CalevPhoto

Lizards invade Seattle!

Well, not quite.  However, consider the common perception that a) lizards most like places that are hot and sunny and b) Seattle is pretty much the exact opposite of hot and sunny – and you can picture my surprise when one of my kids picked up a rock and out popped a lizard!

This particular lizard was found in the backyard of a property Nelya was listing.  We all travelled to a small town called Olalla in Kitsap County to take pictures of the listing.  The weather was great, but unfortunately the property was not clean enough to take pictures.  Bummer.

However, since it was a nice day we decided to take photos of the outside at least, and my kids were playing in the backyard when they happened across this little guy (or gal).

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An Entertaining Blog

Lately, I haven’t done much with this blog because I have had difficulties determining what its actual purpose is.  Day after day of blogs discussing some particular insect I ran across – when most of these insects were the same as ones before – became rather tiresome.  I suspect this was tiresome not just on me – but also on those who read this blog.

I had some decisions to make.

At various times, I considered turning this into more of a review blog.  The idea was to review various pieces of equipment and books and then get a cut when someone ordered something from my links.  I did post several of these blogs, but came to realize something very quickly.  Those who are well known for writing about photography are generally not well known for their photography itself.  In other words, the more one writes reviews about lenses and other equipment, the less one progresses as a photographer.

I also thought about using this as a stage for my best photography.  This can get rather boring too though.  Hey!  Look at this!  Some pictures are better than others and some I do want to show off, but I want this to be an entertaining blog – not one where I attempt to stuff my photos down your throat.

So what type of blog will this be?  My goal is for it to be an entertaining one.

I must admit that the implementation of this idea is not entirely set.  I do have some ideas which I will begin to implement very soon, but my hope is that those who do read this blog find it entertaining.

While I will no longer provide any equipment or book reviews here, that doesn’t mean this blog will not teach something.  I do hope to teach others about the nature around us and other things, but I also plan to do this in a manner that is not tediously boring.

I apologize for being vague here and ‘pardon the dust’.  Rather than explain this further, I think it is best to begin showing you…

Moving to Medium Format – Selling all Canon Equipment

After much thought and deliberation, I have decided to move to medium format and sell all of my Canon equipment.  The truth is I need to improve my range as a photographer and moving to medium format is the best way to do that.  I also have the desire to move into professional gigs where a MF camera is basically a requirement.

The problem with Canon SLRs, as most of you already know, is they keep bumping up the megapixels while ignoring the optical limits.  The gain in resolution between camera models is negligible.  The problem is, megapixels are important, so long as they actually lead to an improvement in quality.  Therefore, Nikon was completely out as their decision to keep cameras in the low megapixels (sans the D3x which has the same issue as the Canons) doesn’t help me at all.

The breakthrough came just yesterday, when – after some length of discussions – I convinced someone to sell me his digital Hasselblad gear for a good price.  The camera and lenses are all extremely new.  The guy was forced to sell them due to mounting debt and a house in foreclosure, so after having a difficult time selling them he finally agreed to sell them to me for a price that was too good to turn down.  However, to now finance this purchase I need to sell all of my Canon gear.

What does this mean in terms of my photographs?

Well, now that I have truly pro equipment you will see my photos get significantly better.  Don’t listen to those other blogs out there.  Better equipment does make you a better photographer.

This also means that I will cease producing many of my super close insect shots.  I’m bored of insects and it is time to move on.  I did purchase a macro lens in the group though, so larger insects are still possible if I desire to turn back – and at 50MP I can crop quite a bit.

I’ll likely start including more portraiture on this blog and people photos as well.

For those interested in purchasing some of my Canon equipment – including a 5D2, 7D, TS-E 17, TS-E 24 II, 70-200 4L IS, 100-400, 16-35 II, and other things, click the ‘read more’ link to view the full blog.

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Disney World Vacation Post Mortem

For the last week, the four of us have been visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  As part of a new practice to improve our vacations, I have decided to follow a similar practice that we use in software engineering – a post mortem.

