Ecuador – 26 days, 19,475 photographs

I just returned from a fabulous month long trip to the exotic South American country of Ecuador. My journey started in the wonderful city of Quito then 8 days of wandering through the Andes staying at eco lodges and viewing wildlife. This was all followed by a fantastic trip to the Galapagos Islands and then […]
Shooting vertical images and battery grips

Why shoot vertical images? Something I try to do on a regular basis is shoot both horizontal and vertical images of the scene. There are a number of reasons for this but my primary reason is that most magazines and books use lots of vertical images. Magazine covers are verticals, books are mostly vertical. One […]
NIK HDR Efex Pro 2

HDR ( high dynamic range) photography has become quite popular the past few years, likely due to the amazing work of Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs. While I haven’t spent very much time specifically doing photography with HDR in mind, part of the new software package I just purchased from NIK contains HDR Efex […]
We arrive at West End, Tortola, BVI

Like many Islands the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands rely on ferries and the locals seemed to be running to get them before the last ferry would leave for their destination. We found the ferry schedule a little confusing at first but once you know what terminal you’re at it makes sense. Preplanning helps, I didn’t even […]
British Virgin Islands – What’s in my Camera Bag?

It’s amazing how much equipment you can cram into a camera bag when you travel. That being said, it’s almost impossible to actually use your gear when this much equipment is stacked up so this is more of a travelling to your destination set-up. Lowepro Mini Trekker backpack : Nikon D800 body Nikon D300 body […]
Digital Photography: Do Megapixels Really Matter?
In my post Thoughts on the Nikon D800 I discuss the number of megapixels in my Nikon D2X and Nikon D300 and try to convince myself that buying a new Nikon D800 or D800E might be a smart idea. I’m a little torn on this as you will read if you follow the link. This […]
Thoughts on the Nikon D800 – A review without seeing the camera

With the news that Nikon has come out with the D800 and D800E, many of us (Nikon users) are wondering whether it might be time to upgrade to a new, state of the art camera. The Nikon D800 and Nikon D800E boast a whopping 36.3 megapixels. This puts these cameras firmly in medium format digital […]
Defishing Nikons 10.5mm fisheye lens?

As many of you know one of the interesting lenses I shoot with is the Nikon 10.5mm f2.8 DX fisheye lens. This lens covers a lot of territory with a 180 degree corner to corner diagonal view giving you a full frame but somewhat distorted image. I don’t use the lens regularly but the odd […]
Free e-book -11 Ways You Can Improve Your Photography

The folks at Craft and Vision that produce many of the fantastic books we review on this site have once again produced an excellent photography e-book. This book is different however; it’s FREE. That’s correct, FREE! There’s really no excuse for not downloading a copy of Craft & Vision – 11 Ways You Can Improve […]
Photography in Bad Weather – Tips and Techniques

Let’s face it, the weather in most parts of the world is not always picture perfect. Where I live on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada we have our share of rain and what I like to call heavy mist. As a photographer what do we do to prepare ourselves for this? On a […]
Editing and Workflow – 3 Photographers Views

Originally published a little over 2 years ago, a group blogging effort about editing and workflow was very popular at the time and is well worth revisiting. As many people know I spend a considerable amount of time photographing events. These events cover the gamut from folk festivals and kayaking competitions to wooden boat festivals […]
Making Light II – Advanced Use of Off-Camera Flash

Making Light II Advanced Use of Off-Camera Flash by Piet Van den Eynde MAKING LIGHT II takes an in-depth look at how to get the most from your off-camera flashes. Piet takes you beyond sync speed and softboxes and gets into the details on working with multiple flashes, modifiers, and triggering systems for both Canon […]
Revisiting your photography archive

Often after returning from a trip or event I spend little time actually looking through images and picking the keepers. There are a number of reasons for this, the primary reason being lack of time. Typically my work flow allows me to process the photographs I require for a project or story and then move […]
Macro Photography – What equipment do you require?

There are a number of ways to get into macro photography ranging from inexpensive to outrageously expensive. Tough decisions to make, especially for someone that doesn’t make their living from photography. If you decide you want to explore macro photography you have a number of options. I have listed these options starting with what I […]
Professional Photography Confessions

The true confessions of a photographer, “I screwed up”! How is that for a statement? Actually, I didn’t screw up big time but a recent incident made me fully aware of potential issues with our modern digital cameras and, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me! I thought I would […]
Ladysmith Festival of Lights 2010

I always try to make it to at least one of the local Christmas light up festivals on Vancouver Island. This year happened to be the Ladysmith Festival of Lights which is always spectacular with over 200,000 lights being turned on in the historic downtown core by Santa Clause. From a photography standpoint it must […]
Editing and Workflow – Part 2

Part 1 of our editing and workflow series was published by D. Travis North yesterday on his blog, Shutter Photo. Travis’s workflow is very different from mine due to a completely different shooting style, I think you will find his article interesting. Jim M. Goldstein will publish part 3 of this series tomorrow on his […]
Major Database Update

I spent today working on a major, behind the scenes update of Kevin Oke Photography. For those that have spent some time looking through the galleries you will immediatly see a difference in the look and feel of the interface. The galleries also feature a slide show if you want to browse through different images. […]
4 minutes, 57 seconds

Photography is about light. I’m always a little surprised when I see photographers rushing around trying to capture scenery, only to complain at a later date that none of their images have “magic” to them. Five minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time to work with but as a photographer much can be accomplished […]
What is HDR and why do we care?

I’ve heard a lot about HDR photography in the past few months and decided to take a look at what it is and what it can do. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range photography. In real world terms what that means is taking several pictures of the scene and changing the exposure setting in your […]