Good bye 2008!

Well here it is, the last day of 2008. It was snowing pretty good outside today so I thought I'd head outside and take some photos.

50mm, ISO 400, f/8 for 1/400 sec.

56mm, ISO 100, f/8 for 1/80 sec.

44mm, ISO 100, f/8 for 1/100 sec.

85mm, ISO 100, f/5.6 for 1/80 sec.

Tomorrow begins 2009. I have high expectations for the year. I'm also beginning my photo a day project with some of the other students in my NYIP course. You can find the link to those postings on the right side of this page.

I wish you all a great 2009 and hope you succeed in all your endeavors!

Chris.

Whew! I'm glad all that running around is over!

I really like the holidays. All the visiting of people you may not see too often, the food, the drink, the presents.... But, I'm sure glad it's over. I get so run down from all that running around.

Anyway, enough whining. I hope you had a great Christmas and I hope your new year is good as well.

Here are a couple of the better shots I was able to take this Christmas.



33mm, ISO 400, f/4.5 for 1/25 sec.


44mm, ISO 400, f/5 for 1/15 sec.


50mm, ISO 400, f/2.8 for 1/50 sec.


50mm, ISO 400, f/1.8 for 1/100 sec.

I wish I had realized I should have been on shutter priority when I was using fill flash. I would have gotten less motion blur. Oh, well, they are nice shots anyway.

Chris.

New Blog Page Comming Jan 1 2009!

I am starting a new blog in page conjunction with this one. I've accepted a photo a day challenge from a contact of mine on flickr. A group of us will be taking a photo a day for the entire year of 2009.

You can find that blog in my page links. The title is Photo A day 2009.

Check often starting Jan 1 2009. I will post one every day.

Chris.

Digital Photography Tip #007 - Natural Light

I'm going to venture into the often confusing and frustrating topic of lighting. First the easy one. Natural light.

What is natural light? Natural light is the light that occurs naturally in the scene. Daylight, or in some cases, Moonlight. Any light produced by a man made source is not natural light. We will get to them later.

Ok, how do we handle this lighting? This gets frustrating at times. There is a school of thought that bright sunny days are great for pictures. Not so. Bright sunny days lead to way more contrast than your camera can handle. This holds true for digital or film. What happens is you either expose for the highlights and the shadows go very dark with no detail or you expose for the shadows and the sky and highlights are blown completely out. Also the shadows are very harsh. How do we handle that? I'll get to that a little later on.

What kind of lighting then if not bright sunny days? Overcast! Or at least a day with some clouds. The clouds will diffuse the sun and produce a softer more even light with softer shadows. Have a look at the following examples.

Front lighting.


Here it was bright sun behind me. You hear all the time you should put the sun behind your back to light your subject. Well he is lit alright. So bright he is squinting hard and look at the harsh shadows on his face from his glasses and on his neck from his chin. Not a very flattering picture.

Diffused sunlight.


In this photo, I waited for a cloud to cover the sun. Notice the almost complete lack of shadows. Only a slight shadow just under the cat tail at the stem. The light was very even. The contrast was less and the colors were more natural. Quite a difference from the harsh lighting in the previous photo.

Open shade.


This one was taken on a very bright day but in the open shade of a tree. Open shade is a great place to beat the brightness of the day. It can be behind a building or under a tree or some such place that has nice shade. Be careful with trees that you don't get sunlight popping through the leaves and leaving bright patches on your subjects. That makes for some odd looking effects.

Back lighting.


In this picture of my Mom and my daughter we see an example of back lighting. The light is coming from behind them not behind me. Notice how it produces a bit of a halo effect around them which really pulls them from the background.


Here is another example of back lighting that is on the extreme side. The sun is literally right behind the subject. I used the cat tail to block the sunrise which produces a great halo effect on the cat tail.

Back lighting is one of my favorite effects.

Side lighting.


Side lighting is a great way to show texture in your subject. Notice the vain in the leaf how the shadows fall and show the texture of the leaf and on the grains of sand.

The best thing I can suggest is practice and experiment and have fun with it. If you like the photo then it is a good photo. Dark shadows or not.

Chris.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year 2008

Well it's almost here. Christmas. Anyone who is even remotely as immature as I am gets excited at this time of the year. For me it's not so much about the gifts but being able to see it through the eyes of a child. Having kids opened me up to so many things. I see everything differently now and I try to take each moment as it comes and savor it. Remember when you were a kid and everything seemed to take so long. Now as an adult time flies by.

Here are some photos of the things that have been fascinating my kids lately.

A Santa Hat.

50mm, ISO 400, f/2.0 for 1/60 second.

A Family Ornament.

50mm, ISO 400, f/2.8 for 1/60 second.

An Angel In The House.

50mm, ISO 400, f/2.8 for 1/50 second.

A Glowing Penguin.

50mm, ISO 400, f/2.2 for 1/60 second.

A Cup Of Timmy's On The End Table.

50mm, ISO 400, f/1.8 for 1/125 second.

So far that's all I have. More to come I'm sure.

Chris.

