There would be 4 setups and the requirements for this particular class were as follows:

• Shoot on Manual settings
• Choose lowest ISO, in this case I can shoot at ISO 100
• Set Colour Temperature. This would be the White Balance and I choose to do Custom White Balance for each setup.
• Set metering to Spot Meter
• Use gray card to determine exposure prior to capturing each image
• Record the exposures for each shot

We were broken up into 4 groups of 4 and 1 group of 5. Even though I was in the group of 5, we did a pretty good job of each getting a turn at shooting. We also helped each other out quite a bit, which was nice.

I used my Canon XSi with the EF 50mm f1.8 II lens for all the photos below. Special thanks to Peter Anderson for allowing me to borrow his Manfrotto tripod!

Flat Art Copy Shot (2 shots)

We were to take 2 photos of a picture/poster on a wall that was lighted with 2 hard lights placed at 45 degree angles. It took a few shots to get the proper white balance but the following is one of my captures:

I should have probably gone in a bit closer to eliminate more of the black background, but I don’t think the exposure is too off. Yes, the photo of New York and the Taxis are blurry, but I think the copy is fairly good. maniqune

Lighting Ratios

This one was the trickiest for majority of the students. What we needed to do is meter both the highlight and shadow side of a mannequin head that was light with a single hard light. The idea behind this was to see the ratio of lighting, such as a 1:2 or 1:32. The lights were set up for a 1:2 and a 1:32 ratio with the use of a bounce board.

This is the composite of my 2 photos. It shows (hopefully) the ratio between the two areas.

*no models were harmed in the capturing of these photos.

Glassware

This was a neat setup. There were a variety of glass bottles set up with a variety of lighting schemes: Direct, Bounced and Back lit.

Direct Light

Don’t mind the background or paper the items are sitting on. We were to observe any specular highlights without under or overexposing the scene. Here you can see that the light is off camera right.

Bounced Light

There was a white board held above the glassware. With a light off to camera left that would bounce the light down on top of the glass.

Backlit

I think I like the look of the glassware with the backlight out of all the other lighting schemes we had.

Soft Light/Hard Light

So the point behind this exercise is to see how hard light can be diffused to create softer shadows. I don’t think it diffused it enough but the shadows did feather a bit once the diffuser panel was in front of the light source.

After thoughts

It was a fun day in class. Getting to chat with fellow students and getting to take photos made this quite enjoyable. Can’t wait till week 5 where we get into Natural Light Portraiture.

I might also just stick to using my 50mm f1.8 lens. I do have to manually zoom (shuffle my feet around) but I think it will help force me to compose my shot better as we’re not allowed to do any post-process work.

So, my journey around the downtown core, is one of my typical routes. I started at Waterfront (as I was coming from BCIT, I took the Skytrain in) and ventured into Coal Harbour along the seawall.

It was a fairly nice day out, with a decent little cloud coverage to diffuse the light a bit too. Harbour Air recently had a few of their aircraft with their new painted tails. I think it would be neat if they were to paint a West Coast animal or something on each of their planes. Each plane would get a different animal, like a Grizzly, a Beaver, who knows. That would be neat.

I walked up Denman Street, past out old apartment and wandered to English Bay (aka First Beach). With the sun being out, the beach was crowded, not fireworks crowded but definitely lots of people trying to soak up the Vitamin D.

It is the first time seeing the completed new Cactus Club Restaurant too. I was not in favour of this being built, but I am curious as to how much money it cost to build and how much it pisses off the Boathouse and Milestones which are located behind it. Definitely one of the nicer views a restaurant could have here in Vancouver. I’m sure you can wait a while to be seated too.

My walk continued around the Seawall towards the Yaletown area. By this time, I was getting closer to the time I needed to head to the CanadaLine to get to Langara. It really only took me a couple hours to walk the majority of my route, but I wanted to give myself enough time to get some food before my class. I ended up back at Canada Place and just chilled for a while eating my sandwich and people watching.

Nothing terribly exciting as photowalks go, but it was nice to get out and wander around Vancouver again with my camera. I think I have 2 tuesdays left where I can do little photowalks prior to my photography class. Then since I will be working for 3 months (with my Co-op company) my photowalks will probably stop. Then again, we’ll have a fairly large 3 month photowalk when Robyn and I head to Southeast Asia for 3 months.

