Canon S60; another one of my favourite photographic themes: contrasting architectural styles. Additional commentary available on the album.
This journal documents my experiences with a Canon 50D, my first DSLR camera, purchased on Oct. 16, 2008. It is a showcase for my photography, includes comments about the camera's usability, with suggestions for improvement and discusses photography-related topics.
Toronto Street Scenes: Three Architectural Styles
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Portfolio: David Iliff
photographer
David Iliff has photographed amazing panoramas from around the world for Wikipedia.
He is a Canonista with a 5D; I am a bit surprised he admits using the 50/1.8.
New Lenses Rumoured
gear
Rumours based on many lenses "disappearing" from the Canon USA website indicate that a lens revamp is going to happen soon, following an official announcement.
I am looking forward to the 24-70 IS lens; I know it'll probably weigh "a few tonnes", but the IS would make it worthwhile.
Toronto Street Scenes: At Night
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Canon S60, from 2004. I didn't intend to take a shaky photograph, but the camera couldn't cope with the conditions. It looks nice, nontheless.
Toronto Street Scenes: Up Stairs, Down Stairs
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Canon S60, 2004 and 2005; Canon 50D, 2009. I would have loved to say that the brown colour theme across the three photographs was due to my genius, but it was either subconscious or a complete coincidence— I only noticed it today.
Please see comments on the album.
Canon Announces new 70-200/2.8L IS lens
gear
As rumoured, Canon has annouced a new 70-200/2.8L IS lens.
Along with its redesigned optical elements, the new lens design features improved AF speed due to a new focusing algorithm and has reduced the minimum focusing distance to 3.9 feet (1.2 meters) through the entire zoom range, allowing photographers to capture tighter portraiture shots in a small studio space. The previous lens model's minimum focusing distance was 4.6 feet (1.4 meters), whereas now photographers can stand nearly 8 inches closer to their subject and achieve sharp focus and tight crops. Canon has also enhanced the Image Stabilization allowing it to compensate for shutter speeds up to four steps slower than 1/focal length, a one step improvement over the previous lens model.
Toronto Street Scenes: Blinding Sun
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Canon S60, Oct. 2004.
Friday Foto: CN Tower Closeup
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Canon EOS 50D stabilized against a post, 24-105/4L at 105mm (effective 168mm).
Toronto Street Scenes: Architectural Details
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Canon S60, Fall 2004. I don't remember exactly where in Toronto this is.
Retouching in the Era Before Photoshop
book
The Art of Retouching and Improving Negatives and Prints, published in 1941, is available for download via the Internet Archive.
I read about it on Jörg Colberg's blog, Conscientous.
Toronto Street Scenes: Newspaper Boxes
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Canon S60, April 2005.
Toronto Street Scenes: Maritime Life BMO Facade
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Canon S60, 2004. Most certainly stabilized against a lamppost.
Toronto Street Scenes: BCE Place Galleria
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Canon S60, 2005, hand-held at 1/5s. I should note that the Wikipedia entry for Santiago Calatrava (see the "Notable works" section) has an 2-image panorama of the Galleria that I photographed when I first bought my Canon S30, in 2002. (I'm not very proud of the photograph because it's not seamless.)
Friday Foto: Cooksville Creek (Winter) I
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| From Friday Foto |
Canon S30, on a bitterly cold January 2004.
Wildlife Photograph Disqualified
A bit of controversy in a wildlife photo contest where the winning photograph was disqualified for being of a trained animal.
Sergey Brin in Haiti
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Sergey Brin posted photos of his trip to Haiti (Google donated $1M to the relief effort). He shoots with a Canon 5D2 (with a 24-105 lens I assume).
Looking at the EXIF information, his shutter speed is too low resulting in blurry images. He should have been shooting in shutter priority since he is in a moving vehicle.
Friday Foto: Woods on a Snowy Evening
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| From Friday Foto |
This photograph (Canon S60, 2004) reminds me of Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening". It was taken in a sub-urban location— if you saw what was behind me, it would spoil the mood of the photograph completely. So let's just pretend I was walking through the woods on a snowing evening and I came upon this scene.
I am more intrigued than bothered by the red spot in the top-left corner; I could easily photoshop it out.
Ombra mai fù
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(Canon S60, 2004 & 2005) Another one of my favourite themes is trees and shadows. I walk by the willow tree on my way to work so naturally, it becomes a subject for photography. It was only now, placing the photographs together that I noticed how different the willow tree's shadow looks with the changing position of the sun between summer and winter. At first I though it had lost a few branches, but in reality, it's the position of the sun that has cast a different shadow.
Richard Avedon: Darkness & Light
photographer
Youtube video (in 9 parts) of the American Masters TV show about Avedon and his portrait photography.
Halfway though the show I wanted to just get up and go photograph people.
Photo on iPad Desktop
photographer gear
The photograph used as the desktop background of the iPad during the unveiling was "Pyramid Lake (at Night)" by Richard Misrach.
I hadn't recognized it, nor was I familiar with the photographer's name (I just looked up his name and he is mentioned in "The Photo Book"). However, I recognized his Hawaiian beach photos (see the last link in the PDN article) taken from a hotel balcony (they were featured in a NY Times Magazine).
Urban Winter Scenes
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Canon S60, winter 2005. Please see the album for commentary.