First the 7D, which sits somewhere in between 50D (which sucks) and 5D2 (which is awesome). It has 18 mp crop sensor with 8 fps. Perhaps what is most exciting about the camera is that Canon built a brand new AF and metering system - 19 cross type points! Oh and as an added bonus it has built in wireless flash control (so you can do off camera lighting without buying a master flash or expensive remote triggers!). Finally Canon is doing some really cool stuff to catch up to Nikon (this really competes well with Nikon D300 in my opinion). Check out the hands on from DP review: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0909/09090104canoneos7dpreview.asp

Canon also announced 2 new EF-S lenses, one is a potentially awesome replacement for the less-than-stella 17-85: EF-S 15-85 f/3.5-5.6 IS lens. It also announced an EF-S 18-135 IS as well: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0909/09090103canon15mm28mm18mm135mm.asp

While I can't use either of the lenses, I am very interested in the third lens they announced, a new 100mm macro (an L at that). But this one... with IS! It's the first lens with their new hybrid image stablization system that offers up to 4 stops of stablization for normal shots and 2 stops for macros. Suppose to be priced just over $1K which is about 400-500 more than the non-L 100mm macro makes it a very tempting choice. One of my biggest problems with the macro is that I always need to bring out a tripod to hand hold it since the slightest movement is magnified when doing macro work. This lens could turn out to be very interesting indeed :). So anyone want to buy my old macro lens ;)?
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0909/09090102canon100mmmacro.asp

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I just watched a film called HOME by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (famous for his Earth from Above series). The film combines a series of breath-taking aerial footage taken around the globe with an equally breath-taking soundtrack. With narration by Glenn Close, the movie tells a story about... us, not just "us" as in nations or ethnicity, not even about us as a species, but about all of "us" on this planet. It is about how we are different, how we are alike... and most importantly, how we are all linked (really how humans have impacted all life on Earth, negatively of course). Whether you believe in the message or not (I for one, definitely believe), it is definitely a film worth watching and listening. Just stop for a moment and think about the resources we are using wasting each day.

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From Some random shots

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Just finished going through my HK photos... now I'm all done with my New Zealand + HK trip... all done with 2008. As I mentioned in my initial post about the trip, I was not particularly happy with the photos from Hong Kong. I really felt like I did not capture the feel of the city. I know Hong Kong can be both so beautiful (both in nature and in the architecture) and interesting (bustling streets etc)... I felt like I didn't capture either aspects. To make up for it, I was much more heavy handed in my post processing... I guess that is how people make up for flawed photos... heavy post... lots of saturation, etc. Except I went with lower saturation, I ended up trying to create a more consistent faded/old grungy feel to most of the photos, under exposed, desaturated etc. Also did a lot of high contrast black and white (mainly because the weather was terrible....).  Oh and since it was HK, I had to take a lot of food photos, I took a photo of just about everything I ate :D.

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From aurora

From aurora

• Due to the thick cloud, framing and auto-focusing was basically impossible. I couldn't see anything through the view finder and had to use the lights from the school (see that orange lights in the trees) as a reference point and pray for the best.
• Manual focus is tough without live view, keep in mind that your infinity focus point actually shifts in cold weather so just using the default infinity mark is not sufficient. This basically turned out to be a guess and check exercise for me... and using a super wide lens helps to cover up any mistakes you have (I just shifted the focus to a tad beyond infinity and locked it in manual focus mode the entire night). 
• Again, with the clouds, it was very difficult to pick up the lights so I pretty much had to shoot wide open at 30 secs and bump up my ISO to an unacceptable 1600 most of the time. It sucked, but noisy image better than no image...
• For longer exposures, I was able to use a flash light to do some "light painting" on the foreground. For example, I was able to use the flash light to light up the cabin (basically just sweep over the cabin with the light as if you are painting with a brush) in the foreground so it will be properly exposed against the aurora.
• Batteries die fast out there in below 0 degrees weather. Make sure you carry a spare (best if you can keep it in the warm room or at least in your pants pocket to keep it warm with your body heat).

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From Happy New Years

From Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

From Taipei snapshots (台北隨意拍) 2007

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From San Diego Wild Animal Park

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So after a short break from processing photos, I finally uploaded the photos from day 4 of my New Zealand trip a couple days ago. We got up pretty early that day (at about 5 AM) and headed out to Milford Sound for a 2 hour boat tour. This was probably the highlight of the whole New Zealand trip and offered some of the most spectacular views of the whole trip... needless to say, this makes keeping this blog post short very difficult as there are a lot of photos I really liked from that day. The full set of photos is available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/pingc315/NZTripDay4MilfordSoundAndLakeWanaka?feat=directlink.

As mentioned in earlier posts, a storm swept through the area days before we arrived, so the weather was always questionable. In addition, the only road leading up to Milford Sound had a mudslide just the day before... our tour lead had hoped it would clear up by the time we got there... Luckily for us, the weather stayed clear for most of that day and the road was cleared 30 mins prior to our arrival... I really think someone upstairs was watching over us this entire trip. Other than the poor weather on the first few days, this entire trip have been really blessed.

