Club Blog
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Basic DSLR Course
Instructor: Wendy Stevenson
Cost: $80
Location: Gallery6 - 126 Prescott St., Kemptville
Date: Sunday, Sept., 19th
Time: 1-5pm
There is space for 4 people. Sign up sheet is at the Gallery or contact me directly (wendy@wendystevenson.com)
Photo Walk Adventures
I went to my first Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk last year in downtown Ottawa. I had met some great people there so I had been planning to do that again. Alas, I missed the opportunity when I didn't realize that registration had opened; it filled up really fast.
Luckily for me, our very own photo club decided to host a walk in Kemptville! Woohoo!
I had such a fun time on the walk. I especially loved going into the local used book store with Wendy and shooting each other as well as the store owner. I think my favourite shots of the day are from that store. Also, I am really impressed with Wendy's ability to charm just about anyone into being a fabulous model. Excellent skill. ;)
As usual, click my picks below to see them bigger, or see the whole set.
Face Book Club Page
Hi All,
Just wanted to let eveyone know that if you have a FaceBook account, then you can join the NG Photography Club page for discussion and of course posting your pics as well. Just another great way for members to keep in touch:-) Thanks to John Wilberforce for setting that up!!!
Scott Kelby Photowalk
Well, I don't know about the others that came, but despite the 100% humidity and sweltering heat, I had a great time!! Thanks John for leading us and keeping us moving and staying "on time" and "on task" some need that more than others LOL
Attached are just a few of the images I took including my "assignment" "natural frame" - thanks Andrew:-)
Oh and the last two not sure if they'll "qualify" as walk shots as they were taken AFTER the official time...oh well
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| andrew_3508-copy.jpg | 120.46 KB |
| whos-hat-whos-house_3531-copy.jpg | 173.75 KB |
| skwalk_3436-copy.jpg | 183.49 KB |
| chair-colour_3586-copy.jpg | 224.86 KB |
| shopping-cart_3601-copy.jpg | 132.12 KB |
Vancouver and Seattle
I recently had the opportunity to visit Vancouver and Seattle with (almost) all expenses paid (grad school is awesome!). I again took just my D90 and 50mm lens to keep things compact. We visited a big variety of interesting places, from farmer's markets (so many textures!) to an aquarium, so there were plenty of interesting pictures to take.
Speaking of aquariums, here is a good tip: use manual focus. Most of the glass is pretty dirty thanks to the little children leaning up against it, and your camera is likely to focus on that. To ensure the cool little fishes on the other side are in focus, you will probably need to adjust it yourself. But other than that, aquarium shooting isn't so bad, because the displays tend to be pretty well lit!
Below are some of my favorites, but feel free to check out the whole set on Flickr.
An Invitation
hi,
I'm having a show of my photographs at Gallery 6 for the month of May and June. There is an opening reception on May 14th and below is an invitation. Please come!
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| Gallery 6 Vernissage Invitation.jpg | 201.92 KB |
High ISO – GREAT when you need it!
Had the pleasure of photographing a band called Double Back and Urban, playing at Greenfields last Friday night.
It was definitely an exercise in full-manual shooting with constant change of exposure due to the ever-changing light. The ISO for all shots taken was 1250. This high ISO allowed me to move and handhold my camera as well as stop action (at times) and get a fairly decent sharp shot. Metering was spot metering, which in turn fades out the bg to mostly black and picks up only the light either in their face or on stage. I was usually 2 stops underexposed (again for speed) which also helped black out the bg.
I took almost 900 shots and changed the exposure at least 200 times.
Lenses used – Canon 16-35mm
Canon 50mm
Canon 70-200mm
All were set around f/5.6 or lower.
BTW – you might recognize one of these guysJ
All shots are straight out of camera – no post processing. Oh and you might recognize one of these guys:-)
BBC Wildlife Magazine Master Classes
A friend pointed me to this collection of simple but effective tutorials from BBC Wildlife Magazine. It includes lessons on the following subjects:
- Landscapes
- Mammal portraits
- Plants
- Sunset and sunrise
- Underwater
- Invertebrate portraits
- Birds in flight
- Animals in their environment
- Reptiles and Amphibians
- Creative visions of nature
- Wet weather
- Cold weather
- Black and white
- Urban and garden wildlife
- Zoos
- Bird and mammal behaviour
- Close-up's
Check it out! It's a great resource for free.
Dominican Republic With a 50mm
When we were writing up our packing lists for what to bring on our family vacation to the Dominican Republic, we struggled when we got to the camera part. We didn't want to be weighed down with all our equipment, nor did we want to risk something happening to it. On the other hand, we didn't buy a DSLR to not use it. So we decided to take our body and one lens.
Because we didn't want to take our flash, we wanted a lens that would perform well in low light. Our macro lens could go as low as f2.8, but it was big and heavy. Our kits lens is... well, a kit lens. We needed something better.
So we decided to buy a new 50mm f1.4 lens. One of the reasons we could justify it was that we figured it would be small enough to also take backpack camping in the summer. (And, of course, we could have some more fun with it artistically.) We also bought a really small outdoorsy bag to put it in (only the small 50mm lens would fit in there with the body on its back). The bag, besides being compact, had a few good features for bad weather, like waterproof zippers and a rain cover. Again, perfect for the vacation where tropical rains could appear any time, as well as for when we go backpacking.
It was really interesting trying to get used to the lens once we were in the Dominican. We really hadn't used it before leaving, and so we hadn't yet learned that you really don't want to use it wide open (i.e. on f1.4) all the time; you just don't always get enough depth of field to keep the important parts of the picture in focus. (Of course, at night, we didn't have a lot of choice...) It was also interesting to learn how to make just one focal length work in every situation. It wasn't always easy, and some compositions definitely suffered. But we did end up with a decent set of vacation photos, so it was worth it in the end!
I shared a few shots below (which you can click to see bigger versions as usual), but you can check out the whole set, too.
Birds With Macro
Andrew got me a new macro lens for Christmas, and we've had lots of fun playing with it. It's our fastest lens to date ("fast" means you can have wider aperture, or lower f-stop number, which lets more light in and allows for a faster shutter speed). We went for a walk on the Jack Pine Trail near Barrhaven, where the birds will eat right out of your hands. What a great opportunity to try and get up close with the macro lens!
Some of our results are below (click the images to get a bigger version, and check out the entire set here). I love how some of the photos have the birds blurred out just right, so they look like paintings.