I hope that this information will also help others planning vacations both to WDW and to other places.

What went well

Spending five solid days at the parks

We only visited Walt Disney World itself and avoided other attractions such as Universal Studios.  For just WDW, this time proved to be exactly what we needed.  Had the weather been warmer and we were visiting Blizzard Beach, we would have wanted an additional day.  Given the size of the parks and how much there is to do, five days was just right.

The Disney Deluxe Dining Plan

Disney food prices are quite expensive.  In particular their sit down restaurants are quite pricy.  Breakfast each morning for the four of us was $60.  Lunch varied from $70 to $110 and dinner varied from $90-$180.  These prices do not include tips.  Given these prices, the dining plan enabled us to save significantly.  It also provided us a good break to get away from the chaos of the parks and experience some very interesting restaurants.

Making dining a big part of the planning

In addition to spending a great deal of time figuring out how much time we needed at the parks and in which order we wanted to see them, I also spent a great deal of time planning which restaurants to visit.  A number of the restaurants – particularly Coral Reef, Citricos, and Sci-Fi Diner, have their own characteristics and provided as much enjoyment as the rides.  For future vacations, I will also spend time looking for interesting places to eat.

Planning what rides to go on and when

The parks were a lot more crowded than we expected, but by using the strategy of visiting popular rides early in the morning combined with FastPass, we rarely had to wait.  We did have access to the tour plans mentioned in the Unofficial Guide to WDW mentioned below – but they were basically worthless.  They either did not contain the rides we were interested in, did not factor in eating meals, or assumed we could get our kids up at the crack of dawn to get to the parks before they open.

Filling our days solid with entertainment, combined with resting intervals

In the past, we often felt that we spent too much time at some locations.  At other times, things just moved at too frantic of a pace and we became tired too quickly.  During this trip, we were quite busy while we went on ride after ride, but we had about an hour each for lunch and dinner that we used to relax.  This worked out quite well – allowing us to move at a fast pace but buffer it with relaxation periods.

Taking the new Canon G11 instead of an SLR

For once, I did not want to drag around a larger SLR and lenses.  A number of people did this at the parks and while WDW did provide storage for many of the rides, this wasn’t the case for all of them.  The G11 worked out quite nice here and fit in my pocket when not in use.

Taking the kids at ages 5 and 6

We saw a lot of babies and younger children at the parks and many of their parents looked quite miserable.  While WDW rides are in general tame, there are a number of them that will terrify younger children.  Our older son was still scared by many of the rides while the younger one had absolutely no problems.  There are also height restrictions on some of the rides that in a few cases did not allow our five year old to ride.  From this experience five years old is probably the bare minimum I would want my child to be to take them to the parks.  Younger than that and the trip becomes more for the parents than for the kids.

What went OK

Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

We stayed here for the entire trip in a room with a savannah view.  The idea was for the kids to see animals from the room when they wake up and this worked well on one occasion.  While the hotel definitely caters to kids, we were so busy at the resorts that we made little use of it.  In addition, the rooms were quite small and the bed was among the least comfortable we have ever slept on.  I had originally planned to stay at the Grand Floridian but decided against it because I was worried the kids would not find it as interesting.  We visited the Grand Floridian to eat at Citricos and for the hotel itself this assumption was accurate.  Therefore, while I was not very impressed by the Animal Kingdom Jambo House resort, it was probably a decent choice.

The Weather

Of course it is impossible to predict the weather and how was I to know that Seattle would be on average twenty degrees warmer than Orlando while we were there.  On the other hand, except for our last day it hardly rained there.  We were able to do all of the rides except for the water related ones, so it wasn’t that bad.

Going in the 2nd week of January

The guide book listed below stated that the second week in January – after New Years when all of the kids have gone back to school – is the best time to go.  Instead, the parks were quite crowded and we needed to strategize how to see things in order to not spend too much time in the lines.  Luckily, we did not spend much time in the lines do to careful planning – though some rides reached wait times as long as 120 minutes.

