

PS: Griffins 48, Red Hawks 41.

PPS: Griffins guy: switch the ball to your left hand when you're about to get hit on the right. Just sayin'...

An ATV Ride

For once I went out to do something OTHER than take pictures. I have to get back to doing things instead of just observing them. I met Bill doing a photo workshop here a month ago. He owns 100 acres not far from here and is an avid ATVer, and he invited me to come over for a ride. My neighbour Jack also joined us (by the way, Jack, if you're reading this, I need lessons in barbecueing ribs. Outstanding!).

So although I had the camera gear with me, I only stopped twice in the entire ride, to grab some pictures. And they were just snaps... I was having a lot of fun riding, challenged by the fact that I'm an inexperienced rider and by my OLD ATV that could use some service: I didn't want to break anything!

Here's one spot we stopped for a breather, out in the open on a hydro cut. A snapshot, like I said! Most of the ride was on some narrow, forested trails but I didn't shoot them!

In hindsight, there were a couple of spots I should have taken the time to set up a shot. One was a stream crossing and afterwards I thought I should have set the camera up on a tripod and set it to shoot a timelapse. I think I'll study how to do that more readily, it'll take some figuring out), or maybe a video. There was a second spot going over a little bridge Bill built, over another stream.

Anyway, I hope Bill knows what he has there. His property is extra-special, especially at this time of year. Here's the other spot we stopped for pictures:

Having Bill in the picture adds a sense of scale. The trees are huge and gloriously coloured. Bill was actually standing about 10 meters further away, on the left side and with his ATV. Through the magic of Photoshop... why did I do that? To magnify the scale of the trees and to get him out of the middle.

I also turned the clarity down a LOT in the image (an Adobe Camera Raw function available in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Elements for my newer readers). The purpose was to emphasize colours instead of textures.

This image is available as a large scale art print. Click here to see it full sized.

By the way, here's the link to Bill's Smugmug gallery. Do take a minute to visit it: and check out the bears! He got some AWESOME pictures. I was particularly taken with the Spirit (Kermode) Bear which I originally took to be a light coloured grizzly but it's really a differently coloured black bear!

SPECIAL SALE ON ART PRINTS

I have a bunch of inventory of art prints. I want to sell these by the year-end so I'll make a special offer: $50 buys a large scale art print on lustre or on beautiful matte Epson Cold Press paper. That includes shipping to normal locations: I'll roll them in a tube for mailing. The prints are all on 18x24 sheet, archival quality, with keylines and digitally signed.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL.
Buy two for $75.

And if you act now, I also have a quantity of 8x12 prints in plastic sleeves and they are only $10 each. AND some 5x7 greeting cards with 4x6 pictures for only $3.33 each if you buy 3 (so three for $10). Shipping included!

The large format prints are here: http://faczen.smugmug.com/FineArt/Limited-Edition-Prints-1

I still have to get the smaller ones up on a gallery somewhere, watch for it in the next blog or ask. Many of the same images are in that group too.

These prices are for existing inventory only.

Email me here.

D600 going back to Nikon for the third time

Sensor dust has raised its ugly head again. I admit I'm pushing the edge of the envelope, doing a detailed HDR at small aperture but if the dust were not there, I wouldn't have the problem.

This is a screen capture of this 3-shot HDR in Lightroom after I spotted out the dust spots. Admittedly everything combined to produce this: it's an HDR, f/16, detail turned up... This was supposed to be one of 6 images I was combining into a large pano. 

Hopefully Nikon will do the right thing. Their policy is to replace the camera after the third return. We'll see...

...and I gave in

How can you NOT go with Adobe's $10/month offer? Lightroom plus Photoshop CC. So I gave in despite my misgivings. The concern is what happens if I let my subscription lapse. Oddly enough, I'm less worried about being able to open my Photoshop .psd files (I get that if I revert to CS6, for which I own a perpetual license, I'll be able to open the layered file but that the tools from CC won't be available to me), than I am about Lightroom. I no longer own a perpetual license for the latest Lightroom (5) and the catalogs are not backwards compatible. Hmmm...

