Craig Gosling Photography -- Blog

Back home from New Brunswick!

2011-09-02T23:07:00.005-04:00

I got home on Tuesday night from a week long vacation in Hillsborough, New Brunswick. The family had an awesome time, we ate a lot of fish and chips, spent a lot of time at the water, and just generally relaxed.

Now I am back to the real world and work and all that fun stuff. :P

But I do have lots of pictures that I took to show everyone! I was able to get away a few times and go exploring and shoot some subjects that I don't get to see around here. Namely lots of water, and very dark skies! I was able to practice some star trails which I have been wanting to do for a long time. Here is the results from that;

Here is a link to the star trails pic

I wasn't too concerned with foreground elements and the like, I just wanted to see if I could get it to work. So this is a result of about 2.5 hours "work". Around 100 30 second exposures stacked with 1 dark frame image. I like the result. Next time I think I will get more shots and work on the foreground of the frame.

So I have processed some of the other images as well, I will link some of the ones I am particularly happy with here, and you can check the rest out in my gallery page under the scenics/landscapes and macro sections.

Here is one of my faves from my last morning in New Brunswick. This was shot in Waterside, NB. Once the sunrise burned away the morning fog, the sky turned an amazing blue. I used a B+W 1000x ND filter to get a 30 second exposure to smooth out the waves. Nikon D80 with 10-24mm at 10mm.

'Morning Tide'

This Church I had passed by on my back to the house from Waterside. I drove by it because I was in a little bit of a hurry. Then I thought about it and pulled a u-turn. I would have hated to have missed this perfect little church atop a hill. I pictured this one in Black and White and I think it turned it out great! Nikon D80 with 50mm f1.8d

'Lonely Church'

This one was also taken in Waterside, NB. I love my 10-24mm lens for how insanely wide it goes. Even if there is no real picture to be taken, I enjoy just looking through the viewfinder sometimes. I had just taken another shot of the water, when I was done I turned around and saw this vast sky and fog coming in on my right. It was such a huge scene I snapped a shot of it. I wasn't sure how it turn out once I got it in the computer, but it worked out well, and gives a sense of the openness of the area. The whole beach area almost looked martian, and you will see that in some of my other pictures too! Nikon D80, 10-24mm @10mm

'Vast'

Well, I need to sleep now, there are a couple of others on my gallery to check out as well. I will post some more up here over the weekend I hope!!

Enjoy the long weekend, and leave a comment if you feel like it, or head over to my Google+ page and hit me up over there! (Link is in the right hand sidebar at the top)

See ya

Almost 5000 visitors to my blog!!

2011-07-06T19:24:00.002-04:00

Hey just a quick note to say that there have been just shy of 5000 visitors to my blog!! Thanks everyone who reads and follows! I know that the posts are sometimes few and far between, but, such is life for someone with 2 kids, a full time job etc :)

Thanks again everyone!

See you later!!

C

New toy, and finally some night sky photography!

2011-07-04T23:20:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone, just a quick one tonight :)

So I got a new toy last week. My old cell phone was dying, so I picked up a Google Nexus S! I love it, it is my first smartphone and I am pretty impressed. I have been playing around with the camera, and it is not too bad! There is a camera app called "Vignette" that is really handy. It has a lot of settings, and can emulate vintage/toy cameras, film, tilt shift, etc all very accurately!

I have started a new gallery on my page aptly titled "Andrography" and it will store selected images I have taken and edited on the phone! So head over there to check it out, and let me know what you think!

Also, I went out of town this past weekend to a place called Orillia, Ontario. It is way out in the boonies, so I lugged along my camera and gear and braved the absurd amount of mosquitoes to attempt some night sky photography! You forget how many stars and how peaceful it is out of the city sometimes. Once my eyes adjusted, I could actually see the milky way! I took a few "decent" shots, but I was disappointed with the whole ordeal. My camera it seems, is not really suited for long exposures. I wanted to try some star trails, and in the resulting pics, there is large spots from where the sensor heated up, turning the image a little purple in the corners. I did manage to get one ok one, and with enough post processing to kill a horse, I got it too look just alright for me :) I think I had too high of hopes. Here it is:

Okay, I gotta run, have to work in the morning. As always, stay tuned for some more shots from my phone, plus maybe a more detailed post about that Vignette app. Also, I have a bunch of old shots from my camera that I am working on atm.

Take care

C

Two new pictures

2011-05-23T02:27:00.002-04:00

Hi!
I have two images for you today! One is an old one that I processed awhile back, but never really liked it. So I took another look at it today and finally got it to look the way I want. So here it is,

'Museum of War'

This is at the War Museum in my home town, pretty ominous building and the black and white conversion really conveyed a great mood in relation to the structure.

The next is a recent one. I took this one in a particularly strong wind storm. I used an ND filter to smooth the waves and the clouds. I shot this in portrait and landscape orientation, but I found the portrait to look better.

'The Bridge'

Okay, that's it for now! Stay tuned, I am slowly working my way through some old pictures and seeing if any are worth uploading. I am getting much more critical of my older shots, so they may never see the light of day :)

Take care!
C

Discussing Thom Hogan's "State of DX" article

2011-03-02T17:46:00.002-05:00

So I regularly follow Thom Hogan's excellent site (www.bythom.com).

He has an interesting article he posted yesterday called the "State of DX" (scroll down a bit on the page).

To summarize, he talks about the current situation for Nikon DX users (like myself). What is happening in the future, what should be happening in the future, and what is not so great right now.

In a nutshell, the DX format will not see too much going on this year, we are most likely getting a D400, and a D5000 update. But it's the lenses that are really a big issue to me at least. I never really thought about it before, but there is a lack of DX lenses that should be a no-brainer for Nikon. For the range I would be interested in (wide angle), there is not much to choose from. We do not have any wide-angle primes, or a DX PC-E lens. Nikon is focusing on it's DX lineup but are shorting us on proper DX lenses for serious shooters. We have tonnes of zooms and kit lenses and the like. We have a 35mm 1.8 prime, but nothing below that. For wide angle, we have the 10-24 or 12-24. But any primes are FX only and really expensive! I for one would love to see a DX PC-E lens, the widest is the 24mm PC-E, but that is not really that wide for DX users.

So, I don't feel too confident moving forward and actually seeing any of these lenses. It seems that they are just focusing on the consumer zoom set of lenses. Moving to FX is not fiscally suitable for everyone, me included. I know there are alot of serious DX shooters who like the smaller size of the DX cameras for travelling light, the extra reach of the 1.5 crop or whatever other reasons. People that use DX aren't just mom and pop wanting to shoot the kids soccer game and whatnot. There are people that make their bread and butter with DX cameras that shouldn't be ignored!

Here is the end of his blurb:

Prognosis: Poor. Nikon will introduce one mediocre body update and maybe one decent one, and have little or nothing to say about significant new DX lenses and the future of DX lenses. Considering that DX is the core of Nikon Imaging's profit engine, this is disappointing and bodes ill for the long-term health of the company.

Well, I hope someone at Nikon reads Thom's article! What are your thoughts??

Layout Changes, Site Redesign Imminent!

2011-01-15T10:04:00.002-05:00

Wow, two posts in one month! Things are looking up :)

As you can tell, I am changing the look of a few things around here. I figure a little revamping is in order. I was never really happy with the layout of my gallery, so over the next little while, I will be rearranging things and generally playing around with a bunch of stuff. Mostly, I think the structure/organization needs to be simplified. I think I have too many categories for images. When I set out to make all those categories, I thought it would aid people in finding what they want, but instead I find it segregates my images to much, and breaks up the flow of the site.

So there you have it, just wanted to keep you all informed. If you have any suggestions or comments, I would love to hear them! Drop me a line in the comments or in email.

ps; the gallery may be inaccessible for short periods if doing some major overhauls is in order. Also, some of my links in the blog may cease to work after I am done moving things around. I will try to keep up with that though.

Butterfly Bracket

2011-01-11T19:22:00.002-05:00

So having read 'Closeups in Nature' and 'Landscape Photography Field Guide' both by John Shaw, I decided to have a go at his macro flash bracket, dubbed the 'Butterfly Bracket' (because he uses it to shoot butterflies). It is a simple construction requiring some aluminum strapping (1/8" by 1" wide) and a small ballhead, and some nuts and bolts. I was unsure of where to obtain the aluminum and I eventually found a source online, but shipping was expensive, so I put the idea on the back burner for a bit. The other day at work, I got to thinking about it again, and decided to ask on of the guys in our maintenance department where I could get some aluminum locally, and explained what I needed etc. He, funny enough, used to work in an Aluminum Foundry, so he knew some spots. So, my luck got better then next day though! I am at work again, and the fellow I spoke to earlier called me into the maintenance shop, and promptly handed me a 7 ft long piece of 1/8" by 1" aluminum strap! One of my coworkers had bought it by accident thinking it was stainless steel, but discovered otherwise when they tried to weld it and it melted under the heat. So he didn't need it anymore and I offered to take it off his hands for $5!! What luck!!

