White Lions

Having a season membership at the Toronto Zoo gets me invited to all sorts of special events.  Yesterday I was invited to see the unveiling of the white lions, the newest exhibit, that will be on display this summer.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to try out my new lens -- the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L USM.

First let me explain... you'll recall from my last post what I said about gear, that I should try and get the most out of what I have, and that my old zoom - the Tamron 55-200 f/4-5.6 was just fine.  Truth be told, it was a good lens.  In fact, a great lens considering it cost less than $200 to buy.  That said, I feel like I'd gotten the most out of it... My last study showed the limits of what it could do.  That meant time for an upgrade.

And what an upgrade!  Had you spoken to me three days ago, I could have told you a hundred reason why NOT to spend the money on such an expensive lens.  Today, I can't recall a single one of those reasons.  Canon's L line of lenses is legendary for it's build and image quality, and this is no exception.  I spent an hour just ooohing and ahhing at how sharp my images are... how the light is captured... the accuracy of the colours... I could go on and on.  Suffice to say, this lens is worth its weight in gold.

Which brings me to my only complaint, if I had to make one... it's heavy.  It's difficult to keep it steady especially zoomed all the way to 200mm.  It definitely would not be your first choice as a walk-around lens.  Good thing it comes with a handy tripod collar.  Screwing on a tripod or a monopod makes it a way easier task to take a nice sharp shot.

... and MY how sharp it is!

I could count the individual hairs in the fur on the lion's snout.  Does it come across that I'm happy with this lens?  If it didn't, let me reiterate:  I LOVE THIS LENS!!!

Back to the lions...

I couldn't have asked for better conditions.  It rained fairly heavily right up until the moment I arrived, then the rain stopped.  If you've read my previous posts you'll know that cool and rainy days are the best days to get good zoo shots.  So I was off to a great start.  The second thing that happened was that the sun was starting to set, and was casting a wonderful warm glow through the clouds.  The result was perfect, diffused light coming from low in the sky.  It lit up the fur of the lions in such a nice way.  Thirdly, the lions were in the mood to pose.  Add all three up and you get shots like these:












As always, click on these photos for bigger sizes and to see the rest of the shoot.

 - jc

Viva Las Vegas!

My 3-year-old son is learning to skate. So we enrolled him for lessons at the Pickering Skating Club. As part of the deal he got to partake in the Annual Ice Show -- titled "Viva Las Vegas" -- that showcases the club's skaters of all levels. As a proud papa, I was in the stands cheering on my little guy (who played an adorable Bam-Bam). As a student of photography, of course I brought along my camera.

Anyone who has tried to take pictures at such events knows you're at the mercy of one very real problem: it's dark. From the camera's view, it's really dark. To compound things, my zoom is a cheap-o $150 jobbie -- which for the price is a surprising great lens -- but with a maximum aperture of f/5.6, it makes trying to capture that perfect moment incredibly difficult.

As you can guess I needed to crank up the ISO. I went to 1600 which generates about as much noise as I can tolerate. That afforded me a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second. Which is pretty good, but zoomed all the way out to 200mm, experience has taught me that to get sharp shots of fast motion I need to shoot at around 1/400th of second.

So you could have also guessed that many of my shots turned out blurry. But since I was trying more to capture the spirit of the scene as opposed to simply freezing action, in many cases blur due to subject motion made for some interesting snaps!

Here are a few. As always you can see them all here.










That's my boy!


The motion blur here is particularly powerful, as it draws you into the tension created just before she attempts her jump.




Right. So this is Andrei Rogozone. That's correct. WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPION Andrei Rogozine!!! He moves considerably faster than the other skaters. Getting good shots of him was particularly difficult.




Possibly my favourite from the shoot. The right elements are in focus with the right pieces blurred.

I just did this for fun, and I suppose if this was a paying gig, I'd have gone out and dumped a whole lot of money on a fast zoom. But I live by one rule when it comes to my photography -- better equipment doesn't make me a better photographer. I'm happy with what I have, and I focus on getting the most out of my equipment. I'm pretty happy with these shots considering what I was up against!

