Through My New Lens

Blog moved...

2009-07-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

I've decided to move the blog to my website... and due to difficulty in moving the content across all the historical content will remain here, but everything new will be added here: http://www.t8photography.com/blog

So, please update your newsreader :)

New T8 Photography Blog
Web: http://www.t8photography.com/blog
RSS: http://www.t8photography.com/blog/feed

Aiman

2009-03-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

I visited my new nephew on the weekend, Aiman. Here's some photos of the little guy with his proud parents :)

Panoramas at the coast

2009-03-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

Had a great weekend at the coast, and some time to take some photos for me! I have recently upgraded one of the D300 bodies to a D700, so had a new camera to play with. And with the D700, I also needed a new FX lens to go with it, so I bought the 24-70 f/2.8 :)

One thing that I haven't done much of before was stitched panoramas.

Derelict wharf on the Moruya River. This was 6 shots stitched together and a few minor adjustments made in Lightroom first (like a bit of extra saturation and some graduated filter for the sky). Click the pic for a bigger image.

Broulee Beach. 10 shots stitched. Has some interesting details in the photo, like the woman on her bike looking at the beach, various people on the sand, and Broulee Island in the background. Pity it wasn't a nice sunny day...

Some more panos to follow.

Emma & Jeff

2009-02-23T15:59:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to Emma and Jeffrey. Married on Saturday, 21st February 2009 at the Anglican Church in Queanbeyan.

Here is my favorite photo from the day:

I've also set up a page on my website for Emma & Jeff. This page has a small summary of their wedding as well as a link to the slideshow and an embedded video slideshow. I've also enabled comments on the bottom so friends and family can leave a message.

Canberra Wedding Expo

2009-02-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

I exhibited at the Canberra Wedding Expo on the 1st of February. There was a huge turnout, I heard there was around 2000 people turn up. There were heaps of booths, especially photographers and everyone was pretty busy all day.

I created a stop-motion video of Brent and I setting up the booth, check it out here.

On the tables I had a range of Photobooks from previous weddings which were very popular. I also had brochures made up, a pull-up banner, logo on core-flute and of course the LCD TV with a rolling slideshow of images and marketing messages. On the wall I had my packages pricelist and a range of testimonials.

Was it worth it though? Always a hard question to answer. I do know that I have had a few bookings by people I saw on the day, so probably was worthwhile for me. On the other hand, the cost of a booth is a lot of clicks in Google... Also, it's hard to have an in depth conversation with people at the show because it's a very noisy environment and most people seem to be in a bit of a rush or a little overwhelmed.

I'm going to alter my booth setup for the next expo slightly, but overall I was pretty happy with how it all went.

Advertising

2009-02-16T14:48:00.000-08:00

About November last year I stopped advertising on Google. Reason was that my website was in a mess, resulting in people coming to the website via the ad and then leaving straight away - ie. money down the drain. So, the task over xmas was to redo the website. Well, it took longer than expected, but it's done now. No done as in "completely finished". Websites evolve over time of course, but it was done in the sense that I was ready to start advertising again.

Advertising works - everyone knows that, but it's also working for me. A large percentage of hits to my website are via google ads, and while it's much more expensive than it was, say, 3 or 4 years ago, I suppose it's not too expensive. I've set my budget to around $5 a day, and bidding around $1 per click. So that's more expensive, but not too dissimilar to magazine advertising of about $1400 for a full page ad over a year. At least with the Google ad I know that I'll get hundreds of visitors - with the magazine ad it's very hard to measure.

One thing that caught my interest last night was Google Insights for Search. Typing in a search term shows how frequently that term was searched for over time and also broken down into geographic region. The main thing I learnt was that most people research for their wedding in the beginning of the year.

So, for me, when my website was in a mess and no advertising, I was missing out on the most popular time in the year for wedding planning (and therefore bookings). Whoops... won't make that mistake again :)

Another thing I found interesting was that of the top ten most popular search terms relating to wedding research, Wedding Photography doesn't rate a mention!

The above table/graph is for the Canberra region. The Australian wide set of top searches is very similar, but also includes the terms "wedding hire" and "wedding reception", and still no "wedding photographer"! No idea why this is, maybe it's because brides find it difficult to choose the right dress and have to keep searching for the perfect one... almost unbelievable! :)

New Years at Kangaroo Valley

2009-02-09T21:03:00.001-08:00

This year we had New Years at a property called Yeola in Kangaroo Valley. Huge house. Four families. Lots to drink. Lots of fun. And a bit too short...