A couple more images

I woke up to a foggy morning and my first thought was, "have coffee later. Go to Vic's place and see what the mist looks like on the lake". So I did.

I made a valiant effort to shoot a multi-exposure panoramic HDR. I failed. But while doing the 18 shots I needed for it, I caught this series. OK, well not strictly true: the 18 shots were 6 bursts of 3 bracketed VERTICAL images. Then I turned the camera horizontal and shot this one. I have a few others I want to come back to another time. 

Vic has a stand of very old Hemlocks that I spent some time on.  

After the mist lifted, the morning skies were so interesting and I was captivated by the reflection on the calm water. I also have a vertical version of this image, can't decide which one I like best!

And finally, on my favourite ATV trail, I liked the sun peeking through the trees. I did enhance the birch trees on the right to make them stand out.  

Until next week! TTFN

— 30 —

Lazy but Talented...

Shooting people on the street

I've had a lot of positive feedback on my Old Montreal shots, particularly the old guy walking. John called it "The Traveller" and I love that name. Thanks!

As a very shy person, I have a very hard time going up to someone and asking them if I can take their picture. I don't know how people do that, and I wish I could. Some people even go the extra step and say, "please sign this model release"! I can't even begin to think how to do that.

I get that the Traveller was in a public place and therefore I have the right to photograph him, and probably to use his picture for non-commercial purposes. And there's no question that I can say what I think about him as long as it isn't outright slander (a street performer in Ottawa has taken offence that while I thought he was an adequate saxophonist and I even thought he should be in a more prestigious place, like New Orleans; but I said he wasn't "outstanding". Every week or so he writes a rambling ranting, sometimes profane comment on my blog, so I've had to block him).

Paradoxically, the few times I have asked, the people have said "yes". I don't know why I don't do it more often. How do others deal with this?

As an aside, I once took some pictures of kids eating HUGE ice cream cones at Kawartha Dairy. A parent came up to me and told me to ask permission first. I get that (we live in a sad society where you would have to!). A lesson before you point the lens...

Here's another image from Old Montreal last week.

On the way to Ottawa there were some abandoned Cessna 150's at a fuel stop.  

I wasn't the only one photographing them. Ahh, Lightroom's local adjustment brush... 

Got my Filter Adapter!

Very, very slick. This is a product I recommend. It works just as advertised: attach the adapter to your lens, screw each of your commonly used filters into a holder, then when you want to mount a filter, it simply magnetically clamps to the lens.

The magnet is pretty strong: I don't see the filter falling off, although I wouldn't rely on it riding a motorcycle at speed or banging through the brush on my ATV. To remove it, just lift it off at an angle (magnets work like that...). I tried both the 10x ND filter and the circular polarizer on my 17-35mm wide angle and they work perfectly. Note that Xume points out there might be vignetting on ultra wide angles, after all, you're adding an extra ring on the front of the lens, and they're right. Here's a test shot with the polarizer on board, at 17mm

The vignetting disappears at about 20mm. 

I bought the starter kit for $53, for my 77mm diameter lens(es). It comes with one lens adapter and two filter holders. Down the road, I might buy another kit so I can use other filters and put an adapter on each lens (and my lens caps: you can't click a lens cap into the adapter, you have to use a filter holder. That said, I don't use caps when the camera's in the bag, I have a cleaning cloth up against the front of each lens).

Shipping to Canada was only $4, it arrived in about 3 days. There's a little video on their site, click the link!

D600 dust 

I have my D600 back and yes, there are some dust spots again. Only 2 or 3 that I can see, a manageable number for now, and they only really show up at small apertures or when I do an HDR (the merge process seems to enhance them). Les Palenik has reported that he's seen some too.

But as Les points out, "...amazing IQ. Sometimes, I can crop a 24MP image into 4-6 different pictures. Or if I don't get it sharp in camera, then I downrezz it to 6-12MP which makes it sharp enough."

I think it comes down to that. The image quality is so high you see EVERYTHING. Anyway, I'm convinced the D600 is the right camera for me.

