CalevPhoto

That does look a bit like a flea!

While photographing last week, I found a shiny green beetle that was kind enough to let me get some shots of it.  I found it curled up and hiding in a plant stem and managed to annoy it enough that it started walking around.

When it came time to identify this beetle, I didn’t have much hope.  After all, there are thousands of “shiny green beetles” out there and I didn’t have too much hope of figuring out what this is.

To my surprise, I think I do know what this is.  It looks a lot like a flea beetle (family chrysomelidae, subfamily alticinae).  I am not 100% sure, but it does look awfully like a flea from the front – doesn’t it?

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Time for a weevil

I’ve always had somewhat of a soft spot for the weevils that are common here around Seattle.  Sure, they are pests – but up close they kind of look like little dogs.

I have seen these a number of times around here but interestingly in many of the cases the weevils were dead.  This one was alive and moving around – probably having a good meal too.

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Scorpions in the Pacific Northwest!

This weekend, we were invited over to a barbecue at some of our friends house.  I had my camera along, as I had earlier photographed one of my wife’s listings, and their property was a bit wooded.  Of course, I could not resist taking out my camera to see what I could find.

While waiting near a fern where I had noticed some fly activity, a small bug caught my eye.  I decided to photograph it to see what it was and was quite surprised with the result.

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A successful day at the ponds

After going almost a month without taking any macro shots, it was time to gather up my MP-E 65 and MT-24EX and see what I could find.  The location was the ponds by my building at work, to which I organize a group of us to meet every week.

It took me awhile to find anything truly interesting.  I dug around in the soil for a bit but gave up on that as I was more in the mood of catching something on a leaf.  While there are quite a few interesting creatures that live in the soil, due to the background it can be difficult to get the artistic edge in shots.

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The Reality of Lighting when Traveling

We have all read a great deal of blogs about pros as well as books by pros.  In these books, there is a great deal of information about lighting, but the golden rule is if you want to take good landscape photos the best light occurs either early in the morning or in the late afternoon.

The reality of course, is that this is often not an option for us mere mortals. We do not have the flexibility to get up at the wee hours of the morning and trek to a good spot that we scoped out the day before and stay there for several hours getting good shots.  If we did this, our families would kill us.

Therefore much of the light we get to shoot in is of the worst kind.  It occurs when the sun is high above during the mid day.  The other reality is that you may find that the sky is cloudy and ugly on that particular day.  However, this does not necessarily mean that all hope is lost.  There are a number of options available to you and in this post, as well as future ones, I will go over these in more detail.

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Why Photoshop Sucks

Well, it doesn’t actually suck, but I am constantly annoyed by the number of people who believe that mastering Photoshop is the gateway to better pictures.  They rush to find the latest plugins that will perform some kind of magic and read tons of books from the latest Photoshop masters on how to improve otherwise boring photos.

Too often I see requests on how to salvage a photo in various forums.  In my opinion, it is simply not possible to salvage a photo.  It is possible to improve a photo, but if you feel the need to salvage it the truth is your photo simply sucks.

One of the key differences between true pros and amateurs is pros understand that some of their photos suck, and live with it.  Rather than trying to bring back a photo from the dead, they focus on improving their skills so they don’t need to worry about it the next time.

Another difference is pro photographers will not waste their time taking a photo of something with the hope that they will be able to salvage the photo later.  Sure, a stray pole or piece of garbage is easy to clone out.  However, if the lighting isn’t right or the view just not that interesting, they won’t bother with the shot.  One thing I have found out is understanding when not to take a picture is just as important as understanding when to take one.

So the next time you look at a picture and are hoping that you can ‘save’ it, just give up and let it go.  Instead, consider why the picture sucks.  What could you have done better?  That way, the next time you will be able to improve.  In this way, you will find yourself slowly getting better as a photographer, rather than spending hours in vain rescuing a photo and remaining in mediocrity.

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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Continuing the HDR process

As many of you know, I have switched my real estate photography to HDR.  It has taken me a bit of time getting used to it but I do like it much better.  In particular, I am able to shoot houses quicker – which makes a difference now that Nelya is getting a lot of listings!

Recently she got another listing and I went out to photograph it.  There were two main goals I hoped to fix.

• Fix the reflections on the floor from the windows.
• Improve the view from the windows.

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Slowing down with IStockPhoto

As many of you know, I spend some time submitting my pictures to various microstock sites.  I currently submit to five agencies – Shutterstock, IStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, and StockXPert.

Lately I have been extremely busy and have little time to submit pictures.  As I slowly started submitting a few, I noticed something very interesting.

What I noticed is that IStockPhoto sales have slowed considerably in recent months.  In the past, IStockPhoto vied with Shutterstock as my top site and a few times took the lead.  However, that has changed now.

Today, IStockPhoto is fourth for me in terms of sales.  Only StockXPert brings less.  Another problem is that submissions take a long time on IStockPhoto due to their archaic upload system and their own keyword vocabulary.  As a result, it takes me longer to submit to IStockPhoto than to the other sites combined.  It is even more annoying that after submitting the photo my shot is rejected for a keyword that is pertinent.  For instance I had a picture of Jerusalem rejected for using the keyword “Israel”.

Another interesting thing occurred when I was searching for some photos for a friend a few weeks ago.  I was rather stunned that, despite their claim to having an advanced keyword system, I was unable to find the pictures I was looking for.  I had much better success on Dreamstime and Shutterstock.

Therefore, I have ceased submitting regularly to IStockPhoto.  It simply isn’t worth my time.  I will not close my account there though and I will submit pictures that sell well on other sites.

However, the future of IStockPhoto right now does not look bright.

Equipment that I hope to buy

In my previous post, I covered the equipment that I currently use.  The following is a list of what I am still planning to get.

Canon TS-E 17 – This is simply too tempting, especially for my real estate work.  I am currently saving for this lens, which is good as it is not out yet.  I hope to have it by the end of the year, even though it is quite pricy.

Canon 600mm F4 IS – I will most likely start saving for this lens after I buy my TS-E 17.  I will use the TS-E 17 for real estate shoots that will help pay for this monster.  I’m still debating between this and a microscope, but the around town opportunities to use this are just too tempting.

Canon 135mm 2L – I am a bit conflicted about this lens and am unsure it will truly be on my list.  The issue is that I already heavily use my 70-200 4L IS for pictures of my kids and I’m not sure I will have room in the bag for this lens.

Microscope – The problem is I don’t want any microscope – but a DIC microscope, which will set me back more than the 600L.

Really Right Stuff pano kit – I love doing panoramas and the only thing keeping me from getting it right now is the price and the two lenses in front of it.   I almost bought it a few months ago but chose to buy a monopod instead – which I do not regret.

Singh-ray vari-ND – I haven’t done much landscape work lately, but I hope that will change.  When it does I hope to have one of these to do some long shutter shots.