Frames of MiKS Media

It did not go as planned. Why? Oh because of the twit behind the camera that’s why. All I can say, is that I need to really learn this “studio” work. Studio being inside, with limited lights. I borrowed friend’s Canon Speedlite 580 strobe, so I could master it with my Speedlite 430. I had one reflector, but had no idea what to do with it. All in all I realized that I need to read up a little more before attempting such a feat. I managed to get 4 fairly good shots, but nothing that I was planning. Live and learn I guess. Thoughts?

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/125 sec, f/2.8, 70mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/160 sec, f/2.8, 70mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/125 sec, f/2.8, 68mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/160 sec, f/2.8, 42mm

 

Just a quick note. I’m still around…. Got my feet wet with my first wedding, up to my neck. A very good friend of mine Artur volunteered to help with the pictures. It was great that he did. A tremendous help. Thank you Artur! Between both of us we got approximately over 1300 photos. Now I have to go through them all, pick, delete, edit etc. etc. I guess I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Overall I think it went great. Looking through the photos quickly, while they were being imported to the computer, I saw many that were actually not too bad.
The wedding wasn’t a big event, just about 40-50 people, and everyone was very nice. During the dinner Dustin had a projector running with a slide show of all the previous pictures that I took with them. People were actually impressed with them!!! I even got a cheer, when Dustin announced that it was me that took them. Yes the male ego was satisfied :), and just so you know, me and Artur were doing this pro bono. At the end, we both agreed that this is not what we would like to do on a regular basis. Now time to get to the photos. I just hope I can finish that task before Jenn and Dustin get back from their honeymoon.

Can some one please tell me what bird is this. It was raining one day, and I spotted it sitting on my fence. I grabbed my zoom lens and slowly walked outside. He actually let me get pretty close, but I only managed one photo, before he took off. Looks to me that he is some kind of predatory species, but I have no idea what kind. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Canon 5D, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, 400mm

This photo shoot lasted a few months now, and will culminate this saturday, August 30, when I will be photographing their wedding. Yup my first wedding. I decided it would be a good idea to start early, since I never really did anything like that. I mean a wedding is nothing to sneeze at, specially for me. A total beginner. I decided it would be good for me to try a few shots of Jenn and Dustin at different locations. Just to get used the whole idea. Well what can I say, they liked the photos…. or at least they say they like them
Here are what I think are the best of the best.

 

Finally this is the last set of challenge in DPC Olympics II. One is “B&W Abstract” and the other is “Road Less Traveled”. For the abstract I had an idea right away. Funny, because when I took the photo, it was what I was feeling at the time. It’s called “day Breaks”.

 

Canon 5D, ISO 50, 4 sec, f/2.8, 51mm

Then today I was able to visit my favorite old abandoned farm, and tried for the other challenge. This one is called “Lucy Comes Home”. No idea why Lucy and who this Lucy is, but it just got stuck in my head.

 

Canon 5D, ISO 50, 1/320 sec, f/4, 17mm

Now I have a dilemma on which challenge to enter. Any help would be appreciated. As always.

So a few days ago, I had my first model photo shoot. I was discussing the next DPC Olympics challenge with a good friend of mine from work, and he suggested that I could take photos of a old Chevy Coupe that my boss has. Why because it’s purple and I mean as purple as they come. Then I suggested more as a joke that it would be nice to have a bikini clad girl with the car. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. He called his daughter and she agreed. I was a little surprised that this whole thing was so easy to arrange. Then it hit me. This is going to be an actual person, posing with the purple car. I got so nervous, I had trouble sleeping for two days before the scheduled photo shoot. Thinking all the time, about camera settings, backgrounds, poses, etc. The day came and all these ideas just plainly evaporated. I had no idea about anything, complete blank. Corri has changed that. She was absolutely amazing! She seemed relaxed, and knew what she was doing. Thus making me more relaxed and focused. We spent about an hour shooting different poses, and couple of different vehicles. Not only did I managed to get a shot for the “Purple” challenge, but also a few shots that I think came out not too bad, for a beginner. It was definitely a new learning experience, and a lot of fun too. I hope that Corri will be gracious enough in the future to grace these pages with her beauty again. Here are some of my favorite shots.

