I just Bought my Zoom Lens: Me Happy

December 15th, 2011 Thomasso

As soon as I converted my Bank Note into good old cash, I burned down to the camera store and picked up my zoom lens that I have been planning for over the last week. I then went straight home, attached the lens onto my camera body, and fired off about 15 shots before it got too dark out. I am happy with the lens. Although it is still probably too soon to tell, but so far, from what I have done with it, the zoom lens meets all of my expectations.

The only thing that I thought was really “cheesy” about the lens kit was the hood that came with it. To sum it up in one word, I would say that the hood is “stupid.” I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to properly attach it to the lens?

Below are some test shots I made just moments ago, but first, my first shot with the lens. Note to self: I think it was a wise move to buy the one with the better glass. There was another lens with a 75 to 300mm zoom range, and at 300mm, it did not perform that great – plus it had no auto-focus motor in it!

Testing the Sony DT 4-5.6/55-200 SAM lens out on my Alpha33 camera.

First test shots are showing the difference of an object about 30 metres away. The first shot is set at 55mm, and the second shot set at maximum magnification, or 200mm.

Above at 55mm; below at 200mm.

The next set of test shots are shooting an object that is just over a metre away, on the ground.

Above image is shot at 55mm, just over 1m away.

In this image the object is shot with full zoom, 200mm, at just over 1m away.

With low light, and a completely overcast day, with lots of precipitation, and it was very cool out, both the camera and the lens did well. The lens complements the camera with its auto focusing, which is what the S.A.M. stands for, Smooth Auto-focus Motor. Here is a link to Sony Canada’s website showing the lens: SAL-55200-2.

Image courtesy of Sony Canada.

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Reviews of My Camera: Sony A33

December 13th, 2011 Thomasso

I’m a beginner photographer at heart. This is my first digital SLR camera that have I ever owned. So, naturally, not having a huge budget for the more professional type cameras, I opted for a lower end camera to start off with, and a brand that I have used before. The camera was on sale, 20 percent off, so I made the plunge and bought it. It was calling my name… .

So far after having the camera for two weeks now, I am thoroughly impressed with it. I have snapped over 400 photos with it, and the versatility of a DLSR (or DLST) is still amazing me as each photo session yields new discoveries of what this camera can do. The lens, a 18-55mm, is awesome. The old point-and-shoot is child’s play compared to the field of view that I can now get with this camera. And the ISO options, nice ISO100-12800. I have being deprived for so many years since I hung up my analogue SLR a decade ago.

It is a low end camera, with some great features though. The camera does have some issues that concern me. The big one is that if you shoot video for more than ten minutes, the censor chip starts to over heat, and the camera shuts down. I do not plan on shooting that much video with it, so that feature is not that big of a deal for me. I suspect that this is the reason why Sony has discontinued production of it – according to a armature YouTube video I seen about the camera. It does shoot video in high definition and has a HDMI out on it – this is cool.

The seven shots per second is really cool too, and the auto focus while it is shooting at that speed is pretty wicked too. I cannot wait to try that out when I get some good outdoor shooting weather.

Here is another review of the camera:

So time will tell. I consider this my “starter” camera. My next purchase for it will be a telephoto lens this week, and then a macro lens in the new year. I plan on taking a lots photos in the future. And of course, I will be posting some of them here on the blog. I can’t wait!

Image courtesy of Sony Canada on www.Sony.ca

Here is to happy shooting!

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, Events, General, Photographs | Comments Off

Photographs of My Walk in the Park

December 11th, 2011 Thomasso

These are just but a few of the 84 shots I took today, walking through Mariners Park in Fort Langley. This is your typical December day, as it was cold, foggy, and damp, but surprisingly, not a bad day for shooting some outdoor shots. I really liked it becuase no one else was around to spoil the shots, and there were few boats in the water too. I took advantage of the fog effect nature provided me.

Posted in Around Town, General, Photographs | 2 Comments »

Mr Fluffy Face – 15 Second Sketch

December 11th, 2011 Thomasso

Kids, both young and old, love drawing, even if they do not do it as a full fledged hobby, just playing around with new technology is the fun itself. Case in point are a group of “older” kids that I was showing off a 21 x 14 cm drawing graphics tablet that can be plugged into any computer using a USB port. Watching their eyes, watching the screen, as I started sketching this image, below, was an amazing experience for me. For them, it seemed intriguing as the different colours and shapes appeared in front of them.

I wish I had more of these graphic tablets, as some never got a chance to play around with it; time just ran out. Those that did play with it seemed to be more on writing their names than actually drawing. Perhaps I reinvigorated some artist sleepers to a new medium at the Senior’s Centre.