I should point out that Les is a prolific micro-stock shooter and the stock sites are very discriminating about image quality. In fact I didn't qualify when I tried a couple of years ago (I'm going to try again). So he knows what he's talking about.

D5100 for sale

 Unfortunately, I can't afford the luxury of having two cameras at this time. I bought the D5100 factory refurbished from Nikon to use while my D600 was in the shop. It has a spiffy fold-out LCD that I'm going to miss, the reach of an APS-C sensor (16.2Mp), it's light, it's fast, it has some neat built-in effects. It handles high ISO situations really well, too. Check this out:

My grandson, Ryan, with low available light. 1/125 at f/8, ISO 6400. I adjusted the exposure a bit in LR, tweaked the eyes and a bit of skin softening, got rid of some visible background in the right corner and cropped it slightly. NO NOISE REDUCTION (well I always add a touch of sharpening and NR on import for all shots, but just a touch)

Here's the deal: $425 (OBO) gets you the body and all the stuff that came with it from Nikon, including warranty. The camera sells new for $565 tax in.  If you want, I have a small MF lens, and I'll discount a DSLR course if you want to learn how to use it. Contact me. Hurry, I think this is going to go fast.

Lazy but Talented

My sister bought me a t-shirt a while ago, it says "Lazy but Talented". I wear it all the time and she knows me. There's a message here... wait for it!

My grandkids were up for a few days this week and Ryan, the 13-year old who is now taller than me, had my D5100 for a bit, while I shot with the D600. We stopped at the Stanhope Airport and there was a helicopter parked there. I took a few shots, but Ryan, who is NOT as lazy as I am, climbed up on top of a storage tank (wonder what's in it!) for a different perspective. On his own, I might add... no prompting from me.

Single frame Nik HDR EFEX toning, in case you were wondering! 

His picture was better than any of mine. The message I alluded to is, "don't be lazy. Find that unusual perspective. Make the effort".

Ryan's picture. Again toned and tweaked in LR. 1/200 at f/9, ISO 500. He was in Aperture Priority, by the way, not Automatic. Take a course! 

While we're on the subject of the D5100 (I'm starting to have second thoughts about selling it!)

This Ruffed Grouse was on the road to the Haliburton School of the Arts (the Haliburton pioneer museum is worth a visit). I grabbed the D5100 and shot out the car window. He did a little dance and fanned his tail for us! 

I mustn't forget my granddaughter Kelly. She's the "Fish Whisperer". She does everything wrong by the book, but she's the only one who catches fish! Deliberate silhouette and I was looking for the rimlighting on her hair when I shot it. This was actually shot with my point-and-shoot, so it's not the camera...

This was really tough!

I've shot waterskiing/wakeboarding from Janie's boat before. It's a real challenge! You're bouncing around, it's hard to keep the camera steady, and tougher still to keep the subject in the frame, never mind in the middle where you can autofocus! In hindsight, I should have pre-focused at his distance (the rope isn't going to change length!) and I should have put the "Active" VR on, something I forgot completely about until this very moment. Next time.

Waterskiers have their eyes closed a lot. With water streaming in their faces at 30 or 40 kph, I'm not surprised! They also get weird expressions when they're exerting physical effort or focusing on what they're doing:

David (Janie's son) is concentrating on a wakeboard trick. You probably can't see the facial expression unless you blow the picture up (click on it). 

You can see it in this one, though! Sorry, David. 

Sometimes things don't go entirely as planned... 

So here's the shot David's probably going to put on his FaceBook page...

I'm going to hop on the ATV and head over to the white water to see what's going on. TTFN...

— 30 —

Get your A$$ out of bed

...but before we get to that, some other stuff...

Still some openings
I'm doing an introductory lesson this Saturday morning and could use more students! If you're in the Highlands, you're reading this and you want to get started learning to take better pictures, please click here.

Also on the PhotoWalk on Sunday morningRead the previous blog: I'm shooting Furnace Falls at Dawn, then the Irondale Church, then maybe a visit to Kinmount on the way home. See how it's done and get some pictures of some really interesting venues! Click here!