So, now I am set up, I already had a small ballhead that I purchased last year when I first wanted to make the butterfly bracket, so all I needed was to cut and drill the aluminum. All in all, it was pretty straightforward. The only issue is with the flash arm, I didn't have the tools to make a slot for the flash to move up and down, so all it has is a series of holes. I have some leftover strap, so I will make version 2 at some point!

Here are some shots of it, it may not be pretty, but it works! I think the SB-600 is a little heavy for it, so I am going to look into an alternative at some point, maybe the SB-400, or a cheaper non-Nikon brand. I don't need anything too crazy.

And here it is fully loaded!

Alright, that's it for the write up. It is now 2:11am and I am tired. Tomorrow I will post a few shots of the results. There was nothing really interesting around the immediate area, I did find a small spider hiding in my basement though, so check back!

Thanks for tuning in :)
C

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T08:46:00.002-05:00

Well hello everyone,

It's almost 2011! This year has flown by. I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays and has a safe and happy new year!

Just wanted to give an update on the big gift I received this year! My wonderful (and slightly insane :P) wife bought me my long coveted Nikon 10-24mm lens!! I was in shock, and still am when I see it on my camera! It is a beautiful lens and from what I have shot with it so far, it takes amazing shots, really sharp! I am super stoked to get out in the field and test it out. I also got a few other goodies, including a Really Right Stuff 'L' Bracket, a Really Right Stuff Quick Release Plate for the tripod, a hotshoe bubble level, 4 rolls of Ilford 50ISO B&W 35mm film, and my fathers Vivitar 2x Teleconverter for my Nikon F. So it was a good haul for me! How about you?

Well, I am quite caught up with getting things ready for my son's 3rd birthday party this weekend, so I will post pics up after sunday with shots of the lens and the other stuff! Hopefully some test shots from the lens as well :)

Happy New Year everyone! Be safe out there!

Happy Holidays!!

2010-12-24T14:29:00.003-05:00

Hello there, long time no see!

So I want to give a quick update before the New Year on what's been happening over here at Craig Gosling Photography. As of November 25, I am now a father of 2 awesome little boys. The new addition is named Cooper. Also the oldest one turns three in a few days. They grow up so fast! So as you may have figured out, me and my wife have our hands full. It is a little difficult at the moment to maintain a blog, gallery, facebook fan page, twitter account, and find time to actually go take photos, then post process them etc! Phew.. So needless to say, I haven't been doing too much of anything like that. But, the New Year is just that, a new year (obviously, but you know what I mean :) I think Santa (my wife) is bringing me something special this year, I guess I have been a good boy? Expect some news in the next few days with regards to that :) So my plan is to get out some more in the New Year, to finally get my printer that I wrote about a long time ago up and working, to post process my backlog of shots! That's the plan as it stands right now with regards to photography stuff. So thanks for being patient, if people are still reading this blog, stay tuned!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Years to everyone!

A CGP update

2010-09-22T09:31:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone!
So again, I am starting off my post with a "it's been awhile but...."

I will leave out all the details, but suffice it to say, things are a little crazy around here. My wife is 2 months away from having another baby! Haven't had much time for anything other than getting the house ready, nursery etc, and preparing for the little guys arrival.

I have taken a few photos here and there. Haven't had a chance to process them yet due to moving my office to another location. But there is some macro ones and a few landscapes in there. I tried out a new rig for my close ups, reconstituting a Stroboframe Camera flip bracket. It worked out pretty well, once I get to the shots I took using this I will post a shot of the setup as well.

I also have been researching a bit about night sky photography, including shots of the Milky Way. I have been scouting locations online and found this handy site that will give you an idea of light pollution in your area: The Dark Sky Finder

I found a few places I would like to go to check out, probably next year though. I need a faster wide angle lens as well, which I do not have at this time :)

I have been playing with an old Nikon F1 as well. I love it. I have some shots developed, but not scanned. I am looking into investing in a negative scanner, as getting them printed in a lab is far too expensive.

Let's see, what else is new. The new season of Fringe is starting in a few days. That is exciting! If you don't watch it, I suggest you check it out! Also, Dexter is back this coming Sunday. And a new show is premiering on halloween that I am really excited for, AMC's "The Walking Dead"!!

So good stuff is going on all around! Stay tuned for those shots I talked about and more updates later on!

Take care,
C

Here are a few shots I have been working on

2010-07-13T00:17:00.002-04:00

Hey folks, so I finally got around to getting some processing done, here are 3 new shots I have uploaded to the gallery

'Braided Branch'

'Daydream'

and

'Heavy Sky'

I recently was fortunate enough to inherit my fathers Nikon F1 with 2 lenses (thanks Dad!), so I have been playing around with that. I have some film that needs to go get developed (4 rolls from my Diana camera, 2 rolls from the Nikon F1, and 1 roll that I found that is really old and have no idea whats on it). I will scan any good shots and post them up.

My lovely wife also bought me a Zone IV modified Soligor digital spot meter off eBay! It is awesome and I have been using that as well to apply Ansel Adam's Zone System to my pictures. Really fun stuff :)

I am going to write about going back to a film camera soon, and also include a little blurb about the spot meter! Until next time

Craig

Life

2010-06-09T02:17:00.004-04:00

Hey everyone,
So, my last post was awhile ago, and before that, well, that was awhile ago too :)

Right now there is a lot of crazy stuff going on. I would love to sit at home and just blog and do photography stuff all day! I am sure a lot of you would like that. But in reality, I have an intense job, I work 12 hour shifts, 2 weeks overnights and 2 weeks day shift 7am-7pm. I have a two and a half year old son, and me and my wife are expecting our second child!! She is around 13 weeks along at this point, we have no idea what it will be (maybe a girl?? shhh).

All this stuff (aka, LIFE) got me thinking. I am trying to do too much at once. Who can balance working shift work, spending time with my family, photography, kung fu, etc? It's too much sometimes! I read a great series over at Thom Hogan's site about getting back to basics (article here, a great read for every photographer!). He talks about all these new cameras, with auto everything, lenses with VR, autofocus, auto exposure, auto flash, etc etc etc etc. He also mentions (not sure if it's in the same article, but relevant) the emails he gets from people saying they are going on vacation next week, whats the best lens to bring?

So this boils down to people getting "lazy" for want of a better word, with the whole photography process, and getting hung up on gear. I am guilty of this too, I have spend countless hours online, researching, pixel peeping high res shots from various lenses I was interested in, looking at specs of cameras, tripods, MTF charts, distortion characteristics, whatever. I think we need to step back and focus on why we are doing all this stuff, a love for photography! Some of the best photographic memories I have are wandering around my old hometown with a friend, armed with our Olympus OM-1's, and our 50mm lens, taking shots of whatever caught our eyes. There was no auto exposure, no matrix metering, no aperture priority mode, no auto focus. I am starting to ramble here, but the whole gist of this article by Thom Hogan was get out there and grab your camera, grab a 50mm lens (or your favourite prime lens for that matter), set everything to manual and get back to basics.

Well, that article really hit me close to home, sometimes I need to do that with my life! Don't worry about all the other stuff, spend time with my family, play trucks with my son, relax and watch a movie with my wife. Sometimes I think I need to do everything, that I won't have a chance later, or that I need to process those images right away. The majority of the time that stuff can wait. Unless you are a pro photographer, life usually gets in between you and your hobbies. But as long as you can set aside some time for them, to keep sane so to speak, then worry about the really important things.

Anyways, that was quite a rant. It's late, I have been painting my living room and need to go to sleep. But head over to Thom's website and read that article (and all the others on there, lots of great information, especially for us Nikon guys :P).

Hopefully, I will be reorganizing my gallery soon. It is a little too complicated with all the different categories I have going on. When I do that, I will hopefully have a few new images to share with you all. I also have an exciting piece of gear coming to me, courtesy of my lovely wife. Stay tuned for more info on that. I will give you a hint, it is not a lens, it was used, and it came from ebay!

In the meantime, remember: SIMPLICITY

Craig

Finally uploaded a new shot

2010-05-19T23:59:00.002-04:00

Hey folks,
So as the title says, I uploaded a new shot to my gallery. It's nothing too crazy, but I was testing out that new B+W Neutral Density (1000x) that I got awhile back.

This is at the same place I have some other shots of from last year. It was kind of a gloomy day, but I like the way it came out in black and white. This filter allowed me to hold the shutter open for 77 seconds in the middle of the day :) It gave a nice effect on the water and the locks in the background. I am anxious to try this out on some cloud movement as well!

BTW, I just looked on my computer, and I have a ton of images I have to process. It seems I have been falling behind! I am still shooting when I can, but just not getting around to going through them on the computer. I will slowly get through them, and will update here when I post up new (ish) ones.

