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.

adicolor

adicolor
Originally uploaded by null photography.

after months and months of searching, i have finally found a pair of shoes that i like in both looks and fit. you can change the colors of the stripes with special inserts. now for the tough part, keeping them clean, lol

Ottawa Tulip Fest and Toronto Photo Show

Tallest Tulip
Originally uploaded by null photography.

The Ottawa Tulip Festival is a most attend event for any and all photographers living in the Ottawa area. There are so many beautiful flowers with endless shots to be taken. There are great landscape shots, wide angles, super zooms and macros. I was lucky enough to have my dad's new Nikkor 105mm VR Micro for a couple weeks during the tulip festival and I attended to take full advantage of it. It was too bad that the weather did not want to cooperate with me. It was either rainy or overcast. This created lots of processing I had to do later on to brighten up the photos and fake some sunlight. Now this weekend I am back in Cambridge so that I can attend the Toronto Photographic & Digital Imaging Show with my dad. I really want to check out all of Nikon's new VR lenses along with the new D200. My dad wants to check out wide angles and possible teleconverters and of course the new D200. Hopefully we will get a chance to attend one of the seminars while we are there as well. I also want to check out the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, I've heard it's really great and an awesome bargain. The f/1.8 will work wonders on my indoor photography (which happens alot with bad weather).

More Macro

R2-D2
Originally uploaded by null photography.

My dad gave me his 105mm VR Macro to use for the next couple of weeks. The Ottawa Tulip Festival is starting up this Thursday so I wanted to get some really nice close up shots and the VR will come in handy for the handheld shots. I shot alot of pictures in the past couple of days, well alot that turned out really good. I pulled out my Star Wars Monopoly set and took out the little pewter figurines to shoot. I put them on some black white printer paper for a neutral background. I also went out and took some macros and normal shots at a near by park. I also shot some macro shoots of my girlfriends miniature Winnie the Pooh figures that she has on her key chain. I will have those shots up maybe tomorrow when I have time to get to them. The lens is really awesome, it's really quick, takes very sharp photos and the VR is the best option ever.

Macro

Martini
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Trying out my dad's new Macro lens (AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED).
It's awesome, especially with the VR mode, I handheld shot this with VR on while indoors and low lighting at 1/30sec. I took alot of pictures with it. My gf collects coins so I grabbed all of them and shot them with my tripod, the macro lens and as close as 1:1 while fitting the whole coin in the picture. I got about 30+ pictures of different coins. I might turn them into a collage or mosaic.

Full Moon

Full Moon
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Google Calendar launched today, and one of the calendars that I added to mine was lunar phases. It said today at 12:40pm was a full moon. So tonight I grabbed my tripod, 70-300mm lens and d70s and headed outside. Luckily I remembered to spot meter the moon to get a correct exposure. When I was done I tried the normal meter and it severly overexposed the moon, it was a big white blob.
I've been waiting a while to get a full moon shot and luckily I saw it was tonite and it was a clear night.

Manual

OTrain
Originally uploaded by null photography.

This was the first time that I attempted shooting manual mode out in the 'wild'. Usually when I'm out, especially at an event, I shoot in Program, Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority to make sure I get the best shot as quickly as possibly. I also want to make sure I don't come back home with crappy shots. But I decided to shoot in manual mode that day because I wasn't looking for anything specific to shoot I just wanted to fool around with my camera. I was also trying out my polarizing filter on the water, it worked nicely but the water was pretty gross looking so I didn't too much with those shots.
I think black and white photography is becoming a favourite of mine. And I really like doing 'cutout' shots where the photo is mainly b&w with a small amount of color (usually red) in a very specific region. Such as the red on the train in this shot.
I can't wait for everything to start getting their color back. We've had some pretty nice weather here lately but everything is muddy and blah out.

Ottawa-Gatineau International AutoShow

Cayman Stars
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Today I went to the Ottawa-Gatieneau International AutoShow down by the Rideau Centre. It was no where near as good or big as the Toronto AutoShow but it was nice to have something to photograph again. I didn't get as many shots as I thought I would but I did get a few nice ones. This one turned out greater than expected because of the lighting. I'll have some more shots up on flickr when I get around to it.

Photo mosaics are cool. You can make your own here

Slideshows

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Found a neat flickr tool that creates slideshows of my photos. So I made one for the Toronto AutoShow. You can view it here
and you can also check out the flickr created version here

I'm still deciding which one I prefer.

Color Correction

CN Tower
Originally uploaded by null photography.

I read some more of my photoshop book today and I learned some great tricks for color correction. Besides color correction, that's all I did to this photo and I think it turned out great.
If you get a chance, check out this book: "The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby"
It has some of the greatest tips out there. I've learned quite a bit from it, now my pictures turn out better and take less time.

Canadian International Autoshow

Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder
Originally uploaded by null photography.

I finally got to go this weekend! I went with my dad and uncle and we spent about 4.5 hours walking around the whole place. In total i got around 280 pictures, and all on a single battery! It took me almost two 1gb cards to get all those pictures though. Luckily I brought my dad's flash cards as backups, even though I didn't need them.
This picture is from the end of our little tour but I think it is one of the best shots I got today. The hardest cars to shoot were the black ones, especially when they were in bad lighting. I had to shot 1/20s and 1/10s which resulted in alot of blurry pics. I used my external flash on the dark cars but it seemed to only make things worse because since the cars were so polished I just got alot of glare from the flash bouncing back. I think I have a few decent shots, but nothing like what I would have liked to get.
There were so many cars but not all of them nice, especially in the Ford section. I just really don't care for Mustangs and the like. And besides the Mustang and the GT, there isn't much else to look at there. Although it was nice to see the Ford GT #99 for Wayne Gretzky, with his signature on it. I'll have that picture up later on when I have more time.

Booth Babes

Booth Babes
Originally uploaded by null photography.

I love having a camera :)

Both babes are always willing to pose for a picture, and I'm always willing to take that picture, lol.
These two lovely women were at the Canadian International Autoshow.

Canadian International Auto Show this weekend!
The show has been on all week but I've been waiting for my dad and uncle to have time off to go with me. I'm going to bring my D70s with my 18-70mm lens and my dad is going to bring his F100. I don't think my 70-300mm lens will be of much use in such small quarters so I'm going to leave it behind.
We're going Saturday and then I'm leaving for Ottawa on Sunday. I'll try and get a couple of the best shots up on my flickr page on Saturday night. After that I'm not too sure when I'll have time for the other photos becuase next week is midterm week :(

Exposure Practise

Patrick Roy
Originally uploaded by null photography.

My dad has recently purchased a book on getting the correct exposure during photography. I just finished reading the book a couple days ago and I wanted to put some of my new found knowledge to the test. I used to always shoot on aperture-priority and have it set all the way to f/4 or f/5.6, after reading the book they suggest if the subject(s) and background are all roughly the same distance than to shoot at f/8 and f/11 because they give much better contrast and quality. And I think this photo came out alot better because of this. Also I would shoot with an auto ISO so if the camera though I would be too over or under exposed it would adjust my ISO to compensate. Usually it would set it alot higher and I would get grainier images. Now if I have the time I'm going to turn that off and shoot at ISO 200 or 400 which I did for this photo. The camera would have set it to ISO 1200 or higher because it was so dark. I also tried out using manual mode, it works good when I have time to play around but when I'm out and about I think I will stick to the A, S, and P settings.

Walk with the Birds

Bird in Hand
Originally uploaded by null photography.

Earlier this week I went with my family to a local trail and took some pictures of some birds.
There were a lot of chickadees flying around looking for some food. They didn't like what was on the ground, so they really took to our food.
I got some good shots of the birds and of my family feeding the birds. I also got some nice shots of nature type stuff.
A day or two later me and my dad went on our own to an even closer trail. We had never been on it so we weren't sure what to expect. The sun was off and on and it was crazy cold, luckily I was smart enough to bundle up real well. We didn't get to see to much, we were hoping for some animals or birds but I guess they were too smart to come out in the cold weather. We heard alot of birds but just couldn't find them. So I only got a few good shots out of the trip.
Because of all the branches between me and my shots of birds I got to really try out my manual focusing skills. My camera was just going crazy on auto focus, trying to focus and every level of branches and birds and sky.
Hoping to get out in warmer weather to get better shots of different birds and animals.

Ice Ship at Winterlude

Ice Ship
Originally uploaded by null photography.

So I actually got to go to Winterlude over the weekend and the weather was perfect. Just what I wanted. Some of the sculptures were melting but most were intact and still in good shape. I got alot of shots, filled up one of my 1GB cards (about 151 RAW photos) and of those I got about 20-30 really good shots. So now I'm just going through them and editing in photoshop. I only have like 7 or so done. I'm really liking the black and white on the ice. It makes the edges and detail stand out so much more. I hope to have many more photos up soon.
I know ice floats, but do you think that this boat would float?

I'm going to try and head down to see the Ice Sculptures at the Casino for Winterlude. They said on the news today that the rain was ruining the sculptures but hopefully they will be fixed for when I go for a visit. I'm not sure what I would like more, pictures of them during the day or at night when they are all light up. Then next week I will go and get some shots of the snow sculptures, weather permitting.

I can't wait until I get some free time while the Rideau Cannal is open. I want to head down and take some long exposure shots of people skating around. The weather and my class schedule isn't working out for me. The perfect day would be when I have no or very little class and it's sunny out, not too cold, and the Cannal was open for business. I bet there would be lots of people out enjoying a skate if the weather was nice.

Winter Art (Gallery)

Winter Art (Gallery)
Originally uploaded by null photography.

This one was one of my favourite shots of the day because of the beautiful colors. I love the little bit of pink and orange reflecting off of the glass and the deep blue sky.

went out for a walk today down by the rideau cannal and I got alot more great pictures than I expected. I brought my tripod and my telephoto lens along so I could get some good close up shots. I didn't have much time to go around to all the places I wanted because the sun was setting and I was losing the light that I wanted. I ran around and just snapped away, hoping that I would get some decent shots when I got back to my comp. A few didn't turn out as I hoped so I won't bother posting those photos, but some turned out pretty good, and a few turned out great.
i hope to get out more when the sun is out. and hopefully when it isn't as cold, lol.