Understanding Depth Of Field

Found this great article on Depth Of Field.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm

London Photos

I have uploaded photos from a recent trip to London.

http://vitamirus.smugmug.com/keyword/london

An Aussie, Credit Card and 20mins in B&H NYC - Its weird.

Oh yeah!

One way of illustrating the difference in living in a city of 4.0m to a city of 8.7m is the size of its camera stores.

Wow - went to B&H yesterday but only had 20mins - what a waste - it requires a full day.

Managed to pick up some great bargins for an Aussie.

Of course its cheaper again online but I didn't care that much as I saved so much.

Bought the following:

Canon 50mm Prime F1.4
Canon 320EX Speedlite for my daughter's 60D
A Lowpro Slingshot 302 AW Bag
Gary Fong Light Sphere
Cokin Filter Kit

Total saving from my usual supplier after a pretty good discount was about A$400 just on first 3 more expensive items.

Gotta be happy with that.

Thanks to the guys on dpreview for the B&H tip.

The actual B&H experience was a weird one for an Aussie. Staff everywhere but each one only handles a certain area. Then I'm directed to this place where you queue up (queues everywhere in the US - the yanks love queues) then you get to a guy (or girl) sitting behind a bench who calls everything up I was looking at - to be fair he was happy to chat but you get the feeling you need to hurry up.

Then presto while we are yacking someone turns up with a box contains all the stuff on his screen.

Then its downstairs to another queue to pay then another queue to collect the stuff. Very efficient and kinda cool.

..... but wierd.

London Walk

Had a nice day yesterday walking about parts of London with my Sister's family.

Got some OK shots.

Glad to have my Gorilla Pod and remote release with me to hold things still for some of the night photography.

Here's a quick sample

Moon Photography? - Great Tool.

Check out this link!

A great tool for planning a special moon shot.

Doesn't predict the cloud cover but does nearly everything else apart from clicking the shutter ;)

Nice one Cambridge In Colour.

Here's the link: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/moon-night-calculator.htm

Sunset - What happens when I don't take my own advice.

I need to take my own advice.

Last night as I was driving home from work I could see the making of a great sunset. But I was going to be running short of time to get set up in the right location.

Got home grabbed the camera and shot off again to get a pic.

Arrived with only a few minutes to spare.

Took 10 shots. But got home and noticed the ISO was too high and the the aperture stopped down to far. Grrr. Note to self. 1st thing do the 1,2,3. AV, Aperture 2 stops from wide open. ISO <= 400.

Anyway here's one of the more reasonable shots from the 10. Its OK but nothing to be proud of.

One Of My Favourite Sites

The web is full of great resources.

One of my favourites for high quality information and tips is:

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/

NB: I do not have any affiliation with them just like their content.

New Video - Reviewing the Canon 100-400mm Lense

And here is a link to all the photos I've taken with this lens on my smugmug account.

Clear Night = Moon Shot

Using a Canon 7D with a 100-400mm L Series Lense and a 2x Extender.

Remote released using live view with manual focus.

Here is the best of 6 Shots.

Settings = Focal length 780mm (1248mm 35mm Equiv.) F32 @ 1/6" ISO 500 Aperture Priority -3 Stops ev

Canon unveils new C300 Cinema Camera

Well its a high end movie camera probably way outside the average Joe's price range but its interesting to see Canon enter the world of cinema quality cameras. Can only be a good thing for all camera users as these high end features eventually make their way down to the street level kits.

Oh and a bit of extra goss. A new EOS Movie camera is already in development.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/03/canon-has-a-new-eos-movies-dslr-on-the-way-too/

Nice one Canon!

Lense Performance

I use 4 lenses:

1. The Canon 100-400mm L Series IS Telephoto Zoom
2. The Canon 24-70mm L Series Standard Zoom
3. The Canon 100m Macro with IS
4. The Canon EF-S 10-22mm Wide Angle

I've organised my Smugmug photos into smart galleries by the lense I used when they were taken.

Here's the link.
http://vitamirus.smugmug.com/Lenses

Hooking everything up.

Blogspot, Twitter, Smugmug and Youtube working towards a more coherent link between these services. Just hooked this blog to Twitter.

We are on Twitter

You can now follow us on Twitter.