-jc

A mini MacBook. A perfect traveling companion for photographers.

Some of my best photos come from my travels. But traveling with your camera, especially today's high resolution models offering upwards of 18 megapixels per exposure, introduces a special consideration:

How do I keep from running out of storage while I'm away from home for two weeks?

The obvious answer that many of you are thinking is "just bring a spare memory card." Fair enough, but in my case, it would be, like, bring a spare 20 or so memory cards. It's not unusual for me to fill an 8GB card on a single day of shooting, sometimes two if I feel really inspired. I like to explore a scene and take many MANY shots of the same thing, until I get a composition that I'm happy with. It was once not unheard of for me to take upwards of 100 shots, just to get that one perfect one. Of course, practice has made me more efficient... I haven't taken that many for a single scene in a long time.... but I'll do 20 or 30 quite frequently.

So carrying a whole bunch of cards with me just doesn't appeal to me. They're so small, and I'd hate to lose one, not to mention the precious photos stored on board.

For the longest time, I had a Hyperdrive HD80. It is a great little device for dumping the photos off my memory cards at the end of the day, freeing them up for the next. It was all I ever needed, at least until my 20D died. Even though you can upgrade the hard drive inside to meet your capacity needs, it has a limit of 128 GB. Even if you threw in a 320 GB drive, it would only use the first 128 GB of it. With my 50D, RAW files are nearly double the resolution of those from the 20D. So a 128 GB Hyperdrive doesn't cover me for much more than a week.

The HD80 is an older model, and there are newer ones available that overcome the size limitation. Plus some of the newer ones have colour screens on them for image review. But since I was going to replace it anyway, I thought it would be nice if I could find something that could do a little more than copy the photos off of the memory card.

The ideal device for me was something that would import my photos from the camera, allow me to flag my favourites from that day of shooting, and finally allow me to export the flagged catalog into Adobe Lightroom once I got home. At that point I would be ready to dive right into processing -- I would have already flagged my favourites. I estimate such a device would cut my post processing time in half (or at least spread it out over some of the downtime I have during the trip, such as on a flight). And since I would be traveling with it, I'd also want it to be small and lightweight.

To be honest I really REALLY wanted this device to be the iPad. It has a GORGEOUS screen, and, well, it's an iPad. But it has a few issues that made it a no-go for me:

1. Nothing compatible with Lightroom's catalogue is available for the iPad. Importing the photos without cataloguing them gets me no further than the Hyperdrive option.
2. The iPad has very limited storage. From a photographer's perspective, even the 64 GB version of the iPad is TINY!! I'd get just a couple of days of shooting captured before filling it.

So while the first problem could potentially be solved in time (I read in an Adobe blog post that they were toying with the idea of a Lightroom companion app for the iPad), the second is not something I see in the iPad's future for a long time. It's just not what it was designed to do.

So it wasn't to be an iPad...

I then considered a netbook computer. But the prospect of having to go back to Windows with my tail between my legs, after a blissful two years of freedom from its sorry slow ass, just didn't jive with me.

I just about pulled the trigger on an upgraded Hyperdrive, when I came across this guide. Now I'd heard about the potential to install OS X on a PC machine (known as a "hackintosh"), but up until this point I understood it to be a difficult thing to do, and wrought with stability problems. Not the Mac experience I'm used to, and definitely not something I'm going to trust with my precious photos. But times have changed and after reading this guide it seemed like it would be a very straightforward thing to do, so I decided to give it a try.

The first problem was finding the right netbook. Research revealed that one of the best netbooks suitable to be hackintosh'd is a Dell Mini 10v model 1011. It had to this SPECIFIC model for it work right... the previous mini 10, or the current Mini 10 for sale on Dell's web site won't work as well (but reportedly do work to some extent that many people are happy with). Problem is the 1011 has been end-of-lifed by Dell. So I had to find one some other way.

