Saturday, July 26th Wedding & Good Assistance

Hello again everybody!

Had the pleasure of shooting for a dear friend of my brothers' this past weekend, had a heck of a time - the days' weather was spotty at best, first gorgeous blue skies then torrential downpours...you can guess how much of our formals time was spent under umbrellas! Luckily, my assistant Kathryn was able to keep both us and all of the gear (including strobe, Vagabond battery pack, and camera) dry enough to continue it's usage once the storming let up. Ceremony was small and intimate, and an absolute honor to capture. Here's a quick taste - enjoy!

Wedding Bears, Oh My!

So, as it turns out, the 50mm 1.4 certainly rocks my pants off! Super smooth focus and buttery, silky, delicious, tasty, melts in your mouth bokeh...mmm, bokeh....! Worth the leap and added pricetag, I must say. (Reference the always-necessary test shot of a feline, whose nose [Caddy's nose] is shown in the test photo). Tomorrow, I will be shooting a wedding in the Oshawa, Ontario area, and hoping the weather errs on the side of the othe %40 when it says "%60 chance of preceipitation" - will post results once they're available, of course!

Kenko T00bs , 50mm 1.4 and fullsizeposters.com

A brief entry as to my current up-to's...
Response to my somewhat small amount of advertising has been great - thank you, all, for your questions, comments, and other emails. Though not even within the scope of my initial target market, both Craigslist and Kijiji have yielded many contacts and a few bookings - it's hard to beat that for free advertising.
Last night I picked up a set of Kenko Extension tubes for macro work, as my current glass wasn't cutting it for what I needed it to do. I'm happy to announce these 'budget' macro tubes have yielded excellent results so far in testing (see image - shot with 50mm 1.8 on 36mm tube). The three tubes/combination of them leaves plenty of options available for range in detail shots while maintaining auto focus and excellent image quality!


As well, said 50mm 1.8 is being replaced with it's faster, silkier-focusing big brother 1.4. This is sad as I've had this piece of glass ever since I got into digital, and it was the first lens I ever bought (excluding 'kit' lenses). Though the manual focusing sticks slightly, the AF has always been true and worked like a charm. Hopefully it will find another good home!
Finally, I would like to put a shout out to www.fullsizeposters.com - no, they aren't paying me to say this - but recently, me and my girlfriend took up their promo for a 24"x36" poster print @ $4.29, which, even with $15 shipping, was still a heck of a deal compared to Toronto prices. The poster arrived within around 1 week from the States, and the quality is excellent! Will definitely do business with them again. As you can see - the print is HUGE!

Mini-Update

Happened to be away on a mini-vacation (...thus the matching mini-update?) in Stratford this weekend, so thanks, all, for forgiving my late replies to booking inquiries. For those of you who have never been, think of it as a small, "Anytown, Canada" location with everything named, to some extent, after Shakespeare. Add to that a bloodthirsty swan population, and you have yourself a great weekend away!

Pictured: Swan takes a head-long rush at me!

Here, you can see Katy indicating the current danger zones for a swan attack. That would be either your "Left" or "Right".