I've also been asked to do a DSLR course in the GTA (in Vaughan). They want a mid-week session, which is OK with me except I would have to stay overnight in Toronto, so it only makes sense if I have more students. Some time in August. Send me an email if you're interested.

Someone else asked me to do a twilight shoot in Toronto (city lights, just at dusk, HDR, cityscape...). Again I'd like to do it if I can get some more interest from my adoring public. Send me an email

Been Looking for this for YEARS!
Screwing filters onto my lenses is a real pain in the butt. Especially the circular polarizer, because when you try to take it off, it's stuck. The outer ring of the filter turns (as it's designed to do) but the body is seemingly permanently screwed on the lens. I started carrying surgical gloves around to try to get the thing off.

Same thing is true of my Neutral Density filter, although that comes off easier. But the problem is, I can't see through it when it's installed, so composition and focusing is a time-consuming operation. Set up...put the filter on...shoot a test shot...decide to recompose...take off the filter... recompose...put the filter back on... and so on.

Well these guys came up with a system where you put an adapter on the lens that has a super duper magnet in it. You put your filter in the mating adapter, snap it on and off. Bingo! There's a little video on their site, click the link!

Disclaimer: I haven't got mine yet so I haven't tested it. It popped up a couple of days ago and I haven't even had time to get my order in. Looks amazing, though and the starter set is only $50 or so.

Highlands Living
People ask me all the time how I live up in the Highlands full time. "Don't you feel isolated? Especially in the winter?" The truth is, that's a downside to living here. I don't get enough company. But the winter is wonderful, probably my favourite time!

The good far outweighs the bad. I stayed with a friend in downtown Toronto last week and I was in Montreal last weekend and I wouldn't live in the city for all the money in the world (OK, wait a minute... that's an expression, not a statement of fact!...). So many people. So many cars. It took me longer to drive on Tuesday morning from Toronto to Mississauga and back to the 401/Allen than it would have to drive all the way home. And back. You can keep it.

But again, there's good and bad on both sides. For instance, I touched bases with a whole bunch of people I don't see very often (in one case, it's been almost half a century! Gary actually introduced me to photography that many years ago. He's a fine photographer himself, I hope we'll get to shoot together soon).

Also cities are full of photo ops. You'll see in a minute.

But it's been 33°C (over 90, you Yanks!) and I have something you don't: a lake. I was in the water 3 times yesterday and I'll be in there this afternoon after I finish this blog post! Last week, my friend Ilana visited me for a couple of days, 'way too short a visit, I hope she comes back soon! We did get some waterfront time in...

I took this with the D5100. I wasn't that impressed with the original shot, the lighting was rough in the middle of the day, but Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro (Polaroid Transfer filter) saved the day. Very little retouching is needed when you have such a beautiful model!

I posted this for a couple of reasons. There's something to be said for photographing people instead of rocks and trees and it's high on my list to learn to do better. By the way, to quote Dr. Sheldon Cooper, "she's a friend, she's a girl, but she's not my girlfriend". Oh, to be younger...

That's my lead-in to the first picture below:

Old Montreal
Some background, then I'll tie this back into the title of this post.

I was in Montreal on family business and we took an afternoon drive through Old Montreal (don't get me started on the traffic...). I immediately said, "I have to come back here tomorrow morning at dawn". So I did... well sort of! I woke up at 4:30, said, "I can sleep another half-hour or so", then promptly fell asleep until 6am. By the time I got downtown, it was 6:30. The sun was long since up, but I'm going to count that as a dawn shoot.

I have NEVER gotten up for a dawn shoot and been disappointed. NEVER. You'd think I would have learned that by now. I'm going to get my a$$ out of bed early much more often. This was no exception. The only things moving in Old Montreal were the street cleaning crews, a few vagrants, and the cute blond girl in the little red City of Montreal Parking Enforcement car who seemed to follow me around and take out her ticket book every time I pulled over to take some pictures! When I shot the picture below, she was just pulling up behind my car.

