I just returned from a 4 day snowmobile adventure that led our group from Rocky Harbour to the back country of Gros Mourne National Park and back on a daily basis, all via new routes in. The scenery, excellent weather, and ideal snow conditions all combuined for one memorable trip (not to mention the fine hospitality provided by the lodge, Fisherman’s Landing Inn located in Rocky Harbour).

The trip provided clear skies, ‘Big Air’ jumps, deep POWDER, and untouched hillsides for the ultimate thrills in back country snowmobile riding

Boyd

Got my first circular polarizer a little while ago and got some good weather to test it with a couple weeks ago out home………Realized earlier that I hadn’t really looked at the pictures yet.
So far I love it and I have to force myself to take it off when it’s not required……..if it were up to me I’d probably leave it on all the time. It really is excellent for outdoor, nature, or landscape photography. I was skeptical of how much of a difference it would actually make……….but it’s pretty sweet, definately worth the investment.

Geoff

After days and days of research I decided on the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD Aspherical [IF]……But all those letters don’t mean squat when it’s sitting under your sisters car in pieces…………three days after it showed up at my door…………good times.
Pulled my bag out of my car, apparently it was still open……and camera and lens went flying to the brick driveway. My girlfriend was suprised that I didn’t lose it and go on a killing rampage……….but I sort of just stood there in shock. It was like one of those movies where someone dies and the person has absolutely no reaction because they are so shocked that they just completely refuse to acknowledge what just happened……..That’s kind of what I did. So I just put it in my office and didn’t look at it until the next day.

Now I’ve got to say, props to canon………and to Tamron for that matter (even though the lens was in two pieces……I’ll explain later) I pulled that bag out of the back seat pretty fast, and I can only imagine how fast the camera went slamming into that driveway. However, the camera works absolutely perfectly, and despite the lens being in two pieces……..it was fixable. The front element just seperated from the rest of the lens, but after some inspection……..that whole thing can come apart on it’s own, just remove that ridged ring from around the edge of the glass and there are three screws and a couple slots that secure the front element to the lens housing.
Luckily the lens cap stayed on and no glass was scratched……….I fit it all back together and it’s just like new………haven’t noticed any difference in my shots yet.

I thought I took a picture of it all smashed up but I can’t find it…………..sorry

Geoff

So my lens came a day early……..and it just so happened to be an amazing day for shooting…….and it just so happened that the clocks went back two days ago, so we had lots of time after work on Monday. Yet again, me and Mike went out for a shoot……but with sort of a theme this time( trust me….it wasn’t as lame as that sounded). We decided that any shot we took had to be an HDR…..meaning at least three shots.

To anyone reading this who isn’t familiar with HDR, it’s a processing technique where you take a bunch of differently exposed images (from really bright, to really dark)….stack them on top of each other, and blend them to get a Higher Dynamic Range, hence HDR. Now it sounds much harder than it is, thanks to Photomatix……..the program does all the work for you, I just need to take the pictures.

Anyway, HDR’s can acheive some pretty amazing results………I sort of hate doing them because it just makes all my “other” shots look so flat….. We stuck to downtown, it’s got some pretty nice HDR subjects. Most of the shots actually made it to the galleries, so check that out too.

Here are a few of the “non gallery-worthy” finished products.

Geoff

Well Mike and myself took a flying trip to Ferryland after work on Friday, trying to take advantage of the nice weather and get some decent sunset shots (unfortunately, we’re on the wrong side of the island this time of year……) But thanks to some “Sunday drivers” along the way, we completely missed the sunset……….would have been a nice one though.

But it wasn’t a complete waste, I got to test out the new canon in low-light shooting and we found a bunch of old fishing stages and some nice wave action for long exposures.

Tried out a new processing technique on these shots……the “old time” nature of the pictures made them a good subject. The process is supposed to mimic the effects of “Lomography” which is basically photography done with a Lomo 35mm camera (German made I believe…) The images had a distinct look due to the poor manufacturing of the camera (combined with cross processing the slide film), but soon developed into its own style.

It’s a pretty cool effect, and seems to work especially well for “traditional” Newfoundland photographs.

Geoff

Got my first lens on Friday…… I spent most of the cash I saved by going with a cheaper body on a nice standard zoom (should be here on Tuesday, so expect a post) So I went hunting on eBay for a mediocre telephoto until I can afford an L. One of my friends has a phoenix 100-300 and he gets pretty good images with it, so when I came across this baby, I couldn’t resist. And no……this is not a Canon L…..it just looks like it.

I had a really hard time finding any info about the lens, but I did find posts on several forums from people looking for info, so I decided to do my own review. First of all, let me get this straight….I’m not a professional, and I have limited experience with telephoto lenses, nothing high-end.
however, I can tell you right away that all the Phoenix bashing I found while looking for a review is completely unwarranted.
I was immediately impressed when I took the lens out of the box….it’s pretty heavy and feels like a very solid build. The body is plastic, but it doesn’t feel like other “cheap” third party telephotos that I’ve used before. It measures about 10 inches fully extended, and just over 6 at it’s smallest, and takes a 67mm filter.
It has a decent speed for such a long focal length, with a max aperture of 4.5-6.3 from 100mm to 400mm.
The focus motor is pretty quiet (nothing close to a USM, but much quieter than my old Pentax FA lenses) But it is a little slow if you’re drastically changing focal length. I found myself manually focusing from a 100mm shot to a 400mm shot, then switching back to AF once I got in my desired range.

Now for the real info…….I came across a lot of phoenix bashing while searching for info on this lens, but in this case it’s completely unwarranted. I don’t know if the cosmetics(the white barrel and red ring make it look an awful lot like a canon L) of this lens means that it is some “special” edition, but from my testing so far it seems pretty sharp, low CA, and no barrel distortion that I could notice anyway. I haven’t gotten a chance to really test it in the field yet, on account of our horrible weather lately, but my initial impression tells me that it’s going to exceed my expectations, and it may be a while before I get rid of it.

All these images were taken hand-held, with no sharpening or post-processing.
I know this isn’t a great deal of samples or variation, but if anyone reading this would like some additional shots, or some specific testing scenario, just leave a comment and I will try my best.

Geoff

Well…I haven’t been able to post any shots for a while because my camera has been “at the shop” but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Long story short, through various comments from my girlfriend which loosely translated to “why don’t your pictures look like that?” I’ve decided to swallow my pride and switch to a canon system. I sort of fought with which body to go for, with the release of the 40d, or the now cheaper 30d, but after some heavy research and smartening up……if I was going for image quality, the body really didn’t matter. So I decided to go with the now VERY inexpensive rebel XT body and spend the extra cash on good glass………which should arrive Friday (although my faith in the postal system is, how should I put it………….low)

Thanks to Mike over at Fotogeeks for loaning me an 18-55 kit lens to do some test shots……….I couldn’t believe the ISO performance on this baby. All of these were shot in available light at either ISO 800 or 1600 but I’m too lazy to go back picking through the EXIF to tell you which is which…..think of it as a guessing game.

At 100% the noise was pretty noticeable with a shutter down around 1/15, but nothing a little photoshop couldn’t clear up.

In case you’re wondering…….she’s my Niece………it’s been pretty crappy outside and she’s the only one I know who won’t yell at me for taking a bunch of pictures of her.

So needless to say, I’m stoked to get my new lenses and get out to do some real shooting. If they show on Friday, expect a post or two over the weekend.

This was one of those shots you take to test your WB setting, or your DOF, and when you look at it you kind of go…..”huh, that’s pretty cool” I have no idea why….it’s just styrofoam (i know, I’m part of the problem) Chinese food containers……..but whatever.

Geoff