Nicks Stuff

F to the ilm-ay

2009-02-16T17:29:00.004+10:00

Well I got the first roll developed that's been through the EOS 500. I am somewhat surprised and not surprised at the results. Surprised that I generally overexposed every shot by half a stop, not surprised that all the shots are totally freakin' awesome.. Not really.

Walking through the City in Brisbane, I took my hand to hip-shooting but being a film camera with the massive frame-rate of 1FPS and ice-age slow AF compared to my 40D, hip-shooting was fail, massively.

Here are some shots - mind you this is a 'test roll' so some shots that I think are nice are not exactly taken with the best effort in mind, rather the battle between dead batteries and filling the roll in one week.

Today's Today.

2009-02-03T19:24:00.004+10:00

Well today is my last of 4 days off, 2 on leave. Alicia's little brother is pretty-much settled and into his Tafe course which I wish I was doing - but hey, I don't mind getting paid for doing what I consider layman's work!

Finally completed two HDR's I took the other week down the road which I have mixed feelings about. The lumberjacks are tearing into what has been a dormant block filled with native flora and fauna for as long as I've been around which is always a shit thing to do, but it's owned by the Dept. of Housing, and housing is one thing QLD, and Brisbane in particular needs, and how. Over the last quater every other state and territory has had a dive in the cost of housing of over minimum 2% whilst QLD has kept on chugging with a 1/2% increase. Sure you say, that isn't bad, but shit - when it costs as much to live in a city twice or three times the size it is a little crap.

This Komatsu that holds tree's getting chainsawed and puts them into trucks isn't as sinister as it looks but I dug the weather and the look of it so this is why I shot it, and to use the Giottos out in the field for the fist time! It performed flawlessly in what is a completely pathetic exscuse of a tripod, only for the HDR but shit, why the hell not!

I also decided to embed these shots from my Deviant Art account! Woo...

Karate Komatsu by ~EnGeeBee on deviant ART

Great Grip by ~EnGeeBee on deviant ART

The new-old body is yet to arrive but I shall still wait excitedly, the seller won't even respond to questions on eBay! Bastard!

Anyway, back to work tomorrow doing the long-ones but oh well.

Am I naughty if I'm perusing eBay for a medium-zoom for the EOS 500? The 28-80 sounds like it has a decent range.. Or maybe a 100-200 for some true candid street shots!

New Day New Fad

2009-02-01T22:02:00.003+10:00

So how's the heat? Hot? Well around here it's been hitting the mid 30's while some other parts of Australia have been hitting the mid-40's! Insane!

Well after gaining an old-yet-vgc Prakitca SLR, I've had the want to get back into film, well, since high school that is. Now stop being silly, it wasn't that long ago.. was it? Graduating in '00, I'd seen better times out than in, especially getting my license and some wheels but pretty much the only thing that I saw good from it was my prac-art class and it introducing me to photography, we even had a closet-come-darkroom which was half the fun!

After picking up a whole heap of dark-room gear, from tanks to heaters (for colour) and even a drying cabinet, I am swapped in gear but not much time to shoot or develop, especially being such a spoiled brat and manual focus on a 70's camera being tortoise-esqe, I was granted permission to get another body. Purchasing tonight - I snapped a used but loved Canon EOS 500.

Although having a plastic lens-mount, no lens included, needing CR123A batteries (which aren't the cheapest) and being used - at only $30 I still think it worth the AF advantage, and the fact it's an EOS, which means I can use my EF lenses with it. The plan being developing my own B&W films that I'll use on this and any C-41 colour will just go to a lab.

Having taken to street photography a bit but not really ever finding the time to just loiter in the city for an hour or more whilst there are interesting characters a-foot. My thoughts also fall to my current rig, the 40D, which isn't the biggest camera but with a grip thrown on and the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 it certainly gains some attention, especially with that 82mm bezel and some people certainly shrink at the sight.

The idea being the 500 can handle the 50 f/1.8 for some nice DOF and contrasty shots and is a fairly small and compact body so it wont raise the 'someone's raising a gun/videocamera/bad-hair-day at me' alarm. All I need now is a mild tele-zoom and I'll be set.. I think you need large ones to take street in someone's face with a 50mm, if not for dodging headbutts but where's the time to frame up! Hip shots just aren't what they're cracked up to be!

Also on the list of arrivals is my 75cm cubed light tent, isn't it a pretty boy! It's a tad larger than I was thinking also, which is always better! It also came with 4 backgrounds (then there's 5 if you include it's own colour). The shot of the 50 and the Praktica were taken shortly after dinner. Not really fine tuned but better than on the bathroom floor!