I processed this picture 6 different ways and loved them all. This is selective colour using Silver Efex Pro, a little toning in HDR Efex Pro and a Glamor Glow added in Color Efex Pro. A testament to the Nik Plugins!

I'm not sure if this fellow was a vagrant or just a visitor. He had a bedroll on his back, walked with a laboured limp, and I saw him several times as he walked along the full length of St. Paul St. He didn't know I was taking his picture, I used the "I'm chimping, not taking pictures" trick I read about recently. Shutter speed was only 1/40 sec, OK for camera shake with the 35mm lens on the full frame, but not quite enough to freeze his head movement. Nik saved the day.

For your enjoyment, here are a few more "Old Montreal early in the morning before anyone else was up" pictures.

This isn't actually Old Montreal. It's Ste. Catherine Street, closed for a festival. My camera was doing some funny things: not sure why. 2- or 3-stops overexposed, nothing set wrong that I could find. Lucky shot. By the way, first shots with my newly returned D600.

This IS Old Montreal.

Same spot, colour version.

Always turn around and look behind you

 

It was worth getting my a$$ out of bed...

— 30 —

Lemonade from Lemons

You know the old saw about making lemonade when you're dealt lemons? Another way of saying "the glass is half full, not half empty" or just "make the best of it". My D600 is on its way back to Nikon for service again.

The Nikon D600 has dust issues

For anyone who's in the industry, that's not news. I sent mine in to Nikon last February and thought they solved it; they actually changed the shutter mechanism which, I learned, was responsible for throwing oil on the lo-pass filter (that piece of glass in front of the sensor itself). It didn't work, Nikon:

This is a crop of the upper left corner of this image. It's about 2300x1500 px. This image was shot with the 17-35mm lens at f/22, and what you're looking at is a merge in HDR Efex of three bracketed shots. I enhanced it so you could see the spots better. You might ask, "Why did you let it go this far?". 

You can't see this stuff when you shoot at f/8. Well, when you look really closely, you can, but it's not obtrusive. Almost all of my shooting is done at f/8 where I can, because that's the sweet spot on most of my lenses. But this time, I wanted the depth of field.

Here's another couple of images I shot at the same location and you'll understand why. These were in fact at f/8 but I had to fight to get focus on the barn.

Both of these images are HDR merges. They will be available as large scale fine art prints. email me if you're interested. You can check out the gallery, they should be up there by the time you read this. 

Anyway, back to the "lemonade" thing. I recognize that Nikon has had some issues with this camera but I trust that they will make it right. Canon people, stop rubbing your hands together in glee, I can hear you! So the good part is, I'll get my camera back (or a replacement) soon, and it'll be great. But I'm without a camera body and that's not acceptable, so I ordered a D5100 refurb from Nikon and as I write this, I'm waiting for the Purolator man to deliver it to me!

I had occasion to handle the D5100 that belonged to a student last week. It's a nice machine, and it has two features that the D600 doesn't have that I'm looking forward to: it has an articulated LCD that flips out from the side so making those ankle-height shots will be easier (my knees are bad); and it's got an APS-C cropped sensor so when I really need to reach out and touch a distant subject, my 400mm lens will look like a 600mm on a full-frame. Everyone tells me the image quality is great, and, well, the price was right. If push comes to shove, I could resell it for what I paid but I think I'll keep it as a backup. I've been needing one anyway, I'm sorry I sold the D300 (but not sorry I got the 17-35 in exchange, Pete!).

So the glass is half-full. I'm coming out ahead.

PS: according to what I've read and heard, Nikon has solved the issue. Apparently only a percentage of early production cameras had this problem, and they've fixed it at the factory on anything made after April.

Speaking of Students...

I need some. Please go to www.photography.to and have a look at the workshops tab. My advertising hasn't kicked in yet and I need some work. I have some 3-hour and some 2-day sessions available, and a flexible calendar. Please pass this on to anyone you know who would benefit from a workshop. I'll come to you if it makes sense.

Speaking of advertising...

