Best time to be a wildlife photographer!

New header picture

I know it's just a robin but Carden Plain is such a great place and this gives me the feeling of being there.

Getting Excited!

Newfoundland's only a month away! I can't believe it. It's time to start prepping for the trip: figuring out what to pack, getting the car detailed and a final service, nailing down those last few reservations, making a list of the pictures i want to make!

I still have room in the houses I've rented if anyone wants to come visit. Look at previous blog posts for details: Twillingate, Coffee Cove, Bonavista, Torbay... the trip of a lifetime! Contact me!

Camera's in the shop...

Seems I must have been a little heavy handed. Somehow the little doohickey inside the bayonet mount of the D800 that holds the shutter open got bent. Maybe by the teleconverter, maybe by the extension tubes. I'll have to be a little more careful.

I suspect the TC. Amin came over and brought his computer with Fo-Cal software. We were trying to microadjust the focus of the TC/400mm combo and this happened right afterwards (it's your fault, Amin!... just kidding). It's weird, though. The TC with the 70-200 lens works fine. The 400mm without the TC works fine. The TC/400mm works fine on the D5500. But the TC is back focusing beyond the ability of the D800 to compensate for it.

Sun Camera Service has my body and the TC. They said they hope it's not the mirror box... I should have it back soon. Good thing I had the foresight to buy a backup camera last year. The D5500 is "OK" but it's not a D800. When I get it back, I'll send the TC to Nikon to see if they can fix it. I'd love to be able to use it with the 200-400mm lens, giving me 680mm...

Update: got it back. All working, reasonable price ($160 + tax & shipping). They cleaned the camera (including the sensor), adjusted the AF and replaced the bent part. They reset all my menu items, hope I got everything back the way it should be! Sun Camera Service is an outstanding place, they do factory service for both Nikon and Canon, expert with bodies, pretty good with lenses too. Fast, good and reasonable. Give them a try. Tell Nick I sent you!

Update on house for sale

Not sold yet.  Need to find the right person. One potential buyer liked it but isn't ready to retire yet. The suggestion was to buy it as a cottage and watch your investment grow. Another person thought about buying it as a full time home but they already have a cottage further up North. Suggestion was to buy it and rent it out for the summers. This is a good place to buy for investment, prices haven't gone up like Toronto or Muskoka and you don't have to contend with Highway 400. Pass the word!

I love this time of year.

If you're a wildlife photographer, this is prime time. Landscape photographers, not so much but we're getting there!

In the past week or two, I've been to Algonquin Park twice, Carden Alvar 3 times, and just driving around the beautiful Haliburton Highlands.

Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are some pictures.

I shot this at the Prairie Smoke Alvar Nature Reserve. It's part of the Carden Alvar, just to the west. The Bobolinks were buzzing all around us in the grassy meadow as we walked through it. I thought this texture effect in Topaz Studio best represented the feeling of the day.

While I was there, I dropped the lens hood from my 200-400 f/4. "No problem," I thought. "I'll go on eBay and buy a new one, probably $20"... folks if you buy a Porsche, expect to pay big bucks for replacement parts. Same thing with a big pro Nikon lens. Almost $400! I went back on Friday and marched through the field, trying to execute a grid search. I was almost ready to give up when, "Eureka"! 

Algonquin Park...

You don't really get how big moose are until you have something to compare them with! OK, "Something with which to compare them".  

I did shoot the occasional landscape. This is Found Lake at the Art Centre, and that's Dr. Ron in the picture. 

Focus Stacking/Macro

It's amazing what you can see when you stack a number of closeup photos. Helicon Focus software gives you a whole new perspective!

Peppercorns 

It's Trillium time! 

This is a "Giant Water Bug". A species I didn't even know existed! 

Carden Plain

I'm not a great birder. Other people see as many species in a day as I have in my life list. People make a lot better pictures than I do. But it really is quite a challenge shooting the birds and very satisfying when you manage to entice one to come out and pose for a picture.

Sometimes it's not just about the picture. Just being there, seeing them and hopefully identifying them is enough (well, I'd also like the picture...). I bought a pair of binoculars on Amazon. Really very impressive, you can see things much brighter and clearer than looking through the camera!