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/5, 1/2500 sec, 25 mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/5, 1/250 sec, 60 mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/5, 1/320 sec, 60 mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/4, 1/800 sec, 20 mm

 

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, 43 mm

The rest of the photos can be found on my flickr account.

Number 1 again. Our team just shines! Morning/Evening brought us again to the first spot for week 5, giving us another 10 points and widening the gap between us and the dreaded Icelanders even more. Yeah! Week 6 challenges are in voting now, and here is my entry: The Wood-a-Nator

Canon 5D, ISO 50, 117 sec, f/13, 59mm

A lot of work went into this shot. Gravel from my driveway, half a bottle of white sambuca, and a lot of patience. First set up the two “Woodies” on a piece of glass, then spread the gravel, and poured in the sambuca. Lighted the sambuca, which would not light for some reason. Just sporadic bursts of blue flame. So added some twigs to get the fire going. Once I had some sort of fire going, I turned off the lights, and opened the shutter. Using a little LED flash light I lighted the scene, slowly moving the light around “painting” the scene with light. Then I turned off the light, and using a red laser pointer I “painted” the red eyes of the “Wood-a-Nator”. I think that was the most difficult part, because in complete darkness it’s hard to aim the pointer directly at his face. It took a few tries, but I finally got the eyes. I also used the star effect filter, and if you look at his eyes they do have a “star” streaks on them. Unfortunately the voters are not liking it very much. It’s not doing badly, but I thought it would be better.

Week 7 challenges have been announced and they are Purple/Door. I might some ideas for purple, but I won’t say anything until it gets done.

I have sold my venerable Canon XTi. I thought initially that it would be a great back up camera, and allow me to have more options when on a shoot with out switching lenses. Well it was not so. I was using it less and less, and when taking it along on a trip, I found it very cumbersome to carry two cameras, plus a tripod and a back pack. So, my XTi is no more. Instead I got myself a Canon 2x Extender. Now you have to understand that this is not made for all lenses. It only works with my Canon 100-400mm zoom lens. My Canon 24-70 and 17-40, won’t even install on this. Also I found that the rumors of loosing auto-focus are true. When the extender is installed on the 100-400 lens, it will not auto focus, although the Image Stabilization of the lens still works. Also the lens looses about 4 stops of aperture. So from a 5.6 at 400 mm it becomes 9.6 at 800 mm. A tripod or good light is necessary.
Here is an example of what this extender can do. The first picture was taken from the upper terminal station of Jasper Gondola on Whistler mountain. It was taken at 70 mm. The second photo is at 400 mm with the extender, meaning 800 mm. Pretty impressive zoom I must say.

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/8, 1/60 sec, 70 mm

Canon 5D, ISO 200, f/11, 1/250 sec, 800mm

On the advice of a friend I started looking into the Cokin Creative System of filters. It’s an interesting system, because 1 can fit almost all type of lenses. Cokin makes this available in 4 different flavors for different type of cameras. The P-System will fit most DSLRs with lenses ranging from 48mm up to 82mm. These measurements are for the outer lens diameter. What’s so nice about this system is that first it is very inexpensive, compared to the screw-on type filters, and second it is very versatile. For different types lenses all you need is the adaptor ring, which here in Canada retails for about $15.00. On the adaptor ring goes a plastic holder, that’s one size fits all. You insert the filters, which are square 84mm sheets of organic glass, into the holder. Now comes the fun part. There are a lot of different filters, and I mean a lot. The holder can accommodate up to 3 different filters, which gives a lot more combinations of creativity, and the filters are about $25.00 for most types. Here are a couple of examples I took early in the morning, with a gradual fog filter.

Canon 5D, ISO 400, 1/60 sec, f/5.6, 24mm

Canon 5D, ISO 400, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, 24mm

You can have a lot of fun with these, and they won’t hurt the wallet.

