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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Day Out At Coal Harbour and Gastown


Yesterday, we went out to Vancouver because we wanted to hang out in the Coal Harbour and Gastown area to take photos. I wanted to pull the D50 out and ended up taking Heather's instead. She used the D300s. Most of the time, I put the 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII on the D50, which noticed a marked difference in the sharpness of the shots.

We started off in Coal Harbour where I got these shots:

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The Sails at Canada Place © 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved

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Three Flags at Canada Place © 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved

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Tourists © 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved

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Cruiseship © 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved

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Seaplanes © 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved

Over all, Coal Harbour and Canada Place yielded some interesting pictures; including a picture of a Pelagic Cormorant.

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An iconic view of Harbour Centre's Revolving Restaurant...that restaurant is a landmark in Vancouver immediately identifying Vancouver's skyline to tourists.

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Various Street Scenes of Water Street...

Looking East

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Looking West

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Corner of Carrall and Water

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The infamous Blood Alley

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Gassy Jack Deighton's Statue stands on the corner across the street from his pub that he founded.

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Evidently, he stares down the street right beside the Hotel Europe which is another Vancouver Icon being the only triangular building in the entire Gastown district. Triangles are good.

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The Gastown Steam Clock goes off every fifteen minutes for the enjoyment of tourists and to the annoyance of everyone else. After all, how often can you enjoy an off-key rendition of "Westminster Quarters"? Not that I don't like the Gastown Steam Clock. I just wish it wasn't so prolific in it's spouting off. How about every half hour...actually how about every hour like an ordinary clock?

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From there we went to Science World (sorry, now known as the Telus World of Science). We hung around the False Creek area for a while taking some images there.

The "unique"-ly (where have I seen this design before...on the Millenium Bridge in London perhaps) shaped Olympic Village bridge...

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The iconic Vancouver Skyline as viewed from Olympic Village

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The easily recognizable Telus World of Science (there...I got it right this time)...

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Sunset on False Creek...as the summer sun dips behind the buildings, I took the final shot and my wife, kids and I turned towards home...

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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Eerie Creek (Bear Creek Park) - Scene Through a Twisted Mind

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B&W Color Reversal © 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved

Sunday, July 18, 2010

New Lens? For Wildlife Photography

I've been vascillating between getting the Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 or the Tamron 200-500mm f/5-6.3. I've looked at comparisons online and found that the Tamron is slightly sharper on the 500 end and with the application of judicious retouching...I can get rid of the chromatic aberration that seems to be prevalent in lower end superzooms.

Some examples

Sample Photos from the Tamron 200-500mm taken by other photographers.

Sample Photos from the Sigma 50-500 (the Bigma) by other photographers.

Keep in mind though that the examples shown here were posted up by these other photographers after some retouching (even more so on the Sigma).

To me though, with wildlife and aviation photography as my stock photography forte, I need something with solid, tack sharp imaging at the 500 end...and all the unretouched photos seemed to give the edge at 500mm to the Tamron. So that's the 300-500 range lens that I'm going to go after.

The Bigma (Sigma 50-500)

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And the Tammy Long (Tamron 200-500)

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At least this will give me the edge and the focal length to go after the birds and the other fauna that I can't usually get close to enough to use my 70-200mm f/2.8 or my 70-300mm f/4-5.6 G

Since wildlife and aviation photography are strees-relaxer genres for me I like have the opportunity to shoot with a long lens and make the day out at the wildlife sanctuary or zoo worthwhile.

This lens will be the stop-gap lens (the interim lens) between the saveup and acquisition of the AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR and AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED VR.

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AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR

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AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED VR

I've come to the realization that anything closer than 400...I can manage handheld with either a 1.4X, 1.7X or a 2X teleconverter on my 70-200mm f/2.8

Monday, July 12, 2010

Personal Photo-Walk 07-12-2010

We had a nice photo-walk this morning. I went with Jamie after dropping the kids off at summer school.

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I don't know what this orange flower is, but I hope that someone might be able to find out for me. Unfortunately, I'm no horticulturist.

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There was a bunch of daisies by David Brankin school, so I had a chance to get in close and photograph the flowers.

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Most people who know me know that I'm sarcastic by nature. No Exit...REALLY??? OK...maybe for vehicles.

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Saw a lot of dark clouds today.

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The thistle that I saw just up on 128th Street.

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I finally managed to nail a shot of the Red Winged Blackbird. It wasn't exactly the shot that I wanted because I wanted the red splotch on it's wing to show up too...but that was as much as that "damned bird" was about to cooperate.

Friday, July 9, 2010

A Morning At Holland Park

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All pictures taken on July 6, 2010.

© 2010 FalconRose Photography, all rights reserved