Canon has noticeably lagged in releasing new DSLRS, especially on the higher end versions. To their credit, they did a big upgrade to the Digital Rebel line earlier this year with the Rebel XTi. This is a great camera that improves on a few areas that the 20D/30D had, even though it's considered part of their consumer lineup. Some of the nicest changes in my mind for the XTi are:
The ability to view the ISO in the viewfinder. On the 20D, you have to hunt for it
Larger LCD screen over the 20D
Canon sensor cleaning system
I consider the last one very important. I'm very careful when I change ...
Sometime this summer, my friends Mike and Kim are gonna finally tie the knot together and live happily ever after. I've known about their wedding for a few weeks now, but tonight they stepped up and asked me to officially photograph their wedding for them. To be honest, I've been asked before by other people, mostly over a few drinks, and up until now I've basically always politely declined, mainly because I didn't think I could pull it off properly and do it justice.
So, after spending a few hours mulling it over tonight, I finally realized that I'm probably ready. Not only that, but most everyone ...
Sometime this summer, my friends Mike and Kim are gonna finally tie the knot together and live happily ever after. I've known about their wedding for a few weeks now, but tonight they stepped up and asked me to officially photograph their wedding for them. To be honest, I've been asked before by other people, mostly over a few drinks, and up until now I've basically always politely declined, mainly because I didn't think I could pull it off properly and do it justice.
So, after spending a few hours mulling it over tonight, I finally realized that I'm probably ready. Not only that, but most everyone ...
I put that 28-135mm lens on eBay a week ago, and it just sold for $450. I was hoping for slightly more, but that's reasonable enough that I'm happy. ...
I turned on the computer in the other room for the first time in a while. My goal was to pull off some of the nearly 10,000 photos I have on it and put some of them up on flickr, and some onto an archival drive I have around. I've added some of the photos here for your viewing pleasure. I wasn't as good with photoshop in the old days, so not all of these are that great by my standards today. A lot of these were actually taken with an old Nikon digital point and shoot I had. But, I still like most of these. ...
On the way back from UBC tonight, I stopped near Kits beach and took a few shots. Here's a HDR of the beach and the city in the background. Also, I took a HDR by my apartment near the water. It looked nice as a black and white so I left it like that. ...
Canon EF 28-138mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens. I bought this about two years ago when I first got my 20D. It's a really good walk around lens, and I'm still surprised with some of the photos I take with it. I'm upgrading to something else and want the cash. Drop me a line if you want it.
Here's a review.
Comes with UV filter and lens hood. ...
I'm not really sure why, but for some reason, I just can't sleep much lately. Last week I tossed and turned in my bed until nearly 6am, even though I went to bed sometime around midnight. It's like even though I'm really tired, the moment by head hits the mattress, all these involuntary thoughts start coursing through my brain. When it gets really bad, I usually take a melatonin, but those are pretty hit or miss with me. When they hit, they usually hit pretty hard, and I find myself pretty groggy in the morning.
So, it's 2:11am, and I'm back on the couch messing on the computer because I can't ...
So first off, I'm going to bitch about Firefox briefly. I've had a problem for a while now where sometimes (randomly) whenever I would hit the apostrophe key it would think I wanted to do a search. Let me tell you -- you really don't realize how many contractions your use until you have that frickin search box take focus from you whenever you type one. Whenever it would happen, I would just stop using contractions in my head and write stuff out, but not only does that a) sound really dumb, but b) it also is really hard in some situations to remove the contractions completely without it sounding ...
It's crazy windy outside, and it's been cloudy and yucky for most of the afternoon. I've been listening to the wind howl from my couch.
I took a quick break to snap some shots off my patio of the storm. One of them was used in this news story online. Here's another shot I took as the clouds were breaking.
On another note, I figured out how to play In Repair by John Mayer on the guitar tonight.. My fingers are pretty small for it on the acoustic, but I can manage on my electric. Which makes me realize how badly I want a new guitar now. ...
Wow, big weekend for photography. I decided that this is "night shot" month, so most of my shots will be low light ones for a while.
Shot from near the Planetarium
And a HDR of Yaletown tonight, right before I went to bed.
A shot of the Granville Street bridge and Yaletown ...
I went out tonight and shot a few photos around town. I wanted to try my hand at making a HDR image. Here's one of the better ones off the Burrard Street Bridge.
Here's one more in roughly the same location.
HDR from the Burrard Bridge ...
I went out today and picked up a little Christmas present for myself - the Canon 430EX Speedlight. I've never really had a chance to get into flash photography, so I'm looking forward to messing around with it. The nice thing is that the internal flash on my 20D really sucks. For some reason they never included a focus assist lamp for low light conditions. Canon's way around this was the fire the internal flash several times in a row to try and do a focus in low light. However, this usually scares whoever you're trying to take a photo of, and causes all the epileptics in the room to go into synchronized ...
I just got back from quickly picking up my fixed Canon SD630 camera. Apparently the warp-core phase-inverter was out of alignment, so I had to get that readjusted to the tune of $160. Seriously, those guys can turn any small problem into a huge one that can cost lots of money. I was originally told the shutter door was broken, which seemed somewhat reasonable (I pictured a really small, weak hinge breaking). However, now it's more along the lines of the "shutter solenoid ring was hosed." How does a shutter solenoid ring break? Better question, what the hell is a shutter solenoid ring ...
Last night, I decided I was way too lazy to drag my butt from the couch into my bedroom, so I just grabbed a blanket and slept there. And let me tell you -- what a refreshing sleep. I sometimes forget just how comfy my couch really is. I woke up at like noon, with the sounds of birds chirping and the fresh air blowing through my apartment (ok, maybe no birds were chirping, but you get the idea). I decided that it was a really good day to go for a walk, and what better destination than to head to Kits to see Dustin and Dori.
I grabbed my iPod and my camera and walked down to the little ferry to ...
So there's this buzz amongst photographers about this new technique called HDR (high dynamic range). The basic idea is that a camera isn't capable of capturing nearly as much dynamic range as what our eyes can capture.? With HDR, you take multiple shots of the same scene using a digital camera on a tripod, and create a new photograph using the information from all the shots. That new image contains a much larger dynamic range than would be possible using any one shot.
Here are some cool examples from flickr.
I bought a new tripod and a remote shutter release for my 20D this weekend, so I might ...
First off -- I hate my tripod.. I'm going to get a new one, just because it's nearly impossible to figure out if mine is level. Anyways, I'm one of those somewhat stubborn people in life. I can be reasoned with, but if I'm in the wrong mood, it's hard to change my mind about some things.. I'd rather do some weird acrobatic maneuver with a pool cue than admit defeat and use the granny. So when it comes to photography, I can probably count the number of times I've used a tripod in my life on one hand. That being said, I read once that the difference between a good photo and a great photo is a tripod. ...
First off, I met with my supervisor tonight to finalize my thesis.. Although I don't have an official answer yet, it's very likely I'll be giving my defense next Thursday.. That's really soon, and I have a lot of work to do before then, but the good news is then I'm completely done before I go on vacation, which would be pretty awesome.. There will definitely be booze 'a flowin 'a plenty Thursday night if I pull it off. On Friday I'm going to Cirque de Soleil, so I hope that my defense is Thursday so I can go out and get sloshed.
On another note, I found the best way ever to make shitty coffee, ...
I was just reading that Sony has finally come out with a digital SLR of their own. At first I kind of scoffed at it, thinking that nobody really uses Sony these days (seems like everywhere I go someone has a Canon or Nikon SLR). However, reading the specs, it seems pretty impressive. I like the idea of putting the image stabilization in the camera body instead of on the lens. Canon charges quite a bit for the IS versions of several of its lenses, so it's nice to know that Sony is a little smarter in this area. I'm not sure what the price point is for this new SLR, but it might be fun to check ...