Last week I told you I'm a published columnist! I didn't believe it until I actually saw it in print:

Here it is! It's available on line as well, check it out here. I'm on page 2. 

They originally told me they would print the column every two weeks, but they've now changed it to every week! My faithful readers can preview the next column here!

Tuesday was a great photography day!

I had to be in Toronto on Tuesday, and headed for home late afternoon. When I was in Uxbridge for Ryan's graduation last week, I drove by a spot I marked in my mind to return to. That day was just a bright sunny one and the sky was featureless. I should have stopped but I didn't. So I had the opportunity on Tuesday and headed over that way.

When I arrived, it wasn't great, weather wise, but I stuck it out. There was a storm coming from behind me but the sky over the scene I wanted to shoot wasn't great. I spent half an hour shooting various shots, and then the skies opened up and the rain came down in buckets! I got in the car and headed for home. Not 10 minutes later, I drove out of the storm to see this:

I did boost the colours a bit, but it was spectacular. In fact there was a double rainbow, but the other one was too light to look good on film (OK, on 'digital film'!). I used Topaz Clarity on this one, by the way. I'm using it on a lot of pictures now and I really like it! 

Then I turned to my left and saw this scene:

I decided to make a painting out of this one. It took a lot of work to get it right, but I think it was worth it. Again, it will be available as large scale fine art prints. email me if you're interested. You can check out the gallery, it should be up there by the time you read this. 

Not yet done for the day. Now the sky was interesting, so I turned around and went back to the original spot, it was about 10 km back (the above picture was just South of Sunderland on Highway 12; the original scene was just before the turnoff to 12 on Highway 47 in Greenbank). So the top pictures in this blog were taken after I went back. Those were the remnants of the storm that had passed through.

STILL not done. I spent about an hour there, then headed home again. About 5km up the road from the rainbow spot, was this scene.

This is the scene that caught my eye from the road. It's an HDR, of course. As an aside, when I open Nik HDR Efex Pro, I'm drawn to one preset about 90% of the time: the "Dark" one. Here too: I clicked on it, increased the exposure about 10% and saved it. The only other things I did were to remove a red-and-white OFSC sign in front of the bridge and tone down the greens a bit. Fine art print. Gallery. Check it out.

This is marked as part of the "Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs" (OFSC) trail system. Walking over to get this shot, I disturbed a very large dog at the farm to my right, but the farmer came out to corral him (thank you, farmer!). 

OK, back in the car. Another 90 minutes drive to get home. I needed a pit stop at the Tim Horton's in Beaverton and by now it was getting dark.

Earlier this week I was working on an older image that I took in Norland. I wanted to make it a dusk shot, so I created the lighting effects entirely in Photoshop. It wasn't really late in the day when I shot it:

+Ben Willmore shoots a lot of these, usually abandoned old gas stations. That's what got me thinking about it.  

Back to the drive home and the Tim Horton's:

It really was getting dark, and the lights inside the shop looked so warm and inviting. I did have to enhance it, boost the contrast and detail (Topaz Adjust and Clarity). I had another shot that showed some traffic at the pickup window, but I liked this one better.  

So. One drive home, more than half-a-dozen distinct keepers, at least 4 for the gallery and large scale printing. All with a camera infected with dust-spot-measles. It was definitely a good day.

— 30 —

Did Nikon omit something important on the D600?

New Header

The observant among you will have noticed that I've replaced the header picture on the blog. For what it's worth, it's a composite of two images I took a couple of weeks ago at Horseshoe Lake. The eagle was about 400 or 500m away, and I reached out with my 400mm lens to capture it.

Blogger doesn't archive the old image, so as I usually do when I replace it, here's the previous image.

Trouble in Paradise

I put the 10-stop ND filter on the 17-35mm lens the other day and re-shot the Trent Waterway shot, hoping for a smoother effect on the water and some motion in the clouds. When I uploaded the images, I was surprised to see this:

See the big ugly line about 1/4 of the way up, and the dark zone around it? Also look at the vignetting! Click on the image to enlarge it

I THINK this is from not covering the viewfinder while shooting the picture. The amount of light leaking in is visible in comparison to the limited light coming in through the filtered lens. The vignetting is surprisingly more than I expected since the filter is not thick and I didn't have a skylight or any other filter mounted on the lens. I was shooting zoomed all the way out to 17mm.