Posted in Art, General, Humour, Linux | Comments Off

Unexpected Saturday Stuff to Do

December 10th, 2011 Thomasso

I guess with being sick for so long with the flu, I put off more than I should have over the last two weeks. I completely forgot things like paying some bills, meeting some friends for some potential business arrangements, and my commitments with some volunteer organisations I spend time with. My head is still a little light from the flu, but I am on the mend. Now I just need to catch up from all the time off.

I wish I could find more time to play with my new camera too. With such short days and the weather not being to terribly co-operative, finding good shooting conditions has been a pain. Those small moments of available time where I can get out and shoot, are few and far between. Of course, I have been focusing on night time photography, doing things such as shooting the night sky, so finding that perfect clear night to shoot has been, well, a rare event over the last three weeks. Fall and winter time in Vancouver is less than ideal for finding clear nights, and being cold out, and having the flue, is just pure torture.

Last night we had the full moon for December, which featured a Lunar Eclipse for Saturday morning. Friday night was perfect shooting conditions, as the sky was clear and it was not too cold out. The moon looked brilliant. My only regret was not having a good telephoto lens with me. Life as a poor photographer; making due with the tools I have.

And to end the post off with, my act of weirdness in art. This was me doodling with my drawing tablet using a drawing/painting program called “MyPaint.”

Have a great weekend!

Posted in Art, General, Linux, Photographs, Software | Comments Off

My, How Time Passes On the Blog

December 8th, 2011 Thomasso

I know, it has been six days since my last post. I know. It was a combination of having the flue, then working crazy hours, then dealing with some software issues that creped up during my last update. Time just blew by me. I believe that I am back on track now, over the hump, things looking rosy again. I am over the flu, and the website seems to be back in good working order, but work still takes most of my time and energy.

On the blog, I have been dealing a super high amounts of comment spam. Yes, I have some good spam killer defences on my site, but the spammers seem to have found a weakness on my site, and they slid in a few hundred comments, though fortunately none made it onto the blog, they filled up my personal email account very fast. Within one day, November 30th, they managed to spam-bombed my blog with over 270 comments. I did some quick searching to find out why I was getting all of this attention, and found out that one of the plugins, called “Daily Emotions,” was letting them in. Once I terminated the plugin, the problem magically went away.

I am thankful that I am working , when comparing myself to the amount of people who are not in these harsh economic times. Although it is terribly slow, for this time of year – the fourth quarter at my work, I am busy. My hours have been all over the place.  When dealing with the flu, the demands on my time have been really stressing me out when my health is hitting the bottom. It has been two weeks since the onslaught of the flu that hit me with a vengeance back then, and still lingers today. I have taken measures to help myself deal with the flu, like pacing myself, but nothing beats good old rest. I am hoping that this weekend I can take it easy and get the rest that will rid myself of this flu bug once and for all!

So, until later on, stay tuned.

Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Since When is Politics Boring?

December 2nd, 2011 Thomasso

I have always been interested in politics, and my need to know more about it peaked when I took my first Political Science course way back in 2004. I really believe that the first steps in understanding politics is having a really good base of knowledge. I never got any good learning experiences when I was in high school, they never taught it then adequately, and sitting in an armchair would have never gotten me close to what I needed in terms of knowledge (of fully appreciating) all the facets of politics since my University days. I think too, the need to want to learn it plays a huge part in appreciating it?

Here is how I break it down: You have your mainstream politics, and your local politics, but then you have your the in between politics that kind that only deals with the special interest of the clique that you are associated with, and no one else cares about. In my little clique, the Students and Institution of the university that I once belonged to, has had an explosion of activity in the last three days. Student politics has hit the local news media and syberspace like a mid summer grass fire.

The Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) has hit the news feeds with a flurry of activity. On November 30th, 2011, a rally to impeach the current board members from power took place, as over 400 students, whose numbers could form a quorum, voted to oust nearly three quarters of the KSA’s board members. This is politics at its best in my opinion becuase it engaged hundreds of otherwise busy students to take a stand, and hopefully putting a stop to the mountains of negative publicity that Kwantlen Polytechnic University has been getting over this.

Here is the geniuses of the whole movement of the Special General Meeting (SGM) to oust the then KSA on video, thanks the student paper The Runner:

The SGM had its hiccups too on Nov 30, 2011. The fire alarm was pulled twice, and someone sprayed pepper-spry in the hallway leading to the conference room where students had to reregister before the vote took place. Yes, the police and fire department were on the scene.

In the end, the vote took place and the KSA was replaced with about 12 new temporary board members, and changes to the by-laws governing the KSA, and a motion to issue a new election for the new KSA.

