Moving on UP!

Great news! I have finally created a self hosted wordpress blog, http://creativecogs.hostzi.com
This new site allows me to ad more and more plugins to improve wat matters most to me, my viewers experience while visiting my blog.
Head there now and leave me a comment on how I could make it better for YOU!
Thanks.

– Post From My iPhone

Twitterfeed alternatives

I have been recieving a few emails lately asking me about twitterfeed, i would say this service is probably the most used and well known service among twitter users looking to feed a blog to twitter, however for a while now i have been experiencing problems with it ranging from linking to a different site all the way to not posting it at all.

So yesterday i finally gave up on them and went in search of a better alternative, i found a few and would like to give a quick run down of them.

PingVine

i had used this service in the past, very quick and intuitive to setup, it supports both ATOM and RSS feed posting to twitter. Doesnt seem to offer much more than twitterfeed other than it worked really. (Update the PingVine service is currently being updated and should be out of BETA when it goes back up.

HelloTXTFeed

Again this is a service that i used in the past and starting to use it more and more, this service is more than just a means of feeding your blog to twitter, it also lets you update multiple services at once, currently supporting over 30 services you are likely to get multiple uses out of HelloTXT, but again unfortunately the HelloTXTFeed service is currently down for service.

Rss2Twitter

Finally, the service that i have decided upon, Rss2Twitter, extremely reliable and one little thing i love about it is that is finds up-to 5 previous posts and tweets them unlike twitterfeed that used to begin posting feeds after you setup. “The easiest way to publish your content to twitter, directly from your RSS feeds” is what they say and i found it to be true.

I will keep you posted with my experiences of Rss2Twitter over at my twitter account http://twitter.com/COD_Legend

Excellent Photoshop Action Strangely Named “Diabolical”

While twittering i came across a link to several sets of Photoshop actions, after testing a few of them out one really stood out for me, named “diabolical” this action set is a joy to apply to portraits, landscapes and more.

I am by no means taking any credit for this action, just trying to make it availoable to more Photoshop users.

The action can be found here: http://davidnanchin.deviantart.com/art/Photoshop-Action-Diabolic-90900965

and here is an example of the action applied to a very boring shot, clearly not the best example but just to illustrate the power of the action.

As i final note, i would like to apologize for the lack of activity on my blog, mainly due to lack of ideas, but also as i have become much more involved in the micro-blogging site twitter.

You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/COD_Legend

I am alot more active on that platform and i will reply to any mentions or questions that are sent to me about absolutely anything Tech related.

Thanks

Woodworm Beast

Just playing around in the garden with my SLR and 430ex, laying around trying to overexpose the grass to make it obvious flash was used, but while keeping his face correctly exposed. Its a shame i missed his eyes due to the helmet but just how it goes when messing around, could have cloned in his eyes from another shot but would have had a strange appearence.

Pretty heavily edited in photoshop with 7 adjustment layers with masks. My new favoroute adjustment layer is the Black and White layer blended with overlay to give a moodier look to the image.

Photo Info: Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 18-55, Canon 430EX, Photoshop CS4, Wacom Tablet

1/200 F8.0

Please Check Out My Flickr Photo stream HERE

WWDC 09 First Thoughts

After watching the live blog on the WWDC 09 on engadget.com I had a few thoughts I’d share. First of all the Mac section was outstanding, I really didnt think that apple could do much to refune their Leopard OS BUT they never fail to amaze me in the Mac department, they really innovate wheras microsoft can only slightly improve. From an end users point of view I love the look of Quicktime X and the much faster 64-Bit processing, it will speed up day to day use as well as my hardcore photoshop sessions by making more cores available for each active program while releaving some while idle for other programs that are in use. Although I am not a developer myself I can see that they will be able to make even better applications for and end user like myself. Safari 4′s final realease is outstanding, loading times have truely halved atleast. Apple also updated it’s Notebook line up mainly to make pricing a little more competative after the microsofts campaign on prices but also to add a few new features. The old 13inch MacBook is now known a the MacBook Pro as it has many “Pro” like features, secondly the entire range except for the 17 inch MacBook Pro have been fitted with a new SD card slot, apple claims that users requested this for ease of uploading photos, the rest of the mac news was just speed boosts with upto 3.06GHZ processors and now upto 8Gb DDR3 RAM.

On to the iPhone, a little less innovation, more of a slight refinement, but this is understandable cinsidoring how much of a hit the 3G was and still is. I like the addition of Video but the 1 megapixel increase in resolution really was a waste of time and is still a long way behind that of it’s competitors, one thing I do LOVE is the new “Tap to focus” tool where you can tap anywhere on the screen and it will focus there, auto expose and White balance have also been added some features I adore as I am a keen photographer. The spped bump in general would be nice but I would never call the iPhone sluggish.The 3Gs has also been updated to function with the 7.2mb/s HSDPA. Other than that it was minor additions that were incorporated to keep the iPhone miles ahead of it’s competitors the upgrades include: MMS, Compass, spotlight, more languages, 3D graphics, increased battery life and many more minor updates. The phones design is identical to it’s predecessor.

Although there is little difference between the two iphone’s the is no doubt that I will have to upgrade for the extra features, plus I’m a sucker for Apple gear .

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Experimenting With Shadows

While sitting at my desk trying to revise I came across a shot I fell in love with on Flickr, it was not the final image that I liked, it was the initial idea as it had been edited by a photoshop newbie and he had not feathered a blur layer, but back to the point here is my version of the shot.
Comments welcome, Thanks

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

My first wedding

It had been my goal for some time to attend a wedding and be the primary photographer, my wish came true a while back in August 08′.

The whole thing was started with about a months preparation which included a couple of new lens purchases, finding out about the shots the couple wanted and of course some last minute wedding book reading.

