I have been without my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM lens for the last 8 days. The lens was being repaired by Canon Professional Services because I damaged the front element lens coating by banging the lens against something. I say was because the replacement of the first lens group was just completed and the lens is finally on it's way back. Yeah, I know, I know. "Where was your UV Filter?" The short story is that I had removed it because when I shoot with my Lee Graduated Neutral Density filters or my Singh-Ray Darrell Benson Reverse Graduated Neutral Density filter, I don't want any lens vignetting that may occur if I simply mount the GND or RGND onto the UV filter.
For the longest time, I always left the UV filter on. Period. I would leave it on and then remove any vignetting in Camera Raw. But to save a step or two in my workflow, I started taking it off when using the GND/RGND filters and reminded myself to be careful. Then recently, I read on the internet, a recommendation to not bother with the UV filter for protection. I interpreted the blog (from a well known and reputable author) to support my decision to forgo the UV filter.
And then I banged the lens around on something. At first I ignored the damage to the coating. It was only evident as some splotching in the sky in some photographs and I could generally clean it up using the spot removal tool in Camera Raw. But I finally got tire of that and sent if off to Canon for an estimate. It was expensive to replace the first lens group but compared to the price of a new or refurbished lens, a bargain.
And I only have myself to blame.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Cooper's Hawk Aerobics
In bird photography, when you encounter a bird that tolerates your presence letting you fire away with your camera without flying away, you call that a 'cooperative bird'. Well last January, I had a Cooper's Hawk visit my backyard to sun himself and preen. I happened to see him land in a tree and observed him for a few moments from inside my house. I was dying to take some pictures of him and after watching him for about 5 minutes, I decided that if I didn't grab my gear and at least try, I would kick myself.
So I grabbed my gear, set up the camera and lens, mounted it on the gimbal head on my tripod and then stepped into the backyard as non-chalantly as I could. I edged out to behind a post holding up my patio cover using that as my blind. I set the camera down and looked at the bird and he was hardly paying attention. The session photographing this bird lasted 10 or more minutes. He stayed so long that at one point, I quit taking pictures and grabbed a couple of minutes of video. I would call this one very cooperative bird.
I came across the two images here while continuing to re-organize my photographs into Lightroom.
So I grabbed my gear, set up the camera and lens, mounted it on the gimbal head on my tripod and then stepped into the backyard as non-chalantly as I could. I edged out to behind a post holding up my patio cover using that as my blind. I set the camera down and looked at the bird and he was hardly paying attention. The session photographing this bird lasted 10 or more minutes. He stayed so long that at one point, I quit taking pictures and grabbed a couple of minutes of video. I would call this one very cooperative bird.
I came across the two images here while continuing to re-organize my photographs into Lightroom.
Image particulars: Canon 5D MKII, 600mm/f4 lens at f9, 1/320th of a second, ISO 400 on a Wimberley WH200 Head and Gitzo 3541LS tripod.
This image and others are available at my website.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Syncing LR3 with My Website and FlickR
For a few years I used Adobe CS4 with Bridge for my image processing. Essentially I cataloged my images by folder and name. Well a friend of mine forwarded me a link last "Black Friday" (November 25th) with a deal on Lightroom 3 and I took the bait. After working with LR3 for almost 2 months now I am a fan. I have altered my workflow to use LR and not Bridge and beginning about mid-December, all new images have been imported into LR as the beginning of my workflow. It has taken a little bit of work to get used to the publish support in LR. But once I downloaded the plug-ins created by Jeff Friedl and got my mind wrapped around a couple of concepts, I realized I had been working way to hard!
So what about all of the images I had prior to the LR3 purchase? Well...that is an on-going project. I decided the first thing to do was to get my website and LR3 in synch and I completed that task in December. The next thing is to get the photos on FlickR in synch with LR3. Getting the photos synch'ed takes some work and is a little tedious so I am slowly "chipping away" at the rock. Here is one of the latest images that I synch'ed up.