Follow @VitamirusPhotos

Ooooh! Canon Announcement Pending.

Always gets the juices going when Canon make an announcement.

Probably not directly related to Photography as the announcement is in Hollywood. But worth bringing to your attention.

Engadget have the story.

Some Smugmug love

Take a look at my smugmug account http://vitamirus.smugmug.com I've updated the tags and added a tag map to help finding photos that might interest you.

The guys at smugmug have done a great job with their service.

Video showing Aperture 3 Workflow

Posted this Video showing my basic workflow using Aperture 3

Smugmug Coupon

I'm obviously a smugmug fan. They are a really polished outfit.

As part of their marketing they encourage existing users to promote the site by offering friends of users a $5.00 discount. They also give me a $10.00 coupon to use at my next renewal.

You can get this discount by clicking Here

Rolled back Mac Book Pro from Lion to Snow Leopard

Yesterday I rolled back my old Mac Book Pro. (Model MacBookPro4,1 / 2.6Ghz / 4GB Ram / Intel Core 2 Duo)

I found Aperture 3 was running unacceptably slower so I bit the bullet and rolled back to Snow Leopard.

I have to say it was heaps easier than rebuilding a PC. I made sure my mac was fully backed up on my time capsule with time machine. (I sound like an Apple Advert - no affiliation) But I didn't restore any apps as I wanted a clean install. But I did restore user files and settings which made life easier.

The only hiccup (read scary bit) was my password wouldn't work but with the help of some online content here it was easily fixed.

Add a new back ground just to make it feel new and presto! all done.

I must say it took many hours of waiting - particularly the restore from the time capsule over wifi - but it was very straight forward.

Nice one Apple.

I miss some of the new Lion features such as iCloud photostream with Aperture but that's no biggie as my main online backup is with Smugmug http://vitamirus.smugmug.com

Apple Updates Aperture to 3.2.1

I use Aperture 3 on a Mac Book Pro for most of my post processing needs. Apple have issued an update.

Details here: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/27/apple_updates_thunderbolt_software_aperture_and_printer_drivers.html

Added a new YouTube video showing how I set up my 7D by default.

I've found by setting the camera this way before a shoot. (Mainly AV, ISO & Aperture) I avoid the pitfall of getting through a shoot with the wrong settings.

Video Camera for Sale

Check out ebay. I'm selling my Canon HV20 - Great camera. Just don't need it with the 7D.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/140621557591?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1202

Thinking about default camera setup

I've recently had a few occasions where I get back from taking some pics only to find I had the ISO set too high or the aperture set wrong or something else because I left the camera set on whatever I finished with previously. So I've been thinking about how to get into some good habits before I go out to take some pics (and probably before I put the camera away).

A few basic (default) settings I'm thinking about from which I can make adjustments during the shoot depending on the circumstances:

1.  "AV" aperture priority.
2. Set aperture 2 stops above minimum.
3. ISO 100

Let's see how that goes.

My Gear

OK - So what gear do I have?

Body = Canon 7D
Lenses:

• Canon L 100 - 400mm IS
• Canon L 24 - 70mm Non IS
• Canon 100m Macro f2.8
• Canon 10 - 22mm EFS Wide angle

Tripods:

• Vanguard Aluminium utility tripod
• HD Metal Gorilla Pod
• Manfrotto 058B Studio with a 405 Geared Head

Flash = Canon Speedlite 580 EX II

Misc:

• Hahnel Giga T Pro II Wireless Remote
• Remote Cable Release
• Various UV Filters
• Circular Polarising Filter
• Circular ND -8 Stops Filter
• Lowpro Bag

Post Processing:

• Macbook Pro
• Aperture 3
• Elements 8

Online Accounts:

http://vitamirus.smugmug.com

Flickr = http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozgazza

BBF - Something to try

BBF or Back Button Focus. Seen a bit written on it but found this link on dpreview.com that has convinced me to give it try.

Stay Tuned.

Here's the link: http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2011/09/back-button-focusing-what-why-and-how.html

Who am I?

Hi there,

I'm Gary (Gazza) and I'm a:
Christian;
Husband;
Father;
Employee;
4x4 Enthusiast; and
Amateur Photographer.

This blog is about my photographic experiences.

I hope you enjoy reading.