On our way to Milford Sound, we made a quick 10 min stop Mirror Lake (well... they say 10 mins but I stretched it to like 15 ^^;... kept everyone waiting). The weather was so beautiful that the lake was really like a mirror, perfectly reflecting the beauty in front of us. Unfortunately it was rather difficult to capture the full experience on camera due to the extreme dynamic range (the reflection and lake was in the shadows where as the actual snow capped mountains were in bright sunlight). I doubled stacked filters (2 stop graduated ND to darken the top half of the photo and a polarizer to bring out the reflection and colors) and then in post I added another graduated filter at the bottom to bump up the brightness of the shadows to create this final image.


When we got to Milford Sound, the weather was still mostly clear but there was enough clouds in the sky to make it even more interesting. It was on this boat tour that I took most of my HDRs (high dynamic range, where 3 photos of the same scene are then combined in post processing to form a single image), in fact I think I ended up with 30+ HDR shots so in total I took close to 100 images just for HDR. I tried to keep the HDR fantasy like feel down and stick to what felt natural.

Here are two shots of Milford Sound with Mitre Peak (doesn't this feel like something out of LOTR? You know the part with Frodo on the boat passing the giant statues?).




The first shot was shot in RAW and then post processed in Lightroom. I really had to brighten up the green on the mountain but it gets a tad bit noisy. The second image is an HDR with -2, 0 and +2 stops. It's not too different from the RAW shot but I get so much more detail in the clouds and the green just pops better making for a more dramatic image (in my opinion at least :)).

There are so many photos that I really liked from Milford, but this is perhaps one of my favorite from the entire trip. I used it as the August photo in my calendar, titled "Heaven's Blessings" mainly because it looks like the water is pouring down from the heavens. Additionally, this is actually not a permanent waterfall (it's called Fairy Falls), it will dry up in a few days without rainfall so in many ways, we were blessed to have the storm pass through revealing this hidden beauty within Milford Sound.


Here is another photo from Milford Sound. I really like how the cloud just wraps around the mountains... It also shows the entrance to the sound being mostly hidden, this is why the early explorers did not discover Milford Sound as no one expected it to lead to anywhere.


One final shot of Milford Sound as the boat was returning to dock.


After the boat tour, we drove straight to Lake Wananaka where we stayed for the night. Just before dinner I saw these two Paradise Ducks near by. These ducks usually live in pairs and mate for life.


Since we spent the night right along the lake shores, there was very little light pollution allowing me to get a few nice shots of the Milky Way and stars. I had to use my 50mm 1.4 wide open and a 1600 ISO to get the shutter speed fast enough to capture all this without star trails.




Only 3 days left of New Zealand photos, hopefully I'll be able to get through them quicker now :)

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One of my new year resolutions was to take some time off and rewatch all the Miyazaki Hayao movies. I decided to get a jump start on this with my favorite movie of all time: Sen to Chihiro no Kamekakushi or Spirited Away as it is known in the west. It is just such a beautifully made movie with one of the most beautiful soundtracks ever to go along with it. I've actually forgotten how much I love this movie until I watched it again, noticing all the cute little details (the scene with the mouse imitating Sen is still the cutest...), breath taking scenery (the train ride is still my favorite scene of the entire movie) and of course the deeper messages involved. I was actually fortunate enough to attend the US premier of the movie at El Capitan in Hollywood where Miyazaki-san made an appearance himself. I remember how excited I was when I found out he was coming, I think I heard it driving to work (intern at AOL that summer) and I immediately called up all the friends I knew to buy tickets ASAP... 

Track - 17  
Download now or listen on posterous

17-いつも何度でも.mp3 (3360 KB)

I almost feel like I can watch this movie again right now and still enjoy ever second of it. Anyways, on to the next Ghibli movie... I'm debating between Kiki and Laputa... maybe Kiki first since I haven't seen that in forever :)

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Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a good (and safe) new years eve. Looking back at 2008, it has certainly been an interesting year... buying a house, traveling to New Zealand, growing as a photographer... thanks to all who have helped me along this long (but young) journey. I really look forward to 2009 and all the new opportunities it will bring. My number 1 new year resolution is probably to continue traveling, visit at least one new country this year. Perhaps visit a few more national parks in the US (all those national parks out in Utah and Zion etc) and maybe Alaska. Perhaps another east coast trip?

Here are my last photos taken in 2008...

From Happy New Years

From Happy New Years

Instead of partying and doing count down like normal people, I went out for a quick photo shoot as a thick fog rolled in. Visibility was probably less than 30 ft at times (maybe even 20). Perhaps a somewhat fitting end to 2008, with the future of many shrouded in doubt and uncertainty. Hopefully this fog will clear up soon and we can see a more defined (and brighter) path to the future. I wish everyone an happy and healthy 2009.

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As usual, my wishes arrive a few days late :). But I guess better late than never! Happy Holidays everyone, hope you had a safe and wonderful holiday season with your friends and loved ones.