So week 3 and week 4 are behind us. We took second place in week 3, but week 4 was pretty dismal. Didn’t score any points. I was a little surprised that my Lawn entry didn’t do better, but then again it was a little risky photo. The good thing is we are still in the first place, closely followed by Icelanders and Aussies. Week 5 challenge of Morning/Evening is under vote right now. Week 6 challenges have been announced as well, and they are just silly.
Here are previous challenges for Ducky, and Woody.
I guess it’s shopping time… again.

So this morning I decided to go back to the creek again. Unfortunately the sky became overcast very quickly, and there was a strong wind making wild ripples on the water. There was really nothing to shoot. So I decided to visit my old farm, which I discovered during winter. It was completely different now. The overgrown grass makes the place look almost magical.
Thoughts?

Canon 5D, ISO 400, 1/400 sec, f/5, 17mm

This weeks challenge for the DPC Olympics II is “Morning” or “Evening”. Finally something that can be done outside. Decided that I will try to wake up early one morning and see if I can find something interesting. While passing on a little bridge on a highway, I saw this little creek, with wonderful morning mists rising from the water. Had a bit a tough time finding my way there, since there were no roads leading there. Parked a bit of the highway, grabbed my camera and hiked for about 20 min in the tall wet grass to get to the spot. By the time I got there, the mists were nearly gone. I managed to get a couple of shots.

Canon 5D, ISO 400, 1/60 sec, f/11, 23mm

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/30 sec, f/9, 40mm

Then a nice little duck decided to land in the creek, creating interesting ripples in the reflection of the sky and the clouds.

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/30 sec, f/4.5, 40mm

After the sun rose higher (it was still 6:30 in the morning), I started looking for a different way to the creek. Thinking that for the future there might be some other photo opportunities there. During my search I found this little horseback riding ranch. Since it was still morning, I decided to take a couple of shots. Got my gear and knelt right be the barbed wired fence. Started to make adjustments, framing the shot, when suddenly I got a nice loud snort in my ear. Another horse decided to check what this strange human was doing, and came over from the side, silently. He scared the living daylights out of me. He was just curious, and finding me not interesting enough went to enjoy his breakfast, leaving me gasping for breath, and completely stunned. I still did managed to get this shot.

Canon 5D, ISO 200, 1/500 sec, f/9, 24mm

The 3rd week challenge for the DPC Olympics is “Lawn” or “Still Life”. Since I don’t really like shooting inside, mostly because I do not have proper lighting equipment nor space, I decided to do “Lawn”. The challenge details say: “Shoot a lawn and be creative”. So I tried to be creative. I had a couple of interesting shots taken at a local park (good thing there were no people around), but either the backgrounds weren’t good, or there was too much background (trees, power poles, power lines etc.) that the pictures came out too busy and took away from the idea. So I figured I’ll try this idea at home. Got out my lawn mower, and spent the next couple of hours running around my back yard. Then set the tripod up with my 17-45mm wide angle lens on the deck, and asked my wife for help. So this is what I ended up with:

Canon 5D, ISO 100, 1/1600 sec, f/4, 31mm

So the 2nd week has passed and Team Polska is number 1 again. If you are interested in the results, then click here.
There was some grumbling from other teams that the point system favors the wining team. Right now it’s 10 pts for 1st place, 6pts for 2nd, 4 pts for 3rd, 3 pts for 4th, and 2 pts for 5th. Now people are complaining that there is too big of a difference between 1st place and the rest. Giving unfair advantage to the winners. All I can say is bloody losers. Last time there were no complains when Team Iceland was winning. It took only 2 challenges for our team to catch up and pass them. Yes they came back and eventually won, but no one complained about the point system. If a team only enters with 5 people, instead of all 8, well then they should not be whining about point system. That’s my take on it.

So I asked a very good friend of mine, who is an exceptional welder help me with some ideas for the Hot challenge. I’m very grateful for this. It was a pretty amazing show. It would be even nicer to go out to a junk yard of some sorts, but we had to work with what we had. Took a lot of pictures, but I picked only a few of the best:

Canon 5D, ISO 160, 1/30 sec, f/11, 70mm

Canon 5D, ISO 160, 1/15 sec, f/11, 48mm

Canon 5D, ISO 160, 1/4 sec, f/18, 50mm

Canon 5D, ISO 160, 1/5 sec, f/11, 50mm