NIKON 16004 PROSTAFF 7S 10 X 42-Inch All-Terrain Binocular, Green. They cost me $239 Canadian. People told me to spend more but I didn't want to. Anyway, you can return stuff to Amazon, so I thought I'd give these a try. Amazing quality. Perfect. Here's the link if you want some yourself.

On Friday, when I was back at Carden because I was looking for my errant lens hood, I met a group of real birders — you could tell because they had Swarovski spotting scopes that cost more than my camera — and they told me about a rare hybrid bird called a "Lawrence's Warbler", a cross between a blue-winged and a golden-winged warbler. I spent some time looking for it. I played the call of the blue-winged warbler on my iPhone (in the iBird app) and out he came to investigate! I got a good look through the binoculars, dropped them and picked up the camera but he was gone in a flash. I got a couple of shots of a fuzzy yellow blob. But I saw it! Large as life.

Here are a few shots I did take over the past few days.

Baltimore Oriole
 

Chestnut-sided Warbler. Another new one for me
 

Eastern Towhee

Upland Sandpiper 

Savannah Sparrow. It was a windy day!
 

Here's another shot of the Savannah Sparrow. Sometimes pictures like this tell a better story. 

Parting Shot


Here's a macro shot of my one and only daffodil, stacking something like 30 images together with Helicon. I plan to do more of these as the spring flowers come up here in the Highlands.

 

'til next time!

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The Sea of Tranquility

The sea of Tranquility. No, not the one on the moon. Just something that occurred to me in response when asked why I'm planning to spend the summer in Newfoundland. Scroll down to read more.

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My work is now protected under Creative Commons licensing.

People seem to get their panties in a knot about copyright and their online images getting stolen and copied. I can understand if you're making a living — or a business — out of selling pictures but I don't, really. I've decided that if someone likes my pictures enough to copy them to share on social media, to look at onscreen or even make small prints for their own use, why not? I should be honoured.

I do draw the line at people making large prints because I'd like to have some say about quality, and of course people selling or making money from my images.

I've decided to partially release copyright on the images or copy I post online, both here on the Blog and on Facebook. From now on, my pictures and text are licensed under Creative Commons rules.

Creative Commons

Attribution — NonCommercial — NoDerivs

What that basically means is people can share — copy and redistribute my images in any medium or format subject to the following:

• they must give appropriate credit to me when they do so
• they cannot use it for any commercial purpose whatsoever
• they cannot change the image or text in any way.

This is different from normal copyright rules in that people can use the pictures or text (following the rules above) without asking permission. For example, you can legally download a picture from the blog to share, maybe use it as background wallpaper on your computer or even print it for private non-commercial use (although I don't upload full high resolution images online). If it has a watermark on it like the one above, you can't edit it out. You can quote my writings but you have to say where you got it.

You can still contact me for permission to use my works commercially or for a high resolution print, for instance.

Creative Commons rules are on this page: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Have a look.

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Time to upgrade the camera?

Not for this old codger. I wrote the following ramble in response to a thread in a Facebook Nikon group. I share it here because it eventually gets to the end message.

I love my D800. It's been frozen shooting pond hockey and dogsled racing, doused in salt water spray on a zodiac in the North Atlantic, drowned in a frog-strangling rainstorm... but like that Timex watch, it keeps on ticking.

Yes, I had it in for service a couple of times, the last time after those liquid events last summer in Newfoundland. There was some corrosion where water got in (apparently around the flash shoe) and the bayonet mount was replaced (too many heavy lenses). Does it ever fail to autofocus? Sure. Do I ever get unexplained exposure variances. Yep. Sometimes. 

The camera is a tool. It's a really fine one. BTW I'm at around 100,000 shutter actuations. Sure I'd love to have the latest and greatest but I'm an old retired guy and my limited funds are going into glass, if anything. And I'm debating a new tripod and gimbal head, my old one's getting a bit heavy for these old bones and arthritic knees.

