Out and about

Golden Field
Originally uploaded by null photography.

I went out today to an orchard with my family to pick some apples and pears today so naturally me and my dad brought along our cameras. I took a lot of shots and I was surprised with how many turned out really well. It was hard getting really good shots because the sun was on an angle and creating a lot of hotspots and really dark shadows. A lot of pictures were hard to get and were becoming too over or underexposed. But one good part about the angle of the sun was that a lot of leaves and plants were very nicely back light. I took many pictures of fruit in the orchard and on the way home we saw some really nice fluffy tall grass and I got some really nice shots of those, which you can see in the picture. Mostly I was using my new 50mm f/1.8 for the great soft dof it creates and my dads 105mm f/2.8 macro for the closeup shots and the VR which helped in the lower light shots. I did use my 70-300mm for a few shots but only one turned out really well.
When we got home I went into our backward with the 105mm macro to take some garden shots, which I also got a lot of but have yet to edit and post. Hopefully this weekend I'll get them edited and posted.

Product Shots

Nikon F100
Originally uploaded by null photography.

i've been into taking pics of camera gear lately and i like the plain white backgrounds for them. i don't have a lightbox or anything fancy like that, i just use alot of white printer paper spread out over the table. i try to lay them out so that the overlaps create the least amount of shadows. then when i take them into photoshop i add a curve layer and select the paper as "white" and it creates a nice white background. also i shoot wideopen at f/1.8 to help blur the paper into a seamless background. everyone once in a while there is a seem that shows up so i just use some photoshop healing on it and it's all set. they seem to turn out pretty well.

New Gear

New Gear

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Just got this lens for my bday and it's working great. I wanted a fast lens for indoor stuff and I also wanted to have a lens with a larger dof. So far I've only done a couple "product shots" of my other lenses at f/1.8 and it has given great dof. I'll will be taken alot more photos with it as soon as I get more time. I've recently moved into a new place so I haven't had much time to take photos because I've been running around getting stuff for the new house and building/installing stuff in the new place. Also there's all the unpacking and cleaning up as well. Maybe this weekend or next week I'll be able to go out and try out my new lens. Also for my bday I got a two year flickr pro account, I was really excited to get that. Now I can organize all my photos online, keep showing all my old photos and upload original sizes of my photos instead of the reduced sizes I had to do before.

Lone Boat
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Finally, I'm all done my summer courses and exams. Now I can actually get around to editing these pictures I have taken at a couple car shows and around a marina/beach. I went to Aylmer in Gatineau for a car show and found I took more pictures of the area instead of the cars. So then later that week I went back again with my girlfriend and had a picnic and took some more pictures. I probably have a couple hundred photos all together to go through and sort and edit. Now that I have some time off, I'll be able to do so and post them on flickr.
This shot I took was pretty hard to get just right, I think it would have been easier and quicker if I had a polarizer for my wide-angle zoom. The highlights on the waves were making them look really sharp and too harsh. So I put a Gaussian blur on the photo and then added the detail back into the boat in the foreground. I think it had a nice overall effect. But it took me a while to figure out what to do and how to get it just right.

1. American Muscle, 2. Sigma Model, 3. OTrain, 4. Booth Babes, 5. Winter Art (Gallery), 6. Marching

Just checked my flickr explore status on the flickr scout and I found I had six photos posted. Flickr explore is the top 500 most "interesting" photos for each day and these are the phots I have in the list for their respected days. Their "interestingness" doesn't really have much to do with how good the photos are but I like to pretend it does :)

TotalSportCompact 2

Painted Celica
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Today I went to the TotalSportCompact auto show in Ottawa. It was very hot but at least it didn't rain. I couldn't find a event schedule so I didn't get to see the martial arts or bikini contest. Although I would have liked to stay, it was just way too hot out to sit around and do nothing. There were some nice cars and some great cars but I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I would have. The main problem is that most of the (nice) cars were the exact same ones as last year. It would have been alright if they modified their cars further or just added little tweaks here and there but they were exactly the same. But I guess once they put all that money into the car, they don't have any left for the year after, lol. Well, I still got some good pictures so I guess that's all that counts. Also, disappointing for the guys, I was unable to snap any pics of girls posing with cars because there weren't any. There were alot of girls walking around for the show but none of them were posing for the pros like last year. Maybe later in the day they did but not while I was there. Ah well, there's always next year.

More Cars

Chevrolet
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Finally I was given a chance to take some more car photos. I've been anxiously awaiting a tuner car show that is on the 29th. I had a blast last year and took a lot of great pics. I can't wait to go back and put my acquired experience to work. The photos that I was able to take last nite were at a local Wal-Mart in Ottawa. While me and my girlfriend were eating dinner at Kelsey's, my gf spotted a nice blue car with white stripes out the window. I turned to look and saw that it was a Viper GTS Coupe. Then I noticed there were alot more corvettes and muscle cars out in the parking lot. After we finished dinner, I ran back home and grabbed my camera. There were a lot of nice old and muscle cars around but I missed the Viper. I guess the driver just popped by and left while we were eating. I have seen this car show a couple times but I still don't know if they are a group that gets together and how often they do. Maybe next time I'll have some sense in me to ask.