A Pentaxian's Photo Blog

Nutcracker 2009

2009-12-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Judy Russell produces the Nutcracker every second year ...this is a Nutcracker Year. Hard to believe it is eight years since my daughter, Ashley, performed the Clara roll. Anyway, here are some shots from this years production. These shots are from the dress rehearsal Thursday evening, on Saturday December 19th, I just sit and watch without a camera stuck to my face ...and I can enjoy the show. If you live in Prince George, the show is a must see!

Sunny but cold

2009-12-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning to a sunny but cold day ...that didn't seem to slow this fellow down at all. We have an Azure Maple right out our front door and this fellow and some friends were there to say good morning and were enjoying their breakfast courtesy of my wife's bird feeders.

Pentax K-7 a winner....

2009-11-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

As we approach the year end, there are numerous "camera of the year" awards being announced and the Pentax K-7 is showing up a winner in many of these. For instance, here is one headline:

Pentax K-7 voted Readers Choice Camera 2009 by Adorama Leaning Center Readers. Adorama is one of the largest photography retailers in the USA, they had 2746 respondents and here is the results of that poll:

And here is what they said: "While we're not particularly surprised that the K-7 won, the margin of victory bowled us over. Apparently, even though it's not made by one of the "Big Two" camera companies, the K-7's combination of groundbreaking features, lower price, and legacy of high-quality optics put it over the top. In other words, price/performance trumped the money's-no-object technical wonders on one end of the spectrum, and price-busters on the other."

Before and After...

2009-11-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

My daughter, Ashley, just returned from a gig with Carnival where she works as a dancer. There was a photo workshop on one cruise and she modeled for one of the photographers and received the digital files of the head shots he took. It is always best to start any post processing with a good "in camera" shot, but post processing is a big part of the final look you get. This isn't photoshop manipulation as often criticized, just basic clean up and correcting of the image. Personally, I always shoot in RAW, which is like a digital negative and gives you the widest latitude for correcting and adjusting the image in post process. This image was shot in JPEG, where the camera does the conversion from the RAW data as captured by the camera's sensor, so limited in what could be done in post process. Anyway, her is a before version (left) and after I did some work in photoshop to try and improve the look. Make sure you click on the image to see the larger version.

Vancouver

2009-11-14T15:32:00.000-08:00

Made a trip to Vancouver to see an off Broadway production of A Chorus Line and made a three day trip out of it. Rented a car so we could behave like tourists and did three walk abouts: Granville Island, Steveston Village and Queen Elizabeth park, including the Blodel Conservatory. Here are some images from that trip ..the one image of the statue taken through the store window, is included at Faye's request. She would like to have had that for her garden but (or should that be butt?) I could not afford it.

Cottonwood Park with the Limited's

2009-10-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

Left the office a bit early and took a stroll around Cottonwood Park to check out my new Limited lenses reported in the previous post. I was shocked to see the damage from last winters ice jams, the bridges over the creek that runs in from the river were totally destroyed. The metal supports looked like pretzels and the trails have been closed. There is work taking place to make new trails that appear to stretch the route somewhat over what it was previously, but some new bridges will still be required.

Here are some shots employing all three of the limiteds, it may be difficult to tell the difference between the 35 and 77 in these shots, but there is no mistaking the perspective of the 15mm lens.

I might add, the reason for all those images of leaves is that I am trying to find an image to enter in an online competition (just the glory, no prizes) where the subject is "Leaves". Here is one taken previously with my 105 macro lens.

Limited Lenses

2009-10-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

Pentax make a series of small high quality prime (as opposed to zoom) lenses they call their "limited" series. The DA lenses are for APS-C sensor digital cameras as the image circle is designed to cover that format and may cause some vignetting with a 24X36 negative/sensor size. The FA series was originally introduced in the film era and will cover the larger format, but works perfectly well with the APS-C digital cameras.

My camera bag was getting too big and heavy so time to build a light travel kit. I already had the DA35 macro limited and I have just ordered the DA15mm wide angle and the FA77 medium telephoto. The latter will also make a good portrait lens for available light photography because of it's focal length and fast f/1.8 aperture.

Here is the line up of the 3 Limited lenses ...the images are not quite to scale but this gives a good idea of how compact the series is. I can't wait for the two new lenses to arrive....

There are two other FA limited lenses and quite a few more in the DA series. However, these three provide a useful focal range and will allow me a lot more portability than my regular camera kit. And, what is nice is I funded these purchases from the sale of some old gear that was no longer being used.