Oh, and I caught a bit of a documentary on Ansel Adams on TVO the other day. Really interesting stuff! I am going to try to track it down to watch the rest, you should look out for it if you want to hear some of the back story on a legend!

See you around!
C

An Update and some sunny weather!

2010-04-01T16:34:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to give a brief update as to whats going on in my world recently.
Well, the weather is finally turning for the better. I think we are done with the snow (fingers crossed).

I think this summer I am going to be focusing a lot on getting my prints displayed in local venues, small coffee shops etc. I am going to look into local galleries too. I plan on going out some more and exploring the local scenery, I already have a few places in mind and a few visions that I want to see realized on "film" so to speak :)

Hopefully I will get more opportunities to have fun with my Diana camera as well. I have about 3 rolls of film I have yet to develop from awhile back. I like waiting a long time because then its a surprise when you get the shots back! So keep your eyes out for those in the next little while!

I am contributing two prints to be auctioned off to support the Cancer research of an Ottawa doctor, Dr. John Bell (read a bio here). The prints will be sold to support Pedaling Feat. Pedaling Feat are 2 women who are biking across Canada to raise money and awareness for Cancer research. On their journey they will be holding a silent auction where my print will be up for grabs. They have already held one auction on March 27 in Calgary, where my first print was sold and apparently received a lot of positive feedback! Read more on the first silent auction here, (in the first picture, you can see my print in the background! It is "Unlonely" in case you are wondering). Regardless, this is a very worthy cause and one (as you know) that hits close to home! So I encourage you to pop over to their site and have a look through what they are all about, and donate :)!

Okay, let's see, what else is happening. I finally got to experiment with my focusing rail. I put my dead dragonfly to good use and shot a lot of focus stacked shots at high magnifications. I believe they turned out quite well, I have not processed them yet, but I will do so soon and post the shots here for all to see! I don't generally like shots of a dead bug, but this little guy afforded me the opportunity to get some good practice in a controlled environment.

Tomorrow morning I will be making a trip out to some local waterfalls to try out my neutral density filter that cuts out an enormous 10 stops of light!! So we should be seeing some creamy foggy waterfalls.

Well, that's all for right now! Hope you all have a good weekend, and Easter and all that.
Take care
C

Happy Olympics! and other stuff :)

2010-02-22T10:07:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!
So its almost March, the Olympics are in full swing, and hopefully the snow is on its way out.

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on whats happening in my world. Hmm, where to start...hah! There really is nothing too much going on right now! Busy with the family as usual. Work as well.

I have gotten some of my films back from the developer from my Diana camera, you can see them here: link

I also received as a gift, a B+W ND 1000x filter! Which is a neutral density filter that cuts out 10 (yes thats right!!) stops of light. So what this means, is that I can take super long exposures in the brightest of days if I want to smooth out water or cloud movement, or even make a busy street seem devoid of life! I got this filter in 77mm thread size, I do not have a lens with that large of threads (yet) so I had to get an adapter off ebay that would allow me to attach the filter onto my 52mm threaded 18-55 lens. The reason I did this was because in the near future, I plan on purchasing the Nikkor 10-24mm or the Tokina 11-16f2.8 lens. I am still on the fence about which one I want. But they both have 77mm filter threads.

I also got a focusing rail! I am really looking forward to trying that out soon on my test subject, a dead dragonfly :) I am going to use it to hone my focus stacking skills and for taking technical shots at high magnifications of tiny things!

I recently did a job for a client where I needed to take pictures for a brochure for a fitness machine the client had invented. It forced me out of my comfort zone of nature photography and threw me headfirst into shooting a model and controlling light sources and all that exciting stuff. It was really interesting, and I enjoyed it, the pictures turned out great as well! I learned a lot from the Strobist website in my preparation for this assignment. Thanks for making all that valuable info available to everyone! http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Well, I am still planning on doing that write up of my Diana camera (I know, I know, I said that a month ago). Bear with me here, it will get done soon. Maybe now that I have written about doing it twice now, it will make less prone to forgetting about it again. Whoops!

Take care everyone, talk to you soon!
C

Working on another write up!

2010-01-13T09:03:00.002-05:00

Hi, I am getting a lot of positive feedback on my write up for the tripod below on the various forums I frequent. Thanks everyone, I hope it was helpful to anyone in the market for a tripod, or to just open your eyes to another brand :)

I am working on a write up of my Diana F+ camera I received as a christmas present, it should be up soon, most likely after this weekend!

I am also in talks for another advertising gig, the last one was for a local window cleaning company, called Window Butler.

Another reminder to check out Doug Gosling's book, The Wolf at my Door. I created the cover picture for the book. It is about Doug's battle with Prostate Cancer, an excellent read, for anyone who has/had cancer or knows someone who does. It's a real eye opener. It is now available on Amazon here.

Stay tuned for more about my new camera!

Craig

Giottos MTL 9371B / MH 1000-652 First impressions

2010-01-03T20:58:00.010-05:00

Alright, so as promised here is my first impressions and a bunch of pics of my new tripod, the Giottos MTL 9371B and Giottos MH 1000-652 Ball Head.

I received this set up as a Christmas gift (thank you!), so I haven't had it for too long, nor have I had the chance to get out in the field and try it out. But I have toyed around with it in the house, mounted my camera on it and seen how it functions, and I am very impressed! I have not had too much experience with professional quality tripods, but this is a very well manufactured piece of equipment and it both the ballhead and tripod itself feel as if they are the utmost in quality.

Here are some specs before we get into the pics and impressions.

The tripod is a 3 section aluminum tripod with lever lock legs.
The leg diameter is 1.2".
It weighs 5.42 lbs (w/o ballhead).
When it is all folded, the length is 28.7" (w/o ballhead).
Extended height is 63" (5'3"), without ballhead.
Fully extended with center column at full height is 67.7" (around 5'7"), without ballhead.
Minimum height, again without ballhead, is 11" off the ground.
It will support up to 10kg (22 lbs!)

My only gripe so far, is its a little on the heavy side. But that's a minor point of contention for me so far because it will be worth having a quality, sturdy support. I can live with that. Also the carbon fiber version is pretty much double the cost!!

So lets move on to the ballhead's specs

It is 4.7" tall
it has a 2.5" base diameter
it weighs 1.3lbs
it supports up to 10kg (22 lbs)
it has a 3 way bubble level.

Alright, onto the good stuff!

Here it is all folded up and ready to go, with the ballhead. There is some gear around it to give you a little sense of size, my cell phone, my diana camera, and the tools that came with the tripod.

So, lets open it up!

So that's it unfolded, legs still at their shortest.

Lets look at some of the little details here before we get too excited.

Here is the MH-1000 logo on the ballhead.

This is also on the ballhead, the 3 way bubble level.

This is the bubble level on the tripod itself.

Here is the logo and model number sticker on the tripod leg.

This is the toolkit attached to the tripod. More on that later!

Here is the center column tension adjuster:

Okay, lets put a camera on it

and extend the legs by using the lever locks here:

to get to this point:

It seems to be pretty tall!

So it has this 'multi function center column' which is one of the main features I wanted this model for. Especially for my macro work. How this works is you extend the center column fully, then you release the tension on these knobs

and raise the column up, until you can tilt it over like this:

So now you can rotate the column 360 degrees around and lengthen or shorten the column as much as you want. When you get it where you want to go, just tighten up those same knobs and away you go!

Lets talk about the independent moving legs which is another feature I was looking for when shopping around for a tripod.
There is these buttons I will call them on tops of the 3 legs that, when pushed in, restrict the movement of the leg to a preset position for, I will say, 'normal operation'. Being a standard set up, all 3 legs the same distance apart. Here are the 'buttons':

You can pull them out to allow you to pull the leg out further, the above picture shows the leg at the lowest point. There is also a middle point as well.
Here is a picture showing the tripod extended and the 3 legs in different positions, this would be good on uneven terrain:

Using these buttons, if you pull them out and pull the 3 legs out the farthest, you can lower the tripod to its lowest working height. At this point, you will either need to extend the center column to its max extension or it will hit the ground. So you could lower the tripod and use the 360 degree center column mode, like this:

Or, if you remember the toolbag shown earlier in the post, it has a short center column in it. In order to use this, you will need to remove the big center column and also attach the head to the short center column. To swap the head over to the short center column, you need to use the supplied allen key to loosen this screw:

Then you can remove the plate that holds the ball head, and you simply swap it over to the short column, which looks like this:

Once that is done, you can insert the short column into the spot where the bigger column came out. You will need to lock it into place with this little knob, which aligns a small post into the groove of the small column:

and voila! you have your tripod at its lowest point and the short column installed.

(Another selling point with this model is that you can use it without a head by using the short column installed all the time, it will function as a 3 way head on its own.)

Lets talk abit about the ballhead! This is model MH 1000-652. So that means that the ball part is MH1000, and the plate on top of it is MH 652. They came together, you can also get different combos. At some point, I will probably upgrade to a quick release plate, hopefully an 'L' plate, which will let me swap between portrait and landscape orientation without detaching the plate from the camera.