Will get some more practice in with it and perhaps a little help with street work now Alicia's little brother Llew has made the move from Mudgee this weekend to stay with us and go to Tafe. I'll have someone to walk around with! However he also owns a 40D+grip but at least the 17-85 isn't as brutish as my Sigma.

Perchase.

2009-01-15T20:55:00.004+10:00

Well I picked up my latest purchase today, the long awaited Giottos MT9360 Pro spec tripod. I collected the MH7001 Ballhead and 652 Quick-release plate just after Christmas and this fella came with my first '09 pay (monthly pay does have SOME benefits!).

After owning a Velbon Sherpa 250R, I was looking for something with equal quality but much more versatility as I felt this is what the Sherpa lacked for me, it has a nice, smooth 3 way head, holds plenty, doesn't cost the earth and is fairly light for what it is.

I looked around and originally lined up the much sought after Manfrotto 190 X pro B, which was a little expensive for my tastes but if I was going to move on from the Velbon, I had to make it a decent move.

It was then I decided to actually read some adds and take a little more notice in the photography magazines I seem to be collecting and I noticed a fair few people in the UK like their Giottos, of which I know (as does everyone) about their cleaning kits and the great torpedo air blower, but I looked into some Giottos tripods, asuming it was much like Gitzo and would be astronomically out of my price range. I found the model, MT9360/9361 and searched and to my delight I found a local shop, D-Dphotographics that has a shop-front in my town (Brisbane, Fortitude Valley) that I could go and not only view the Giottos but compare in person to the 190/055 x pro b.

What I found was comparable feel in build quality, both tripods being hefty and everything feeling very solid but what I did notice and what really won me over was the extra versatility the Giottos had over the X Pro B, this was the fact that it has a built-in '3 way head', which means you get MUCH more movement out of the tripod for macro and close-up work which is always awesome - AND - It was cheaper!

Getting it home and having a play made my purchase even more of satisfactory, it just.. feels good!

Features out it's bum like built-in spiked feet, fat foam grips, strap, padded hi-qual bag, short neck for when you want the tripod as low as possible or the angle of tilt is less than 90 degrees, tool kit for giving the working parts a tighten or loosen if you want.

For $270 total, it's hard to beat when the 190 X Pro B has less functionality and the legs alone are $230 (from the same store) not including a head!

One word, awesome. Now I have a tripod again I'll hopefully grab some night time shots and some landscape shots this weekend!

Back and as tastelss as ever.

2009-01-05T17:22:00.004+10:00

Well I've brought the blog back from the dead. As others have done (and I thought was a nice touch) I'm going to do a look back over the year and some photos on whats been and gone and you can think, geez if he's average now, look at him back then! ;)

Sure a lot of the early ones are of cars (All I used to do basically!) but you can see just how much I've broadened in subjects alone!

January, My niece and nephews second birthday, ahh, it seems like it was only yesterday!

February was my first real attempt at anything moving at pace. Was an interesting afternoon. June

March held this was a surprising catch, using hot-shoe flash. I still think it's one of my best images!

April came the big upgrade! I went from a Pentax K100D (Bought 2nd hand in december) to my 40D, although the kit has morphed a little these days.

May had some fun times, this being my personal stand-out image, taken at a train station at about 4 in the arvo.

June brought some early starts but was fairly enjoyable, I should do this more often acutally!

July brought me some off-camera flash gear! And I still play with it to this day. This was my first attempt at something half-alright.

August must've got me feeling a bit green in the thumbs, the weather was fine and these tiny flowers were cool, laying on the ground and getting eaten by ants not so cool..

September looks to be a lazy month, I was trying to shoot something else and just happened to catch this vacant stare, mmm, makes me want to go take a nap..

October was filled with anticipation about our trip down the eastern coast of australia, boy it was going to be fun. Oh and I like this shot I took on October too :P

This was taken on our holiday inbetween Mooree and Narribri in the Mid-North NSW. I used my Nikon SB-25 to strobe the flower and foreground to keep the rest of the frame from being blown out. Clever I know :P

December was taken on the way from Mudgee in Central NSW to Canberra. I like this shot's mood and the foreground interest. Although typically I'd think the diagonal fence would be a no-no I think I like it in this shot.

All of the shots were taken in the month they title to keep the theme with some purpose and point. Hopefully I get to this blogging thing when I can and get some sort of regular updates and posts going. Good night interwebs.