Sony Alpha Diaries Day 48: Rhodie: a repost from March 2012

 

 

A beautiful dog.  March 10th.

Sony Alpha Diaries Day 26: the Sony a65: not bad for a first generation SLT

At the Guelph Arboretum, under tall maples, birches, poplars, and cherries are areas that are flooded in the winter and spring. I came across two U of G students, Joey and Ben enjoying a game of hockey on an unseasonably warm early February day.
The credit for the music should be:
JS Bach, 23 French Suite No. 6, BWV 817, E major_ Sarabande

The Sony a65 was an ambitious camera: an SLT APS-C camera crammed with 24 megapixels. Lowlight was a struggle at ISO1600 but in good light, it had a years-ahead-of-its-time EVF and Live View display that was brilliant and true to life, PLUS, continuous autofocus using phase detect. This was a camera that even now, Nikon and Canon are hard-pressed to match.

So here's a video from 2013 shot with the Sony a65 on full auto.

Jamie & David: A Languid Moment

I am so very fortunate to have had the pleasure of shooting the video for Jamie and David's Wedding. This is one of those times where all I had to do was to get the camera rolling... Jamie and David just had to be themselves... and themselves they did.
Sony a65, Minolta AF100-200 f4.5.
"Fly Love" by Jamie Foxx

Unicycle Boy

A handful of tries and voila!! he gets it. Not as easy as learning to ride his bike (he got that one on his first try). Handheld Sony a65, using the SteadyShot feature. Sony's stabilization feature really works! May 20th.

Jamie con David

I am so very fortunate to have had the pleasure of shooting the video for Jamie and David's Wedding. This is one of those times where all I had to do was to get the camera rolling... Jamie and David just had to be themselves... and themselves they did.

Sony a65, Minolta AF100-200 f4.5.

"Fly Love" by Jamie Foxx

Frame Grabs from a video shot

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the frame grabs from the Sony a65. I used either the Minolta 100-200f4.5 or the Sony 16-50f2.8. Video shot at 1280x720 60P. If I had known I'd be grabbing frames, I'd have shot at 1980x1280 60P. Frame grab using MPEG Streamclip, with the stills processed in Photoshop CS5.1. Frames have been upsized to 6"x 4" @ 300dpi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 4th.

The U.S. election, blogging as an inspired exercise, and a study in Birches.

I haven't been able to significantly blog in the last 4 weeks: acute bronchitis and work pressures have taken up most of my mental space. In addition, the political and activist animal in me has been been caught up in the U.S. elections.  As a non-U.S. citizenship, I can't vote but the issues discussed and ignored  (climate change is conspicuous by its non-mention)  have engaged me like never before.

I'm just now getting back into the rhythm of blogging, which always starts with observing my environment with an open mind.

Birches have fascinated me since I laid eyes on Ansel Adam's work as well as living in Caledon, with its woods and open fields. A lone birch is interesting but the addition of each tree to a grove leads to an exponential increase in fascination.

 

Guelph Arboretum Nov 4th.

More photos here.

Shane Philips and Bottled Water: An Interview

A brief chat with Shane Philips from Guelph, an inspiration to all of us. He is an effective local voice for a global issue: water resources. Google "shane philips" and read about his initiatives.

We don't have to be a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett, we don't have to be doctors in malaria-infested regions, we don't have to be articulate enough to be on TV. By acting as individuals, we can lend our voices, our talents, and resources to the many issues in our own local areas that need voices: animal issues, land planning and zoning issues, waste disposal issues, etc, and we can lend our support, passive or active to these worthy initiatives. The whole world is our backyard... here is no Plan B for our environment.

2012 Booty Bash

My latest video, shot in a really, really dark venue. It's a challenge in itself but in addition, the Sony a65 I used is capped at ISO1600 for video. I wish I had the hacked GH2 with the high ISO and high bitrate.

Now that I have the Sony a57 (capped at ISO3200), I'm looking forward to my next wedding video in early October. I used 3 lenses: Minolta 50f1.7, Sony 35f1.8, Sony 16-50f2.8. Lighting on some clips was with a Lumahawk 144LED.

I couldn't use the soon-to-be legendary (and proprietary) Sony phase detect autofocus because this closes down the aperture to f3.5. I used manual focus and although the focus peaking works really well, the room was so dark I had to pull and push the focus quickly to find out where the focus was. It was a constant battle looking for focus in a fast moving crowd. I used 1980x1080 @60p.

The soundtrack needs to be redubbed as "the highlights are clipped", to use a photo term. Not sure what the proper wording is in the audio world.

Shooting in the trenches...

in Toronto's Entertainment District on a Friday night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

with fellow photographer, Nelson

Aug 10th.

let me hear you say...

Performers from  Cavalia's Odysseo, in front of SickKids, Toronto. July 11th.