Photos here: Slideshow or Video

Goals for 2009

2009-02-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

There's some stuff I don't want to be public information, but the stuff that I don't mind is:

Book a lot more weddings (need to do more advertising)
Get a new Mac (faster, more storage and bigger screen)
Update the office furniture as the current stuff is pretty horrible
Upgrade one body to full frame, probably a D700
Add a couple more lenses to the collection, hopefully a 24-70mm f/2.8 to go with the D700
Get a good portfolio of landscape and nature photos, and possibly have an exhibition
Do some more camping and travelling
And of course: keep regularly posting to the blog!

Photography Diploma

2009-02-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

Today I got my Diploma in Photography from The Photography Institute.

Good stuff:
- taught me quite a bit of history and theory
- kept me motivated to learn
- has given me a Diploma (ummm, yay!?)

Not so good stuff:
- content was a bit light on
- assignments weren't challenging enough

Anyway, glad I did it and glad it's done!

Working on the beach

2009-02-08T16:27:00.001-08:00

The xmas holidays this year for me were a bit different - I scored a job for Coca-Cola in Wollongong for 13 days taking photos of people having surfing lessons on the beach. Yep, it was a dream job :)

The campaign was run by Urban Media for Coke. The campaign was free beginner surfing lessons on the beaches of Australia. It was run on heaps of beaches Australia wide (probably around 20), with six lessons a day, for most of January. At each beach there were branded surf-boards, two surfing instructors, two admin staff, one photographer, Coke tent, and of course free Coca-Cola for the participants when the lesson finished. The photographer had to take photos of everyone learning to surf and having a good time - the photos were then uploaded to Facebook that evening and the participants could tag themselves in the photos to win prizes.

I used my 80-400mm lens for the shots of people in the surf, which, combined with the D300 and 3D live tracking turned on, was a fantastic combination. Hopefully they run this campaign again; I'll be definitely putting my hand up for the job!

Website Overhaul

2009-02-03T13:53:00.001-08:00

Websites evolve over time, that's for sure. What I had before wasn't working for me though. I didn't like the way it looked and a few other issues. I tested out a whole bunch of Content Management Systems (CMS), and finally settled on Drupal. Some might say a CMS is a little overkill for a 5 or 6 page website, but once you use a CMS it's hard to go back! Drupal is not perfect (at least in my eyes) but I found a nice theme and some of the things I needed worked easily straight away. I don't quite like the concepts they use, and still much prefer the way DotNetNuke works, but at least with Drupal the modules are abundant and free.

T8 Photography website

I added a lot of content about a week ago as my deadline was the Wedding Fair (1st Feb '09), and I'm quite pleased with how it's working out.... but, if anyone out there is reading this, I'd love some feedback :)

The plan for the short term is to link in the Wedding Package pricing page and put in a gallery. There isn't yet a medium or long term plan...

Catch up

2009-02-01T15:46:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been over two months since a post... so here's a catch-up post with the subjects I'll write about in more detail over the next few weeks:

Shooting Social Pics for the Queanbeyan Age
~~Photos for the Coca-cola Surf School~~
Ryan and Kristine's Wedding
Jody and Jye's Wedding
~~Website overhaul~~
CPS - winner of B Category aggregate competition
Steve Parish - winner of Landscape photograph of the year
Exhibiting at the Wedding Fair
iPhone - yes, now I have one too
~~New Year's at Kangaroo Valley~~
Animoto - turn photos into movies
Fredrick's Family Portraits in Wollongong
~~Goals for 2009~~

That should keep me busy for a while - my goal is to cover one subject every day or two :)

Nicki & Chris

2008-11-09T16:22:00.001-08:00

Long overdue post, so a belated congrats to Nicki and Chris who were married on 9th of October 2008.

This wedding was a little interesting... firstly the 1950's Rolls Royce that Nicki and her brother were chauffeured in from Gungahlin to Bungendore broke down. The driver had to make some quick repairs to the carby by the side of the road. Luckily they were only about half an hour late. During this time, I had plenty of time with Chris as we waited for his bride to arrive :)

Then, after Nicki has arrive, and just before she was going to walk down the isle, she realised that the celebrant wasn't around! A quick phone call and about 40mins later the celebrant arrived and performed the ceremony....

After the ceremony we did some shots in the lovely Carrington gardens, and then headed down to the Bungendore train station for some more shots.

People's Choice

2008-11-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

I've got so much to blog about, but haven't had the time. Have done a couple more weddings recently which I'll add to the blog soonish I hope.

Last night was another competition night for the Canberra Photographic Society. What made this comp a bit different to normal was that as well as the judge giving comments and rating each photo, before the judging was a people's choice award. Everyone voted for their favorite 3 photos in B grade and A grade in a secret ballot. And I'm pleased to say that one of my photos was chosen as the joint winner in B grade.