Here is a shot of the ballhead:

The knob on the right, is the locking knob for friction control, the knob on the left is for the socket ball, and the knob on the bottom middle is for the panning base. Pretty self explanatory!
The portion that attaches to the camera is pretty simple as well, you have your plate that screws onto the camera, then you have the part that the plate clips into.
The part that goes on the camera has a slotted screw in the bottom with a little metal tab for easy turning (thank you) like this:

To release the plate from the base, there is a dual action release lever for added security.
So you will push and hold in the little tab I have dubbed '1', then you will pull the tab dubbed '2' over and that will release the plate! Pretty neat

And finally, here is a close up on the panning markers:

So I think that about sums it up!
First impressions are;

Tripod and head seem super sturdy
quality is top notch, feels and looks professional
has all the features I wanted, and then some

So I am very pleased with this tripod! I am super excited about using it in the field and I am sure it will serve me well for a long time!

I highly recommend looking at this model if you are in the market for a tripod

Ok, thanks for reading this, leave me a comment or drop me a line if you want to see some more info or if you have a particular question about it :)

Stay tuned for a write up on my Diana F+ camera (pictured in some of the images above)
Craig

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-22T23:38:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone!
Just wanted to send out a quick note wishing you all a happy holidays and a wonderful new years!
I hope 2010 is going to be another great year for everyone :)

I am back off to toronto for a few days to spend christmas with my aunt and uncle!

Look for new and exciting things from me in 2010, including snowy pictures, my (mis)adventures trying to figure out my printer (still) and some other cool stuff I am sure!

This year went by so fast and a lot happened with me and my photography stuff. Well, just in general actually! My son is going to be 2 in a few days, I got married in Jamaica, I have a photo on a book cover(!!), and I got a new car! I am sure there is other stuff as well.

Well, I should stop procrastinating and get to sleep, since I have to leave at 6am for toronto!
Here is a little photo of my son helping decorate the christmas tree!

Be safe this holiday!
See you in 2010
Craig

The Wolf at my Door

2009-12-15T01:15:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone!
I have some great news!
My Uncle Doug has been writing a book about his battle with prostate cancer and it is now finished and available for sale! The book is titled "The Wolf at my Door". Here is a brief blurb about the book taken from the publishers website:

When Doug Gosling was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer at the relatively young age of forty-nine, it was the beginning of an incredible journey of profound discovery. As he says, “I came to realize that cancer was really two diseases in one; a physical disease of the body and also an emotional disease – a cancer of the mind, if you will.” In The Wolf at my Door, Doug engages us in a deep and open discussion of the two faces of this deadly disease. His incredible story has relevance to people with any type of cancer and, equally, for those who love and care for them.

Click here to check out more on the book and purchase it directly from the publishers site. You can also view his blog "Talking about Cancer".

I have known about this book for awhile now, and when the time got closer and closer to it being completed he approached me with an idea for the book cover, and having seen my photography work, he asked me to create the book cover. At first, he wanted just a picture of a door, then it evolved over time to including many elements digitally added in. Including a shadow of a wolf, and scratches on the door itself from the wolfs claws.

I was honored to be given this opportunity and immediately started scouting locations. I remembered visiting old historic site near my hometown when I was younger and thought it might have what we wanted. So I packed up the camera and the family and drove to go check it out. Well, I was in luck! We found an amazing old door that fit almost exactly with what Doug had described. I framed my shot and snapped a bunch of images. I processed the image soon after and printed a draft copy and sent it to him. He called me as soon as he got it, and said that it was perfect! We were both really excited and quickly began work on the fine details. Here is the image before any manipulation.

Okay, so that's it for now, a little teaser if you will! This weekend we are having a book launch party in Toronto for friends and family. Doug will be signing copies of the book and I will present a time line and progression of the book cover, from concept to finish! When that's done, I will post it up here as well so you all can see the changes the cover went through.

Thanks again for your support! I am very excited to have this book released, and can't wait to read it!
Happy Holidays everyone

Craig

My new toy

2009-11-26T10:20:00.001-05:00

My new toy
Originally uploaded by supervillain1

Here is my new printer, I am in the process of setting it up now! I am very very excited about it!
I will post with more info later on!!

C

Here are some shots from my creepy day in Gatineau

2009-11-08T01:18:00.003-05:00

Hi folks!
Finally got around to processing some of the shots from Gatineau a few weeks back.

So as I mentioned in my last post, it was a lonely and foggy morning. I tried my best to capture a sense of atmosphere and eerieness! The first 2 pics should show that, then the last one is a waterfall that I followed all the way up to the top of the trail!

So I plan to do a write up about the adventure at some point, when I get all the good shots processed, I will either do it here, or on my gallery!

Oh and I bought a new car last week! I picked it up on friday, its awesome!
Here are some pics :)

See ya!
C

Had an eerie adventure today!

2009-10-30T00:54:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!
So I finally got out to Gatineau Park this morning! It was a perfect morning and day! Not too cold, very atmospheric. There was a thick fog for the majority of the morning and it was just the kind of atmosphere I wanted to capture. My mood lately would not have been suited to bright sunny pictures :)

Anyways, here is a shot I took from my phone, not the best quality, but I will post more later on!

Thanks and stop by soon to see more!
C

Lost Forest

2009-10-19T22:33:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone, just a quick little post to let you know I am still alive :)

I was driving to a clients to shoot some pictures and I passed this little pathway. I didn't have time to stop on the way, so I made it on the way back and hoped the light was still good. Although not as good as before, the sunlight was still ok! There was a lot of falling leaves and I tried to capture some of them, but in the shade it was a little more difficult to increase the shutter speed and keep my ISO as low as possible.

I plan on going out on a day trip to Gatineau Park to shoot some more landscapes. It seems like awhile since I have taken any shots for myself!

See you around!

C

It's October!!

2009-10-02T22:25:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone!
Been awhile since I have blogged :) Let's see, what has been going on with me lately? Well, I have been working 2 jobs! My normal job making ethanol, and I got job taking photos for a local company for their website and some printed adverts! It is very exciting, and it's really nice to get a taste of the business side of things! More on that later on, when the job is done :)

I also was the photographer for my good friends Jess & Chester's wedding at the end of the September. It was a lot of fun! I was a little leery about it first, I am used to shooting nature and candid shots of my family and stuff, so this was definitely a new experience for me.

Luckily, they were on the same page as me when it came down to what style they wanted their wedding shot in. I am not one for too much posing and neither were they. They let me work in the background and pretended as if I wasn't there. They also want the majority of shots in black and white!! We all know how that made me feel :D :D :D!!

I ended up renting a lens for the wedding shoot, because the reception venue was pretty dark. I rented a Nikon 24-70 f2.8! It was amazing! Really heavy and built like a tank as well. The pictures it takes are spectacular, I would recommend this lens to anyone! It's a bit pricey though. I didn't think it was going to be wide enough on my cropped frame sensor, but it was perfect! I don't think it left my camera the whole day, asides from a few shots here and there! It was a little sad when I had to bring it back to the store the next day, that's for sure. Again, I am going to put up some shots from that lens soon as well, once I have processed the wedding album for the couple. I will also give a report on the flash brackets I used for the day and the excellent 'Demb Flash Diffuser Pro' that I bought and love!

hmmm, I knew I was missing something! My lovely wife bought me a christmas present! I ruined the surprise though :) The mailman delivered it, I happened to be home that day and answered the door. The package happened to be ripped right where the product name was on the box!! So I ruined christmas this year. She was a little upset to say the least. But, I am even more so the luckiest guy in the world! She had bought me a "Canon PixmaPro 9500" printer!! It is amazing!! It's not hooked up yet, it is huge and I need to clear out some room before I install it.

Well, that's all for now! I must go to bed because I have to work all weekend! But definitely stay tuned for some more updates and pictures, and some product write ups!!
Thanks for reading!

C

under construction again!

2009-08-13T12:40:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!
So (story of my life) I have been super busy this summer! With lots of work, lots of trips to Toronto to see the family, a trip to a cottage etc etc!

I have been taking pictures, but i have not uploaded that many! Finding the time to spend post processing is increasingly hard this summer. I have about 100 images to get through and upload to the gallery!!!

If you have tried to visit the gallery in the last couple of days, you will notice its not there. Rather, it is there, but it is password protected. It will be back, I have just locked it out for the time being so that I can make changes to it without people seeing it until its complete.

So asides from that, there is not too much going on :P

I am shooting a good friends wedding in September, and I have a gig doing some shots for a local companies website and advertisements. More on that later! So things are looking good right now.

Stay tuned for more updates, and follow me on twitter for up to the minute (when I remember) stuff. I also will be sending the occasional picture from my cellphone to 'TwitPic'. Usually of clouds or a sunset or something that catches my eye when I don't have my dslr.

here is few i have posted to twitpic so far

My new cell phone is pretty nice! Maybe I will do a short write up on it in the near future! It's a Sony Ericsson C905A from Rogers. With an 8 megapixel camera on it! Its no D80, but in a pinch its pretty good, and I can make phone calls with it too :)

See ya later!