Christmas At Work

I love to see decorations at work. Everyone is in a better mood just because they see the decorations. What a great idea! Here are a few pictures from around my day job.


50mm, ISO 800, f/5.6 for 1/15 sec.


64mm, ISO 800, f/5.6 for 1/50 sec.


26mm, ISO 400, f/4.5 for 1/15 sec.

Chris.

Photo For Now #11

Well, It's been 4 days now and this pretty much sums up my week so far, not just the day.


No Exif provided.

Chris.

Christmas Lights 2008 - #1

I'm trying to figure out just how to take pictures of outdoor Christmas lights. I know to switch my white balance to tungsten but beyond that, who knows. I shall research this.

Anyway, we were out this past weekend to take the kids to a house here in Edmonton, 97st and 144 ave. This guy goes overboard on a grand scale. It's amazing how much Christmas stuff this guy can put in his yard.

Here are some of my better ones from the evening.

Let me just mention that I love the combination of the high ISO of my 50D and Noise Ninja to clean it up!


56mm, ISO 1600, f/5.6 for 1/60 seconds.


24mm, ISO 1600, f/5.6 for 1/125 seconds. (with just a kiss of fill in flash)


17mm, ISO 1600, f/4 for 1/60 seconds.


17mm, ISO 1600, f/4 for 1/250 seconds.


38mm, ISO 1600, f/6 for 1/125 seconds.


22mm, ISO 1600, f/4 for 1/60 seconds.

Chris.

More 50D Thoughts

Alright, It's been just over a month that I've had the 50D. Anyone who knows me will tell you I've taken a lot of photos with it. Mostly just snap shots for testing purposes but a lot none the less.

I was at first a little disappointed about the high ISO performance. I was expecting too much I think. I was looking to get perfect pictures in very low light hand held at a decent shutter speed. Ya, that's not going to happen.

I did discover though that Noise Ninja will clean up my images very well. So well that I am not at all hesitant to use ISO 3200 where needed.

This was my biggest concern about the camera and I had some trouble getting over it.

As for the rest of the camera's performance I could not be happier. The burst rate of 6.3 fps is awesome. The focusing is dead on. The camera has the ability to fine tune the focusing but I have not tried that out yet. The build of the body is solid. It feels really good in the hand. The image quality is amazing. 15 mega pixels compared to 10 is a big difference. The camera still handles the larger file size well but downloading and post processing them is a longer procedure.

Well that's it for now. I'll write some more as I play with more of the features.

Here are some of my more recent photos.


56mm, ISO 1600, f/5.6 for 1/60 sec. Early morning window light very heavy overcast. The room was moody, dimly lit. Very impressed at the ISO performance and Noise Ninja's cleanup of the noise.


53mm, ISO 200, f/6.3 for .4 seconds (the exif tells me 2/5 seconds Odd). This is a shot for my course. Still life using 45 degree light and a reflector. Light from camera right and reflector camera left.

Chris.

East West Office View AM November 26 2008

Hmmm. These look very much like yesterday. Perhaps I'll hold off until something noticeable changes.

East


West


Chris.

East West Office View AM November 25 2008

Just for something to photograph at work I've decided to show what the city looks like each morning from my office facing west and the BBQ deck facing east. Now that I'm on the top floor I get a better view. Keep in mind though that I work in an industrial area so the view is not that great but it is nice to see how the seasons change.

East


West


Chris.

I have a domain!!!

Those of you who have come to my blog via the normal route of chrislemmen.blogspot.com don't realize it yet but those who ended up here via www.chrislemmenphotography.ca well here you are.

I have registered www.chrislemmenphotography.ca as my own domain. Why you ask? Well I needed a presence on the web other than this blog. A more permanent one. One I can use when I get Chris Lemmen Photography up and running. That will be the name of my photography company. I was going to use Patterns In Light but that was getting to be a headache.

There is a new email address too. chris@chrislemmenphotography.ca

So for now the domain will be forwarded to this blog until such time that I require a more robust website.

If you followed www.chrislemmenphotography.ca here then please click on the blog name at the top of this page and you will be taken to the full blog in all its glory. Well at least to the full blog.

Thanks for visiting.

Chris. (new link to my new photography email address.)

Photo For Now #010

For this photo, I stood on the chair and had Mikayla looking way up at me. I had to bug her for a bit to get her to smile that great big toothy smile of hers. I always try to make even my snaps around the house as creative as I can and as technically correct as I can. Practice makes perfect.


50mm, ISO400, F/8 for 1/200 seconds, Canon 430ex flash.

Chris.

Project Obie - Day 5

Lest We Forget.

This may seem rude but I wanted to include a photo of Obie today. I'm trying to keep up with the project but I'm not having as easy a time as I thought I might.

I don't know anyone personally who is in the military these days. Nor do I know anyone that has been impacted by a death of a family member who is in the military. I do know that these people put their lives on the line to make sure we get to live our lives the way we do.

We in Canada enjoy a freedom that most people in the world do not. The USA, Europe, parts of Asia. We all enjoy these freedoms and we should not forget those who have helped to make is possible for us.