I presented it as a small print with a black mat. It was taken near Mt Hotham in Victoria, right next to Dinner Plain Hut. I was walking around the hut taking photos from various positions and this little tree poking out of the snow caught my eye.

Syndey Harbour by Night

2008-09-30T03:08:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago (actually, maybe it was a month or two ago...) we were up in Sydney for the weekend. So, nothing like heading out and taking photos at night of the bay :)

Some more here.

Congratulations to Amy and Andy

2008-09-30T02:24:00.000-07:00

I got the privilege of shooting Amy and Andy's wedding on the 27th September 2008. I was shooting Amy and the girls preparing, the ceremony and the posed group shots afterwards for Blurr Photographics. Although it was a pretty quick shoot for me, I think I got some great shots for the happy couple :)

Congratulations to Belinda and Dave!

2008-09-15T04:20:00.000-07:00

Belinda and Dave were married on the 5th September 2008. Congratulations to them both! It was a great wedding in the Queanbeyan park with plenty of photo opportunities. The day got dark a bit earlier than I would have liked, but still got some great shots (and some very interesting ones too). I had the camera on auto ISO and this really helped a lot as I didn't have to keep fiddling things. Lots of shots were taken at ISO 1600 (@ f/2.8), which is a bit grainy, but it's better to get the shot than have hundreds of blurred photos IMHO.

Here follows some of my favorites:

New Job

2008-09-15T04:17:00.000-07:00

I've given notice to my current job, and will be starting work at the Canberra Institute of Technology in the Photography section in the beginning of October. I'll be responsible for various IT systems, looking after the photography equipment and helping out teachers and students with technical photograhy stuff. Looking forward to it :)

Just another one of those amazing Canberra sunsets

2008-09-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Had I got the camera out just 5 mins before, the lines in the sky would have been a bit nicer (3 distinct lines instead of one fat one and one thin one). Spose I'll have to wait until tomorrow night :)

Congratulations to Gwen & Jason

2008-09-01T03:33:00.000-07:00

Bit late with this post, but a big congrats to Gwen & Jason who tied the knot in Jindabyne on 10th August 2008. It was supposed to be a wedding in the snow, but due to blizzard conditions the ceremony location was changed to the trout hatchery just outside Jindabyne. And the amazing thing was that it actually snowed during the ceremony! I feel sorry for the bridesmaid who had a beautiful dress but not a warm one - she would have been freezing... everyone else was in thick ski jackets. Small selection of photos follow.

New webhost

2008-09-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

I've been using GoDaddy for my webhosting for quite some time. The main reason I choose GoDaddy was because it was easy, no contract, cheap, and the WebSite Tonight template based hosting made it very quick and easy to put together quite a good looking site (oh, and my domain was registered with them). The bad stuff about GoDaddy though is that:

WebSite Tonight is limited to 5 pages
The ongoing fees are a bit steep for 5 pages
The user interface is dreadful - mainly because it's so painfully slow

So, it was time for a change. After a bit of research, and quite a lot of R&D, I've successfully implemented the website using Google Sites. It took me much longer than I'd anticipated, mainly because Google Sites strongly encourages usage of the built in templates and prevents things like embedded objects, CSS editing and extra CSS files. To get the same look and feel as the old site I had to turn off most of the Google Sites features and choose a template that had styles that didn't interfere with how I wanted things. Then I did a lot of hand coding of HTML...

One of the major features that attracted me to Google Sites was the availability of a very large range of widgets that you can embed in the site - iGoogle Apps. These demo really well, but (so far in my limited experience) if they're not Google produced ones then they leave quite a lot to be desired. For example, I spent most of Sunday afternoon trying to get a slideshow of my portfolio images which are stored on flickr. There are heaps of iGoogle flickr apps, but none are very good and most are extremely limited and have almost no options. But, use the Picassa widget (made by Google) and it looks good, works straight out of the box, and is quite customisable (would like more, but hey, it's not too bad).

Another interesting thing is the ability to use Google Spreadsheet forms as feedback forms. When a user submits their information it goes straight into the Google Spreadsheet and you can set up email notifications. The moral to the story is if you're deep in the Google pot then things work well, otherwise forget Google Sites and look elsewhere.

Jury Duty

2008-08-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

Not related to photography in any way... but, I've been called for jury duty in a couple of weeks :(

Some amusing comics below:

Lightroom 2 is out

2008-07-29T02:36:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting for Lightroom 2 for quite a while. I played with the beta a few months back and some of the new features were really good. This is really going to enhance the workflow and further reduce shelling out to Photoshop (= a good thing).

July Update

2008-07-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy week-and-a-bit.