Need more magnification!

2009-06-14T22:25:00.004-04:00

hi everyone,
so since i have been using my macro lens (which i am stil in love with!) i have been dabbling with greater than 1:1 magnification. i have done a lot of research into the various ways to this. close up diopters, extension tubes, reversed lenses, bellows, teleconverters, etc.

it can be pretty overwhelming and confusing sometimes! As you may remember, before i got the macro lens, i was using a reversed 50mm 1.8d on my camera to achieve 1:1 magnification. albeit at the sacrifice of all the automatic functions of the camera, and working distance! but it worked and was a lot cheaper than a macro lens!

well, now that i can go to 1:1 with all the auto functions and a little over a foot of working distance, i wanted to experiment with more than life size! i spend awhile researching methods to do this and decided on using a combination of a reversed lens and extension tubes. well, i don't actually have the extension tubes, but i am able to reverse my 50mm on the end of my 105mm macro for roughly 3x life size (as far as i am concerned)

I went this route because it seemed to be the cheapest (teleconverters are pricey), have the best image quality (diopters can have a degrading effect on IQ, extension tubes have no optical elements, the nikkor 50mm f1.8 is a quality lens), and have the most potential for portability (try handholding your camera with a bellows attached to it!)

what i wanted for this to work:
-a 52mm to 62mm male-male coupling ring to thread onto the front of the 105mm (62mm filter thread) and the front of the 50mm (52mm filter thread) so i can attach them together.

-this leaves the rear element of the 50mm exposed at the front of your rig, so i was trying to think of ways to DIY a cover for the end of the 50mm involving a rear lens cap that i was going to cut the center out of and MacGyver a UV filter on the end. but i wanted instant (relatively) gratification, so i did some poking around online and found that nikon of all people make something specifically for this!! the Nikon BR-3 has a fitting to attach to the rear part of your lens, and then it has a 52mm filter threading on the other end so you can attach a filter over it, thus protecting the sensitive bits of your reversed lens! i found one on ebay pretty cheap and it works great, although it does cut down your working distance a smidge (more on that later)

-then i just used my flash bracket i made up a while ago (see older posts) and made a soda can diffuser thanks to lordV at dgrin (directions here)

so i was setup. here is a shot of this monstrosity i have created (it will be bigger when the extension tubes come around :) )

if you click and go to the flickr page, look at the full size and you can see the BR-3 on the front with the filter on it protecting the rear element!

well, now its time to take some shots to test it out!
first of, a shot of the millimeter markings on a ruler.

so there is about 8mm shown across the whole frame. so according to the internet ;) to determine magnification by photographing the millimeter markings on a ruler, you; divide the width of the sensor of your camera by the amount of millimeters in your test photo!
so sensor width of a nikon DX dslr is 23.6mm, divide that by 8mm and you get 2.95! so just shy of 3x lifesize :D cool! lets find a bug or something

off i go to the backyard to go crawl around in the grass! here is a little sampling of what i found:

this is one of those dandelion puffballs. the brown stalks are the stems of the actual white wispy parts that fly through the air, and the holes are empty spots where the wispy things used to be (very scientific i know)

Here is the same dandelion, from a different angle, really showing off the detail of the wispy parts stems (i need to figure out what they call those things)

there seems to be a theme here! this is a different dandelion, this one with all its wispy's intact. and covered in water droplets!

Sorry about all the dandelions, we dont really have much of a garden, so all we have is an abundance of dandelions :)

Finally a little creature to capture. i found this fellow enjoying a meal on the bricks of our house.

see a 100% crop here to see the details of the eyes, its amazing!

So, a little on depth of field (how much of the image is sharp). the above images were shot with an aperture of f/16. for landscapes and such, that would usually suffice to render a large part of the image sharp. but at this magnification, its not good enough most of the time, especially when shooting bugs. for the most part, you should attempt to get the insects eyes in focus, unless you are accentuating a particular portion of the body. i managed to do this in the spider image, but you lose the rest of the detail because of the lack of depth of field.

so, to combat this, i am trying to perfect my skills of 'focus stacking'. this is taking multiple exposures of the same shot, but each shot focusing a little farther into the image. you then take all these exposures and you combine them in a program like helicon focus, combine zm, or zerene stacker. the dandelion wispy water droplets picture above is a focus stack of about 3 or 4 frames. i only have a trial version of helicon focus, but it seems to give the best results. combine zm is good and free, but the final stacked image is only 96dpi, which is unfortunate because free stuff is always better :). zerene stacker i just heard of, downloaded it (its still in beta), but i wasnt too pleased with the results, i was probably using it wrong, i am going to try again in the next little while.

**edit** i forgot to talk a bit about working distance! with the normal macro lens, it will focus at about 12 inches in front of the lens at life size magnification. with the reversed lens on the front, i have about 1-2 inches give or take (have not taken an official measurement yet!), and with just the reversed 50mm directly on the camera body, its pretty similar, a few inches. so, for shooting bugs with the macro lens and reversed lens combo, you have to be reeeeeeeeaaaal slow in your approach. i suggest practicing with a non living object, moving in and out of focus so that you get a feel for where that sweet spot is! and as always, although it takes a bit of practice, i suggest manual focus the majority of the time! then you can focus the shot by moving swaying your body back and forth slowly and hitting the shutter at the precise moment you are in focus (of course :) ). i am going to use some electrical tape and tape my cable release to the flash bracket next time i go out and that will probably help out too. also i am going to experiment with mirror lockup, any tiny movement can throw your focus off by a lot!

and, don't get frustrated!! i have a ton of images i have deleted because the focus was off by a hair (literally). it takes a lot of practice, i am still perfecting my technique and am nowhere near as good as i want to be :)

alright, so i didnt intend to type so much, but i guess i get excited when talking about this kind of stuff because its so fun and i still get blown away when i look at a shot of a tiny bug that takes up my whole computer monitor and seeing all the insane details :)

well, thats it for now! i hope this was informative and helpful to anyone wondering about increasing magnification beyond life size! if you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a line!

i will leave you with a cool shot i took a few days ago, called 'i heart you'

spider eating some lunch

2009-06-13T15:06:00.001-04:00

spider eating some lunch
Originally uploaded by supervillain1

here is a 100% crop of a spider :) this was with my macro lens, with a 50mm reversed on the front! i will be making a post soon with more pics!

thanks
C

a couple of shots from the new lens!

2009-05-31T20:15:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone,

so i am totally in love with my new lens :)

i will give you a little rundown on my initial impressions;

1. the lens is built like a tank! its hefty (but not too much), seems to be made of metal, has a rubber seal at the end. the manual focus ring is very smooth and damped

2. focusing is fast and very quiet and spot on

3. images are super sharp and the color is perfect

4. lens hood is very high quality

i would like to write a full blown review at some point, maybe in the next few weeks!

i just ordered a 52mm to 62mm coupler, so i can reverse the 50mm on the front of this lens for greater magnification. that should arrive soon (i hope)

so in a few words, if you can spare the extra money, this lens is by far worth every penny! i have always believed you get what you pay for, and this glass is proof of that! 5 out 5 stars :D

here are a few shots i have taken, there is many more, but we are in the final stages of planning the reception and we have to get everything ready! once its all over, i should have some more time to make more posts :) thanks for reading, till next time!

C

'Network'

'Nothing Else Matters'

'Sol'

I am lucky, oh so lucky

2009-05-26T23:18:00.002-04:00

Okay, just a quick note :)
sooo, got my birthday present today. My amazing, beautiful wife set up a fundraiser and pooled the money together and got me a.........

Nikon 105mm f2.8 Macro Lens!!

holy crap

this is my holy grail, i have wanted this lens forever now, and i actually own one, i cannot believe it! i will post some pics up real soon! i took about a million today just trying it out.

i want to thank all those who contributed! especially Dayna! Love you xoxox

thats all for now! i think i will get some sleep, seeing as i have to work all day tomorrow. although i would love to be out shooting with this new amazing glass...ah well, another day!!

take it easy!

C

whats new?

2009-05-25T11:29:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!

so, whats new, you ask? well, me and dayna have been pretty tied up getting things together for the wedding reception! its coming up fast!
in 2 days i will be turning 26! thats pretty exciting :)

i have been reorganizing my gallery, to try and categorize the images. i thought i finished the other day, but i asked dayna to go through it, and she noticed it was a bit too much! so i changed it again, i think i have got it now. its in a constant state of tweaking but its fairly close to where i want it!

hmm, what else. at work the other day, they brought a photographer in (Blair Gable) to shoot the plant and some people working for a promo. you should check out some of his stuff on his site, very good portraiture and photojournalism stuff there!

i got around to putting a couple of new images up on the gallery.