What didn’t go well

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World

This book should be renamed – “The whiner’s guide to WDW”.  Most of this book was completely unhelpful and often completely false.  The reviews of restaurants were not accurate and the descriptions of the rides – in particular how appropriate they are for kids – was not correct.  I just really had the impression that the authors have never been anywhere outside of Disney World and have no concept of the outside world.

Disney’s vaunted customer service

When I visited the parks fourteen years ago, I marveled at how happy everyone at the resorts was and the degree to which people (called “cast members”) would go through to make sure you had the best trip possible.  This is no longer the case and I even found the service to be rude on occasion.  In general I would give their customer service an “OK” rating.

Playing with some new toys

Although we do not celebrate Christmas, that doesn’t mean I did not get any toys… With my birthday earlier in the month and with some spare photography money I received a few things this season and yesterday I finally had the chance to get out and play with them – well sort of.  I had two real estate shoots to take care of and one of them was at a property with quite a bit of land and a horse barn.

The image above is a seven image exposure blend using my TS-E 24 II and my new Singh-Ray Color Combo.  I really like how the Color Combo brought out the blue in the sky.  As those of you who live here know, blue skies are quite rare here.  Had I not used the filter the sky would have been whitish and I would have had to do some post processing to get the sky bluer – though it would not have looked as natural as it does here.

Above is another image with the Color Combo.  While the previous image was not shifted very much, this one had a bit more shift.  As you can see the vignetting with the TS-E 24 II is minimal.  I generally use the TS-E 24 II for exterior shots and the TS-E 17 for interiors.

The above image used by TS-E 17.  The TS-E 17 does not accept filters  – though a polarizer would have had a negative effect indoors anyways.  In this shot I replaced the windows in Photoshop.  I did it rather quickly and am not crazy about the result but these images will be viewed small.  I also used one of my new toys – Viveza by Nik Software.

This weekend I purchased the Complete Collection by Nik Software using a discount on Ron’s blog.  I have been having fun playing with all of the tools in the package (except for SilverEfex – right now I do not do too much in black and white), but for real estate so far Viveza is the only one I need.  I found that by adding a bit of warmth to the shot and removing some of the green the shot looks a lot better.

The above is another similar shot in these conditions.  In this case the window removal came out a bit better.  I honestly just used the quick select tool in Photoshop.  In some cases it works well while in the previous shot I should have been a bit more careful.

Next week I have my final toy coming – well sort of.  We ordered a G11 for an upcoming vacation where I will not be able to take my 5D2.  Of course, it is probably foolish to think that I will have a chance to use it, as Eitan has been wanting that camera and will quickly take it from me.

Why aren’t you bugging me?

OK, OK, so it’s been awhile since I have posted a decent old fashioned bug shot.  The reality is between being extremely busy and having rather lousy weather here I haven’t taken too many bug shots lately.  I hope to change this soon.  Last night we had a ton of midges get into the house during a party – as if they were wondering where the heck I was.

This shot was taken a few months ago by the ponds outside my office.  I spent some time photographing one stink bug and when I found another on a different leaf – I figured – why not?

They stayed together for about thirty seconds – but this was long enough to get a decent shot.  They didn’t seem too offended by one another – but soon went their separate ways.

Stink bugs are one of my favorite insects to photograph as they are so colorful.

My first stolen photos

Well, it was bound to happen at some point or another.  Someone has stolen several of my photos.  In this case they were real estate photos and ironically are not some of my better photos.

Some time ago my wife, who is a real estate agent, had a listing that I took photos of.  The shoot was quite difficult and I wound up having to reshoot the property.  In retrospect, it was an important property for me because it was what eventually prompted me to move from pure HDR to exposure blending.

The shot above was one of the photos stolen and certainly has its flaws – the worst of which are probably the incorrect verticals.

