2014-12-28

Photo of the Week 2014-12-29


Farewell 2014
New adventures await ...
 
trails less travelled
DJE

2014-12-22

Merry Christmas ! - Photo of the Week 2014-12-22

MERRY CHRISTMAS and Happy Holiday Season !

The electronic version of this year's Christmas Card.

I individually craft my greeting cards. What do I mean by that? Well I layout and format the text and verse, if there is one. Each card is printed individually on archival paper stock cut and scored specifically for greeting cards. For printing the text I use my home office printer, then I reload the sheets individually into my Epson Professional Photo Printer and print the photo on each one myself. I set them out to dry before hand folding and there you have it.

It's something I choose to do rather than order my cards from printing service that uses automated processes. Each of my cards has a little of my personal touch.

Enjoy time with family, friends and loved ones over the holidays everyone.

DJE

2014-12-15

Photo of the Week 2014-12-15

A chance meeting Saturday morning at the Tobermory Farmer's Market Christmas Sale led to some great intelligence for my wildlife photography. While there, I heard two people talking about the number of Snowy Owl's in the area. I interrupted the conversation, introduced myself and listened intently. Another person entered the conversation and the next thing you know I had a plan for Sunday morning.

I left the cottage in the dark before sunrise with the weather heavy.  The morning light was very dull making it necessary to bump up the ISO for decent exposure settings but I was treated to a sighting within minutes of reaching my intended location. A male Snowy was perched on a fencepost a hundred or so metres out in a field so I pulled the vehicle over, grabbed a few quick images, then sat back and poured some hot tea from my thermos to wait.

Eventually he moved on to a utility pole, across a field and then courteously perched on a dead tree stump making for a perfect environmental portrait setting. Fortunately, I was able to get relatively close access from a local dead-end county road and make a number of images, but still from a fair distance.

sitting pretty
I managed to see 2 other Snowy's in the same area, but distance and crappy light remained a challenge preventing me from making any better images.

I'm going to have fun getting to know these beauties this winter.

DJE

2014-12-08

Photo of the Week 2014-12-08

The eyes of a Master ...
Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra
A portrait of Michelangelo sketched by Daniele da Volterra welcomes you on a video screen as you enter, Michelangelo: Quest for Genius at the AGO

I was immediately struck by the soulfulness that da Volterra had captured in Michelangelo's eyes.





My visit to Florence last year kindled a desire to learn more about Michelangelo. I'm currently reading "The Agony and the Ecstasy", the biographical novel by Irving Stone. So when I heard Michelangelo: Quest for Genius was on at the AGO, I immediately made plans to go. 

The sketches by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni on exhibit offer some insight into the process of a master. It's really a "behind the scenes "look at his approach and the process that likely preceded the creation of his well known masterpieces.

Surprisingly, photography (no flash) was permitted in the exhibit and I had my little EOS M along for the occasion. I made a few photographs of the sketches on display, to go along with those from my visit to Florence as creative inspiration from the Master.






DJE

2014-12-01

Photo of the Week 2014-12-01

It was BLAH weather at the cottage this weekend and I needed something a little different to stir the creative juices. I've been thinking about converting my Canon EOS M for infrared (IR) photography and decided to give it a whirl with some IR filters to see how it handled. Dull overcast days are not a good time to work with IR but hey, I needed to play around.

There's this little scene at the side of our cottage road that speaks to me every time I pass by so I decided to set up there for this little trial.

The first thing I experienced was extraordinarily long shutter speeds. I already know that using a non-converted camera with IR filters on the lens will require long shutter speeds in the range of 15-30 seconds to overcome the internal IR cut filter. But wow ... with the dull, overcast day and starting first with an 850nm filter I was 4 minutes f/5.6 ISO 3200 and I found lack sharpness to be an issue. I think it was mostly a focus shift issue and not being able to determine how much focus shift adjustment was required or at least not taking enough 4 minute exposures to get the right focus by trial and error. Now the 850nm filter really blocks a lot of light only allowing the longer wavelength IR to pass so I dropped down to the 720nm filter which would let in a smidgen more light overall.

With the 720nm filter, I still required a 2 minute exposure with f/5.6, ISO 1600 so the blustery wind played havoc with my subject, moving the spruce and cedar branches causing them to blur, but it can be an nice effect so I carried on and ended up with something interesting ... I think.


I R Spruce Out of Rock

Working with an IR converted camera can be a lot more convenient depending on the particular camera type and features. A converted EOS M will show me the IR image on it's live view screen and should be able to focus without a recalibration since it uses the actual imaging sensor to focus, unlike my DSLR's which use a separate focus sensor. The "M" is also a nice compact package that will be easy to include in my kit along with the adapter that allows it to use all my EF mount lenses :-D

Now the only questions are which IR range to I get it converted to and which conversion service do I use .... hmmmmmm

DJE