One of my major goals in photography is to compose better travel pictures less like tourist snapshots. Looking back on the thousand or more travel pictures I have stored away in boxes I notice many of the scenic shots are quite impressive to my untrained eye but where are all the people? It might be because I am shy and don’t want to impose but I very rarely take photos of people.

That has all changed once I joined the Toronto Photography Meetup Group (TPMG). At the TPMG events all the other members are a built in source of people who do not usually mind getting their pictures taken. I can already see improvements in my style and composition. Also I am no longer shy about imposing my camera on people in the street. Most of the time if I ask they are delighted, some are shy, some not.

This is one my earlier shots with my Rebel xt using the kit 18 – 55mm lens. I was lucky to catch the moment of realization that the video phone was not the only camera.

This newer picture was taken at dinner at the Taste of Danforth event. It was shot after dusk without a flash in “natural” patio light with a wide open 100mm f2.0 prime lens ISO 800. I leaned the camera on the table to steady the shot. I am happy with the background composition; the transition from the fence on one side to the hair and to tree bark on the other side.

After trying unsuccessfully to catch this little guy randomly scurrying about I relized my camera was in single shot mode and I had to release the button for each refocus. By the time I figured it out all I got was this shot minus a piece of tail. When taking pictures of furry animals I have not had much luck with the Canon autofocus function.

At the Chin Picnic I took several out-of-focus shots at the dog show but only this one where the dog was sitting still turned out. Most of the time I have the camera on center spot focus, this may be a mistake as the fur is too fine to allow a focus lock.

The challenge this week for the Toronto Photography Meetup meetup was to try to capture texture. The location was Edwards Gardens, a semi-formal garden, wedding picture paradise. Texture, love nature and textures in nature equals fractals up close or far away should be easy.

The rest of the pictures are here.

I don’t own a macro lens, The closest lens I have is the Canon kit lens 18-55mm from 0.9 feet to infinity. Adequate but a bit slow in focusing and needs a fair amount of light. My first problem was getting in close enough, the focus motor kept hunting. I had to change to manual focus and set the lens at minimum focus distance. To focus I moved in or out till the image in the Canon’s tiny view screen seemed to be with my poor eyesight in focus. The next problem was the slight wind, with a depth of field of about 1/4″ any swaying will put the object out of focus.

This shot was easy, but had to watch for saturation in the red. I like the way the last of the raindrops from the days rain beads up on the pedals.

Any way add a close up lens or a lens extension or a macro lens to my ever growing shopping list.

I brought my first Tripod for my pinhole camera experiments. I don’t count my dirt cheap terrible to use mini-table top tripod as a real tripod. I brought a Velbon Sherpa 250.

Pluses are:

• it is mostly metal
• sturdy 3 – section legs
• camera quick release
• really like the smoothness of the head
• The head can be mounted on the bottom of the tripod allowing some low angle to the ground shots
• locking lever locks both rotational axis at the same time
• aprox. $100 cdn

Neutral:

• weight 2kg
• closed length 60 cm
• it dosn’t have a handle or a carrying bag (The carrying bag from one of my cheap walmart folding chairs works perfectly)

As this my first tripod I am not the person to go for camera equipment reccomendations. But one of the photographers tryed it out, liked it and wrote down the part number.

Anyway back to the shoot. I used the tripod to take my first long exposure shot of moving water. As my lens only stops down to f22 it wasn’t that long of a time. I find out that I need another filter, a neutral density filter ND for short. While I am at it I should add a polarizing filter or two to the shopping list.

At the prerequisite preshoot 2 hour lunch. I thought it would be interesting to make a salt and pepper, zen garden texture shot, to get a headstart on the challenge. After labouriously designing and building the garden using a fork and a swizzle stick as a rake the picture were less the then interesting. That is until a radio remote fired flash was but onto the table. So add a remote firing flash to the list.

Shopping wish list as a result of this outing:

• close up lens or a lens extension or a macro lens
• neutral density and polarising filters (for how many lenses as each Canon lense seems to need a different size
• radio remote fired flash

The challenge was to shoot the whole day using only a single prime lense. My weapon of choice was my 100mm f2.0 Canon lense.

The original Danforth was all about a Greek Neighbourhood, women dressed in black on the front porch crying, mourning the death of a family member. Fruit Markets the only stores in Toronto open 24 hours 364 days a year (closed for Christmas). Times have changed Asians for the most cases have taken over the fruit stores, now open more conservative hours. Many greek restaurants have moved up market greek cusine. The Danforth has become a stylish place to live. Many of the greek people have sold there houses replaced by the multi-cultural mix that is Toronto today.

More photos
Some of the more interesting photographs were taken after dusk using the camera handheld with no flash at ISO 800.

A few times a year the Kensington Market closes its streets to motor vehicles. As far as I am concerned this should be a permanent change. Normally the streets are so crowded that pedestrians and vehicles move at the same speed.

Kensington Market Photo Shoot

Some how my Olympus broke, don’t ask how, ever since I was a kid I was good at taking things apart to try to fix them but not so good at getting them back together again. Anyway I replaced the Olympus with the Canon. So many buttons to learn, so many modes, so unclear instruction book to read, even real men have to try to read the occasional manual!

My first shoot with my brand new digital camera was on the Toronto Islands.A few of the better shots are from a later trip.

More pictures.

This was my first photo shoot with the Toronto Photography Meetup Group The first time in my 53 years I have picked up my cameras as a hobby. I hope you will see improvments in my composition, subject matter and style as the timeline of this blog progresses.
More of my first shoot.

Back in university when I was traveling up in the Arctic as part as my work studies I brought a second hand Pentax SLR. After graduation I started work at a geophysical survey instrument company, see the world young man. I kept the camera for about 7 years and took many trays of slides in exotic off the tourist path, the Arctic, Iran, Russia … While I was in Brazil as all imported goods at that time had 150% import duties I sold the Pentax for more then I paid for it.The problem with a camera when travelling was and still is that it is a target for thieves, you always have to watch them so for many years I was without a camera.

In 1995 while in Japan to give a speech on medical image processing I brought a Olympus L-10 SLR camera, the automatic type that has a built in 28-110 zoom lense. I used this camera to take typical business tourist pictures in countries in Europe and in Thailand.

Back a about 5 years I took a long beach bum trip to The Big Island of Hawaii. I wanted a compact waterproof camera that I could take every where including under the ocean. I brought a Minolta vectis weathermatic zoom PHS (Push Here Stupid) APS film camera. Great little camera small, lightweight, very rugged, the pictures are only slightly lower resolution then the Olympus. Too bad not many companies nowdays have the equipment to develop the APS film. A doubt the current crop of digital cameras would have stood the heat and acid moisture right next to the lava flow as it entered the ocean. Only the batteries couldn’t stand the heat!