'Rise and Shine'

'Exodus'

'Rescued'

'Slow Drip'

'Swirling Daydream'

I have more black and white landscapes i did a few ago, i will put them up later!

I am off to go read a book, Dayna just got me this for my birthday 'John Shaw's Business of Nature Photography'

see you later!!

making some changes!

2009-05-15T23:05:00.001-04:00

my site is being revamped, so the images are moved around and some of the links in this blog will not work! bear with me :)

Making use of an old flash bracket

2009-04-23T21:14:00.004-04:00

Hi there!

just some updates:
first, i have surpassed 1000 visitors to my gallery page! :D :D :D if i had have known who was the 1000th visitor, you may have got a prize...
second, i built something cool out of an old flash bracket for macro photos!

i got the brilliant idea from the macro guru over at DGRIN, Lord Vetinari!

basically, you take your flash bracket, buy a cheap ball head at your local camera shop, and get some 1/4" bolts. then, i had to drill a hole in the top of the flash bracket to put the bolt through, i then attached the cheapo ball head to the top of the bracket. my sb-600 came with a tripod hookup, so i attached that to the top of the ballhead, then attached the flash to that, allowing me to swivel the flash around and point it in front of the lens! this cost me about $25 to do. my flash brackets handle got in the way of the bolts a bit, so i had to do some 'dremeling' of the plastic to make it fit, but it worked out wonderfully!

please forgive the quality of the images, i whipped them up in a few minutes just to show off the rig :)

i will post some test shots that i took with this beast after the weekend, i am working for the next 3 days so i wont be doing much shooting! but the weather is turning out for the better, so i will be able to find some bugs soon! *fingers crossed*

stay tuned!

The Nikon BR-2A Macro Reversing Ring

2009-04-03T21:17:00.005-04:00

okay! i got an exciting thing in the mail the other day!
a nikon br-2a macro reversing ring!

for those that have not heard of this, it is a metal ring with a 'f mount' connector on one side, and a 52mm filter thread on the other. this allows you to reverse mount a lens onto the camera, effectively turning any lens into a macro lens, capable of 1:1 magnification. they suggest using a normal lens 50mm or so, a prime lens is ideal, also if it has an aperture ring, it makes life a lot easier.

i ordered from ebay, and it arrived from hong kong really fast! i had read online about ways to make one, involving an old uv filter, a lens body cap, epoxy, a dremel tool etc etc. i did not have the motivation to do this, and i wanted something a bit sturdier.

the br-2a is all metal and nice and chrome looking :) it was a little stiff to put on at first, but with a little coaxing it got on there. once you mount it on the body, then you just thread your lens on it like you would a normal filter.

here it is! nice and shiny

nikon lens cap and br-2a

A shot with my 50mm reversed on the camera!

first impressions:
-very fun! i went around my house taking pictures of light switch screws, peeling paint, nick knacks, and other random stuff. there is a ton of different subjects that open up to you when you can shoot like this.

-lighting is a bit of a problem. when the lens is mounted like this, metering doesnt work, and the flash needs to be set manually. after some playing around, i was able to get the best results with the lens aperture set at f/8 and the on board flash at 1/16 power. any smaller aperture and it gets hard to see the image in the viewfinder, and depending on the image you desire to take, you can go larger on the aperture, but DOF is super shallow as it is, and you may end up grossly overexposing the shot! but the fun thing about it is experimenting :) i did mess around with my sb-600 off camera, but it was really hard to hold the flash and stay steady with the camera. so until i can modify my flash bracket, thats a no go! luckily the on board flash is suitable for the time being (albeit a little flat)

-focusing takes a bit to get used to! seeing as i never used a proper macro lens before, it took a bit to get the hang of focusing with this shallow of a depth of field. basically you set the lens at infinity, then move the camera back and forth to focus. once you do it a couple of times its all good. as i mentioned earlier the DOF is so shallow, even breathing can put you out of focus. i am going to play around with mirror lock up and using my cable release once i get the flash bracket done up.

all in all, i am loving this little gizmo. i could go around my house all day finding wierd and wonderful little things to shoot. and its a blast to look at the details you can capture once you view the pics on the monitor!

for post processing these images, usually i will bump up the clarity, then sharpen in photoshop.

here are some test shots. these were taken the first day i got it, and i had no regard for composition, lighting, subject etc. these are straight out of the camera, only resized in lightroom:

final impressions:
-neat little thing to have in your camera bag! very cheap alternative to a true macro lens. but with that being said, if you are serious about macro photography, i would recommend spending the money for a true macro lens. for insects and living critters, with a reversed lens, you need to be really close to focus, this could scare them away. for flowers and still life subjects, this is an okay setup, but still, metering and ttl flash support is pretty handy, and you just dont have it with this.
all in all, i like the extra versatility this gives me, and it will for sure tide me over until i get my nikon 105mm VR (!). i have plans for that lens when i get it as well :) i am looking to get a full set of extension tubes, then use the 105mm vr, then reverse the 50mm on the end of that! it should be crazy :D

well, i hope you enjoyed my little review! and here is one final shot i took yesterday of a sluggish housefly on my windowsill. i converted it to HDR because i thought it was a little bland in its original state (which you can see here)

take care everyone!!

added a few new pictures

2009-03-23T20:11:00.004-04:00

hello! so my weekend was quite busy. friday was a write off seeing as i just got off the overnight shift. saturday we went to a friends house for dinner and ate a lot of food and hung out with the kids! sunday, we got our dog trained by "Barkbusters". It worked out quite well, and we are seeing a big improvment!

i did get some time to work on some pictures though. we will get to them in a minute. but first, i sold 2 more prints!! thats really good news and i am really happy to see my work go up on more peoples walls!

i also ordered a Nikon BR-2A reversing ring to tide me over until i get a macro lens :) once it arrives, i will post some pictures up for all to see!

without further adieu, here are the 3 new pictures i put up last night!

'Silk'

'Scorched Earth'

'Venting Spirits'

Hope you enjoy, as always, if you pop by the gallery, don't be shy and sign the guestbook or leave some comments! i always love to hear from you!

see ya next time!
C

New pictures will be up this weekend!

2009-03-19T10:37:00.002-04:00

Hey all,
just wanted to give a quick update, i am working on some new pictures to add to the gallery this weekend! so stay tuned, i will add some links once they are up!

nothing else is really new, my lovely wife got me these a few days ago, so i am playing around with them, i think will make some neat effects with macro photos, water drops and other things.

i am also planning to get an infrared filter soon as well. i have been able to reproduce the effect in post processing sometimes, but i want the real thing :)

in the future, when i upgrade to a new body, i will keep my d80, and get it modified for solely IR use!! but thats a long ways off, unless i win the lottery or sell a lot more prints (hint hint :) )

anyways, i have to work tonight (ugh) and there is lots of cleaning to do around the house, and i need to work out!

also, my condolences go out to the family of my Si-Kung, Grand Master Sunny Tang (Dunn Wah) of Scarborough, whose mother recently passed.

take care everyone
C

An update

2009-03-15T07:47:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone, so i have had a pretty busy couple of weeks...we went to toronto and dunnville, ontario last weekend to visit my grandmother and my uncle! we had a really good time as always! There is a link in the sidebar to his blog "talking about cancer" that is a very good read. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer about 7 years ago, he thought he got rid of it, but it came back again. The worst things always happen to the best people. He is such a strong person. it really makes you think about the important things in life and that would be family, friends, and just making the most out of everything.
My aunt and uncle were generous enough to invite us back for a few days around easter! so that will be fun. and that weekend is also my wife's birthday, so it will be a good time. anyways, i am off now, i just got home from a night shift, and need to eat! hopefully there will be some new pictures uploaded to my gallery later this week! stay tuned

to my uncle doug, you are an inspiration! stay strong, we love you very much and will see you soon!

C

some new pictures up!

2009-03-02T09:50:00.002-05:00

hey all!

as you may have noticed, the layout of this page is ever changing. i am trying to match it as closely as possible to my gallery pages so the transition is barely noticeable. i think it is coming along nicely! i am getting a lot of help from Denise Goldberg (website here) who is an avid poster and blog customization expert at Dgrin (the Smugmug users forum). So thanks again Denise!

Well, i have put up some new images to my gallery! a few in the 'Landscape' page and finally a couple in the 'Break from the Norm' page.

be sure to check them out!