I met a guy the other day with a slick D5 and a 600 f/4 on a pristine Jobu tripod and gimbal head. Did he get better shots than me? Yes, but part of that was because he's young and can still see through his eyes and can actually hike to where the better images are. And he's skilled.

I shoot birds with my 200-400 f/4. I shoot timelapse star shots and landscapes with my 17-35 f/2.8. I shoot macros and focus stacks with my 105 f/2.8. I shoot all kinds of everything with my 70-200 f/2.8. I love the 36Mp because I don't have to worry about precise framing, I can crop in post.

If I had the money, I'd replace it with a D850 and buy a D500 as a backup to replace the D5500. But for now, I'm really content with what I have and prefer to focus on the art instead of the hardware.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling.

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Newfoundland plans are coming together!

At this moment, the plan is to leave for Newfoundland by car in the last week of June, returning at the beginning of September. 

People have asked me, "Why Newfoundland"? It's one of the most spectacular places in the world if you like the idea of outports, small villages, birds, seascapes, stars... I can go there and still be covered by the Canadian medicare system in case anything happens. Although it's a lot of driving, I'm comfortable with that (besides, there's a new engine in my car!). 

What do I want to get out of it? The word, "Peace" comes to mind. I will pursue my photographic art and I hope to be able to accomplish more painting and sketching and writing. 

My friend Amin is travelling with me and will stay until about July 8th. He's coming back at the end of August and will travel back home with me too.

I've arranged to rent accommodations in the following areas:

• Change Islands, last week of June — focus on icebergs, landscapes, Fogo Island
• Twillingate, the month of July — focus on icebergs, landscapes, maybe whales, boat tours
• Bonavista, the first week of August — focus on Puffins, icebergs, whales, boat tours
• Torbay, the following 3 weeks in August — focus on whales, boat tours, landscapes, cityscapes

On the drive in, we'll be stopping at Peggy's Cove (just for the lobsters!) and once on the Rock, heading straight for Change Islands. From Torbay, I plan day trips including Cape St. Mary (Gannets). On the way home, we'll spend a couple of days on the West coast, a quick look at Gros Morne, the Port au Port peninsula and the bird sanctuaries around Codroy.

The only hole (at this writing) is the last few days of July. I've rented 2-bedroom or bigger houses with the intent of making space available for friends to come visit and join me in experiencing the beauty of this fabulous place.

Except for a few days in Bonavista, where some friends are planning to spend some time with me, I have space available. I'm happy to act as a tour guide and I have help, especially in the St. John's area where Ray Mackey is available. Best photographer/tour guide in Newfoundland!

A previously unedited image. I have LOTS of images from last summer that I haven't gotten around to working on.
Shot in the harbour at Twillingate, sky textures added. 

If you always wanted to come to Newfoundland, this is your chance! My suggestion would be a 2-week visit, one week with me and one week exploring on your own. You need to contact me soon, though, I need to plan! Email me — that's the best way. photography@faczen.com.

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Images

Let's move on to some pictures, shall we? After all that's why most of you read this blog. This issue has an eclectic mix of images taken in the past couple of weeks, a hodge-podge of venues and styles. Where shall I start...

I went to Algonquin Park twice so far in February. The animals seem to be avoiding me but the landscape and the birds can't escape my itchy shutter finger.

At Mew Lake, the snow on the trees was awesome. Now this image won't stand up to a close scrutiny because I edited it very roughly, but if you can ignore the little errors (for instance that branch top centre shouldn't be 'hazed out').  The scene was majestic and beautiful. I added the haze to give it atmospheric perspective and make it more 3-dimensional. I also converted it to black and white, although it wasn't really necessary, there wasn't any colour there anyway! 

On my second visit, the icicles hanging on this rock wall on Highway 60 called to me. I wanted to highlight the details and textures in the rocks and the ice. By the way, both this and the trees image are large-pixel-count panoramic merges of multiple frames. Extremely high resolution. 

Then there were the birds. I'm really pleased with the performance of the 200-400mm f/4 Nikon lens, a whole level better than I was able to do before.

American Goldfinch in winter plumage

Female purple finch. 

