Category Archives: By Lens

Husky Cross

Husky Cross, originally uploaded by jezza323.

This is a lovely dog I came across at a little espresso coffee place near Dundas West during the summer here in Toronto.

After a little chat to the owner we discovered that it was a Husky/Foxhound cross, which is quite suprising, because apart from the very obvious Husky eyes there is nothing about this dog that would have you believe it was part Husky!

A quick pat and a photo or two and we parted ways. I shot this one with the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens, zoomed in to help generate some out of focus (OOF) area in the image. Unfortunately I couldn’t get an angle where the background wasn’t too blown out, but this one came out ok with a bit of tweaking in Lightroom.

An Evening Walk in Koreatown


Bathurst Street Theatre, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Golden Evening

Last week I was lucky enough to have some time to go for a lovely walk through Koreatown in Toronto in the late evening with the camera and take a few pictures. I haven’t been out shooting as much as I would like the last few weeks, but I am hoping to get out more soon. I haven’t even had a chance to use my newly acquired tripod yet! What about that photowalk you say? Well I may or may not have missed that due to some Jagerbomb caused, self inflicted illness…


An Evening at Bloor & Christie, originally uploaded by jezza323.

HDR

Both of these shots are HDR’s as I thought they would show off the lovely soft golden evening light the best. Both shots were taken handheld with my usual Pentax K200D, and I used a lens I haven’t used for a while, the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I took the 3 shots for the HDR using bracketing at +/- 2.0 EV. To process them I imported into Lightroom 3, then used the Photomatix Lightroom plugin to export the 3 base images to Photomatix for blending. I used the standard Tone Mapping method to generate the final HDR’s which the plugin automatically re-imports back into the Lightroom library for you. I made a final crop and adjustment before exporting to JPG and uploading to Flickr.

Some more Street Art


*, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Got It

I finally managed to get myself down to the nearby subway and get some photos of the remaining wall paintings there. I also had a little venture up an alley way nearby and got some graffiti shots as well. The angle on the Wolf annoys me a little, but it at least shows how striking the painting is. That light pole is very frustrating!

This post is very picture heavy, but worth it to see some of the great art on display in the area. I was armed with my usual gear for an outing on the bike, the K200D and Sigma 30mm f1.4. I had to bump the contrast quite a lot on these shots to get the colours to really pop.


Wolf, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Midas Blue Jay, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Snowy Owl, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Down the Alley

Down beside a construction site is an alley giving access to the rear of some of the shops which line Bloor St West. I only went to the first building in and took some photos of the great graf art. I will explore further down the alley in the future though.


*, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Salt O The Earth, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buick Electra 225

Buick Electra 225 – Front, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Lesuirely Ride

Yesterday morning I decided to go for a leisurely bicycle ride around the neighbourhood. On the way I stopped off and took some more photos of the street art behind the shops along Bloor St West (pictures to come!). After that I went to visit a Yard Sale. There was a huge amount of dark room equipment for sale, but unfortunately I am lacking storage space just at the moment. Perhaps another time.

Nice Car!

On my way home from the Yard Sale I happened to pass this great old Buick. I made a quick stop and took a few photos of it. I took a couple from the front at different apertures, and a couple from the back with different orientations. Choosing the best shot from the front was easy! However I could not decide which of the photos from the rear I preferred. As I was writing this post I finally chose the portrait orientation shot. You can see the other option here on flickr.

Shot and Processing

I was carrying my Pentax K200D with the Sigma 30mm f1.4 mounted whilst riding. All 3 shots are single exposures, with little processing in Lightroom 3. Just a bump in contrast, fill light and a slight crop for each (straighten for the rear, and centering for the front). I would have liked to get the Buick badge on the front a little more in focus, perhaps a smaller aperture would have got it just right, but I think its good enough that it still works.

OH HI!

OH HI!, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Quick Stop

Here is a shot I took this morning on my way to work. Just a quick one I had to get because it made me giggle a little (yes I giggle…)

Patience or not

Obviously someone had some fun with this fire hydrant. I made sure to shoot with a large (wide) aperture for this shot to isolate the subject from the background. I used my Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens @ f2.0 to give a fairly narrow Depth of Field but keep the subject in focus. The road behind was quite busy, so I waited for a break in traffic and snapped a couple of shots off.

Post Processing

For post processing I used Lightroom to straighten it up a little bit (I am going to blame the slope I was standing on) and bump the contrast a little bit to help the colours and subject pop.