Luckily Dell has an outlet website.
They had a few 1011's available. I really wanted one with the 6-cell battery, but the only one I could find in that configuration came in pink... So I chose the black one instead with the 3-cell battery. After taxes and delivery, it cost me $260.

I wanted to do a few upgrades on this thingy. I bought a 2GB chip to replace the stock 1GB of memory, and I purchased one of those new-fangled hybrid SSD drives to give me the storage space I needed.

Installing these parts wasn't so straightforward, as Dell, in their infinite wisdom, didn't put a door on the back of the netbook to access the RAM module. Instead I followed this guide to take apart the whole thing in order to upgrade the RAM. I also swapped the hard drive while I had the whole thing apart. This dicey process took me about an hour, beginning to end, after which I breathed a sigh of relief when the thing powered up on the first try. Now the machine was ready for the OS X install.

The installation process is very easy. Just follow the guide, and you'll have no problems. It's more or less a straight OS X install, with one little hack enabling the Dell Mini to boot into OS X. Otherwise, the install is exactly as it is on a regular Mac. However, don't trust the time the install reports for the install to complete... it takes significantly longer, and at times I thought the install was frozen. But patience prevailed, and I was on my way.

The Hybrid Platter/SSD drive is a bit more expensive than a comparable traditional drive. I spent $160 for a 500 GB model. DDR2 memory is not so cheap these days now that everyone wants DDR3, so the chip cost $60. A copy of OS X Snow Leopard costs $30. All-in this thing racked up to a whopping $500.

Did I mention it only weighs 1 kg? Oh, and it has OS X RUNNING ON IT!!!

And run it does! I am incredibly surprised at how well OS X runs on this low powered device. By comparison, I started up the preloaded Windows XP when it arrived to register it with Dell's web site. All I did was boot, and open Internet Explorer. It was DOG SLOW! Meanwhile, OS X on the netbook happily runs Adobe Lightroom well enough to not only import and catalog my photos, but even fully developing my photos is easily doable. Really, the limited screen space is more of a hinderance than the performance is. But this has exceeded my expectations many times over regarding how well it works. It's truly is a Mac experience resurrected from a doomed Windows machine.

Well, almost... again, I must remind you (and often myself) that it still isn't the real Mac it aspires to be. The trackpad is nowhere near as good as on a genuine MacBook. I was even able to get two-finger scrolling to work, but its precision and dexterity is just not in the same league as Apple's. Secondly, hibernation hasn't yet been made to work, so I have to do a full shut down when I'm not using it. Otherwise I'll drain the battery between uses. And, as I touched on before, screen space is limited. Even some of Apple's preference panes don't fully fit. I have to use Lightroom in full-screen mode just to make the import dialog fit on screen.

But it's very VERY stable! And performance is way better than I expected it would be. Not to mention the fact that I now have a travel-sized MacBook that I was able to configure for $500.

So far so good. The real test will be in October when I head to Mexico for a week. I'll write a follow up describing my experience then.

Some pics of my Mini MacBook:


Here's the Mini MacBook side-by-side with a 17" MacBook Pro.


Another shot with my hand in it to give you an idea of the size.


...and to add a little bit of dignity...

- jc

Lightning Strikes!

There was a fantastic storm this evening, so I took the opportunity to try to capture lightning. I'd never done it before, but I had somewhat of an idea of how to do it. Basically, set the camera shutter to bulb, point it what you think is the right direction, open the shutter, wait for the flash, and close the shutter.

Sounds easy, and when the sky is lit up as much as it was tonight, capturing some lightning isn't that hard. But getting that one amazing fork takes a bit of anticipation, and a bit of luck.

Two tips that I discovered tonight:

1) Follow the path of the storm. It will seemingly travel across the sky, and as long as you pan the camera from time to time with it, you should be more or less pointed in the right direction.