Male red crossbill. First time I've seen these birds and they're rampant in the park. This one was on a tree behind the visitor's centre. The hard part is the exposure: they sit right up at the top of the trees and when I was there, the sun was directly behind the bird! The magic of Photoshop and Lightroom... 

Next was the pond hockey tournament and the dogsled racing at Pinestone. Some great photo ops!

I just came out to shoot some pictures of Cheryl Hamilton's team, the "Finest Things". On their uniforms, the individual players were identified with big badges, "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" and... I loved their coach, the Cat in the Hat. Some fanciful editing with Topaz Impression to make this whimsical picture. 

I got there late for the dogsled races. I missed everything except the closing 8-dog race. Again lots more shots to edit, but these are a couple of my favourites. The weather was ugly: freezing rain, although it wasn't frigid. 

It was a rainy day in Pizzaville... so I shot indoors for a bit instead of going out there. In an effort to begin decluttering, I put some items up online to sell and did some quick pictures to go with the listings.

These are pieces from a beautiful anodized aluminium chess set I had acquired in the late '60s in New York. I thought I'd get rid of it in an effort to declutter, but I'm just as glad nobody bought it. I shot this in the light tent which provides such even, soft lighting that there's not a shadow to be seen! Each of the pieces is represented in this picture (plus an extra pawn for balance.  

And now, as my closing picture, here's a macro shot of a spider. Since purchasing Helicon Focus software last month, I haven't seen a single bug to photograph. Not one. Then I came across this dead spider and said, "Aha"!

This little guy was about 1cm across. This picture is a composite of 88 stacked images. I was trying to get a picture showing the spider's eyes. Hidden by the hair? Nah. Guess which end of the spider this is! Like one of those little dogs where you can't tell front from back. No wonder I couldn't find them!  

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À prochaine!

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New Beginnings

Canada's new anti-spam legislation came in force today — I'm writing this on July 1, Happy Canada Day to all my Canuckistanian readers, and Happy Independence Day to my American Friends — and it is forcing a big re-think by everyone who maintains a mailing list. Those who are located in Canada, anyway: most of my spam comes from more obscure places who aren't going to pay attention to our laws.

In the past, I added names to my mailing list of people whom I thought MIGHT be interested in reading my blog, friends and acquaintances and people I met or had dealings or communications with. You can't do that any more. All I can do is send them an invitation to subscribe, and the link to the subscription form (if you're reading this, and you're not a subscriber, PLEASE click the "Newsletter" link at upper right. The newsletter is simply an alert that there's a new post on the blog and a hint as to what it contains. One email a week).

So as I write this, my list is only 1/10 of what it was: I'm only a couple of hours in, people are away and haven't read their email yet, there's this whole world of apathetic people out there, and lots of people who are inundated with email and don't want more. On a positive note, that means that everyone who is reading this is doing so because they want to! (update: it's July 3 and I'm up to 25%)

I'd really like to build it back up again, so please forward this to your friends and colleagues, whom you think would enjoy this weekly blog.

Something else new...

Is the header picture. As my loyal longer-term readers know, when I replace the blog header, the old one is gone forever, so I take a second to post it here.

This is the previous header, posted in May 2014. I like to keep them seasonal. Not looking forward to putting next year's winter one up! 

So a note about the new header: the background picture is a composite of 50 exposures, married using StarStaX (it's a free software utility, available here, that's designed to merge images to create star trails). It works on clouds too!

The bear was a photo I took at the Landfill (OK, the "Garbage Dump"!). The background was really ugly, to say the least. So I thought I'd try the new "Focus area selection tool" in Photoshop CC 2014 and it really works! After using the refine edge dialogue, it really rendered even the hairs of the bear! So after a little tweaking (and a flip, I like him facing this way), I composited him into the shot.

Here's the original bear picture, after I selected him and applied a heavy Gaussian Blur to the ugly background! 

This is the original cloud shot. After I merged the 50 images in StarStaX (I actually had 135 images but after 50 the effect seemed to downgtrade), I laid a masked version of the tree on the left on top because the wind was blowing and the moving trees didn't render well. 

New Toy

For starters, those following the blog should know the Sigma 120-400 lens has found a new home, someone who will enjoy it as much as I did. I find myself these days trying to travel a little bit lighter and I found I left this lens at home a lot. Just too many lenses to carry! So I decided to give it up and acquire a Nikon TC-17e II teleconverter. It only gets me 340mm focal length, at a slightly bigger aperture (f/4.8) but it fits easily into the bag. I haven't shot much with it yet — the bear above was one example — but I'm quite pleased with its performance. Here are a few more shots:

Nice and sharp, good bokeh (I suppose that comes from the lens) 

A different approach! I came in close for this one, then I used the new version of the Paper Texture Pro extension in Photoshop CC 2014 for the textured background.  I'll bet this will make a gorgeous print! Contact me.

Good Canadian source for the teleconverter? Amazon.ca. In the US, B&H Photo. By the way, it only works on selected lenses like the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR, so be careful.

Speaking of long lenses

There's a phenomenal deal out there. The 600mm f/4 is arguably the best long lens Nikon has ever made. The only problem was the price tag: over $12,000. Dr. Ron had one trashed by an elk (here's a link to the story in case you missed it) and although in the end it was repaired, it isn't perfect. The autofocus is working, but more slowly than it should. Optically it's perfect. He wants to get rid of it, insurance has replaced it, and is asking an unbelievable $1800 for it. If you're interested, drop me a note and I'll put you in touch. Move quick!

Another friend has gone over to the dark side. He has a bunch of immaculate Nikon gear for sale, including two D800 bodies, a 70-200 f/2.8, a 300mm f/2.8, a 400mm f/2.8 and a bunch of other stuff. These are NOT going at fire sale prices, they are spotless but I'm sure you can make a deal. Again, I'll put you together if you write me. Where's the lottery fairy when you need her? If you want to know what to buy me for my birthday, well I'd find a way to cart around that 300 or 400 f/2.8!

Newsflash

Here's a deal from B&H Photo: If you've been meaning to get a calibration device for your monitor, they have the Datacolor Spyder4PRO on sale for $70 off! It's for July the 4th, so I don't know how long the discount is on, but here's the link. And Elements 12 is $60 here. 

Here's a sad picture

Other people get great pictures of beautiful wildlife. I'm not so lucky. Neither is this mangy, emaciated fox who has obviously seen better days. I think he was injured, somehow, or sick. He limped, and likely wasn't able to hunt. I'm guessing he didn't have long to live and I wish I had been carrying so I could have put him down. This is not a happy shot, so don't click to blow it up if you don't want to. 

On another note...

Candid Camera

I caught this shot at the Minden Wildwater Preserve. These were campers on the Preserve side who had come down to the river to bathe. This young lady was washing her hair and did this to rinse the shampoo out:

This was entirely candid: if she knew I was there, she was ignoring me. I enhanced the contrast and motion using some Photoshop filters but this is how it looked! 

FWIW, I cropped this out of a bigger shot. Her boyfriend was in the background doing the "pants on the ground" thing but without underwear and I didn't think it belonged in the picture. Here:

Kind of on the edge of "PG"... 

So that's it for the first post in my new generation blog. Not a ton of change in style or content, I like sharing pictures and stories and giving an insight into goings on in my world and up here, linking up to interesting things and events. Stay tuned!

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It's Bitchy when it's Itchy

Broken Wrist Update

One of my first D800 images. Shot in a 3-part mirror, flipped, LR distortion (angled mirrors),
framed with Perfect Effects 8, further processing in Topaz Simplify for your enjoyment!

My right arm is in a cast (they made me choose a colour. I picked raspberry!). My fingers are still quite swollen, I can't close my hand yet. But the good news is that the cast comes off February 18th.

Anyone who's worn a cast will tell you it's bitchy when it's itchy. I figured I'm tough, I can stand it. Oh yeah? It better get better soon. I woke up at 6am and was tempted to gnaw the damned arm off!

Last time I wrote about the terrific service at the Minden ER. The fracture clinic is at the Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay and it too was a far cry from the big city body factories. They were competent and relatively responsive, but some big city stuff crept in. For instance $2.50/½ hour for parking. Walking a maze of endless corridors.

