April Wallpaper

This image is a dusk shot of Downtown Vancouver from Lonsdale quay on the North Shore. This is one of my favourite views of Vancouver as it stands proudly on the harbour. On this night there were some intriguing could formations and it made for a good backdrop as the city lights began to come on. This image was taken in January and it was pretty cold on that evening. Right now though, Vancouver is enjoying a beautiful Spring and the clouds have lifted. Time for some more photos!! Enjoy the wallpaper, download and share. Remember to click on the image to download the higher resolution version.

March Wallpaper

This months wallpaper is a sunset image of English Bay. This was taken in the winter, there was some snow on the mountains and the wind was blowing which made the evening pretty cold. The sun had just set and the warm glow was all that was left of the end of day light. The ships in the bay had switched their lights on and the contrast between the blues and yellows in the scene made for an interesting image. I photographed quite a few images that evening, but this was one of the better ones, giving a scenic view from Vancouver out towards Vancouver Island. Click on the image to see the high resolution version and then download that and save it as your desktop image. Enjoy!!

 

February Wallpaper

The first week of Feb has been a busy one, hence this wallpaper is a little later than it should be, apologies for that. Here it is though, this was an image I shot in the Gerlache Strait on the Antarctic Peninsula. It was just before sunset and it seemed that the penguins were “returning home” after a day out at sea. They were clambering up the wave shaped iceberg and the blue of the iceberg was piercing. It was a surreal scene, in a surreal world called Antarctica. Click on the image to open up the higher resolution image and use it as your desktop background. Enjoy!

A Photostiched HDR?…sounds like work!

Well, it is, but the results are worth it. To do a photostitched HDR image takes time and patience. The same techniques apply for the photostitching part of the image, i.e. use a tripod, overlap images by 30% and so on. The difference is that you will be taking 3 or 5 images (depending on the light) and bracketing them. In low light, this might mean you will have to work quickly so that that light doesn’t change throughout the image. If there is too much of a difference in light from the first shots to the last, there might be a problem in the stitching process, generally though this works out 99% of the time. I would say that you should challenge yourself to try this. Find a scene that will work well for an HDR image and a photostitch and give it a try. You might be astounded at the results. Below is an image I captured last week of the Vancouver Convention Centre and Coal Harbour in Vancouver. Enjoy…I would like to hear what you think…

VCC and Coal Harbour HDR Pano

Can you handhold an HDR?

I always recommend using a tripod in pretty much any lighting conditions other than midday sun. There are lots of photographers who try and handhold images in low light and when they look at the LCD screen, all looks OK…until you get home and take a closer look on the computer screen.

So, I tend to carry my tripod or at least a gorillapod with me whenever I go out and shoot. Even more so, I use a tripod FASTIDIOUSLY when I shoot for HDR. Yesterday I was at the annual Polar Bear swim here in Vancouver and while the light was OK, it was not terribly bright giving everything a slight desaturated muted feel. There was some cloud cover and overall the scene was less than inspiring. I took a few shots and immediately thought I could do some HDR images. Alas, I never brought my tripod with me because I knew the beach would be too crowded and I was anticipating doing more action shots, so a tripod would have been unnecessary. So, I did what I could. I set up my camera to bracket 3 shots, 1 F stop apart, lifted the camera above my head and held the shutter release down…click, click, click and they were done.

I was unsure how they would turn out until I got back to my computer to see. There was some movement in between shots (of course, it was hand held) and then some people moved too. I pulled the 3 images into Photomatix Pro and clicked on the “remove ghosts” button and clicked on automatic and set the detection to high…and held my breath…I was totally surprised by the result. It is not a perfect shot, but it is certainly usable considering the situation. I then ran it through Photoshop to sort out the colour and lighting and Voila!

In future I will be trying this more often if I don’t have a tripod handy…take a look at the result and let me know what you think!

Polar Bear Swim HDR

 

Happy New Year – January Wallpaper

Well, 2013 is upon us. So the interpretations of the Mayan calendar were wrong, and the world continues..hehehe. I truly hope that 2013 will be a successful and inspiring year for all of you and that you will achieve at least some of your resolutions. I am not big on resolutions, but I think it is really important to have goals. It is also important to reflect on the past year and look at what we did well and what needs to change. I am in that process right now. On that note, here is the first wallpaper of 2013. This is an HDR image, made up of 4 images, 2 F Stops difference. It was made just as the sun was setting, the lights on the Lions Gate Bridge had not come on yet. The heron you see in the image landed in the water just before I triggered the shutter. He was a master fisherman, he caught 3 or 4 fishes while I stood there watching him. In the bay on the right were 2 seals circling, looking for food. All this happened a stones throw away from downtown Vancouver, this is an amazing city!! Enjoy the image, click on the photo to get the higher resolution version and then save that as your wallpaper.

Heron at Lions Gate Bridge

Will the Lytro change photography forever?

A friend of mine in Portland Oregon sent me a link to the Lytro website earlier this week saying I should put this new toy on my list for Christmas. I had seen the preliminary ideas around the Lytro about a year ago and it kind of fell off my radar screen, but yesterday I went and took a look at their site and was amazed. At first look, the Lytro does not appeal to my “camera geek” side. I like buttons and dials and the heaviness and importance that comes with a DSLR, but my minimalist “apple zen” side loved it.

It is a simple design, basically a lens with a digital screen on the back of. When you boil things down, thats really what a digital camera is… a lens with a sensor attached to it (simplistic, but true). I believe that we will see a day when you will get a camera the size of an iPhone (may even be a “nikon adaptable” iPhone) you will simply attach a lens and away you go. This is what Lytro has done essentially. It is a simple design, almost too simple and that is where the beauty is I think. I haven’t had the opportunity to use one yet, but the concept is innovative. The Lytro website talks about creating living pictures. This means that you can refocus the image after you have taken..yes, you heard correctly. That is already a huge step forward in the photography world, and I think might come to define lenses in the future. This gives huge flexibility in how to shoot. You don’t have to be overly concerned about your focus…thats a first. For me the next innovation is size, it is small and fits in your pocket. Easy to carry and ready to take images whenever you are. The next step is to get my hands on one…hmmm maybe Lytro will give me one to test out! Who knows…for now though, lets watch and see what this new innovation will do to photography!

The Zen Like design of the Lytro camera