Emerald Bay Photography News and Updates

I love it when all those silent wishes come true. Especially on my birthday.

Canon has announced the 5D, after much speculation and churning of the rumor mill.



At 12.8mp, equipped with a full frame sensor and at the fairly reasonable price of $3,300, it's not only the dream of many photographers who have been lusting after the 1Ds Mark II, but also my personal dream come true. Not having to shell out $8,000 for a full frame camera (which will render my wide-angle lenses for architectural work at their intended width), and still getting the higher resolution is quite simply perfect.

So thank you, Canon. I appreciate the fact that you've listened to your clients and come up with a nice middle-of-the-road camera that gives us pros one more reason to stick to Canon as the preferred method of capturing high-end imagery.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, photography, photography gear

18 Days to Burning Man.
Then - 7 days completely off the grid.
Dream or Nightmare?

At first, the thought of dragging my delicate camera equipment into an area notorious for 110 degree heat, fierce lightning and sand storms, and fine alkaline "playa dust" made me shiver. Then I also realized that without a convenient wall outlet to plug my camera battery chargers into, I'd be out of business after a couple of days of shooting. Which was a bigger bummer than the heat, storms, and dust put together.

So a few weeks ago, I started researching my options. Sure, Burning Man is a place where people share - and RVs with generators and such will be plentiful, no doubt. I could probably sweet-talk someone into letting me plug into their power supply every so often. But - I really didn't like the idea of mooching of my brethren. Radical Self Reliance is the Burning Man theme after all.

Then, what else is there? With the help of a couple of gearhead colleagues (thanks Robert & Tom!), I was able to distill these options for remote power supplies for the wilderness:

1. The External Battery Pack: The Digital Camera Battery store will sell you this nifty long-lasting battery pack that can power both your camera and flash for a long, long time. It's small and has a belt clip and a cord, and is rechargable.
Price for the smallest, 40Watt unit = $320. Add to that $70 for the cable, and at least $99 for the car charger. Total = $510

Ouch. Not. Next!

2. The Solar Option: Yes - seize the power of the SUN! This is waaayy nifty - a 5 Watt solar panel charger for my Canon BP-511 camera batteries = $100. But wait - for only $25 more, I can get the 10 Watt Solar Panel. And man, for yet another $45 more, I can get the rollable 5 Watt Panel! For $260, I can even get the 10Watt rollable panel.
And then there is the cool iSun charger - so cute and small, and even lets me charge my AA batteries for the flash too. Damage = $160.

Sigh. That would be nice. But there's gotta be another option too. And, yes, of course there is. In true cheap-hipster form, this is the solution I came up with:

Canon BP-511 Camera Battery charger with AC plug: $12 (including shipping)
High-powered AA battery charger, with 8 2300mAh rechargable batteries, and an AC plug: $60
Add to that one of them portable power units that will jump your car and has an AC plug (which I can use to plug my chargers into): Freebie! (with the last set of tires I bought at Costco)
Total damage: $72



Not bad. But I suppose I've yet to see if this truly works. If not, there's always the Media Camp at Burning Man where I could charge my batteries (so I wouldn't have to sell my body to some random RV people - as was pointed out to me by a helpful fellow photographer ... ;-).

But in any case - this has been educational already, and I suppose can be considered as part of my gift back to the BM photo community. If anybody has any other ideas (or knows for sure that mine won't work, leave a comment.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, photography, photography gear

I'm no wildlife photographer.

I'm not saying that because I don't *like* to photograph animals. Rather - quite frankly - I'm not terribly good at it. I lack the patience to sit in one spot for hours, observing, stalking and waiting for the wildlife to come along. I lack the ultra-big and fast lenses that are simply a requirement for anyone wanting to shoot wildlife seriously. And I lack the experience to be able to frame an animal in an exciting-never-before-seen-way when it does come along - I'm usually just giddily happy when I even get one in front of the lens.

Yet when wildlife insists on doing cool stuff right in front of me (aka my own backyard) and if I can go observe and photograph it at my leisure (aka from my own deck), even I can be persuaded to take the occasional animal shot.

Point in case:


About 3 months ago, I noticed that the tree with the nesting hole (roughly 70 feet from my living room window) had a new tenant - a pair of Kestrel Falcons (also often referred to as Sparrow Hawks). While they're abundant and widespread in the U.S., I felt nonetheless honored that they would choose *my* tree over others to nest in. Soon, they were busy at work too - freeing my yard of gophers and other vermin, and delighting me with their flying acrobatics.

Not long after, the nest was getting noisy. We started hearing loud and high-pitched demands of food from baby kestrels, and saw the parents working tirelessly to provide for them. The weekend before last then, I saw them for the first time - almost already at full size and plumage, three young falcons sat on the branches surrounding the nesting hole. I watched them flail around, beat their wings, but mostly just cry for more food. I figured, they'd be there for a while, so I didn't bother to take any pictures.

The very next day however, one of the youngsters took his first flight. In the beginning, I saw him make only short trips to surrounding trees. Then longer ones. Until finally, the entire brood took the plunge. That's when I decided that I should probably take my camera, put the dreaded tele-converter (I really hate those things - they make your camera slow and add grain) on my 300mm (in effect 450mm) lens, and head down to the tree. Hand-held, I was able to snap a few images of the young Kestrels as they hung out in their nesting tree, resting before the next flighing attempt.

Good thing I got that done too. The very next day, both parents and their three young were gone. I haven't seen or heard them since. But it's taught me a couple of valuable lessons - for one, my equipment sucks for taking wildlife shots. And two - I'm no wildlife photographer. I'll happily return to contemplating angles and lighting on structures again...

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, oregon stock photography, photography

There comes a time in (almost) every freelancer's life, when things start to click, start to fall into place. The past few weeks have been like that for me.

Work has been good and steady (so much as a matter of fact, that the last thing I've wanted to do after-hours is spend more time on the computer to blog), my calendar is satisfyingly covered with crazy scribbles of appointments and gigs, and there are a few very exciting new things on the horizon - which I cannot just yet brag about, but will be able to hopefully soon.

Yet today is special. A day when the Gods of the Publishing Industry are nodding and smiling down upon me. After working as a pro for 2 years now, this is the day I've gone national for the first time - with a 2-page (56 & 57) spread in the August issue of Money Magazine (Circulation: 1.9 million).



That so many eyeballs will see my images is exciting stuff. Hats off to the magazine and its fabulous editor for choosing the images they did and for reproducing them so beautifully.

So go out, buy the magazine - and be happy that Bend, Oregon didn't make the magazine's Top 100 list of "Best Places to Live". Otherwise there would be a resounding sigh so loud going through the Central Oregon home buyer community, you could hear it all the way to New York ...

Labels: architectural photographer Bend Oregon, architectural photography, Bend Oregon photographer, commercial photographer Bend Oregon, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, photography