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This is NOT a photo. Well, except for the girl. I created the entire image in Photoshop using the new pattern fill tool, then added a texture with Paper Textures. Yes, I drew the trees, the water, the sunlit trail, the birds... More to come, this is fun. Especially when it's hard to hold a camera!

Camera Club

It's astounding. We have 45 paid-up members already and we're talking about capping the number of members! Apparently about a dozen people showed up to shoot the first weekend of the Pond Hockey in -25°C temperatures (I wasn't there. I wanted to be but the wrist injury was compounded by an ugly head cold). I'm starting to see some images from some very talented people, this is going to be great. We're still working on the logo, website, etc. Stay tuned!

D800 image and metadata

When I saw this Latte come out of the Tassimo machine, I had to grab a shot. Ugly ambient lighting didn't help. I did do some editing:  a towel on the counter in front was cloned out, I tweaked the colour balance, sharpened it with a hipass layer and I cropped a little, primarily off the left side. It's surprisingly sharp given that it was a 1/13" exposure handheld in portrait mode with a broken wrist, no less! Oh, and a touch of Noise Reduction: it was at ISO 6400!

I inadvertently deleted the NEF file while working on my workflow: I will be deleting a lot of unused RAW files to save storage space. But I wanted to verify the shutter actuation count on the new camera, so I loaded up my metadata editor to have a look. 608 clicks, just where Nikon said it would be.

You would be AMAZED at the copious amount of metadata your camera collects. I've addressed this topic before, but if you missed it, or you want to have a peek at this fascinating info, wander on over to my tech blog where I posted it. There's also a link there to where you can download the free metadata editor I use.

More to Come

I'm still quite limited in what I can do with one wing, but I'm going to try my damnedest to get out to the Pond Hockey tournament on the weekend. That D800 needs some exercise!

— 30 —

Wow. It's hard to stay motivated!

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. I love living up here in the Haliburton Highlands, but there are certain times of year that are better than others, and this isn't one of them. A neighbour and I were talking and we're of the same mind: November and March are the worst months.

Right now It's damp and cold. The ground is muddy and monochromatic. The songbirds are gone and the only creatures that are stirring are the people getting ready for the winter. Actually, there's a skiff of white snow on the ground, the lake is active in the wind and although it's created an interesting rime of ice where water has splashed up on the land, and it could be photogenic, everything is too grey to be interesting, and anyway, I'm chilled and don't feel like going out.

My neighbour said he prefers November to March/April because "I have the winter to look forward to"! Fascinating. You'd think it would be the other way around. But he's right: winter is a magical time up here in the Highlands. I know that those of you in other climes (and especially those in the Big Smoke we call Toronto) think we're crazy, but that's your problem.

Still, I can't wait for those crisp white days. And I created a book a couple of years ago to celebrate Winter in the Highlands, there's a link at right to Blurb where you can see the book and enjoy it.

Several projects on the go

I'm working on my next book. I have about a week to get it off to Blurb to take advantage of their huge Black Friday sale (30% off!). Being the procrastinator that I am, I don't know if I'll make it. My big hangup is to create a theme and select images that work well together. I've segregated about 250 images so far, maybe I have TWO books to create!

The Haliburton Highlands Camera Club is taking a lot of my attention right now. We're a couple of weeks away from the inaugural meeting (Wednesday, December 11 at 7pm in Minden, see the website for details). I hope that's going to work out — it will if enough people come forward to help out. I can't do it alone.

I also have an eBook in the works. As regular readers know, I've been writing a weekly photography column for the Haliburton County Living (Weekender) newspaper for almost half a year now, without skipping a beat. Off-topic, it's hard to come up with new material now. As I write this, I have two days to come up with something for next week's column and I'm a little brain dead. Anyway, the column is mostly tips for novice and intermediate photographers, and I want to consolidate them into an eBook.

So I'm busy, but it's hard to stay motivated in the ever-shortening days of November.

D610 vs. D800

Hmmm. I wrote earlier that I'm waiting for Nikon to contact me with the news that a refurbished D800 is available and I have a promise of a swap for my D610 when it is. But I've not been proactively going after them about it because, well, I like the D610!