2) ISO sensitivity has a lot to do with how striking your lightning fork is. The shots I captured at ISO 400 had that glow that the best lightning shots all seem to have, while the ones at 100 or 200 just didn't have the same drama. The caveat here is that you're fighting noise, so you shouldn't keep the shutter open much longer than about 30 seconds. Any longer than that, and the noise just gets too grainy. Just close the shutter and re-open right away to start a new exposure. Sooner or later you'll get a shot of lightning.

Remember to find a sheltered spot, otherwise you and you precious camera will get very wet. Rain gear helps if you have some for your camera, short of that a plastic bag will do in a pinch.

Here's the best of what I got tonight:


This was the best of the bunch. Like I said, sometimes you need a but of luck to get that special one... It happened right in front of me and lit up the sky like it was on fire.


Here's a different crop of the above shot, and converted to black and white. Then I added a tinge of yellow to warm it up a touch. I actually made 5 different versions of this image. Click the one above to see the rest.


This one was severely cropped. The original had the lightning bolt in the bottom-right corner.




Here's an example at ISO 200. Lots of lightning, but it just doesn't have the same striking effect as the ISO 400 shot.

- jc

Water Droplets

Every now and then nature creates perfection. Sometimes it's a brilliant sunset... other times it's the reflection of a grand mountain range in a glass-smooth lake. But every once in a while nature shows her craft in the smallest of ways. One day after the rain stopped, I noticed how the water droplets were beading on the leaves and flower petals. They were the most perfect water droplets I'd ever seen. I'm not sure I did nature justice in my photos, but I'd like to share a few here.

I Love the Zoo

The title says it all. I have a season membership which means I can go whenever I want. The best time to go is first thing in the morning -- when the park opens. You get a great parking spot, and you can leave by noon, just when all of the crowds are starting to make the zoo an unpleasant place to be.

Another reason why I love the zoo is that it is a fantastic place to practice your shooting -- photography... not guns... you sicko... The best part about getting to the zoo early is that the sun isn't high in the sky yet. So you get pleasant light for your pictures, and more importantly, the animals aren't hidden away somewhere sleeping in a secluded shady spot.

Of course this comes at a price... animals that are awake are also moving around... a lot... which makes it difficult get a great shot. And, if you happen to be using an inexpensive zoom like mine that is not particularly fast in every sense of the word when it comes to lenses, it's even harder. Plus, you're always fighting to find a perspective that eliminates all clues that you took your shots at the zoo. After all, you want people to think you traveled all the way to the African Savannah to get that shot-of-a-lifetime.

For all of these reasons, not to mention learning to shoot with a long zoom lens, it's a very difficult task get quality images at the zoo. My philosophy is if you can get a decent shot at the zoo, then you can get a decent shot just about anywhere. Hence why I think it's the perfect place to practice.

I'll share a couple of things I've learned along the way. First, if you're a study of theory you'll know that you need a shutter speed at least as fast as the reciprocal of your focal length in order to get a sharp hand-held shot. But you know what they say about theory... in reality I've found that I need a shutter speed at least twice as fast. So when I'm zoomed all the way out to 200mm, I need a shutter speed of at least 1/400 of a second in order to get an acceptably sharp shot. And since my lens is slow, I need to stop down to at least f/8.0 or f/11 to hit the sweet spot of my lens. That means I need to crank the ISO way up. It's not unusual for me to shoot at ISO 400 in broad daylight in order to keep the shutter speed fast, and up to 800 or 1600 indoors. A fast stabilized lens would obviously be a real help, but I'm not quite prepared to shell out lots of money for one.

Lesson number two, carry a monopod. Especially when you take your camera indoors. You can bring a tripod if you like, but a monopod is less cumbersome and gets in the way far less with all of the other zoo visitors walking around. Plus, a monopod lets you get into tighter spaces for that unique point of view.

Lesson three: pay attention to the area of the frame NOT occupied by your subject. Try to find a perspective that eliminates things like fences, other visitors, or anything that looks artificial. This will make you shots look much more natural and compelling, and much less like a zoo snapshot.

