More night photography in Jasper
I was asked about using live view to focus on the stars after mentioning the issues I was having getting good focus the first night. Yuichi Takasaka mentioned using live view during a talk he gave at the Jasper Dark Star Festival and it certainly makes sense. Here’s what I ran into however. When I switched […]
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 […]
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 […]
Islands Folk Festival – Editing the Photos
Here it is in the early spring of 2012 and I’m finally spending some time editing the photographs I shot at last years Islands Folk Festival on Vancouver Island. This is a daunting task, sorting through over 5,000 photographs shot over a 3 day period. Granted, this is nothing compared to what many sports photographers […]
GoPro Hero at Portland International Raceway
Last year I bought a GoPro HD Video Camera with the idea of attaching it to helicopters, racing cars, boats and anything else I could think of. While circumstances have not allowed me to use the camera as much as I would have liked I have used it enough to get an appreciation of what […]
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 […]
Kevin Oke Photography blog – 6 years!
It appears that we celebrated 6 years of (proven) blogging in the past few weeks and while it doesn’t sound like much one has to remember that true blogging is a fairly recent phenomenon. In reality I think we are actually reaching 7 years or more which isn’t bad considering WordPress didn’t become a released blogging platform until […]
Analysis of a Kayaking Photo Shoot
Lisa from the wonderful blog Travelin’ Local was asking how many images I shot when I photographed the kayakers a few days ago on the Cowichan River. The number was 363 images shot in a time span of 45 minutes. While this may seem like quite a lot of photos I thought I would discuss […]
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 […]
Kevin Oke Photography Stock
We are thrilled to announce that our new Kevin Oke Photography searchable stock photography site is running in full operation mode. As of today there are 11,000 photographs in the database with another 5,000 or so still to be catalogued. This has been a huge undertaking and the realistic date for the site to be […]
Kevin’s Lens Test Archive
Most of you realize that for me a lens test doesn’t require a fancy lens testing chart or a brick wall. It’s not that I don’t think that this type of test is valid, it’s just that I don’t think that photographing charts has much to do with real life photography. The only real exception […]
Google Earth or Aerial Photography?
I was asked the other day to make a comparison between Google Earth and aerial photography or more accurately, is aerial photography in danger of being overlooked for the ease of use and cost saving measures that Google has provided?. To start, I love Google Earth; it’s an amazing tool that makes exploring the world a little easier […]
New themes and old web sites
As many know I’ve been using WordPress for web site design for a number of years now. This years ambitious project was Cowichan Valley Photos, a WordPress site using the Atahualpa theme. The theme is very flexible and I would highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for great flexibility in the design process. Having […]
High Dynamic Range Photography
I have been exploring the use of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography for about a year now and while I haven’t actually produced anything of value I still am fascinated by the results that one can achieve. What I have learned is that producing amazing photographs with HDR is a lot more difficult than it […]
Editing and Workflow – Part 3
Part three of our editing and workflow series was written by a very talented nature and wildlife photographer Jim M. Goldstein. His article, 3 Critical Criteria Of Any Image Selection Workflow discusses how he evaluates images and determines which photos will make the final cut. This is a must read, take a look! The […]
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 […]
Editing and Workflow – What’s right for you? Part 1
Ask 10 photographers about their editing and workflow techniques and you will likely get 10 different answers. While this might surprise you at first, every photographer develops their own style based upon their personal preferences and their shooting style, in fact; personally I have a few different workflows depending on whether I am shooting large […]
Brentwood College Rowing Regatta photo shoot
Brentwood Regatta 2009 Photos I just spent 2 days photographing the Brentwood College Rowing Regatta in Mill Bay. This regatta is a photography feast with non-stop action for almost 3 days in a beautiful part of the Cowichan Valley. Over 1,500 athletes and coaches from over 35 rowing clubs take part in the regatta. Most are […]
Major updates to my blog!
I’m in the process of making some major design changes to my blog. What you can’t see is the upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. This allows far better flexibility and a far cleaner work area for me. That part of the change went surprisingly smoothly although I sure was nervous. What you will […]
Keywording and DAM or is it DAM Keywording
PLEASE COMMENT – I would be interested in your workflow and solutions. I have used a number of different DAM and keywording programs over the years, none of which I really felt made the job easy and more importantly enjoyable. I’ll highlight the progression I’ve gone through to get to my present system that while not […]
Sigma 50mm f2.8 D Macro EX
I’m beginning to feel like an equipment junkie having purchased a couple new (used) lenses recently. One of these, the Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye I have mentioned a number of times in previous posts (A few more 180’s from the Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye Lens and Fisheye Views). The other lens I recently purchased was a Sigma […]