Thanksgiving weekend road trip

2009-10-14T03:15:00.000-07:00

Made a quick trip to Grand Prairie over the Thanksgiving weekend to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of some friends for whom my wife, Faye, had stood up for all those years ago. They must have all been in kindergarten as none of us are old enough to be celebrating a 50th anniversary.

When ever we make a trip like this, Faye says "OK I'm ready, lets go!" ..I then have a half hour wait before she actually gets to the car. So the first couple of shots is just me doodling, passing the time. We saw lots of game on this trip, the first was the big bull moose that, unfortunately, had snuck off into the willows before I got my camera out. We also saw fox, coyote and deer in abundance, and just as we were reaching home, near the university, we saw a cow moose and her calf and this time the camera was ready.

Faye had wanted to take the truck but I vetoed that, Rob had also suggested that if we took the truck "Mom would be stopping all the time to pick up rocks for her garden" ...well we took the car but that did not deter Faye. We did stop near Bijou falls to pick up some slate and you can see the cliff from which the slate had fallen in one of the shots. Of course the main purpose of the trip was to celebrate Loraine and Albert's 50th wedding anniversary and we were joined at the dinner by an old school friend of Faye's. After the dinner, we all went to Loraine and Alberts daughters house for coffee where I got some shots of the group. Then a long leasurely breakfeast with Faye's nephew, with whom we stayed, then back to PG.

HOG'sToy Run

2009-09-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

I never realized there were so many bikers in Prince George, must have been close to a thousand at this years toy run. Here are some of the folks I know and the bikes....

Storm Trooper Pentax

2009-09-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

This week Pentax introduced their newest entry level camera, the K-x. This is a very well specked out camera despite the target market of first time DSLR buyers. It has several unique features, but the one that is most obvious is colours.

The K-M (or K2000 as it was called in the U.S.), which the K-x resembles physically, had a short run of white models that came to be known as the "Storm Trooper" model - anyone who has seen Star Wars can relate to that. Well, those sold out in a flash and further research showed that, the ladies in particular, liked the colour models. So here we are, red, white and (navy) blue in addition to the standard black. In Japan, you can order this in any of hundreds of colours and chose separate grip colors also. I will stick to standard black, thank you!

Harleys and Water Lillies

2009-09-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine wanted some informal portraits of himself so I stopped over at his place and shot a few frames over a couple of beers. He is a member of the Harley Owners Club and so of course there were a few shots of him on his bike. Right after that my neighbor said a couple of water lilies in her pond were in bloom, and since I hadn't got any shots of those this year I went over there and took a few frames. The subjects are incongruous, but so goes the way of an amateur photographer.

Still blooming

2009-09-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

I was heading to the office (I know it's Saturday) and Faye was heading to the lake to pick blueberries, her parting words were "get a picture of those white lilies. So I did! While I was at it I took a few shots of some of the other flora that are still blooming in mid September.

Seeing Red

2009-09-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

I was heading out to Connaught Park this morning to create some images with a lens I am selling (the potential buyer wanted samples) and as I was leaving, camera gear in hand, Faye instructs me to get a picture of her red begonia. So I did ...and kept going with the red motif.

The Amur Maple leaves are still green, but their seed pods are showing red and the Dahlia is still in full bloom. Unfortunately, the slugs and insects have had their feed on the petals and this is quite apparent on close examination. I am planning to produce a photo book of the flowers from Faye's garden and this would have made a nice addition but for the damage from the slugs.

Late bloomers

2009-08-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Gladioli were the last flowers to bloom in Faye's garden and even those are a bit past their prime. I did however find some that were still fresh and in full bloom so I shot those this morning. Back to my 105 macro lens that I always used in the past for this kind of work, but had been playing with my 35mm macro limited and new DA*300 for most of the garden shots.

Those were the days....

2009-08-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else old enough to remember the 120/220 folding camera of bygone days? Well they are back, this one is brand new and I would love to own a copy, but the better part of $4000 is just out of my reach.

Summers end

2009-08-22T16:35:00.000-07:00

I think summer is officially over on September 22nd this year, but much of the flora, both cultivated and natural, are beginning to show they are nearing the end of their life. Flowers are losing their petals, the fireweed and grasses are turning to seed. However, some are still in full bloom and the sunflower is still reaching for the sun.

Still playing with my new 300mm lens and these shots were all taken with it.

A different perspective

2009-08-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

People tend to think of telephoto lenses as being of use to take a photo of a distant subject that can not otherwise be approached close enough to photograph. However, lenses of different focal length each have their own perspective. In most DSLR cameras, a standard focal length is about 35mm, a 16mm lens therefor would be a wide angle and a 70mm a modest telephoto, and each lens with a unique perspective - wide angle lenses tend to stretch and telephoto lenses compress perspective. Also the depth of field (the area front to back that is in focus) is greater with wide angle lenses and less with telephoto lenses. This means that telephoto lenses are useful for isolating a subject by their narrow angle of view and shallow depth of field.

The first set of pictures I took of Faye's garden were shot with a 35mm lens, one offering a natural perspective. I wanted to try out my new 300mm lens, so back to the garden as it is the handiest location, just out the back door. This new lens can focus down to 4' 7" and most of the above images were shot at between 5 and 6 feet, not a range one would normally think to use a telephoto lens. But, as you can see, it does offer a totally different perspective than that of the 35mm lens in the first batch of images.

New Lens: DA* 300mm F4ED[IF]SDM

2009-08-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

My new lens, that I traded for my Sigma 100-300 F4 EX, arrived today. I can not locate the (generic) plate for mounting the lens on my tripod, which uses an Arca Swiss style quick release shoe into which the plate fits. Had to order one that should arrive next week, but will test this lens free hand for now, though mostly it will be used with a tripod.

Midsummer garden

2009-08-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

My wife's hobby is gardening, mine is photography, this post is a marriage of our hobbies. Normally I would shoot this kind of subject using a tripod, mirror lock up, manual focus and a cable release. However, I could not get my tripod into positions that would allow me the composition and framing I would like without trampling her flower beds, so I used my 35mm macro lens and hand held the camera for all but one of these shots.

I am really beginning to use this lens consistently for this kind of work, and I really like the perspective and rendition it provides.

Getting published

2009-07-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Well, the two local newspapers used a couple of my Tommy images in their reviews of the show, which by the way were "raves", and very deservedly so. Anyway, these were not the images I showed in my Tommy post, so here are those images.

Tommy

2009-07-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

Theater photography is tough. You may think there is lots of light on stage, but that's only because of the contrast from the darkness in the audience area. Had an opportunity to shoot the dress rehearsal of Judy Russell's production of the Who's rock opera, Tommy, good test of the high ISO capabilities of my new K-7.

I was pleased at the camera's ability to acquire focus in this situation and the noise at ISO 1600 is quite acceptable. These are a couple of shots, but the whole shoot was at ISO 1600, shot with my DA* 50-135 wide open at f/2.8.

My new camera

2009-07-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

My new camera arrived! Pro grade build, state of the art technology and it's a Pentax, which means you get to employ all that great Pentax glass. There are at least 3 more lenses I covet which means it time to do some wheeling and dealing and getting rid of some of my old gear so I can satiate my LBA (lens buying addiction).

Lupines along the highway

2009-06-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

When I was about 21, I worked as a bank teller in downtown Vancouver. I recall an American tourist coming in to cash some travelers cheques and asked if I would add a postcard she had written to our outgoing mail. Of course I read the postcard which expressed her amazement at the wildflowers she saw along the highways in Canada. Almost a half century later, we can still brag about wildflowers on the side of our highways.

These Lupines were photographed at the intersection of Tyner boulevard and Highway 16 and is one of a number of areas around town that boast a prolific display of lupine.

Mad dogs and Englishmen....

2009-06-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

As the song goes, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun ...and never to photograph. Harsh light and strong shadows is the result, however if you are careful you can do it.

Faye had asked for a photo of her black tulips, so on a cloudless sunny day around 1:00 pm I took the photos and indulged some of my own likes at the same time. Nothing says spring to me more than apple blossoms so some more of those and to try and create a different early morning look, I took my spray bottle ...no that's not dew.

Sunday morning and Apple blossoms

2009-05-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

I try to make sure I get my camera out at least once every weekend, today the subject was apple blossoms. Two of these shots are straight forward documentary style photos. The other two are impressionistic, one (the red crab apple) is a multiple (five) exposure shot taken in camera and the second, also created in camera is a digital version of what is known as the Orton effect. The original Orton images were created by sandwiching two slides of the same subject, one in focus and the other out of focus and then rephotographing the image. I simply took two exposures, just as with the multiple exposure shot, but one in focus and the other out of focus.

I like these impressionistic images as they have a dream like quality that is quite representative of how I feel about the subject.