I'm going to go back out today to test my theory... I have a totally opaque cloth to hang over the viewfinder. I'm a bit surprised Nikon didn't include a cover for the viewfinder like they did on the D800 and D3/D4. It couldn't cost them more than a few cents...

Update: I did go out on Monday to test. That's a relief – it was the viewfinder. I opaqued it out with a heavy cloth and the line and vignetting disappeared. I  created the following HDR while I was there:

Technical notes: This shot was blended from three exposures at 3 seconds, 0.8 seconds and 13 seconds, ISO 400, f/16, F=17mm, D600 FX with the 10-stop B&W ND filter on board. The camera was on the tripod and I used the cable release and the 5-second self-timer to stabilize it. There was a heavy cloth over the camera to opaque the viewfinder. I chose the ISO in order to achieve the 3 second nominal exposure so that I could preserve some structure in the fast flowing water. When I merged it in HDR Efex Pro, I used the middle exposure for de-ghosting. Finishing touches were done in Silver Efex Pro with several custom control points. Contact me for a limited-edition print of this image. Click on the image to view it full sized.

It's pretty well documented that if you are shooting long exposures, especially if there's light behind the camera, that you need to block the viewfinder. Normally your eye does that but not if you're using a cable release, or timer, etc. Light leaks in there and somehow gets to the sensor, messing up your image like the example above. On their higher end cameras, Nikon has a built-in switch to block the viewfinder. Even on the D300, they supplied a little slide-in plastic piece to cover the finder. Not so the D600. They should design a rubber eyecup with a slide-in cover, if they're not prepared to build it into the camera.

Damaged Tripod

The day that I shot the "marsh grass" image that I posted a few days ago (and which, by the way was selected by TIF as their cover image for the month of April), I stumbled with my camera mounted on the tripod, legs fully extended. To prevent falling down, I managed to put my full weight on one of the tripod legs. I broke it. Fortunately, the break is at the top of the second leg segment, where it goes inside the top one. The tripod is still fully functional, except that I have to be careful not to pull the segment all the way out, or it will come out (it doesn't stop any more).

I was thinking that if I had been carrying my full-sized Gitzo, it might not have broken. But then it weighs 3 times as much as the 3-Legged Thing carbon fiber. Bad luck, but it could have been worse: I might have dropped the camera or hurt myself in a fall. Lesson: be more careful!

April Fool!

The most successful April Fools jokes are the ones where people actually believe them for a while, until someone comes along and points out it was a joke. At which point they slap themselves in the head and say, "OK, you got me".

I posted a story yesterday (April 1st) about how one of my images was purchased by Arts Canada, and would be hung in the National Gallery in Ottawa (that's our equivalent to the Smithsonian). Not that credible, right? I added that I couldn't reveal the amount they paid, but I'd never have to work again. Then I said that the curator, Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz would be making a press announcement. Not enough clues?

I have to tell you, I got an entirely satisfying number of congratulatory messages from individuals who should have caught it earlier, including at least two with "Dr." in front of their names... on the other hand I got an "I hate you!" from someone I care about who shall remain nameless (lest I get in further hot water). Seems she told a whole bunch of people about it before I told her the truth! This is where the acronym, "ROTFLMAO" is really appropriate!

Thinking about Printing

The more I research the printing game, the more the thought of printing myself is boiling around in my head. I know it means an investment in time and working my way through a learning curve, and it certainly means I'll have to acquire some equipment and make space available (I have the space)... this might be a direction I want to go.

I posted an article yesterday on my technical blog, just expounding on some of my thought process and describing some of the exotic media and mounting options out there. Have a look. AND: if anyone has an Epson 3800 or equivalent that they might want to part with for a reasonable price, please send me an email or get in touch otherwise.

In case you thought it was Spring...

In the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, "it ain't over until it's over".