I watched the judging of the NSW/ACT APPA competion (part of VIVID photography festival). Very interesting watching the judges score the photos, and even more interesting when they have mini-debates to convince the other judges one way or the other.

Attended "Magicians and Travellers" conference (put on by AIPP also as part of VIVID). The standout talk for me was Phil Kuruvita. Peter Eastway had a good presetation, as did Phillip Andrews.

Use DNG. I never really saw the point of DNG, but the main reason to use it is for better workflow going from Lightroom to/from Photoshop. I've gotta test this out soon. The other benefit is that you get around 20% storage saving over NEF files... which actually is a good enough reason in itself to use DNG. Now I've just got to convert all my photos...

I've finally registered "t8 photography" as a business name.

All my insurance has been finalised. I got a couple of quotes and in the end went with photoinsurance.com.au Quite good value and email communication was pretty smooth.

I put an ad in the "A day to remember" wedding liftout in The Canberra Times. I was the only photographer who did so - I'm not yet sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... it could mean it's a waste of money! I have had two enquiries from the ad so far though. I'm also advertising via Google Adwords, which seems to be more effective so far. I've had most enquires from people who have clicked on the Google ad.

5 weddings booked. Yay! Next wedding is in two weeks.

I've moved my email from GoDaddy (which is attrocious) to Google Apps (ie. GMail). So far so good. I'm going to see if I can do the website hosting with Google Sites, then I can get rid of GoDaddy for everything except domain registar. As part of Google Apps you get Google Calendar - which imports iCal calendars and iCal can subscribe to Google Calendar (and still syncs the calendar to my phone). I would have prefered that Google Calendar do proper two-way syncs with iCal, but I suppose you can't have everything.

Still doing photography work for ALVA media on the weekends. I'm now doing the team shots by myself (sometimes with a little help from George). Next weekend I'll be showing someone else the ropes.

Sent in the form to join NPS Lite. Nikon Professional Services. You get stuff like priority equipment servicing, free CCD cleaning and a few other minor things. I'm not sure if they'll accept my grey import Nikon gear though. Does anyone buy from authorised Nikon resellers these days??

Talking about grey imports - just got my first macro lens: Nikkor 105mm with AFS and VR. Looking forward to using it when I've got some time!

Took some photos in the rain halfway up Black Mountain (the hill, not the tower) with a couple of the guys from the Canberra Photography Society. One I liked below:

Victorian High Country

2008-07-18T05:32:00.001-07:00

Just got back from a week away in the Victorian High Country. We stayed at Bright which turned out to be a fantastic base. One of my objectives with the trip was to photograph Wallace's Hut, but the access road is closed in winter and it's a 17km return walk from Fall's Creek in the snow. I'll do the walk another time when I've got the gear (snowshoes) and someone that can hike the distance through snow with me :)

Instead we found Dinner Plain Hut. Not quite as much history as Wallace's, and not as picturesque, but it was only 30m from the road and was nestled in amongst the gum trees.

Here's one of my favorite shots of it:

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 22mm, f/10, 1/400sec

We all had a cuppa in the hut and then headed up the road and found JB Hut. It's a couple of hundred metres walk from the roadside through snow but is just visible from the road. I rushed the shots of this hut and the first few that I took were over exposed and had to be chucked. This one with the show gum in the foreground is one of the more interesting shots, but the tree is out of focus on the left hand side as it exits the frame. It's not really too much of an issue, especially considering that this is at 11mm and less that a metre from the tree (main thing is that the hut is in focus).

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/5.6, 1/125sec

This is the Cathederal on Mount Buffalo. Very amazing views. It was hard work dragging the kids up the mountain as the snow was knee deep in most places, and slightly deeper in others... but the reward was worth it.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/9, 1/320sec

We visited a Emu and Alpaca farm. They had animals roaming around the carpark and some ostritches which seemed a bit unusual (they were behind a fence fortunately). The interesing photos I took here though was of this rusty old cart.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 14mm, f/10, 1/40sec

This is the waterfall on the way up to Mount Buffalo (can't find the brochure with the name of it atm). I spent a long time taking shots from many different angles and unfortunately couldn't get the shutter speed below 1/10th of a second without overexposing the water. The minimum apeture on the Tokina is 22 but most of the shots I did at 22 had weird flare which I only saw when I got back to the apartment - luckily I took lots of shots with a wide variety of settings!

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/20, 1/10sec

And another waterfall - not quite as interesting but all good practice.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/16, 0.6sec

And some of the native fungi growing in a tree.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 80mm, f/5, 1.3sec

I was also looking for some really mature snow gums, but didn't find any. Apparently there are lots in Fall's Creek, but we didn't get there this time.