It’s been a while since I’ve posted a photo post, so here is a newish one from a couple of recent shoots with TSG (Toronto Strobist Group).

First a sample from our Holiday 2010 shoot (Full flickr set can be viewed here).

Next is the Stroboscopic shoot which was a lot of fun (Full flickr set can be viewed here).

The final set is from a quick get together with a couple of the members to try and produce a sport/jogging commercial photo (Full flickr set can be viewed here).

These were taken a while back, before I moved to the new house. I thought it might be a good visual review of the Hipstamatic and Lo-Mob Apps for the iPhone. Ofcourse there are literally a bazillion combinations of effects between these two apps. The complete set  is on flickr.

I finally got a chance to go through 3000 frames of TIA2010 this weekend. Here is a sampling of what was buzzing/roaring around Toronto…..The full set is on flickr as usual.

Yep, new pics from a recent trip. If you ever get a chance and you’re around Wyoming, you might want to drop by these two parks. They are absolutely awesome. Best time is probably May-September. We were there on April 16th (for 4 days) and some of the roads (actually a lot of them) were closed due to snow. Check their website for road closures…..they are not kidding, there is tons of snow up there The rest of the set is on Flickr as usual.

Wow I just realized I hadn’t posted any of my recent photos. I think the last set was from my trip to Portland. Anyways, I guess this will be a combo post. I’ve been busy shooting people for a bit before the holidays (Toronto Strobist Group and a private shoot) and while that was fun, I also gave food a try recently. I have to admit Food Photography looks easy (light from the back, blah, blah, blah), but it’s damn hard to get a good shot. Getting the food to do what’s in your head is another mammoth task, all hail the Food Stylists, they are (potentially) more important than the photographer. Last but not least, was my night out with the Toronto Photographic meetup group. More than a hundred photographers decended on Markham Theater for Performing Arts to photograph Ballet Jörgen Canada’s dress rehearsal for Cindrella.

As always the full photosets are here, here, here and here .

Check out Alex Roman’s “The Third & The Seventh” video. Absolutely amazing and right up there with some of the best produced pieces of art I’ve seen on the net. The amazing part is that except some small compositing elements, the rest of the movie is ALL 3D. Watch it in full screen for the full effect (and turn up your sound to 11) .

Andy Wilsheer is one lucky photographer (and he’s got coconut sized pure brass family jewels). Check out the series of images he shot as a runaway dragster flies by his lens. Absolutely incredible.

Well, if you like the city of Prague like I do (by far my favourite city to visit in Europe), you’ll get a kick out of this 18 GigaPixel gigantic panorama photograph (Credit: Jeff Martin) shot from the TV tower. This image is the largest spherical panorama in the world as of Dec. 2009. Follow this link and make sure you’re on a fast computer .

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted any pics. I’ve been transfering my workspace from my old Macbook Pro to the new 27″ iMac, so things have backed up a bit. Here are the pictures from a recent trip to Portland Oregon to attend the Super Computing Conference.

As usual the complete set can be viewed on flickr.

Normal Digital Camera’s — including DSLR’s and high end medium format cameras — all use a method called Bayering. This is achieved by overlaying a colour filter across the imaging device (CCD/CMOS) to capture a single colour (R, G or B) per pixel. The final image is a interpolation of these individual R-G-B pixel values.

There have been some technology developments recently like the Foveon X3 that allow RGB colours to be captured at every pixel site, but their sensor size and resolution is limited for now. That’s where the Hasselblad H3dii-39MS fits in. This body is fitted with the medium format (36x48mm) 39 megapixel sensor that can be optionally used in what Hasselblad calls Multishot mode.

The multi-shot technology realizes the capture of still life subjects with all details represented in true detail and color resolution. High precision piezo motors control movements of the sensor in one pixel increments. By capturing a sequence of 4 shots, each offset by a one pixel increment, every point on your set is rendered with its true red, green and blue color components. The result is full colour information from the sensor with no artifacts like moiré, common with single shot capture.

Wow, I still remember this day. I was a first year Mathie at University of Waterloo and was having my “liquid lunch” at the bombshelter when the live coverage of “Mauerfall” started……What a amazing experience that was. Follow this link for a set of amazing pictures from past and present, from the fall of the wall.

Picture courtesy of Sue Ream, photographer (San Francisco, California)

Had sometime to kill on the weekend and a couple of Pomegranates were asking to be eaten . So I decided to photograph their trip to my tummy….complete flickr set here.

It’s late fall here in Toronto and I thought I give my M42 Russian lens, Helios 40-2, one more test. This time going for colour and as much swirly bokeh as this thing can produce…..

The colour reproduction of this lens is muted. It needs a bit of a kick, but once you kick it up a notch and add some contrast, it rocks. Check out the swirly bokeh in the out of focus leaves. Full flickr set is here.

This is slightly old, but it’s still officially fall…..so here are a bunch of fall colour shots from a recent Toronto Photographers Meetup Group trip to Hockley Valley, Cannings Falls, Hogg’s Falls, Eugenia Falls and Old Baldy Lookout Point. Complete flickr set can be viewed here…..

More fall colours to come…..stay tuned…

If you’re using any one of Windows XP, Vista or 7 Platforms in 32 or 64 bit mode, you might be interested in the FastPictureViewer RAW picture codec pack from Axel Rietschin Software Developments. They are FREE for personal and educations use and give you fast access to preview RAW images taken by just about any digital camera capable of shooting RAW in Explorer. It even supports the slideshow function in Photo Gallery and Photo Viewer. The fact that it supports 32 and 64 versions of Windows is a bonus since most camera manufacturers — atleast up to now — have been very slow in supporting 64-bit windows. Here is a list of supported RAW Formats:

• Adobe Digital Negative (.dng)
• Canon Raw Image (.cr2, .crw)
• Fuji Raw Image (.raf)
• Hasselblad Raw Image (.3pr, .fff)
• Kodak Raw Image (.dcr, .kdc)
• Leica Raw Image (.raw, .rwl)
• Minolta Raw Image (.mrw)
• Nikon Raw Image (.nef, .nrw)
• Olympus Raw Image (.orf)
• Panasonic Raw Image (.rw2)
• Pentax Raw Image (.pef)
• Sigma Raw Image (.x3f)
• Sony Raw Image (.arw, .sr2, .srf)

For a Photographer — specially if you own an SLR and shoot RAW — this little Gem is a must.

I finally had a chance to take my newest acquisition — a Helios 40-2 85mm/1.5 Lens — out for a shoot. Nothing fancy just stuff in the backyard. This lens for those who don’t know has a specific optical aberration that allows it to produce the so-called “swirly bokeh” effect. Check the out of focus shot of leaves below to get an idea of what it looks like. The complete set as usual is on flickr.

As you already know Mike Lawrie and I had a Art installation for Nuit Blanche 2009 called Multitorch. We spent the entire night at Ryerson University’s Rogers Communications Centre where the installation was located. I found a few minutes to sneak away and take some pics of our installation and some of the other installations at Ryerson. You can find the full flickr set here.

• inCENTive:
  

• Multitorch:
  

• Of Plastic Circumstance:
  

• Rogers Communication Centre:
  

This is a couple of weeks old, because it took a while to sort through all the pics. They are pictures from a recent visit to Toronto Zoo. The complete flickr set can be viewed here.

While I was on holidays (two weeks ago), TPMG (Toronto Photography Meetup Group) had a Strobist event that took place up at University of Toronto’s Victoria College. We ended up shooting well into the night (12:30 am) and walked away with a nice set of Pics. Here is a sampling of the entire set located on flickr: