Moving!

This blog is moving to a new host and a new URL. The transition *should* be relatively seamless and quite painless.

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION URL!

The new address is http://www.kevwilfoto.com/blog/. Thank you!

Quick Post – 15% off at RedBubble for a limited time

I received an email from RedBubble with a coupon code I could pass along. Great! So, I just uploaded some new work to make sure you have some fresh images to look at. You’ll need to hurry, though, because the coupon expires on November 14th.

Use the coupon code “kevwil_is_on_sale_9168″ for any purchases from my RedBubble site.

Motocross Des Nations 2010 Slideshow

I exported a video slideshow out of Lightroom 3 to show the best shots I got from this race.

(It’s probably best to click through to YouTube to watch this. It’s a 720p HD video and the simple WordPress player for YouTube is pretty low-tech and cheesy looking.)

Read Your Manual

I actually sat down the other night and read the manual for my new Canon camera. It was a boring night, what can I say? Anyway, I noticed something that I would never have thought of.

My camera has what’s called “Silent Mode”. I wish my old Nikon had this feature. Seriously! What is it? It’s used when you’re using Live View. Live View is when the mirror in your SLR flips up out of the way and the LCD screen on the back shows what the sensor is seeing, straight through the lens, in real time. The “view” is “live”.

Why do I like Silent Mode? When I would take an image while in Live View on my old Nikon, the mirror would slam down into the original position, crash up in the photo-taking position, the shutter would fire, then the mirror would slam down again, then the mirror would crunch up as it return to Live View mode again. Ker-thunk, ker-thunk, ker-thunk. … Ker-thunk. Very noisy, and tons of vibration. This is not good when you’re doing long exposures in the wind. Anyway, the Canon, when making an image while in Live View, will just fire the shutter. The mirror doesn’t make four round trips just to take 1 shot, in fact it doesn’t move. Quiet and smooth.

So, back to the topic. The 5D mark II has 3 settings for Silent Mode. Mode 1 allows continuous shooting when you are in the continuous drive mode. Mode 2, a.k.a. “stealth mode” I like to call it, will only take one photo when you press the shutter button. Aaaand, it will hold the camera as long as you hold the shutter button down. As best I can tell, this holds the shutter in the “fired” position, and the shutter resets when you release the shutter button. Very cool.

Here’s the trick. The third mode is Disable. I will quote the instructions:

If you use a TS-E lens to make vertical shift movements or use and Extension Tube, be sure to set this to [Disable]. Setting it to [Mode 1] or [Mode 2] will result in incorrect or irregular exposures. When you press the shutter button completely, the shutter will should like it took two shots. However, only one shot will be taken.

So if I put the TS-E on and forget to change the Silent Mode, I could be setting myself up for trouble. Who would have guessed??

I don’t usually read manuals, at least not very thoroughly, but I’m sure glad I did this time!!

At Home in the Natural World

A while back I was interviewed by someone from Induro about my photography. It was quite a surprise, and I wasn’t even sure it was on-the-level or just a scam. (Too paranoid?) Anyway, their blog post is up, and it seems very well done if I do say so myself. At least I don’t come off as a complete idiot, which I must credit the author for doing all the work there. I’m very excited to share it with you, so CLICK HERE to check it out.

Thanks to Induro for their great products and for the added exposure.

Lensbaby with Film

Play time.

I’m selling my Nikon gear and switching to Canon. Most of the expensive stuff has sold, but the Canon gear is just starting to arrive. In the mean time, I had a film camera and a Lensbaby and an urge to photograph something.

Velvia Lost and Found

I thought I had one more roll left, but couldn’t find it. Then, about a year later, I found it. I put the roll in my FM2n and shot mostly with the 35mm f/2 D lens wide open, with a polarizer.

What a great way to remember how wonderful Velvia film can be.

Pure Unobtanium

http://www.photographyblog.com/news/120_megapixel_canon_cmos_sensor/

I get 120 megapixel scans from my RB67, which makes huge 6cm x 7cm Velvia negatives. The files are 750MB each. Let that sink in for a minute. Twenty frames will consume fifteen gigabytes of space on your CF card and subsequent hard drive. And they are getting this from a 1.3x crop sized sensor? At 9.5 frames per second? There’s no way a CF card can keep up with that. And the noise from all those unbelievably small pixels must be atrocious.

I call meadow muffins on this one. Even if it turns out to be true, it’s crazy.

Expectations Can Blind Us

“It’s a refrain I keep repeating only because I keep re-learning it myself and I can’t be the only one dense enough to need a reminder. Expectations can blind us.”

- David duChemin in Safari, A Monograph

I suspect this applies as well to life in general as much as it does to photography. So wise, this one is.

Art vs. Geek

I’m watching David duChemin on CreativeLIVE right now, and he just said “No one resonates with *sterile* art”.

Wow.