I used to like the D600 until the dust measles became untenable. So the D610 is the same camera without that problem. It's pretty well everything I need... so if Nikon calls, I'll have to decide.

Black Friday Deals

There are some HUGE deals out there. All of them end on December 2, though, so no procrastinating, hear?

ADOBE

The biggest one is from Adobe. ANYONE can get in on the Photographer's package from now until December 2, regardless of whether they've been Adobe customers in the past. Here's the deal: you get Photoshop CC – that's the FULL Photoshop program – and Lightroom 5, both for the amazing price of $9.99 (US + Taxes) per month. You need to sign up for at least one year – that's a $120 commitment – and they have categorically stated that the price will not jump up after the year (although they give themselves a legal out...).

Considering that Photoshop used to be a $700 product, and that the regular price for Photoshop CC ALONE is $20/month, and that they're throwing in Lightroom which is a $150 product, this is an amazing deal. Go to www.adobe.com to take advantage of it but don't wait!

By the way, Students and Teachers can get the entire Creative Cloud suite – ALL of the programs, not just Photoshop and Lightroom – for $19.95/month but just until November 29th. Same link, don't delay!

TOPAZ

Topaz is offering their entire collection – a $379 value – for $199 if you sign up in the period November 28 – December 2. That's all 14 Topaz products, complete. I'm a big proponent of Topaz products. I've used Adjust for quite a while now, and more recently Clarity and Clear and InFocus and Star and Detail... I love their products.

You have to wait until November 28th to pull the trigger. Click on this link or the one at right,  and you need to enter the promo code blackfriday2013 at checkout.

FACZEN

Yep, that's me. I've got THREE deals going on. Both of them are valid between now and Christmas. Oh, all right, until the end of 2013. Happy?

Deal #1: Any fine art print that I have in stock: $25 plus a flat rate $5 for shipping unless you pick it up. I have to compile a list of what's in stock, but almost all of the images in my Smugmug gallery are available, subject to prior sale. These make superb Christmas gifts! And pretty well any image is also available as an 8x12 or 8x10 lustre print for $5. On top of that, we can make any image into a folding Christmas card, 3/$10. You need to contact me for particulars!

Deal #2: A two-day DSLR workshop for $100. And it could be 1 on 1! Where else can you get personalized instruction for under $10/hour? Prices are going up in 2014 so don't delay! Again, contact me for particulars and check the website for details!

Deal #3: This one's only good until December 2. My eBook, "Take Better Pictures in a Winter Wonderland" absolutely FREE. eMail me for the link.

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If I hear of any other hot deals I'll send them out on my newsletter. If you're not yet subscribed, click the link at the top right corner of this blog. (or this one!)

Some images

Not a lot to show you this week. I've been busy getting my tooth pulled and other nasty stuff so I haven't shot a lot. I was cold the other day, and it was miserable out, so I stayed in and set up the light tent to play a little.

This is the battery that came with my D610. In the light tent, illuminated by a bounce flash, on a flexible plastic surface. A little Lightroom, a little Photoshop, some Topaz and Voilà!  

The original is the one on the left. It's Cranberry Juice. I decided it should be a 1977 Robert Mondavi Select Cabernet Sauvignon. It was more difficult than it looks, to get the colour and density right, plus if you look carefully, the glass was slightly tilted so the liquid surface wasn't level! I used "Puppet Warp" to fix it.  

While I was at it, I decided since I didn't have any Abelour A'bunadh Cask Strength single malt left, and since you can't get it in Canada,  I needed to make some. Believe it or not, this is THE SAME CRANBERRY JUICE! Ah, Photoshop!

My neighbour Jack dropped by to talk about the Adobe deal and learn a little about Photoshop, so I obliged him. I needed to find a picture to use as a demo, so I opened the abandoned gas station shot from Coboconk that I posted last week. At one point he said, "how about adding the sun to that picture", so I did. A really, really easy process if you know Photoshop!

I ended up liking this much better than last week's! This will be available as a large format art print, on Epson Cold Press matte paper. Talk to me if you want a museum-quality archival art print for someone you love! 

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