I do like the quality of the camera with the iPhone 4, and people have said the iPhone 4S camera is even better. Granted, it will never replace a dSLR for me, but I do like to use it when I am out and about without a camera in tow. What I didn’t notice, so how easily scratched the back glass of the iPhone can become. Even with Apple boosting a scratch “resistant” feature, it still will scratch, scuff and even crack over time.

I haven’t dropped my camera and have not experienced the front or back glass shattering (as so many horror stories I have heard), but with general usage and over time, I did notice that there were small scratches and marks on the back. What I did not notice, is that over time the picture quality of my iPhone 4 was becoming worse. Worse to the point of me not wanting to take photos with it anymore and at that time, I could not figure out what it was, until Robyn picked up her new iPhone 4. Robyn’s phone took great photos, whereas my iPhone 4 was taking heavily “soft focus” photos.

I carefully inspected my iPhone’s back glass, especially the area over the camera. The glass in front of the camera was scratched and scuffed, almost to the point that it looked liked someone had taken sandpaper to it. No wonder why my photos were turning out like crap.

Here is an example of a more recent photo when the glass was scratched:

Doesn’t look too bad right?  Notice the upper left side of the photo how it looks soft? One might even think that it could be the sunlight entering from the side. But, it’s not. It’s because of the scratches over the lens! I verified this with various other recent photos I have taken with my iPhone 4. All show similar softness or even haze.

So what did I do to fix this?

Luckily, it is not an expensive fix. I remember reading (don’t remember where though) that you can have Apple replace the back glass of the iPhone 4 for $29. I was willing to spend the $29 in hope that it would fix the picture quality issue I was having. I have seen various instructional videos on YouTube where you can buy the back glass + tool to DIY, but at $39 + shipping. I thought that the Apple fix for $29 was worth it.

So, without making a Genius appointment, I headed over to the Pacific Centre Apple Store location and inquired about it. A friendly gentleman (who in the apple store isn’t friendly and bubbly?) was quick to help me out. He looked up my warranty period (expired by 39 days) but said for $29 we could replace it for me within 15 minutes. I said go for it. About 10 minutes later, my phone was back in my hands and the back look brand new!

Yesterday on a walk I took the same photo, at roughly the the same time of day and this is the result of having my back glass replaced:

Not to shabby eh? The picture quality is back to where it was when I first purchased the phone. I was happy again with quality and the camera and it really did not cost me a lot either.

I also picked up a Speck Fitted Burton for my phone at London Drugs (cheaper than the Apple Store). I should have probably picked up a case when I first bought the phone. The nice thing about having a case for the phone, is that the camera area is protected from being scratched up when left on a flat surface such as a desk or a counter.The case provides a bit of a resesed area for the camera to be in. I should (hopefully) not have the issue of scratching up the glass in front of the camera.

Let this be a lesson to those who think they don’t need a case t protect their phones. Even if you think you are perfect at protecting your phone, little things eventually creep up. I guess I could have also looked at something like the Zagg InvisibleShield, but I like the look of this particular Speck case (and it’s Burton approved!)

I wanted something small that could carry my laptop and camera gear, but not hamper me down with a lot of weight. I also wanted something a bit different from an every day camera bag. When traveling abroad, I wanted to ensure I would hopefully not stick out too much with camera gear and there are some bags that definitely scream out, “Camera Gear!”. Now I don’t know of my choice is totally ideal for traveling in urban tropical areas, but at the moment I am pretty happy with it.

Think Tank Photo: Urban Disguise 35

Think Tank Photo has been around for a while and I am pretty biased towards their products these days (I do have a Think Tank Photo Streetwalker Pro). Now in their product line they do have the Urban Disguise series and they don’t look like typical camera bags, or at least to me they do not.

