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 would consider to [...]
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 [...]
A few more 180′s from the Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye Lens
This Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens is actually quite fun to use and certainly can produce some interesting photographs. I previously talked about my first reactions to this lens in Fisheye Views. Well, I haven’t used the lens a huge amount more up to this point but it sure is a blast to pull it out [...]
Fisheye views
I mentioned a few posts ago that I had just purchased a Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens. Well, I finally picked it up in Portland and had the opportunity to put the lens through its paces. My first impression was how small the lens was. I really hadn’t paid much attention to the specs but figured [...]
Kevin’s Digital Photography History
I have been shooting digital since the prehistoric era, somewhere around March, 2000. This is when my first large compact flash card was 96mb and cost a whopping $500. I think my 2.1 MB camera (Nikon 950) was in the range of $2,000. I shot all of my photos as JPEG’s, in fact I don’t [...]
I was asked “what is your workflow?”
I gave a talk at the University of Victoria this past weekend and of the many questions that were asked, one I always find very difficult to answer. Unfortunately it’s a very common question as well. Variations of this question are: “What do you do with all your photographs? or, How do you keep them organized? or, [...]
New toys on the way!
There have always been a few lenses that I thought I would never buy. This was for a number of reasons but generally due to extreme cost (Nikkor 600mm f4 at a cool $9,699.95 US: I’m still looking for a benefactor here) or total impractibility in the case of extreme wide angles. It’s amzing what [...]
What’s in my bag?
This is a question that I’m asked often and it’s a hard one to answer. When I travel I tend to “travel light”, often only carrying one body and 2 lenses plus assorted other paraphernalia. When I have the luxury of travvelling by car or boat I tend to carry more, closer to what I [...]
And I bet you didn’t even notice!
Keen observers of this site will have seen a change in the way the galleries and keywords are handled. It’s very minor but makes for a far superior viewing experience. Doesn’t that sound good? Aren’t you glad that you know your experience is better? Well, even if you really haven’t noticed it has made the [...]
Gulls and the D300
I finally had a chance to use the new Nikon D300 with birds in flight while making the journey from Victoria, BC to Port Angeles in Washington on the Coho ferry. All I can say is WOW! The new focus system is amazing in tracking and locking onto an object. I also noticed that the [...]