With allegations of corruption, criminal and civil wrong doing, out of control spending, and actions that does not benefit the students as a whole, who says student politics is boring?

When I was a student, I missed a golden opportunity right in front of me.

Posted in Diatribe, Events, General, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, University classes, Video | Comments Off

Shooting the Stars, But need more Gear

November 30th, 2011 Thomasso

I have being doing more than staying up in the middle of the night taking pictures of the night sky, I have being nursing a cold/flu/headache for the last week too. For the record, I have being spending very little time outside. This evening I took the risk of going outside for a few moments to do one last shoot before I hang up the night-time shooting gig until I buy more gear to get the shots I want. I really need to get better from the flu bug that it killing me, but tonight was clear, and the fog was starting roll in from the river, and I figured that this maybe the time to get shots in before the clouds come back. So I compromised and took ten 30 second shots before retreating back in side to warmth. The fog had just started to cover everything when I finished.

I finally got the “Big Dipper” before it sunk behind the trees. These stars are so low in the sky this time of year during the evenings, I had a half hour window to shoot this.

You can see the fog starting to roll in from this last shot. Remember that these are 30 second long exposures, so the human eye does not see  all of this light that the camera is picking up.

My next purchase will be the remote switch so that I do not have to touch the camera to take the photograph. Even though I am using a tripod, I find it vibrates just enough to make the stars appear out of focus. Also, 30 seconds is just long enough before you start to see star trails from the Earth’s rotation. Perhaps later on I will do a start trails shoot.

Posted in Astronomy, General, Photographs | 1 Comment »

Getting Closer To My Goal of Capturing the Stars

November 27th, 2011 Thomasso

I am getting closer to capturing the stars with my camera that way I want. The storm had passed this afternoon, but leaving lots of clouds, but there were some breaks in the weather around 6:00pm. I grabbed my tripod and camera and headed down to the railway tracks and started taking long exposure shots, but this time starting at my lowest ISO setting, ISO 100 and working my way to a good setting. The flu bug that I caught last week started to loosen up enough so that I could go outside without catching a chill, but still had that drip from my sinuses.It was a good time for night shots.

I found that I seem to be stuck at the ISO200 setting until I can get a remote switch for my shutter. The camera has a 30 second timer for the shutter, so this setting is my bench mark that I am using for these shots. I know I will have to go up to 60 seconds exposures to capture the stars the way I want to with the ISO100. However, I did figure out that the lower the F-stop setting, the happier my camera was at taking these long exposure shots.

The clouds has an interesting effect when taking long exposures. They seem like they are in warp, as if you can almost see them moving in the still photograph.

The widest I can go is 18mm, but one day soon I will get a fish-eye lens – 16mm. Focusing seems to a problem too. Well, it is either focusing or my tripod moves a little while taking these long exposure shots because the stars just do not seem to be perfect points.

Above, you see the “streaking” effect of the moving clouds in the long exposure photograph. The ISO is set to 200, f-stop 4, 18mm at 30 seconds. You can see stars in this shot. I will also post the larger size in my gallery sometime this week so you can see more detail.

Above is my star field shot. I will post this also in my gallery becuase at this size you cannot see half of the details that a larger image can show you. I need longer exposure times, so a remote switch for the shutter is my next purchase. ISO setting at 200, f-stop set to 6, and 18mm for a 30 second exposure.

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I shoot My Camera at Night

November 26th, 2011 Thomasso

I love night time photography, especially shooting objects like the sky, capturing the stars and distance objects, it has always fascinated me. Now that I have a fairly good DSLR to do all these wonderful things with, getting the time, and having the right conditions to do them in, has been difficult. Today, I have been dealing with a flu bug, and bad weather. when I was able to muster up enough energy, I stood out on my porch, under cover where the rain could not get me, and fired off a few shots, changing settings and making adjustments on the camera as I went.

It took a while, and about 20 shots, before I started to get close to what I wanted. The ISO settings was the last part of the equation for me to understand with this camera. The camera goes up to 64000 1600 ISO, and when you shoot at that level, every shot was super grainy with long exposures. When I found the button for the ISO setting, it all started to fall in place for me. My f-stop settings made sense now from the desired ISO I wanted, and I could at least use the shutter speed setting the way it was intended be used for night time photography. So I ended off the night with this shot, taken from my porch, with the following settings – ISO 200, 15sec, F8, 0EV, 55mm.

It was raining very hard, and I waited between wind gusts to take this shot. I did other shots of the distant part of the neighbourhood, but this was the best as far as crispness and clarity goes. Now I have to work on setting the white balance as this setting will greatly fine-tune the image quality for me.

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