Words from WickedZ

Nothing like wedding cake in your face on your special day.  I attended a post-wedding get together of my cousin Brandon.  He was married during the winter in a beautiful cabin new Rocky Mountain National Forest.  Kerry and I were honored to attend.  Anyway, this get together was for the larger crowd of many friends and family of Brandon and Deann.  If you would like to check out the action http://www.wickedz.com/moats/ .  (Brandon and Deann, let me know which pictures you want and I’ll get them on CD for you)  I … Continue Reading

In reviewing my photos I found this one from last month.  I borrowed my dad’s 10D and used a 16-35 f/2.8L @ 16mm for this shot.  Handheld, 1/125th sec @ f / 22, ISO 200.  Only an “L” could give you a kiss of light like this.  The rock face was being lit by the reflection from the red rock behind me.

Here’s one that’s hand held that is surprisingly sharp. 1/100th sec @ f / 5.6, ISO 400, 300MM focal lenth on my 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L taken at 7:15 in the evening.

The difference between the green and the grain of the wood is about 1 foot.  The auto focus point is right in the middle just on the edge of the wood.  1/1000 of a second @ f/5.6 ISO 200 on my 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L @ 135mm focal lenth.  I have 4 pictures like this that show the same thing.  This is hand held.  I’m going to setup some tripod tests with all my lenses.  It just seems that the results in the last few days have been very inconsistent and I … Continue Reading

I finally got my 40D back from Canon Service after 4 weeks.  I’ve shot a ton of pictures in the last couple days and it just doesn’t seem to be performing at it did before relative to noise levels, sharpness and focusing consistency.  I’m going to continue to do some test shots.  Here’s a few, let me know what you think.  The flower is auto focused at the middle of the white stem, yet it is sharp way behind that point.  The plant shot is manually focused using my eye threw the viewfinder and ignoring what the camera says is … Continue Reading

I have to share this picture.  It was a long weekend but lots of fun in between the long expansions of time “raising” two boys.   We went for a bike ride and stopped at a park to let the kids run around.  There were two trees to compose a great shot of “peek-a-boo fun.”  To me, this is a fun shot and why I tend to lug my 15lbs of camera gear with me everywhere.  Details- Canon 10D (borrowed since Canon has had my 40D for 4 weeks … Continue Reading

I’ve certainly had my bout with Canon quality this year (S5 IS and 40D).  The day we were leaving for a 3 week family vacation my wife’s Canon S5 IS failed to read the SDHC card.  Three different cards were all determined by the camera as “Card Locked”.  A long call with Canon tech support ended with a resolution of… “You need to ship the camera to Canon service for a repair.”  This was just what I wanted to hear as I was packing the truck for departure.  With the high quality 60fps video and superb image quality of the … Continue Reading