The above photo is the Urban Disguise 35 and the main reason why I picked that particular model is it fits my 13″ Apple Macbook Air perfectly as well as all my current camera gear. This is great for not only going to school with my laptop, but also toting along my camera gear to my new photography course at Langara. Now, what thing I did eventually notice, is the bag I purchased was the v1.0, whereas out on the market now there is a v2.0. I would have liked to have bought the v2.0 as I thought that is what I originally purchased, oh well. So much for camera shops rotating their gear for sale.

The features of the Urban Disguise 35:

• Carries a 13.3″ laptop with a regular dSLR (10″ if using a pro camera body)
• Stretchable side pockets
• Multiple large pockets, including a flap with more pockets!
• Ability to attach bag to a extended luggage handle
• Seam-sealed rain cover
• Adjustable non-slip shoulder strap

Now on to more photos! Everyone loves photos of camera gear right?

It’s a fairly roomy camera bag, and comfortable to wear for long periods of time too.

An accessory I did pick up for the Urban Disguise 35 was the Think Tank Photo Shoulder Harness. This little harness converts the Urban Disguise shoulder bag (or Artificial Intelligence Laptop cases) into a backpack. This would help for long days carrying the back and help to distribute the weight evenly across your back.

Features of the Think Tank Photo Shoulder Harness:

• Urban Disguise to be carried like a backpack
• Adjustable sternum strap
• D-rings to help hold small accessories
• Fully adjustable and easily compresses for travel (and storage)

It’s really easy to attach to the Urban Disguise and holds the bag securely.

Overall Thoughts and Conclusions:

Now, I know this isn’t the most in-depth review of a camera bag, but I am completely happy with my Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 35. It fits my 13″ Apple Macbook Air perfectly and was great for toting back and forth to school. It would hold my various books, pens, pencils etc which of course was a requirement.

When adding the padded dividers, it kept my camera gear snug. I did not have to worry about my camera banging into the laptop either. There was room for my Canon XSi, 75-300mm lens, 17-55mm lens, 50mm lens, battery charger, memory cards and more.

If I could somehow get Think Tank Photo to design one of their Retrospective camera bags that will fit a 13″ Macbook Air, like my Urban Disguise 35, the world would be a better place.

Either way, I am looking forward to bringing along my Urban Disguise 35 to South East Asia.

So what does Digital Intermediate Photography involve? The following is from the objectives on a hand out we received:

• Practice exposure techniques for difficult and low light scenarios
• Identify and compose images with simplicity and impact
• Identify the properties and qualities of both artificial and natural light
• Apply dSLR White Balance (WB) settings in various lighting conditions
• Practice metering techniques with both reflective and incident light meters
• Apply lighting ratio techniques for shooting still like and portraits in the studio
• Practice lighting techniques for portraiture on location and in the studio
• Learn the required camera setting when using flash and studio strobes
• Use aperture and shutter speed for creative composition techniques

What I am really looking forward in this course is the portraiture portions, both natural light and studio light. I hope to become more comfortable photographing people as currently, I am fairly shy when pointing a camera at someone.

The current Tuesday class has roughly 15 people, though I am still a little bit unsure of the other people’s experience. The majority of the people seem to want to get into Wedding photography. Everyone else seems to be comfortable taking pictures of people, of course except me, so I hope that will change by the end of the course. It also seems that the majority of the people in the class wish to be more comfortable with their camera and seemed to be worried about shooting in Manual (M). A few of the people seem to only shoot on Auto, but that will change quite quickly for them (or so I hope).

Some of the topics we went over in the last half of our 3 hour class were

• What is the Aperture of the camera/lens
• When to use a tripod, based on Shutter speeds. ie hand held to about 1/60th unless of course you have something like a 300mm lens where you would want to shoot at least 1/300th hand-held. General rule of thumb, 1/currently use focal-length for shutter speed.
• The exposure triangle, though she put more emphasis on Shutter and Aperture
• Brief intro on camera metering and the use of Matrix, Average and Spot metering.
• She also touched on how to resize images in Lightroom and Photoshop as we are required to submit photos that are no larger than 800Kb in filesize.

So far, it is a review of I guess the previous pre-requisite  courses, but that is alright. I do look forward to Week 5 where we will do our first shooting session with professional models for natural light portraiture.