Canada Day... and the Fireworks

They came by the tens of hundreds, filling the parking lots, walking up Woolwich Street, streaming into Riverside Park for the much anticipated Canada Day Fireworks. This crowd was a sampling of the Canadian mosaic: a country made up of people from around the world, from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, of varied sexual orientations, the disabled and not-so-disabled, living together in the best country in the world!

The fireworks last all of 10 minutes but the joy is in the gathering at the park: setting up picnic blankets and chairs, young children darting in and out of the crowd, young people stealing kisses and touches in the dusk, parents and grandparents enjoying the sight of their kids. There are the concession stands (the usual Canadian selections as well as an Ethiopean food stand), and the small collection of rides and amusement arcades.

It is the middle of a gorgeous long weekend and the problems and issues of our world may be set aside, at least for a few moments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Riverside Park, Guelph. July 1st.

"please pick the biggest bag of candy floss I can get for $4"

to paraphrase The Barenaked Ladies, "if I had a million dollars, I'd buy your whole concession stand". Riverside Park, Guelph, on Canada Day. July 1st.

(almost) a full moon on Canada Day

After the fireworks, people mill around the concession stands at closing time. Riverside Park, Guelph. July 1st.

Stills and Video, to go

 

My current set-up for shooting Stills and Video. The Sony a65 does the bulk of the work; if it happens to be on a tripod shooting video, the NEX 5N is available to roam for Stills (as well as 1080 60p video too). I've used this for several assignments now and it works for me. July 20th.

Photoshoot: Kelan

 

 

 
Osgoode Hall, June 14th.

Sony a65 user review after the first six months

It was with high hopes that I switched from Canon to Sony last December and after six months of intense Sony usage, here's my personal impressions.

I miss my Canons for shooting weddings. Consistently accurate (and more importantly, precise) AWB and the best flash implementation I've ever had (I've also used pro Nikons and pro Olympus). Canon IQ is excellent overall, everytime. Canon bodies are solid, if uninspired.

The Sony, on the other hand, has AWB that is literally all over the place on the yellow (and red) side: too yellow, very yellow, and super yellow red. Setting WB to 5400K works until you use flash... then it's too blue!

Sony flash implementation is awful and it's just not me; do a search on dpreview and you'll find a lot of disgruntled users.

Sony IQ can be very good, after post-processing, of course. 

For everything else (and you may ask: what else is there besides the pursuit of the best IQ?), I love my Sony a65 (and it's cousin, the Sony NEX 5N... but more on this for another blog entry). The Sony makes photography fun again; and I find that I will be happy with my images when it is "fun" to take them. 

For this reason, I love taking pics with my iPhone.

Sony has the great but under-appreciated Minolta line of lenses, phase detect video, real time EVF that I can't live without, really useful shooting modes and picture effects (panorama, twilight mode, rich tone B&W, etc).
For me, previsualization is very important. Imagine, or see, the "scene" before it's taken as a picture. I previsualize everything, even a 2,400-shot wedding. Heck, I previsualize what my day is going to be, what the rest of my life is going to be. It's not an exact science but it's what parapsychologists term "putting it out there". Self-fulfilling? Perhaps. But it works for me. And the 2.4M dot OLED EVF, with it's real-time "what -you-see-is-what-the-sensor-gets" is the key that gets my creative juices flowing.

Of course, if money was not an issue, I would have 2 parallel systems for work and play. But where's the fun in that?

Beautiful video!

Once in awhile, I come across a video that I think is elegant in its simplicity... just the bare essentials: camera, 1 lens, mother and child (what could be more elemental?), and an appropriate soundtrack.
I play this video (as well as a few others) to get inspired for a wedding video I am shooting this Saturday: keep it simple, keep it clean, and try to capture the essence of the newlyweds.

Guelph Potters Market at the Goldie Mill

I call her the "turquoise lady"

Works of Art by Mary Philpott from Stratford, ON

 

 

 

 

The 8th annual Potters Market in Guelph is a sure-fire (pun intended) way  to reconnect, if only for a moment, our  primal link with one of the oldest professions in the world. There is nothing quite like drinking wine or beer from a locally-made earthenware goblet, drinking coffee from a substantial mug that invites a caress and a dawdle over the morning breakfast, or enjoying your stew from a dark heavy bowl.  Far from being pedestrian, well-designed and useful pottery are items that act as milestones in one's life, just as dogs, cats, (and children!) in family photos mark moments in our lives. There is the memory of that first glance of that item (as if it had your name on it), the conversation with the artist potter, the exchange of money that, for sure, is not enough compensation for the art and soul that went into the "item", and the first use of it: putting it against the light to admire the colour and design, and cupping it in your hands as if to  feel the fire that smoulders still from within.

Thank you to Jessica Steinhauser (for organizing this event) and to the artists who have come from hundreds of miles around to display their wares.

For those of  you who don't know what I'm talking about, try going to your local community pottery event, pick up a mug, and for a change, sip your tea or coffee from it on a quiet weekend morning over the weekend paper. You will know what I mean, then!

May 28th.