I took this picture yesterday, April 1st and no, it's not a joke. It was bloody cold when I went out to the white water for those ND filter test shots, especially since I had my gloves off most of the time. Although it was only about -4°C, the wind was vicious. No sign of the eagles on Horseshoe Lake either, they were too smart to venture out. This was the view from my dock later in the afternoon. You're looking at the ice road plowed mid-winter by the Red Umbrella Inn to get out to the ice fishing huts. The huts were taken in last week when it LOOKED like spring was here and we ventured into double digit temperatures, Saturday and Sunday were georgeous, then along came Monday.

Technical notes: this was a single exposure, 1/4000 sec at f/2.8, ISO 200. I used a masked layer of Topaz adjust on the ice and a masked layer of HDR Efex Pro on the sky, tweaked it in LR and at the last minute, darkened it a stop or more for the dramatic effect.

Until next week...

— 30 —

This will make you cringe!

... if you're a photographer, that is.

Here's the story of the elk and the camera, direct from Dr. Ron who gave me permission to post it here.

On my recent trip to Yellowstone 2 elk were fighting. I ran over with my camera around my neck leaving the other body and the 600mm lens on the tripod beside the river where I was shooting another Elk in the river just moments before.

The Bull elk that lost the fight was forced onto the road. He saw me,  and I saw him….

He charged me and I ran up the hill hiding behind a tree.  (not very brave but I am still here in one piece) That is when he spotted the tripod with the Nikon D3s and the 600 mounted to it.

He went over to investigate….

I yelled at him…he charged me again…still not brave I chose the same tree! 

BTW My heart works very well, I could feel it beating out of my chest!

 An angry elk looks into the camera (for a sense of scale, that 600 mm lens is more than half a meter long - ed.)

The 12 point bull (6 per side) standing about 6 feet at the shoulder (the height of my extended tripod) ,  returned to the tripod. Stuck his nose into the end of the lens….I held my breath….hoping he would get disinterested and walk away. He stood there for a moment looking at the gear deciding what to do.

He charges the camera antlers first 

No such luck, he was frustrated and looking to take it out on something. He lowered his head and charged. As his antlers pushed the tripod over, it slid down his antlers making a scraping noise, then the camera strap got caught in his antlers and that really freaked him out. After it finally hit the ground he began kicking the camera and lens now scattered in several pieces into oblivion. I must not be a good photojournalist because I was too shocked to take any pictures of that…..

He kicks the camera for good measure 

Some other photographers saw what was happening and jumped into their car, drove towards the elk honking and screaming and he just looked at them indignantly….almost daring them to come closer, took a step towards the car in a mock charge daring them to come closer….he finally turned, gave one last kick to the downed lens almost to say F. You and trotted off down the slope towards the river.

When I retrieved the gear, the body was useless, the inside mounting ring was bent and the outer housing cracked. The lens had a very serious and gut wrenching crunching noise when you attempted to turn the focusing ring, the 1/8 of a turn it had left in it…kind of like a final gasp before slipping into a coma!

The good news is that both are repairable, a testament to the ruggedness of Nikon.  I do however have a new tripod on order. I tried to find one that is elk proof. No such luck.

I have a new found healthy respect for Elk, Moose and Bison….they look fluffy but they pack a punch.

Gotta love Nature photography….not for the feint (sic) of heart!

Followup: good news!

I spoke with Nikon service today. The service department is very familiar with the story, the tech I spoke to knew exactly what I was talking about! We agreed that the fact that the camera and lens are repairable is a testament to the ruggedness of the Nikon product. Obviously there's a price tag attached, but it's MUCH less than a new lens and body!

Ron, they told me your camera and lens will be ready for pickup in 5 working days!

The bad news is, that means Dr. Ron can't justify buying that new 800mm f/4 that Nikon just announced!

Another (non-related) piece of good news: my D600 is ready for pickup, I'll be at Nikon tomorrow morning! In uncharacteristic fashion, Nikon told me, "the technician found it necessary to replace the shutter mechanism, in addition to cleaning the sensor filter". Hmmm...