Wedding Bells - Ben and Deanna

Okay, so this was actually last weekend but I have been incredibly busy at uni this week and also processing the actual photos. This wedding was the first one that I had been to in over 10 years so it was as close enough to a first for me as anything. And this time, I also had a camera with me. I didn’t take my 40D but instead took up a friend on his offer of a loan of his 5D, holy trinity of L primes and the 24L. Was certainly a killer combo as far as gear goes but having only primes and one body did get annoying. Anyways, more photos after the jump.

Photomakings

Well, the weather finally cleared today so I went out and took some photos before it turns sour again tomorrow. Pretty much the first time it has been good the whole time I have been on holidays (3 weeks). Hit up the Powerhouse at New Farm. It was good, I hadn’t been there before. Anyways, some of the results…

I also had a quick flaunt with a friends 135mm f2L and gee is it noice. Probably wait until I have a full frame digital body before getting one. The length seemed a bit awkward on the 40D.

Linux and Photography

Linux and photography have always been somewhat of an odd couple. Photographers have mostly preferred to use Windows or Mac OS over any Linux distro thanks to the wider range of image management and processing applications available for them. Now, I had been one of those photographers happily using Windows and a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop until a few months ago when Vista went south on me. While reinstalling, I did some reading on the new release of Ubuntu Linux (Hardy Heron) and through that, found Ubuntu Studio. After a bit more reading about the OS and some of the new applications that are available, I decided to take the plunge and installed Ubuntu Studio 8.04 on my laptop along side my Vista install.

Keep reading for more on my experiences using Ubuntu Studio as my photo editing OS.

5D + Sigma 30mm 1.4

I can’t believe I hadn’t tried this until now. Dad has had his 5D for a week longer than I have had the 40D now and I’ve had the Sigma 30mm 1.4 for nearly as long. Anyway, last night I decided to see how bad the vignetting would be from the lens on a full frame camera. So I grabbed the 5D and fired off a couple of shots.

First thing I noticed was not the vignetting but the colours and the DOF. Could not believe just how different the images from the lens looked on the different camera. The bokeh was a million times smoother and the colours, oh how I could go on all day about the colours. But I will just say, they are awesome as far as I am concerned. Sure, there is that nasty and rather obvious vignetting but eh, it is still a usable, fast 30mm lens.

I also tried to see how close I could get a shot using it with the 40D and well, its almost there, but at the same time, no where near in my opinion.

YN PT-04 Triggers - The New Kids on the Block

A while ago now, I decided to jump on the strobist bandwagon and get myself some cheap wireless triggers from ebay. Well, that purchase turned a bit sour (you can read about it here if you want). A few weeks after, another set caught my eye. They were branded as Yongnuo (YN) PT-04 TM V2s wireless flash triggers. They were a much better price than any others I had seen, took AAA batteries and said they worked with my 430EX. So I ordered a transmitter and two receivers to see what they were like. So here is my small review of these new units. Photos and more words in the full post.

New Home

I thought it was time to give Word Press a go instead of Blogger which I was using. Everything here seems a heck of a lot nicer to use than Blogger and I like having a decent looking theme that was able to take a 500 pixel wide photo from flickr without cutting bits of it off.

So lets kick things off with a photo (how else would I?). Hopefully there will be a lot more to come, especially after some of the upcoming shoots I have on the cards.