'No Escape'

'Tree of Life'

'Mystic'

Enjoy, and talk to you later

C

Been working on my Gallery page

2009-02-25T23:05:00.004-05:00

Hey everybody! long time no talk.
things have been crazy around here! new work hours, my sisters wedding in a couple of days, laziness, etc.

but i have been working hard on getting lots of new stuff onto my gallery page. i also lowered the prices about 10-15% for prints in honor of this whole page getting up and running and all that!

so feel free to stop by and check it out, see the contact page if you want to get in touch me! also, leave comments and feedback, i always love hearing some constructive criticism or if one of my pictures caught your eye! here is a few of my faves so far:

thats all for now!
i plan to be working more on this page now that i have my gallery customization pretty much where i want it, so i can now focus on doing some of those things i talked about a long time ago on here, ie: reviews, techniques, etc.

okay, its off to bed, enjoy the pictures and take care

till next time
C

things are looking up :)

2009-02-18T19:16:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone!
so i just got back from jamaica a few days ago! i had a blast! the wedding ceremony was amazing! i took about 600 pictures while i was there, and i am quite happy with a lot of them!
since i have been back, i have been working hard on my smugmug page (looky here ). there is more photos being added quite frequently. so please check it out, and let me know what you think! feedback and critiques are always welcome (constructive of course).

also, my beautiful wife bought me a cokin circular polarizer as a wedding gift :) very excited about that, it came in handy on the beach!

well, i have to go to work now, so i will leave you with a shot of us from our wedding to make you all jealous!

see ya!!

c

Some Construction Going on

2009-01-30T23:20:00.004-05:00

okay, so some of my links in my old blog posts are going to be messed up for a bit!
i am transferring my photo hosting to smugmug!! thats really exciting news, that means prints will be able to be purchased and my site will be far more organized. so i am keeping flickr for stuff i want to post to forums and stuff, so i am purging it right now, thats why the links wont work. bear with me, everything will be in order in a few weeks!!
check it out: http://craiggosling.smugmug.com/
take care!!
C

new year! new gear

2009-01-20T23:37:00.004-05:00

hi
its 3 weeks into the new year! 2009, crazy stuff....the states has a new president as of today!! thats really good, glad to see bush out of there and am very interested in what obama is going to do for the country. we need someone like him up here in canada! lets see, what else is new, i am getting married in a couple of weeks in jamaica!! i am super excited about that. my son is now officially a year old as of december 27th, cant call him a baby anymore, now he is a toddler. he is very close to walking on his own and is imitating so much (he can wave now!!)

hope the holidays were good to everyone. they certainly were for me. my soon to be wife was, as usual too good to me! she got me a bunch of nice clothes, and a lowepro primus AW camera bag!! from the rest of the family i got about $450 in gift certificates to my fave camera shop. so after much deliberating, i went to the store on boxing day, and bought a whole bunch of stuff:

SB-600 speedlight
mc-dc1 cable release
nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens w/ uv filter
sto-fen omni bounce for speedlight
spare 4GB sd card

that should tide me over for a bit, dont you think?
i LOVE the lens, its barely left my camera since i got it. such a quality difference from that to the kit lens. and the razor thin DOF is very fun to play with. the flash is also amazing and opens up all sorts of possibilities. dayna really wanted me to get it after i borrowed my dads and she saw the pictures, everything is so bright and vivid. if you take a lot of indoor shots, i highly recommend it! a big step up from the little built in flash.

i am going to set up a proper website soon with a image gallery and whatnot. a couple of friends were looking through my images and found the layouts of the flickr page and blog a little busy/confusing. so i will probably keep this page for writing about whatever and have the other site as a means to purchase prints and look at what i am currently working on! i know its not much now, but its hard to get out all the time, plus its friggin cold here now. i went out the other day to shoot this shot:

and nearly froze my fingers off! plus i dont have winter boots so my shoes were full of snow. oh well, i got the shot and it turned out as i wanted :)
i also got the chance to play around with light painting the other day, this is something i have been wanting to do for awhile but never got around to it! so dayna was out with a friend and the little man was asleep so i went to the basement and experimented a little.
here is a couple of shots i thought were cool:

well, thats all for now, i am off to bed! have to work tomorrow ugh...why cant i just win the lottery??

oh and just one more quick thing!! i sold 4 of my pictures last week!!!!!!!!!!!!! i was getting a little discouraged to be honest, but yah, 4 pictures!! they are on there way here from the print shop, i am super excited... btw, i am happy to sell any of my pictures as prints, so please buy some :D

phew that was long winded!! good night

happy holidays!!

2008-12-24T09:24:00.003-05:00

just wanted to wish everyone a happy holidays, however and whatever you celebrate! thanks for checking the blog out. my new years resolution (one of them anyways) is to update this page more!
i have begun working on my long term review for the D80, so thats coming along.
i also got to play around with a sb600 speedlight yesterday, and it was amazing! so for christmas, i had asked for money from everyone to get a new lens, but now i am seriously thinking about the flash. it changes the images completely! you will see some in a little bit, when i get around to posting some on my flickr page!
on another note, i joined deviantart recently. figured it was a good place to get some images out there as well. i just started that page, so eventually i will have prints available to purchase as well as some desktop wallpapers and things like that! here is the link: My deviantART page
check it out, and leave some comments if you would like, i always enjoy receiving feedback!
take care everyone and all the best in the new year!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T23:59:00.001-04:00

loving it!
Originally uploaded by supervillain1

Here's my little guy all dressed up for halloween! we went out trick or treating and had a grand ol time!

200 visitors!

2008-09-30T13:32:00.002-04:00

hey everyone,
just a quick update to say thanks for checking out my blog! there has been just over 200 visitors since i started it :)
i know it hasn't been too interesting as of yet, i have been really busy as of late! i am working on writing some reviews of my stuff at the moment, those will be up soon. anyways, take care everyone, and check back soon and hopefully i will have found some time to update the site

craig

all hail the mighty spoon

2008-09-11T10:30:00.001-04:00

all hail the mighty spoon
Originally uploaded by supervillain1

here is my latest favorite pic of Levi! I was trying to get him to feed himself, he was more interested in the spoon than the food! Oh well, gotta start somewhere, right?

blue colored berries

2008-09-02T09:32:00.001-04:00

blue colored berries
Originally uploaded by supervillain1

just testing the 'blog this' button in flickr! i shot this at the cottage trip while hiking through the forest

Flickr

2008-09-02T09:31:00.001-04:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

New Stuff

2008-08-27T11:11:00.010-04:00

Good morning

Okay, so a couple more things:
I can now make prints for anyone who is interested! I am able to make prints on high quality photo paper, or even canvas! I can get them mounted on a variety of frames or have it shipped rolled up for you to mount or frame! This is very exciting news, and I hope that some of you readers out there support my hobby enough to get a print done! So, I don't really have any prices off the top of my head, but if you head over to my flickr page, you can pretty much pick any of the images and contact me and we can work out the details on prices, paper, mounting and all that exciting stuff! I was playing around with Photoshop and realized I can do some pretty large prints if you are so inclined :)

Just got back from a vacation

2008-08-22T15:25:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!

Its been awhile since I have posted anything. I have been a very busy man the past couple of weeks. I am off work this week and the family and I made it up to a cottage on Chandos lake and had a great time! I got many nice shots of sunrises over the lake and I went on an adventure through the forest and got some good shots of some mushrooms and other forest like things. I had my tripod strapped to my back, and i guess the leg got caught on a tree while i was hiking around and snapped off. I didnt hear it because I was listening to some music, so now i have no tripod. We also went to vist my aunt and uncle near Toronto and had a great time there as well.

I am slowly but surely processing the images from the cottage and also the ones from the Olympic Flag raising on the 8th! Hopefully by next week i will have them up and ready to go. I dont have time to link the pics in this post, so as usual, go to my flickr page and look in the set "Summer Vacation 2008" and "Olympic Flag Raising". I will most likely edit this later and embed the images tonight.

I also changed the blog title picture to one i particularly liked from the cottage of a sunrise and some fog over the lake. I converted it to black and white in photoshop.
bye for now, enjoy the last week of summer! :)

been busy!

2008-08-01T11:37:00.004-04:00

Hello everyone
I have been busy the past couple of weeks with work and the family. but we did get to go to Huntsville, Ontario to see my fiances aunt this past weekend! so we got to drive through Algonquin park which was very nice. of course i had my camera and got some really good shots. her aunt has an insane garden and i went a little nuts in there with the camera! but, came away with a ton of beautiful flower close ups!
i am going to link a couple here and you can check out the rest on my flickr page!

I tried to take some pictures of the stars while i was there, but it proved to be a little more difficult than i thought it would be! plus its hard to take a long exposure with no remote shutter release, so i will hold off on that for now!
Here is a neat little shot i did up of dayna and levi. i was going for a sort of 'Dave Hill' look, but i added a bit more softness to make it look a little more dreamy!

Awhile back, we had a family gathering at my folks place, and my grandfather was there. i had my camera around my neck the whole time and he got to calling me "Karsh", who was a famous canadian portrait photographer (more information) who photographed the famous winston churchill picture and many many others! all his work is very dark and moody black and white photos. while portraits arent really my thing, i really do like his work! so i thought i would create a karsh inspired photo of my grandfather! i think it turned out ok, it was color to begin with then i messed around with it in photoshop to alter the lighting and the color.

well, thats all thats new for us! next week there is a wushu demonstration in ottawa to commemorate the beginning of the olympic games in beijing! so my kung fu club is going to do a demonstration for the public and the politicians! i am hoping to get some photos of that which i will share with you all!

have a good weekend! i wont, i am working nights for the next 3 days, ugh :P

A brief history of..me

2008-07-21T10:12:00.004-04:00

So, I thought I would share a little history about myself and how I got into photography.