We were also given our first assignment, which is due on Week 10. After our instructor went over the sections, I could probably the assignment by the weekend (if the weather gets better of course). So what do we have to do for our first assignment? We have to submit 6 photographs, these 6 photographs are broken up into 3 sections. Those sections are:

Part 1: Details

Choose and isolate 2 details (photos) from a larger scene.

Part 2: Difficult Lighting

Create 2 images from 5 different metering situations; lighter than average, darker than average, light subject on a dark scene, dark subject on a light scene and a backlit subject

Part 3: Low Lighting

Create 2 images with the use of a tripod. Pick 2 from the following 8 options:

• Skylines at Twilight
• Streaking head/tail lights
• Double exposure with the Moon (sucks that my Canon cannot do double exposures in-camera)
• Long exposure at twilight
• Sunrise & Sunset
• Point light source (light lighthouse, christmas lights etc)
• Fireworks, sparklers or flashlights (good thing Canada Day will be coming up, I am fairly decent at Firework photos)
• and Neon

While our instructor was going over the assignment, I was going over my Flickr photostream to see what I have previous done. I have essentially finished the assignment, but I cannot submit previous work (where is the fun in that anyway?). I do have some ideas in my head of what I want to do for each part/section, and I will be sure to post them here when I am ready to submit.

The trick is, I cannot do ANY post-processing to my images. I like to tweak colours a bit, so I better try and see what sort of colouring I can get out of my camera so I won’t have to tweak them in Lightroom. We’re only allowed to resize so they fit within the filesize requirements. Reminds me, she was showing us how to drop the quality of an exported photo to get within the filesize requirements. She took a 1.5MB image and then dropped the quality to 50%, I don’t see how that is an effective way of reducing the filesize as it would essentially lower the image quality. Oh well, I will play around and see what sort of results I get if I have to drop the image quality to 50%. I tend to use save-for-web features in Lightroom or Photoshop which allows me to save the image quality while keeping the filesize smaller.

On a side note, I am looking forward to reviewing White Balance (WB) as well. Typically, I do my white balance changes within Lightroom, but she would like us to set the WB properly and not have to rely on post-process for that. At least I remember how do to a custom WB setting with my Canon XSi

So please feel free to check back each week as I get further into my course and share my results! I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks!

I would also like to thank April for the gift-certificate in which allowed me to take this course. I have been wanting to take these courses for a while now.

It seems that our option (Data Communications) takes the course COMP 4908 a bit differently than the other 2nd year options. We actually take on Industry clients who submit work to our option head. We get to read over the project descriptions and choose which ones to pursue. This is great for the client, they get 4 students for 6 weeks that do not have any other school related commitments, they they had to do was pay something like $500! So this Monday, we get to see what projects are available and then figure out which groups which take on which project.

Now, this isn’t the main reason for this post, but I thought I would update those who like to see what I am up to and what is going on. The nice thing about the past 4 days, is the weather has been pretty decent. Robyn and I managed to find a little bit of time to go wading in the ocean here in White Rock. The tide was fairly low and we took out boots down into the water. The water is getting warmer, so we think next time we go walking at low-tide, we will skip the boots and just wear our sandals; Summer is coming!

Photography Related Things:

Some of you probably remember that I sold my better camera gear (Canon 7D, EF 70-200 f2.8L IS) during school though some people might look at the above photos and say they look alright an that one doesn’t need $4000 worth of camera gear to capture decent photos. True, one doesn’t need expensive gear, but going from my Canon XSi with kit lenses to a 7D with L-series lenses and then back to the previous equipment can give you some headaches (at least with me it does). One thing that annoys me is the focusing speed of the Canon XSi with the EF 75-300 f3.5.5 lens. There is a lot of chasing with the auto-focus when I have the camera set to AI-Servo, the initial focus lock misses quite a bit and I have to zoom in and out to get the auto-focus to properly lock on to the subject I want (such as the birds above). The XSi of course doesn’t have a dual-processor like the 7D does nor does it have as large as a memory buffer when taking continuous shots. With the XSi, I do miss a variety of photos due to the slow speeds, though I try and not think about this too much.