Finally, if there's a bit of threat of rain, or if it's a little chilly, it's the perfect time go to the zoo. There will be less people, and the animals will be more likely to be out and about. Of course it would be a good idea to invest in some quality rain gear to protect your camera on those not so dry days. (a raincoat for you doesn't hurt either!)

I've been to the zoo five times since I got my membership. Here are the best shots I've taken on those trips.


OK, so this breaks the rule of trying to eliminate elements that give away the fact that this is a zoo pic... but just look into the tiger's eyes!


















Here you really see the limitations of an inexpensive lens. Its ability to blur out-of-focus elements is probably the lens's weakest point. A better lens would have blurred the fence right out.


This time I had no way to remove the fence from the image. So I decided to make it an important element in the composition.


Probably my favourite of all. It's technically not a great photo, but the capture of action and the menacing look of the baboon's face really make this image shine.

Mexico Stole my Camera

I struggled with the title, as each time I wrote it I sounded like I was making a generalized statement about Mexican citizens. But for the record, I've been to Mexico twice, and both times I've come back with less gear than I when I arrived (granted, the first time it was a tall beer glass that my wife accidentally knocked into the ocean...)

When I arrived home from my one week trip to Puerto Vallarta I realized that my bag was missing my brand new Canon 50D, and the Sigma 17-70 lens that was attached to it. Not to mention a couple of filters attached to the lens, the mounting plate for my tripod and the memory card inside.

Fortunately I have one of these so I didn't lose any of the pictures save for a handful I had shot on the morning I left Mexico. I've been trying to piece together where it went missing, and the most likely suspects I can come up with are the cleaning staff of the hotel and the can driver that took us to the airport.

Anyone who travels with a whack of camera equipment knows what a pain it is to go through airport security. It usually goes something like this:

Airport security guy: "Sir, is this your bag?"
Me: "Yes"
Airport security guy: "Well I hope you're not late for you flight because I'm going to inspect every last piece of equipment you have."

..10 minutes later:

Airport security guy: "OK sir. I guess you're not going to try and cause any trouble... have a nice flight." [then to a suspicious guy in a trenchcoat trying to leave discreetly] "Excuse me sir... is this your bag?"
Suspicious guy in a trench coat: "uh... yeah..." [trembling and sweating]
Airport security guy: "Here you go! You almost left without your bag! Have a nice flight!"

OK so maybe I'm stretching the truth a little, but I'm ALWAYS the guy in the security line getting "randomly inspected." The thing that should have tipped me off is that my bag was neither searched at the airport in Puerto Vallarta nor before my connecting flight in Chicago. I should have realized then that my camera wasn't with me at that point, but I was too busy thinking up witty things to say to the security staff because they opted not to search my bag.

So my camera disappeared somewhere between the hotel and my arrival at Puerto Vallarta's airport.

I'm working through insurance right now, and short of my deductible I am going to be reimbursed for it, and like I mentioned before, I didn't lose any of the photos, which would have been a much worse situation. Plus it gave me an excuse to upgrade the missing Sigma lens to something a little better. I ended up getting Canon's newest 15-85 mm EF-S lens, which is a fantastic lens. Sharp as hell, and focuses INSANELY fast thanks to the USM focusing motor. The only thing I miss about my Sigma is how close I could get with it -- literally it could focus within a centimeter or two of the front element of the lens. The new Canon's minimum focusing distance is about 12 cm. Not bad, but harder to get those wild wide angle close-up shots.

The theft of my camera was the worst part of the trip, but really it was just a bad luck trip in general. We all got sick at least one day out of our stay -- all on different days, of course --, I gut stung by a jellyfish while I was snorkeling, and Christine sprained her ankle pretty bad in the ocean when she got hit by a monster wave. So I'm not looking forward to returning to Mexico any time soon. Ironically, my brother-in-law is getting married in Mexico in October...

Anyway, like usual here are a few shots from Puerto Vallarta, which aside from whole the camera theft issue, is a quite beautiful, albeit boring, place to visit. A great place to go if want to spend your whole vacation lying on a beach.