The big day started with me traveling to the couples house to get the prep shots of the bride, the groom however was ready by 8am so i missed his prep shots, i followed the bride round her house as her and her daughter franticly applied make-up and got dressed. While in the house i shot about 300 frames on my 400D primarily with the 50mm 1.8 but i shot a few with the 70-200 2.8 as well, the prime lens kept me thinking about composition and helped to create a smooth creamy BOKEH.

The ceremony, held in a registry office, began with the arrival of friends and family, here my most used lens was the 70-200 as i wanted to keep my distance from the families to maintain a natural look to the photos.

The bride and groom then ventured off into a small room to go over what will be done during the ceremony, this was my chance to get prepared in the main hall where the couple would enter, i attached my 50mm onto my camera and waited for the grand entry, in which time i fired off about 50 shots.

Next came the speeches, the after party and the first dance, on the day i shot about 1000 frames in RAW over two sandisk extreme IV 4GB cards.

A few things i would like to purchase for my next wedding:

Canon 24-70 2.8 L: i could not trust my 18-50 2.8 enough to use it for the important shots as sometimes it struggles to focus quickly and is not always pin sharp, whereas i know i could rely entirely on a 24-70 L on an entire wedding, i would also consider the Canon 17-55 2.8 IS if it better suits the 1.6x crop factor.

Canon EOS 50D: without trying to blame my tools, i struggled to get some of the shots i wanted because of the slower buffer on the 400D allowing just 9 RAW shots sometimes, the 50D however can cope much better and even with a faster frame rate, the 50D purchase looms in the future, the 50D would also be welcomed as a second camera body.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Trying Out The 1ds MKIII

During my week of work experience i had the amazing chance to test Canon’s flagship Digital SLR, the “1DS MKIII” i had about 2 days with this “Top-Of-The-Range” product, i did one quick photo shoot in my studio with the camera, i set up my 2 lights with snoots and PocketWizards and just started shooting.

 

 

Shot Info: Canon EOS 1DS MKIII, Canon EF 85mm f1.8

 

I walked out of the studio and uploaded all of the shots into Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and decided this was the best shot, i then took the photo into Photoshop CS3 and did some minor edits including the black and white conversion, some Dodging and Burning and adding some lens flare for the flash effect from the Leica D series in the shot.

 

During my time with the camera i found a few bad/compromising points, the first seemed pretty bad, when uploading the shots the pictures have a strange dotted white line going along the bottom of the pictures, which i read about in another blog and found it was easily fixed by resizing the canvas to cut this defect from the sensor out.

 

Another point i found annoying rather than a problem was the fact that the cameras shooting information was not displayed on the rear LCD screen of the camera, this is just something i have become a custom to after using the Canon EOS 400D, but such a feature is not to be expected on such a high-end Professional product such as the MKIII and in-fact after the 2 days were over i longed for the top LCD plate on my 400D.

 

I wont go too far into the good points mainly because they are NEVER-ENDING!, honestly the features on the camera are outstanding, but what i will comment on is the immense colour rendition produced by the camera, tones seem perfectly saturated and the dynamic range produced from the sensor is near film quality.

 

 

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

 

Review: Sigma 70-200 f2.8 HSM Macro APO

For about 3 months now I have had the sigma lens in my posession, the initial purchase arrived because my previous telephoto lens did not have the lowlight capabilities that I required.

The Sigma AF 70-200mm f/2.8 EX APO HSM DG (here: Canon EOS mount) is one of Sigma’s pro grade EX lenses. Compared to the initial version of this lens the new DG (Digital Grade) variant features a new coating optimized for the special reflection characteristics of today’s images sensors. Over the years Sigma has earned a good reputation with these lenses so they were and are a popular alternative to the usual quite pricey genuine manufacturer zooms in this range. On APS-C cameras its field-of-view resembles a classic 112-320mm lens on full-frame cameras. As a full-frame lens it remains usable on all kinds of SLRs naturally. The 70-200mm f/2.8 EX is available for all SLR systems except four-thirds.

Initial use:

My first use of the lens was shooting pictures of flowers to test it’s “near” macro feature, the pictures that I left with were very satisfying to say the least, throughout the zoom range I was able to get reasonably close to the flora. After this I entered the canon digital photography forum and did some research on the lens and other peoples reviews, and many said they had issues with front focus, I then decided to do my own tests, I got my ficts chart out of my camera bag and setup the lens test, results came back perfect, not even the slightest bit of front or back focus to complain about and all around very sharp.

By standards of most mortals the Sigma is big and heavy lens with a dimension of 86x184mm and a weight of 1270g. Adding the (included) flower-shaped hood increases the length even further (see above). That said this data remains in-line with similar large aperture products by the genuine manufacturers. Besides the hood the lens also features a detachable tripod mount which certainly makes sense on a tripod regarding the weight of the lens.

Quality Of Product:

The mechanical quality of the 70-200mm f/2.8 EX is impressive indeed – a true pro grade lens. The outer barrel is made of first class materials with the typical EX crinkle finish. The zoom ring is very well damped whereas the focus ring feels a little too smooth. The HSM drive, Sigma’s ultrasonic AF drive variant, is very fast and provides full time manual focus control. Please note that the HSM drive is only available for Sigma, Canon and Nikon mounts. Minolta and Pentax users have to live with a standard micro motor which is surely somewhat slower. The lens does not extend during zooming and the front element remains in place so using a polarizer is no problem unless you attach the deep hood.

Test Shot:

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

First photo post

Here Is a shot I took while I was doing my week of work experience with Steve Read, a local professional fasion photographer, during the week I learnt many fashion photography tips but while on a “reccy” I could not resist going back to my usual creative mind and framing up this shot of Steve squatting in a subway in kidbrooke, Please leave any comments or creative criticisms, thank you.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]