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I finally took the step and bought my underwater housing for m y compact camera. I own a Canon Digital IXUS 75. For this camera Canon offers a underwater house of the shelf.

Until now I only used it once but I love the whole concept of experimenting with underwater photography. And especially now, since I started to swim with my baby daughter, it will offer me many opportunities for great shots. I am totally convinced by that.

In the past I use to buy one of those disposable underwater cams, but now in the digital era it is good to own a digital version.

When you buy the underwater housing, it comes completely with straps, flash diffuser, silicon gel, o-ring and manual. So you can start straight away. First shot I made was one in the sink to make sure it was really, really waterproof. (40 meters, as stated in the manual). The day after I took it to the swimmingpool. But more on that in a later article.

Like:

-The nice thing is that all the features are still accessible and function.

-At first it is scary to use your camera underwater, but after you have seen that it actually keeps the water out, it gives you a comfortable feeling when you know your camera is safe and protected

-It is a complete package, no need for accessories.

Dislike:

-You need to remove the wrist cord from the camera when you place it in de underwater housing. And because we always carry it on our wrist this is a little bit annoying.

-The price, the underwater house is actually more expensive then the camera. I was lucky that I could order it in the United States which was a huge price difference. (220,- EUR vs. 115,- EUR)

Conclusion:

It looks like a solid underwater sollution, and in my opinion worth to buy it. (if you have the option to buy in the United States, and ship it to Europe.) I can’t wait to start working with it.

Results will be posted soon… and if I really like it I probably will create an underwater gallery…

If you are looking for a good tutorial on High Dynamic Range images (HDRi), I would like to recommend the following HDR tuorial by vanilladays.com.

Or you can use this as a starting point. Enjoy!

I went back last weekend to make an other HDR panorama from the Corus Steel area. I took a bit more time, but the image is still not what I wanted. There was too much shadow in the front (sun was still too low) and someone placed a big barge in front of the scenery. So I think I need to go back once more (later during the day and hoping that they removed the barge.

Corus-HDR-panorama-25-10-2008-web

Click on the image to see the large version.

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Exactly 1 month ago my father passed away. This happened during night-time. After we left the hospital it was 6 a.m. It was still dark outside (the sun just started to rise.) We drove by some farmland that was crowded with horses. My father has been busy with horses his whole life. So of coarse this scenery reminded us of my father.

It was a foggy morning and there was a full moon, so plenty of light o see the horses in the fog. Both my wife and me loved the view. Last night I decided to go back and bring my camera. I got up really early so I would be there before sunrise. This morning also was a foggy morning. When I arrived there were a few horses but the were grazing on the other end of the field so it was almost impossible to photograph them.

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It was new moon so I also missed the additional light. And as I could have expected, it was not the same scenery as the one in my memories. But I made the 90 minutes trip and it was a beautiful morning. I brought my gear so why not take a picture. And I did. Actually is shot several that I think are worth showing you.

But lesson learned is that it is almost impossible to photograph these kind of emotions or memories if you wait too long, during time they evolve in your mind and you will loose track. The last picture is actually a HDRi.

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click on the images to go to the actual gallery.

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I read several tutorial about how to make ‘fake tilt’ photographs or ‘fake scale model’ photographs. And I decided it was time to try for myself. Also due to the fact that I still want to experiment with scale model photography and combine these with ‘fake scale models’ (looks like an interesting subject to play with).

So here are my first ‘fake scale model’ shoots. The whole idea is that you create an image that shows the viewer a scenery that looks like a scale model but is in fact a real scenery.

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Just imagine that you combine these images with ‘real’ scale model photographs…. This will give you numerous options to play around with. You can mix reality with fiction and the other way around.

The pictures seen here were taken at the entrance of Corus Steel IJmuiden and I think I’m getting the hang of it. All it comes down to is taking the right picture (high viewpoint, scenery that fits model world, and awareness of disturbing objects in your scenery) and then a lot of tweaking and toying in Photoshop. How-to’s can be found at several sites on the internet (google on; ‘tutorial fake tilt’)

I am thinking about writing my own how to, but more about that later.