Unfortunately, after quite a bit of work by both myself and my wife, my wife realized that this wasn’t going to work out so she cancelled the listing.  The seller then relisted the property several months later with a different agent.

Of course, the new agent helped herself to my photos, and I have of course insisted that these photos be removed.  If they are not removed soon, I intend to send her the bill for my services and pursue this in court if they are not removed.

What bothers me even more though was the response from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS).  When I contacted them asking what I needed to do to get the photos removed, a rude woman responded that they will not take any requests from photographers.  The listing agent must submit a complaint.  Luckily the previous listing agent in this case was my wife so she filed the formal complaint using the form she mentioned.

So far NWMLS has not bothered to reply to the complaint, which has me even more angered.  I am half tempted to file a lawsuit against them for copyright infringement.  This is simply not correct.  If a photographer sends them a certified letter demanding his images be removed from their site, they must do this.  NWMLS must understand that real estate agents do not own the copyright for these photographs – the photographers do.

A Status Update

Wow! Things have been amazingly busy.  Between a very hectic schedule at work and a lot of things at home – including gutting the entire interior of our house, I think I am finally back to the stage where I can begin to write blogs again.

Photography-wise, much has happened in the last several months.  I purchased the Canon TS-E 17 and the Canon TS-E 24 II lenses for a number of purposes and they are now two of my favorite lenses.  I will discuss them more in a future blog.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased Lightroom – along with Photoshop CS4.  I am still getting used to Lightroom and have barely used CS4 yet – though I hope to ramp up on them soon.  I do rather like Lightroom – particularly the keywording feature – though I must admit I’m still getting used to non-destructive editing.  I think the thing that annoys me most about it so far is I cannot (or at least I haven’t figured it out yet) overwrite the original JPEG.

I typically use the RAW file as my negative and the JPEG as my currently edited version.  If I change an image significantly – I’ll generally save it as a new file.

I have also learned quite a bit about time management lately.  In the past, I heavily participated in photography forums – most particularly a photography alias at my work.  I have come to realize though that these forums are not that incredibly useful.  In particular I began to notice the following.

1) I was writing more about photography equipment than on actual photography.  This may sound rude, but I have noticed that those who write the most about photography generally don’t take the best pictures.  The reason is the exhausting amount of time it takes to create a decent review and research things.

2) In most forums, the truly professional photographers are few and far between.  If you really want strong criticism of your photos and techniques, you’ll generally need to go directly to the photographers – not to the forums.

Therefore I have ceased participation in most of these venues.  I do still occasionally post in a few places – but only when I have a very particular question and I know there are members there that are very familiar with that subject area.

This has allowed me more time lately, which I hope to channel into consistently writing blogs.

A great book for a greater cause

Check out this book!

You probably know that I am into photography and I am a member of the Microsoft Photography Club. This year Photography Club Members from around the world spent five months assembling and publishing a world-class, fine art photo book. The time and talent that went into this project makes every copy of the book a gift to its owner. We even put a full book preview online (160 pages of preview!) 100% of the profit from sales goes directly to the United Way and you get a valued and timeless reminder of how you too make a difference for those in need.

You can preview the book, or order the book, from your desk. Not only does this book make a wonderful addition to any collection, and a thoughtful gift, each copy you purchase contributes directly to the ongoing, important work of United Way. This book is offered for purchase at the cost of printing plus $25.00. This additional amount is contributed directly to United Way in your name and is fully tax deductable as a charitable contribution.

Even if you don’t think you’ll buy a copy of the book, go take a look at the online preview anyway. It really is amazing!

And yes, my photo is in the book.  It is this one.

Lots and lots of ants

I’m sure all of us have walked by a dropped fruit on the ground and have seen a pile of ants warming around it.  I have seen this countless times, but never when I happened to have my camera and MP-E 65 on me.  Several days ago, I was lucky.

From some research on the Internet, I believe this is Tetramorium caespitum, or the standard pavement ant.  They are famous for getting in fights with other colonies, though I do not believe that is what is occurring here.

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