A travelers wishes
What a bad blogger and host I have been. How could I not have posted anything during the entire month of October? It’s not like there isn’t anything going on in October what with Halloween, harvest parties, the changing colors of Fall. I gotta do better than this. So for my first post in November I give you “Boots and Reflections”.
It’s been awhile since I lasted posted to this blog. Lots of things going on that have been taking up much of my time. Here are a few things that I have been working on.
I’ve been experimenting with off-camera lighting after purchasing a pair of Cactus V4 wireless flash controllers. This allows me to control both my 580EXII and 430EXII flashes without having to have them on the camera hotshoe. I’ll be writing a review of those shortly.
I’ve also been trying to learn more about Photoshop CS4 and better detailing my workflow and different techniques for really making my photos “pop”! I purchased the book Adobe Photoshop For Photographers by Martin Evening which based on my initial quick review of various sections looks to be the best Photoshop book I have seen so far. I’ll be writing a review of that shortly as well.
Since experimenting with off-camera lighting I realized that I have much to learn about proper exposure and how to best set my camera in different circumstances be it a strong backlight situation or low light. I found a great book called Understanding Exposure (Revised Edition) by Bryan Peterson which I have found to be invaluable in explaining exposure as it relates to aperture, shutterspeed and depth of field. I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling with the relationship between aperature and depth of field and how to shoot in manual mode. I’ll be writing much more on this later.
Finally I attended my sisters wedding in Bend last weekend. The ceremony was held out at Elk Lake in the Oregon Cascades with the backdrop of the evening glow on Elk Lake and Mt. Bachelor in the distance. It was just an incredible time and I have a 2 part post coming up on that.
As time goes on I find myself needing to engage life more and get out there and experience it. It’s a blink of an eye and then we are gone so now is the time to take risks, overcome fear and pursue fully the things we want in life. I’ve got several exciting projects in the works that for the time being will remain under wraps. These are exciting times and I’m looking forward to sharing those with you soon so stay tuned…more to come.
We planted a garden this year. Nothing special, just some tomato plants, cucumbers, eggplants and failed spinach and lettuce. It’s a small garden of 2 raised beds which are partially shaded most of the day (hence the failed lettuce and spinach) but it’s the only space we have to plant. The tomatoes have pretty much taken over the garden at this point and we have a mega load of red and yellow cherry tomatoes. The cucumbers are doing better than last year (we’ve harvested 3 so far with many more developing on the vine) and I can’t see the eggplants right now as the tomatoes have overgrown their baskets and engulfed them. We didn’t plant any sunflowers this year but apparently we didn’t need to as what we planted last year laid seed and we ended up with two sunflowers in the middle of the garden. Here are a few shots I took the other night. More can be seen on my Flickr site.
So I submitted a “Dream Assignment” idea for a contest called “Name Your Dream Assignment”. Basically it is a contest for photographers to find the most creative and inspiring photoshoot ideas out there. The winner gets $50K to make their dream shoot a reality. My dream assignment idea is to shoot the diminishing rainforests of Indonesia. Rainforests are being depleted at a rapid pace due to conversion to profitable palm plantations as well as illegal logging. But I don’t just want to photo document this situation, I’d like to expand the idea to a larger problem which are the impoverished people of the region who rely on the forests for the livelihood. Sure you can protect and save the forests but what about the people who live there? I believe that their story should be told as well and that would be the goal of my dream assignment idea. If you think it sounds like a good idea I could really use your vote. Click here to view more about my idea and cast your vote for me. Just click on the yellow “Pic It” button under the vote count tally. Thanks!
**Update*** I wanted to note that if you wanted to vote they require registration on the site. I guess that is to prevent vote rigging.
Just got my Phottix wireless camera remote for my Canon 20D today. This is a radio controlled shutter remote with 16 channels, a hot shoe mount and a range of up to 100 meters. I purchased from Hong Kong Supplies on Ebay (see user etefore). I was a little apprehensive about ordering from Hong Kong but this eBay user has a feedback score of 77434 with 99.6% positive feedback. The ordering process was seamless, the communication was prompt and the items arrived in the mail much sooner than I had expected. Personally I can’t say enough good things about their service. Not only that but the model I received is apparently a newer model than what I had seen in the auction. This second generation model has a few more bells and whistles. There are a few different modes: single shooting mode allows you to half-press the shutter button on the transmitter for focusing and a full press takes the photo. There are lights on both the receiver and transmitter to indicate what the status is. So when you half press to focus the lights will turn green and when you take the shot the lights will turn red. There is a 2 second delay switch which works the same as single shooting mode except that there will be a 2 second delay in actually taking the shot. There is a continuous shooting mode as well as a bulb mode (for long exposures) but I have not played around with those yet. Overall I am really impressed with the quality of the product. It even came with the batteries (how often do you find that these days). I bought this to replace the cabled remote switch that I have been using. Now I can take long exposure landscapes without worrying that I will pull the cable or shake the camera at all. I like that the receiver will mount right on the hot shoe. The only bad thing about that is if you want to use the built-in flash you will have to put the receiver elsewhere but I use the flash so infrequently that it is not an issue for me. Also, I should mention that the receiver itself will work as a wired remote as it too has a shutter button on it. It is compatible with the following Canon cameras: Canon EOS 1V/3/1D/1Ds/1DS Mark II/1Ds Mark III/1D Mark II/1Ds Mark III/10D/20D/30D/40D/5D/D30/D50 (there are also models for Nikon). If you are in the market for a wireless remote shutter for your camera I’d be happy to answer any questions regarding my experience.
It’s Tuesday and that calls for a Two-fer (yes, two posts today). This was an image I took over Thanksgiving. Shot at ISO 800 with a Canon 20D.
Here are some cool timelapse reels of Los Angeles and San Francisco. The first was taken with a Canon 20D. I’d like to try this with my 20D. I think all that is needed is a 20D or other digital camera, a sturdy tripod and a remote timer switch (Canon) which allows you to control the interval of shots as well as the exposure. $136 seems pretty expensive but I’ve seen cheaper knockoffs that have gotten good reviews, on eBay for around $50. I believe they are called the Phottix Timer Remote C3.
You can check out the time reels HERE
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