High Park Street Art

High Park Graffitti, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Here is some great street art (and some tags) on a wall at the local subway station’s carpark. There are a whole series of Canadian animals painted on the wall, including a wolf, blue jay, snowy owl and this great bear. I have been meaning to take some photos of the animals for a while, but had not managed to get myself down there. You are able to see the art from the train just before you come into the station. Last weekend I finally got my bike ready to ride, and got on it!

I loaded up my great Crumpler bag with my Pentax K200D and my Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens, and rode down to the carpark. Once there I was disappointed to find a light pole positioned right in the middle of the wolf painting, and some cars parked in the way of others. I will definitely return to photograph those.

My Bicycle

 

My Bicycle, originally uploaded by jezza323.

An Old Raleigh

This is the bike I bought through Craigslist not long after I arrived in Toronto. It is an old Raleigh Grand Prix, with 27″ wheels and very cool original pale blue paint. I went for a ride around last weekend and took plenty of shots. I decided to get some shots of the bike while I had it with me.

Finding Interest

This shot was a little over exposed and not very interesting off the camera. Some playing around in Lightroom with a fairly heavy crop, some use of the Old Polar preset and a bit of a vignette produced this image, certainly worth posting.

Porsche GT3 RS

Porsche GT3 RS, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

Another nice car from the Yorkville Exotic Car Show on Sunday. This Porsche GT3 RS certainly was eye catching, the Ice White combined with the bright orange/red of the highlights made it easy to spot. It also had an interesting numberplate, as you seen in another shot I took here. Makes you wonder if the owner has taken the car there?

NRDSCHLF, originally uploaded by jezza323.

As per the previous shot posted, the lighting was harsh, and the crowds were immense. The best way I found to get around the crowds was to get right up against the barriers with the wide angle lens to capture the cars without people all over the shot. To help with the lighting I used lightroom and bumped up the fill light quite a lot to bring out the detail in the shadows.

Enjoy!

Porsche 356 Carrera

 

Porsche 356 Carrera, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

Yorkville Exotic Car Show

I went for a wander down to the Yorkville Exotic Car show yesterday, and the Porsche club had this beautiful Porsche 356 on display. It is clearly very well looked after, but not babied, with a number of historic rally participation stickers adorning its window and front bumper. The only things this car was missing are chrome bumpers and the chrome hubcaps. I am pretty confident that the owner would have these parts tucked away safely, they wouldn’t be worth risking in motorsport events.

Hard to Get a Good Angle in Good Light

It was so busy, with so many people there to see the cars. The only way I could get reasonable shots of the cars without people in the way was to get right up against the ropes, and use my wide angle Sigma 10-20mm lens at the wider zooms. It was also very bright, which made for some harsh lighting and shadows, but a big bump in “Fill Light” in Lightroom has helped balance out the lighting without introducing too much noise.

Thanks!

Big thanks to the owner of this car for putting it on show, it was great to see it. And congratulations on a magnificent Porsche as well!

Grand Prix du Canada

 

Grand Prix du Canada Stand 21, originally uploaded by jezza323.

The Grandstand

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently spent the weekend in Montreal to attend the Grand Prix du Canada (Formula 1 Grand Prix). You must view this panorama in large size!

The View

I had seats in Grandstand #21, which luckily happened to be right next to the entrance to the track, as well as having a great view of the hairpin. This is the view from the edge of the stand, my seats were a bit off to the left of the photo, but the view was almost as good!

Shooting the Panorama

This panorama was shot using my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm. I took about 10 shots in portrait orientation at 17mm, with lots of overlap to give me the best chance of a successful panorama. It worked out very well considering the challenges of the image, and only the railing of the grandstand and some minor problems from moving people were encountered.

Harsh Lighting

It was a very bright sunny day which meant the shadows were quite harsh, so, once Autopano had stitched the image together for me, I loaded the single TIFF file into Photomatix and generated a low key HDR. This is the result, good view isn’t it?

Carn Webber!

To make the panorama extra special, that is my favourite driver Mark Webber in his Red Bull Racing car approaching on the right side of the image. Webber finished the race weekend 3rd, after being hit and spun in the 1st corner of the race, a good comeback! It was also a very spectacular race, Jenson Button won the race after a come from behind victory. During the race he had a drive through penalty, a flat tyre and was run into by his own team mate! What a performance.