This photo is not meant to demean the military in any way at all. This is my poppy I taped on to Obie. I wear it proudly. To those in the military I say Thanks.



Chris.

Photo For Now #009

Being stuck creatively is a bad thing. I'm there right now. I have gotten many suggestions on how to break through it. One of my favorites is to take pictures of mundane objects from a different perspective.

Here is today's mundane object. My pen on my desk.


50mm, ISO 400, f/1.8 for 1/640 seconds.

I love the 50mm f/1.8. Look at the shallow depth of field when it's wide open. It's only about 1/2" or so. Awesome. It is a little soft of focus when it's wide open but so what. That's really not the point. The bokeh is the point.

Chris.

Photo For Now #005

Here is a photo that I'm really happy with. It was about -3°C outside on Saturday morning and I noticed this line of frost covered leaves on the front lawn. Made for a great fall photo in the early morning light.



17mm, ISO 100, f/5.6 for 1/320 seconds.

Chris.

Project Obie - Day 1 Continued

Obie is a busy guy. He has to have a coffee first.



Then he is ready to get to work. Obie is a jack-of-all-trades. He can do anything. Here he is as a heavy duty mechanic repairing a manlift.





Obie is also a backhoe operator. This is his favorite one.





Obie also works his ass off. He has loads of paperwork. When you are only 4 inches high, paper is huge!



Chris.

Project Obie - Day 1

I've gotten myself into a creative rut. I'm not taking any pictures that are worth taking. Mostly just playing with the settings and such. It's driving me crazy.

Late fall in Edmonton is boring, drab and cold. Nothing to take pictures of really. So I need a project to keep me going. Something silly not too serious but one that will require me to use my skills.

Enter Project Obie (oh-bee).

He doesn't do much but he's always there lurking around the corner somewhere. This is the story of his adventures.



This is Obie. He's 4 inches tall and weighs about 1/4 pounds. He gets around. I will try my best to get good photos of Obie but he is quick and I may get tricked up.

Please check often for Obie's adventures and leave comments about them or any suggestions you may have for an adventure.

Chris.

I'm Published Again!

Well, this is starting to go to my head. LOL. I've had another photo of mine published. This time by Schmap Calgary. They have photos from each of the tourist attractions on their web based map. When you click on the attraction it's page opens and there are photos from that location scrolling by. It seems like 20 to 30 photos for each one.

This is the photo that was selected for the Calgary Zoo.



Chris.

Canon 50D Hands On Review Part 2

Ok, I've been using the 50D for a little over a week now. I've put it through some testing both indoor and out. With flash and without. I must say I am happy with the camera but a little let down at the same time. I think I was expecting more that was was possible. Don't get me wrong I love the camera. It's smooth operating and nice to work with but it's the high ISO that gets me. 3200 is work able and that's great but the higher 2 settings are not all I was hoping for.

Anyway, I'll stop ranting about that. I do really like the quality of picture and the ease of use. The menu structure, although much different from the XTI, is easy to navigate and there are lots of features that the XTI does not have. One I really like is the ability to move from ISO to ISO by 1/3's instead of full stops. That's cool.

So here are some more photos for now.


44mm, f/5 for 1/160 sec, ISO 100.


61mm, f/5.6 for 1/80 sec, ISO I00.

Chris.

Canon 50D Hands On Review

I have it! The 50D. Now to review it. This may take more than one post but I'll get started.

I've only had it a few days and have been quite busy so I have not done too much with it yet. But here goes.

This camera is bigger than the Rebel line. Heavier and much more solidly built. Metal instead of plastic. It feels very good in the hand. I won't need a battery grip on this one.

I have the 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM kit lens. It's sharper than the 18-55 on the Rebel. The image stabilization is very quite. I hardly hear it in a quite room. It works well too. I can get 1/10 of a second shutter speed and it looks good!

The ISO performance was much better than my XTI. The XTI goes to ISO 1600 and that's not the best of quality. On the 50D ISO 1600 looks like ISO 400 on the XTI. Nice. ISO 3200 is the highest on the regular scale giving a nice workable result. On H1 and H2 you get ISO 6400, which is very noisy, and ISO 12800. Forget about ISO12800. Yuck is all I'm going to say. I do like the ability to adjust ISO in 1/3 stops. That's new for me. I really like that.

Here are some photos from the last few days.



250mm, F/5.6 for 1/13 seconds, ISO 1600.
This is my first high ISO shot. Not a really high ISO for this camera but on my XTI this would have been bad. It's not too bad at all. All I did for this in post was to work with the noise.


85mm, F/8 for 1/125 seconds, ISO 100.
This one turned out great. I expected it to as the settings are low. What got me though is that when viewing in full size, you can see the edges and angles on the grains of sand!

22mm, f/8 for 1/250 seconds, ISO 100.
This one of Jacob shows nice color, sharpness, exposure was nice. For just grabbing an aperture and snapping away, it worked out really nice.

I'll get to more of the features as I use the camera more. Just felt I had to say something.

Chris.