My father was always into cameras and photography. I remember him using his old Nikon ‘F’ for family portraits and such. I recall enjoying even using disposable cameras when we were on vacations when I was a kid and was always taking weird and wonderful shots. One day, when I was around 13 or 14, I wanted to use my dad’s camera. He wouldn’t let me (understandably :)). But he went digging in the basement and came up with something better than letting me use his camera…he gave me an old Olympus OM-1, in a vintage camera bag stuffed with goodies!! I couldn’t have been happier! Inside the bag was the camera with a 50mm f1.8 lens, a Makinon 80-200mm lens, cable release, some filters, an old copy of the National Geographic Photographers field guide, and an off camera flash mount! I couldn’t have been more excited. So I go buy some film and start shooting everything I can!

My best friend happened to have the same camera (in silver, so we could tell them apart) and he had a wide angle lens for his. So we would wander around my hometown, finding fun and exciting new places to take pictures! I still have a lot of them, so when I get a scanner, I may find the time to upload them. As I got older, and technology advanced, I got my hands on my first digital camera, a Panasonic DMC-F7. This camera was a little cheaper to operate, seeing as by now I was about 16 or so, and had more teenager-ish things to put my money towards ;). So I used this for awhile. It was a very good camera for its time, it had an excellent Leica lens and was great for macro shots. A year or so after I go that camera, my father had gotten a new digital camera, and I inherited his old one, a Nikon Coolpix 4300. This was an awesome camera. It had full manual control if I wanted it, excellent IQ and it was relatively small.

Now, I have never really known what I wanted to do in life, some people have it planned out from childhood. But I always knew I wanted to do something with photography, even if it was just to take a course in school for it to learn some fundamentals. Well, that wish came true in 2007. My lovely fiancé, being the super thoughtful person she is, enrolled me in an online photography course through ICS Canada! When I am done, I will have a Career Diploma in Photography. The course is a little old school, but that’s okay, it covers developing and all the essentials on the fundamentals of photography (the stuff that never changes anyways). And, that’s why I wanted to upgrade to a DSLR, because I have a little more freedom to play around and experiment with pictures and not have to worry about wasting film and not knowing what the image looks like until I process it. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my OM-1 and will still use it when I want that nostalgic feeling.

So, before I got my D80, I had done extensive research on new cameras and thought I wanted to stick with Olympus. I had my heart set on the E-510. Then one day, we go to my parent’s house, and he had just bought a Nikon D60. I tried it out, and instantly loved how it felt in my hands and the layout of the menu and all the controls! So I flip-flopped back and forth with the idea of the Olympus E-510 or the Nikon D60. I went to my camera store and held the E-510, and it didn’t feel as nice in my hands, and I found the menu system not as intuitive. So I ruled that camera out. I went back to the drawing board, and started researching the Nikon’s. I took some more time with my dad’s D60, and while I liked it a lot, thought I might want something more advanced that would let me grow a little more into the camera and its functions. That’s when I found the D80. It had everything I wanted and then some. I went to the camera shop and held it. The decision was made right there. Roughly the same ergonomics as the D60, but a bit bigger, and more direct access to all the settings, plus a top LCD. Also, more autofocus points, and autofocus support for older lenses!

So, now the problem was funding. I had been laid off from my job at Dell in January. And we had just had our son, so money was a little tight to say the least. I started a camera fund, and put all my spare change into a container in the hopes of being able to put some money towards it by the end of the year. My birthday came around in May, and I asked if I were to get anything, it be a gift card to the camera shop. Well, at the time, I was spending too much time researching, and looking at lenses I wanted for a camera I didn’t even have yet! My fiancé and my baby wanted me back. So she started a fundraiser. She sent out a letter to all our family asking to put in money so she could get me a gift card so I can finally get this camera. Well it worked! I got from work on my birthday, I had a vague idea of the fundraiser plan, so I was expecting a gift card, for maybe a couple of hundred dollars. I got lead upstairs, and there are 2 boxes on the bed. They are both bigger than a gift card. I am speechless at this point. I open them up as fast as I can. Inside, is the Nikon D80, 18-55 VR lens, am 8GB SDHC card, and a Lowepro camera case!! Holy crap. First I get the gift of our beautiful baby boy, then this! I am very lucky, to say the least. I think I said thank you to Dayna more times in the weeks to follow then I have ever said in my life. And the rest, as they say, is history :)

Thanks for reading my long post! As a reward, here are some new shots!

a bit of a disappointing day

2008-07-12T16:55:00.003-04:00

So, my local camera shop, Henry's, was having a big gift certificate giveaway today. they were giving out 99 gift certificates with values ranging from $10 to $500(!) to the first 99 people through the door! So, i wake up extra early (for a day off) and head out with book and mp3 player in hand. I got there at around 8:15am (doors open at 10am). I was the sixth person in line. I tried to not get my hopes up on getting the big gift certificate because I didnt want to jinx it. But in my mind I had visions of getting a lens, or a new camera bag, or the D80 battery grip! At around 9:15am, my fiance calls and offers to bring me some water and a couple of cookies, i accept. she packs up the baby and comes and meets me, and being the loving person she is, she offers to stand in line at the end and get another certificate for me! Anyways, i finally got in, and picked my gift certificate, hold my breath and open it, and its for $10!!! Ah well, there is still Dayna's, right?? Well, she got a $10 dollar one as well. So, in the end we got $20 bucks. No lens for me. I got a lens hood for my 18-55 lens, and a Giottos rocket blower to go with my lens pen. Better than nothing, but i was a little disappointed to say the least!

I took a couple of shots over the last few days, mostly of Dayna and Levi. Here are a couple:

Well, thats if for today! I am trying to make it downtown to take some building shots and the likes, hopefully i can do that this coming week! And if anyone wants to donate to my cause, let me know (ha ha)

andrew haydon park and a spider

2008-07-07T16:46:00.002-04:00

finally got around to uploading some pictures i took at the park! have a look..also, while eating breakfast, i saw an awesome looking spider on the kitchen window and i had to take his picture as well...here are the links

I find myself taking more and more macro shots all the time...i definetly want a macro lens as one of the first ones i am going to buy! so it will be the sigma 150mm macro or the sigma 10-20 as my next lens! i can't wait :)

i have the majority of this week off, so in between hanging out with my fiance and son, i will try to make some wallpaper sized backgrounds of some of my pictures and put them up for anyone who wants to d/l them!

just a quick note

2008-07-06T19:21:00.003-04:00

me and the family went to the park on saturday, and i got some cool shots. i will put them up when i get back from work in the morning, but here is a neat one of my fiance by a waterfall i thought i would share! im a lucky guy :)

check back later for some more shots! have a good night

Macro photos

2008-07-04T10:18:00.005-04:00

Gooday folks
so i finally got around to putting up some macro photos on my flickr page. So here they are, go check them out, feel free to let me know what you think. These were all taken with the 18-55 kit lens, handheld. One of these days i am going to get a macro lens :)
Here are 2 of the shots...click on either one to go there respective flickr page.

Or, click here to see the whole set!

on a side note, all images are shot raw (nef) format then if needed, post processed in capture nx2 or photoshop 7. the images i upload are then resized.

the plan for this page

2008-07-02T15:59:00.002-04:00

okay, if anyone is reading this, they are probably wondering why do i have a blog? who is this guy? and why should i care?
frankly, i cant answer those questions for you (i do know who i am though)....
but i can tell you what i want to do with this space.
I am a camera and photography nut, so with this page i wanted to be able to track what i am photographing and post those pictures.. i would also like to take certain pictures and make them available as desktop wallpaper, and if people become interested in my work, i can offer prints as well!
i will also plan to write some reviews on equipment as i get it. I have been shooting film for a long time and just got my hands on a Nikon D80 with 18-55 kit lens. I will write a review of that soon.
as i get more glass i will talk about that too. its kinda hard to drop all my money into my camera with a 6 month old and a wedding coming up :)

so thats the plan, of course, every now and then i will have to talk about stuff that bugs me or i like in true blog fashion.
thats it for now, time to enjoy my weekend
take care

off to work

2008-07-01T19:16:00.002-04:00

i am leaving for work,
look at my flickr page though and you can see some shots i have taken in the meantime...it is updated quite frequently and i am working on a batch of macro shots to put up in the near future.

FLICKR page

and here is a pic of levi and my dog bailey

Welcome

2008-07-01T09:44:00.002-04:00

Hello Internet
this is a place i will use to talk about stuff going on, but mostly about photography, and links to the pictures i have taken!
i am not going to write much now, because i just got home from working a 12 hour night shift and my baby is crying!

talk to you soon