This is a Western Bluebird I photographed in December 2010.
Image particulars: Canon 5D MKII, 600mm/f4 lens at f4 and 1/2000th of a second, ISO 400.
This image and others are available at my website.
So what about all of the images I had prior to the LR3 purchase? Well...that is an on-going project. I decided the first thing to do was to get my website and LR3 in synch and I completed that task in December. The next thing is to get the photos on FlickR in synch with LR3. Getting the photos synch'ed takes some work and is a little tedious so I am slowly "chipping away" at the rock. Here is one of the latest images that I synch'ed up.
Image particulars: Canon 5D MKII, 600mm/f4 lens at f4 and 1/2000th of a second, ISO 400.
This image and others are available at my website.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Changing Weather
It's been a weird winter all over California. I live a little north of Los Angeles. Our annual precipitation, measured from July 1 to June 30, averages a little over 14 inches. The total rain this season for Los Angeles is about 3.76 inches. That is about 8 inches below normal for this time of year.
Last weekend we had a low pressure system move in bringing a little rain (and awesome clouds) with normal temperatures for this time of year (highs in the low 60s). But that low pressure system moved out and by Thursday, there were highs in the 80s in various southern California locations (and 77° here on Wednesday, see the previous blog entry). Well the weather is changing again with a high pressure system moving in bringing high winds (called a Santa Ana wind). The weather service has issued wind advisories for gusts to 45mph where I live (and up to 75mph out towards Palm Springs) along with a red flag warning for fire danger because of low humidity. By January, the red flag warnings are a thing of the past in most years because we have had enough rain to dampen the brush on the hillsides.
One of the side affects of the Santa Ana winds is that whatever clouds were around are pushed out leaving clear skies. So instead of "looking up" for a subject, I looked down and realized that I could capture some nice images of a backyard flag in motion. I hope you like it.
Image particulars: 50mm/f1.4 lens at f5.6, 1/10th of a second with an ISO of 50.
This image is available at my website.
website | facebook | twitter | google+ | blog | email
Last weekend we had a low pressure system move in bringing a little rain (and awesome clouds) with normal temperatures for this time of year (highs in the low 60s). But that low pressure system moved out and by Thursday, there were highs in the 80s in various southern California locations (and 77° here on Wednesday, see the previous blog entry). Well the weather is changing again with a high pressure system moving in bringing high winds (called a Santa Ana wind). The weather service has issued wind advisories for gusts to 45mph where I live (and up to 75mph out towards Palm Springs) along with a red flag warning for fire danger because of low humidity. By January, the red flag warnings are a thing of the past in most years because we have had enough rain to dampen the brush on the hillsides.
One of the side affects of the Santa Ana winds is that whatever clouds were around are pushed out leaving clear skies. So instead of "looking up" for a subject, I looked down and realized that I could capture some nice images of a backyard flag in motion. I hope you like it.
Image particulars: 50mm/f1.4 lens at f5.6, 1/10th of a second with an ISO of 50.
This image is available at my website.
website | facebook | twitter | google+ | blog | email
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Snow Day!
The New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, CO releases a seasonal ale at this time of year called "Snow Day". It is an American Dark Ale, dark in color with a creamy texture. It has an alcohol content a little over 6%. It's common for craft breweries to release winter seasonal ales with a little more kick to "fight off the cold". According to the New Belgium Brewery website, they started brewing "Snow Day" in 2003 after inspiration brought on by a 2 day snow storm.
Well...the hight temperature at my house today was 77°F. Seemed perfect for a "Snow Day" and so being thusly inspired, I captured this image.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Recycling is Beautiful
I was getting ready to recycle bin the remnants from a faucet repair when the shapes, colors and lines caught my eye. The remnants hit the bin. But after I finished a few shots with the Canon 5DMKII and 50mm/f1.4 Lens.
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