Corus Steel IJmuiden

Yesterday after work i decided to make a little trip to the lock gates of IJmuiden and take some photos of Corus Steel IJmuiden from the outside (due to the fact that it is forbidden to take photographs within the gates). While standing on the lock gates of IJmuiden i noticed that the light was to extreme to take a well balanced picture.

With no tripod at hand i decided to shoot a HDR (3 shots) out of my hand. And give the latest version of Photomatix a test run. (click on the thumbnail to see the result)

There was a lot of noise in the picture (very disappointing due to the fact it was shot on only 400 iso) so I also let Noise Ninja do it’s work and personally I am pleased with the result. So one of the earlier menthioned project finally has been started.

I also tried a panorama.

HDR Panorama Corus Steel IJMuiden

But in this photo there are too much alignment problems so I need to go back and start using a tripod.

Way too many ideas and no time, there are so many cool projects that I want to start, but it looks impossible to find the time to actually get started.

HDR combined with stacking photographs
Alright, I still need the perfect HDR shot but I also want to combine this with stacking. Basically what it comes down to is that you shoot on a busy location for an HDR photo and with stacking you eliminate all moving object.

Scale model photography
Use H0 scale models (used for the model trains sceneries) to created your own set-up and situation. Too many ideas in my head, but the main idea is that it needs to be humorous situations. Or situations that are impossible in a real world.

Fake scale model photography
Okay this is the opposite of the above. And actually this is pretty cool. You take a real life photo and make it look like if you shot a photo of scale models. So you let a real photo look like a fake situation. This all is done via several manipulations with Photoshop or a similar tool.

Planet shaped 360 degree photography.
When you shoot a panorama photo that covers 360 degrees horizontal and 180 degrees vertical you will be able manipulate this in Photoshop and give a planet shape. (Google on: ‘360 degrees photography planet’, and you will find several examples)

Macro photography (Insects)
This is pretty straight forward, close-up photography of insects. I am still chasing that perfect macro shot. Funny thing is that I have this idea in my head of shooting ants. But the shitty thing is that we do not have ants in our garden. And I refuse to use and methods that hurt or harm animals (like putting them in the fridge or freezer) So I need to be patient, and that doesn’t mix well with lack of time.

Self-portraits.
Also a long-term project, just look at the gallery to see what happened until this moment. Always looking for that portraits that has the right lightning, composition, emotion, and setting. As stated before, long-term and ongoing. And the easiest model is you.

And last but not least my daughter Nicki. But for her I always manage to find the time to make excellent shots. Most of these shot can be found on www.pisajunior.com. Feel free to pay a visit.

As you can see, there are too many ideas and not enough time. I will keep you updated.

I got a PhotoTrack from GiSTEQ. A clever little device that records GPS locations on a time interval. Due to the fact that your digital photos have a date and time stamp it is possible to match your photos to the GPS data from the GPS logger. This process is called GeoTagging. You are tagging your photos with geographical data.

This data is stored in the EXIF data of your digital photo. Several programms and websites can extract this data and use it to plot your images on a map. See below.

Good examples are, Picasa, Flickr, Locr, Google maps and Google Earth. I wouldn’t be suprised if Virtual Earth by Microsoft is also offering this service. (But I still need to investigate)

When I have had the time to do some experiments, I will let you know what I think of the little nifty device

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Did some studio work with my baby daughter Nicki. Most was done with natural light from the left and a white paper background. When these shots were taken she was 6 weeks old.

If you click on the thumbnail you will be taken to the gallery where you will find the other photo’s of this shoot.

Luckely it was a warm day so it was not a problem to let the little one out in the open for a while, so she was calm and relaxed during the whole shoot. Actually the whole shoot did not take more then 10 minutes. It is important to make sure that you work fast. When you loose the baby’s attention it’s better to stop and try an other time

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[shot with Canon 5D, 24-70, f/2.8, 100 iso, daylight, mixed with softbox]

Here another photo of Nicki. Photo has been edited in Lightroom and the color was set to sepia.

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