CalevPhoto

Let’s Chase Some Pigeons!

Kids get different things out of a vacation than we adults do.  While Nelya and I marveled at the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sofia in Istanbul, Eitan and Nathan marveled at a square with thousands of pigeons they could chase.  To them, this was heaven and they spent ample time there chasing said pigeons.  Of course, I couldn’t resist getting my camera out to get some shots.

I am certainly no expert in pigeon shots – these being my first attempts – but the following is what I did learn.

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A trip to the Museum of Flight

For some strange reason, we never bothered to take Eitan and Nathan to the Museum of Flight.  While figuring out what to do one weekend, we decided it was time to take them.

Of course, I couldn’t resist taking my camera and decided to be a bit creative with the shots.

In particular I found the exhausts on the planes to be rather interesting.  The museum itself is very interesting and had quite a few planes for the kids to look at.  We wound up spending five hours there!

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How to photograph bounce houses

I have two kids.  A four year old and a five year old.  They each have many friends.  Each of these friends has one birthday per year.  Therefore, almost every other weekend we are at one of the bounce houses in the area.  Each time, I bring my camera with the hope of trying something new and getting some good shots of the kids.

As a result of this, I think I have a bit of experience from shooting at these places more times than I would like to count.

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Fun with snow and sleds

While visiting my parents in upstate New York over the weekend, Eitan and Nathan had the chance to go sledding for the first time in their lives.  This also provided me with a great chance to test the AF in the 5d Mark II.

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Time for some bubbles!

I finally had time over the weekend to take some pictures, including a number with my new 180L.  A review and comparison with the MP-E 65 is coming, but for now I thought you would enjoy some shots I took with the kids playing with a new bubble machine.  I decided to practice using multiple lights with this attempt.  I used a 580EX and a 580EX II triggered with Pocketwizards for the shoot.  On flash had a small softbox attached to it while the other used the white card.  In general I was happy with the lighting, but more tricky was getting the focus right.  Only a number of shots in did I realize it would be a better idea to only use the center focusing point – as otherwise I was getting only bubbles in focus!

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My favorite kids pictures

OK, you knew I had to post this at some time or another.  As many of you know, I have two sons – Eitan and Nathan – aged four and three.  The following are some of my favorite shots of them from the last few years.

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Learning to speak Nikonese

Recently I had the opportunity to use a friend’s Nikon D200 camera.  As most of you who know me are well aware of, I have never even held in my hands a non-Canon camera.  When I was looking to purchase a camera, Canon was the only company that made full frame cameras so the choice was obvious.  However, my friend had just received the camera and was trying to figure it out.  For most of the time he was using it, but then handed it to me to take a family portrait.

Unfortunately I had never had the chance to use a Nikon before and I was rather confused at what all of the controls do.  For those not familiar with Canon and Nikon, they seem to pride themselves in their own languages.  For instance

These are just a few examples, but the camera might as well had Japanese written all over it because I couldn’t figure out how to switch to manual mode.  I did figure out how to adjust the aperture and shutter speed, but I also couldn’t figure out how to trigger the in camera metering.  I’m sure with a few minutes in front of the instruction manual it would not have been difficult to figure out, but I wound up blowing out every picture.

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