What this has taught me over time is to understand my camera’s limitations and try not to think about it. I know I cannot get the continuous shooting speed I used to have. I know I cannot get the same image quality (IQ) and try not to pixel peep my photos in post. I have to remember that there is a difference between a $250 lens and a $2500 lens. I just have to remind myself that one day I’ll be able to purchase the gear I had previously, but for now I just have to wait.

On a happier note, I will be taking a course at Langara this May 1st; PHTG 1048 Digital Intermediate Photography. My goal for this course is to become better acquainted with flash photography, both on and off camera. I was also told that there will be model photography, which is great as I’m fairly shy and I hope this allows me to be more comfortable photographing people.

My Flickr account has also expired, which means I cannot upload more than 300MB a month of photos, can I can only see I think up to the last 200 uploaded photos. The main reason why I use Flickr is to actually serve my photos to my blog here. If my web host offered a large than 1GB of storage, I would probably look at just keeping all my photos here. With storage being cheap, you would think more web hosts would offer large storage options without charging an arm and a leg.

The Blog:

I am sort of in the middle of redesigning the theme here. I hope to have something that is a bit more minimalistic and brighter. Mainly, I am getting rid of the dark background and going with something a bit more, plain. If  I can pull myself away from playing my favourite online game (AncientAnguish, a text-based RPG) I will look at getting that theme ready to be implemented. I do enjoy web design and development, just need to get better with design I think.

We went for a little walk around the Horseshoe Bay area on Sunday. It was a lot nicer out than what was expected for the weather to be, which was nice of course. We’re slowly getting away from Winter and into Spring/Summer.

With the tide being low, people were out on the Whytecliff Rock. Typically, when Robyn and I are there we are usually there at high-tide so I have never actually be on the rock itself. I have heard and seen people stuck on it when the tide has come in though. When the tide is low, sit creates a little land bridge between the shoreline and the rock for which people can cross over. Though, if you don’t pay attention you can get sort of stuck on it and would probably have to wade back over to the shore line

School Related:

We have 10 days left of school; 4 days this week, 3 days next week and then 3 days for our final exams. We still have 2 projects due and are still being assigned assignments. If feels like it will never end! I can’t wait to get back into the work-force. I just have to keep my eye out on either software development or web development opportunities now.

I’ve also signed up for a course at Langara in May; Intermediate Digital Photography. I’ll be getting more acquainted with on and off camera lighting as well as shooting portraits with models. I hope to become less shy when taking photos of people, at least that is my goal for the course. Either way, I am looking forward to that.

Travel Related:

We’ve booked out flights to SE Asia. Our first leg is from Vancouver->Hong Kong->Bangkok. Probably stay the night in Bangkok and then heading to Ubud in Bali for the first part of our trip. I’m also in the process of making a new WordPress theme, a more minimalistic one, which I hope that will highlight our travel photography during the 10 weeks. Getting excited for this adventure too!

It’s been a while since I did a post here, though with school being busy it has been pretty difficult to find time to post anything.

So, what is going on?

I have 1.5 months left of my program here at BCIT. We’re getting excited about our upcoming trip, for which I just got my first series of vaccines for. These included Hep A, Hep B, and Tetanus. I have to go back in a month to get my second round of Hep A and Hep B shots, as well as Diphtheria. Robyn was lucky this time round because she only needed her Hep A (I think) booster as she had previously received all her shots for when she went to Nicaragua.

On the school front, we’re down to our last little bit. In my Data Communications option, we’re working on our class project which is a top-down 2D shooter type game on the Linux platform (using TCP/UDP, C, C++, Qt Framework). For the Windows portion of the option, our group (we’re a group of 3) we are developing a streaming audio solution. Think of it as a Shoutcast server, which clients can join a server that is streaming a playlist of audio files. There will also be client-to-client voice chat.

The other classes are going as normal. Though we will be missing out on some class time soon due to the Good Friday, Easter Monday and the BCIT OpenHouse event.

On a side note, I am in search for some part-time work for a 3-month period. You would think it might be easy to find some sort of web-development position that I could do for 3-months (June, July, August) but the jobs I have seen being posted in various places are only looking for full-time positions. Of course, if anyone might have a lead to a student-type summer position for web development (or Software QA) I would love to hear about it.