From Happy Holidays

As 2008 comes to a close, I am just beginning to realize what an eventful year it has been for the world and for me personally (that probably deserves a post on its own). I've spent the past few days on a break from all things related to photos and just relaxed, doing different things - ok ok, mainly just going back to video games for a little bit :). Finally got to finish Eternal Sonata - a Japanese RPG about Chopin and this fantastic dream world he enters while on his deathbed. The game had some of the best video game music ever (not to mention a few pieces from Chopin), amazing visuals and some of the most creative character designs I've seen in awhile (oh and a very interesting battle mechanism). At first I mistook this game as something for kids with the art style, characters, and premise but I decided to give it a try based on some very positive reviews. While it's not a perfect game I loved just about every second of it... I mean just the music and visuals alone was worth the 40 some odd hours I spent on the game. I'm also starting back on Ys Origin, another Japanese RPG (one of the more recent Ys games which also has amazing music ;)).

Anyways, I did get to go out for a quick photo shoot the day after Christmas. With recent storm in Southern California, there has been a lot of snow up in the nearby mountains so my family decided to take a quick day trip out to Lake Arrowhead. We got there kind of late in the afternoon and wanted to leave before nightfall since we didn't have snow chains or anything so I only got a few shots in. Here are some of my favorites from the day (full album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/pingc315/LakeArrowhead?feat=directlink)

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Sorry the long delay in between posts, a lot of stuff has been happening both at work (you know, like the launch) and outside of work. Personally I've been trying to take a short break from photography (and processing photos) so I can attend to other areas of interest and hopefully come back to photos with a lot more passion and creativity. I actually had day 3 photos almost fully processed 2 weeks ago but I got side tracked by a personal photo calendar project I was doing... Thanks to everyone who helped with that and provided valuable input.

Here is a photo from Lake Hawea, to me this really feels like "New Zealand"... the expansive blue lakes set against snow-capped mountains with a thin string of clouds. In fact, the native Maori's name for New Zealand is 'Aotearoa' which translates to 'the land of the long white cloud'. While this photo is an HDR composite of 3 images, the actual vista wasn't too different. In fact the main difference between the HDR and the non-HDR version of the image is that you see a bit more detail in the sky (and has more gray) and the lake water is a bight brighter more like turquoise rather than a darker emerald color.

After our brief stop at Lake Hawea, we stopped by the town of Cromwell to buy some fresh fruits... of course my mom and I completely ignored the fruit stand and instead started taking pictures... The places just had the largest field of Sakura (Cherry blossom) trees I've ever seen and almost made me feel like I was in Japan... BTW, in case you don't know, I'm totally obsessed about sakuras but have always struggled to take good photos of them...


I think the reason why I really like this photo is because it feels like a post card, you know one of those photos looking down a long path under the blossoming sakura trees. Just like one of those images you would find in the random "inspirational" PowerPoint you'd get in the mail.


While I didn't really need to use HDR (there is a similar non-HDR shot in the album) on this shot, I thought having the darker angrier looking cloud made the image feel a bit more dramatic. In the end, I think I just really liked the sun shining through creating the long shadows on the ground.

We arrived at Queenstown just before sunset and took the gondola up the nearby mountain for a great buffet dinner overlooking Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. I managed to be one of the first ones up the gondola to get myself a bit more time shooting the sunset. While the sunset itself wasn't that great, the view from the top overlooking Lake Wakatipu was just amazing, offering a nice reflection of the nearby mountains basked in the warm light.



This is one of my favorite shots from the day... I just love sweeping vista... I mean you can see all of Queenstown, the mountains nearby, Lake Wakatipu and just see it extend all the way out to the horizon.


This is by far my favorite photo from the day... but there is a reason for this. In my home in Taiwan, my step mom has a laminated aerial photo of Hokkaido (at least that's what I think it is...) during twilight... I mean this image had it all, huge city with bustling city lights, large bodies of water... and this deep blue sky. For some reason that image just connected with me and I really liked the royal blue color of the image (white balance trick I believe) and the city lights against the darker water surrounding the city which really made it stand out. So when I saw this scene earlier in the day, I knew I just had to come back during twilight just after the sun has set but leaving enough ambient light for me to get some detail out of the mountains in the distance. Well, the sun set just half way through dinner so I had to just stuff myself with as much food as I could (only had time for 1 plate at the buffet and gave up on seconds or the wonderful desserts they had... I mean they had some amazing desserts) and just grabbed my tripod and ran outside. I think for this image, it was well worth giving up dinner and dessert... I ended up eating cup noodles back in the hotel room. OH well, such is the life of a photographer :).


Before getting to New Zealand, I knew I wanted to try taking more star trail shots and also try to capture the Milky Way. Day two actually was the perfect opportunity given the low light pollution of the area, but rain killed any chances of seeing stars. While Queenstown sill is a pretty large town with decent amount of light pollution, I was able to find a quiet corner along the coast of Lake Wakatipu during the walk back from dinner. I quickly set up my tripod and took a few test shots. This particular shot was taken at f/5.6 over an 8 minute exposure. I was actually really surprised you can capture that much of the star trails that clearly...

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