With living out in White Rock, I do rely on taking transit to and from school a lot. I also utilized it when I was doing my Co-Op program during the summer. I would log into Translink’s website and quickly jot down the stops and times I would need to know about to get from A to B. The downside to this, was if I missed my bus, I did not really have a way to check to see when the net bus was coming. Translink did have an iPhone app, but it was broken and was not updated in a while. That’s were Translink’s Mobile web app comes into play.

Instead of developing a smartphone app for iOS, Android and whatever other mobile operating systems are currently being used, Translink decided to create a mobile web app. Yes, a mobile web app is a web application designed to be viewed and used on a mobile device such as an iPhone, or Blackberry. At first, people were complaining about having to use a mobile web app, but I think people are starting to come. The URL for the mobile site is: m.translink.ca.

Minimalistic Design

Click on the above photo for a larger view

One thing I do like about the design, is how minimalistic is it. There are 9 nice round buttons which are easy to tap (in my case I use the iPhone with Safari, your experience might be slightly different)  with a easy to tap home link (the Translink logo). The simple look can be seen throughout the mobile site.

Bus Schedules

Selecting a Bus Schedule makes it easier to plan ahead. You can enter your stop number or enter your bus number (such as #130). Then you can specify direction as well as time. This will then present to you a list of buses for a particular stop. The mobile app can also make use of your phone’s GPS and locate a bus stop near you. You would then just need to click on one of the blue ‘T’s and it will present you with a list of buses scheduled to pass that particular stop.

Favourites

Now, this is my favourite feature of the mobile site for Translink; the Favourites. You can now specify frequently used bus stops and save them to your favourites so you can easily recall them whenever and wherever you are. I use this feature a lot as I am always wondering if the bus I am currently on, will get me to my next stop for my connecting bus. It gives me a rough idea about when buses will reach various stops and I can better plan my route. After all, to get to school from home I take 3 buses and a Skytrain. It is roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes one way and just over 2 hours to get home, so if I can time my buses properly, I can get home quicker or if I know my next bus’ arrival time I can get a quick bite or something and not have to stand waiting for it for such a long period of time.

Others

Now there are more things you can do with the web app, such as plan your trip, submit customer feedback and more, but I am just really happy about the ability to save my frequently used bus stops. This let’s me quickly check when the next bus will be arriving (approximate of course) as well as plan my travel routes with relative ease. Of course, this only works if you have some sort of network connection either over WiFi or Cellular and of course works best with a Cellular network as you dont need to rely on WiFi hotspots to check times.

Their Next Bus feature is also in “Beta” but for the most part it seems to work nicely. You can actually see the approximate location of the next bus via their GPS and your phone’s GPS system.

This sort of ties in with their route/bus finder. With the GPS capable mobile device, the mobile web app can help locate nearest bus stops to your position. You do need to allow it to know your current location, but once if get’s the location details, it utilizes Google Maps to display nearby bus stops. Not bad, not bad at all. Again, you would just click on a nearby blue ‘T’ on the map and it will show you the next few scheduled buses.

Would I change anything? I don’t think there is anything I would require in their mobile web app. The feature I was waiting for was the ability to save favourite stops and now it does that.

Final Thoughts

My experience with the mobile site has been only with my  iPhone (using Safari). I have not seen how it looks or works with any other mobile device. Perhaps I’ll borrow the wife’s Blackberry Curve and see how it works. Have you used Translink’s mobile site? How do you find it? Do you like it, or do you think they need to have separate mobile device apps built for it?

As a tip for iPhone users, you can easily create a bookmark shortcut icon to easily access the mobile site, and pretend it was a real app if you wanted to. I have a bookmark saved amongst my other iPhone apps so I can easily access the site.

This photo might not be the most interesting or best technical etc, but I thought it would be neat to show people how the Venetian, in Las Vegas, has a canal that winds its way through it. You can even take a Gondola ride, which I am sure can be a romantic thing to do. Granted, the Venice canals would be more spectacular. It is amazing how much detail these hotels on the Vegas Strip tend to have. If you have never been to Vegas, you need to go at least once in your life time. If you have been to Vegas, where did you stay and what was your favourite part of your trip?