Photos From Today

The weather tried to cooperate today but it decided to not play nice and stay pretty overcast with the occasional rainy drizzle.

I’ve been monkying around with my Canon 7D custom functions and getting it to match my Canon XSi so that when I go use both camera bodies, I don’t have any issues with one working a different way than the other. I use * button on the back to stop (or lock) the focus, so that the regular shutter button controls the AE (exposure) and taking the photo itself.

Anyway, Keith and I wandered around the entire Stanley Park seawall on our normal quest to find the resident eagles. We never did come across any of the eagles this time.

We stood around the little stone bridge at the west side of Lost Lagoon for a little bit. Showing some Aussie tourists how friendly the local chickadees actually are, especially when you have the proper seed for them.  While this was going on the two sparrows (I think that’s what they are) were gabbing to each other.

I have really been enjoying my Canon 7D’s high speed continuous ability. At 8 frames per second and a high shutter speed I can now freeze movement and capture instances I would normally miss with my Canon XSi. I still have to work on focusing on the proper spots on a bird though as this guy’s head isn’t in focus.

We popped over to the Vancouver Aquarium, but at the section that is “free”. Here a trainer is working with the recently rescued Harbour Porpoise the Aquarium as acquired. Wonder if they will release it back into the wild, or if it will join the spotted dolphins in the next tank over.

Now if you have ever gone on a photowalk with me into the more nature type places of Vancouver (Stanley Park, Lighthouse Park, Riefel Bird Sanctuary etc) you’ll probably learn I’m really good at seeing and pointing out critters that most people seem not to notice. The above photo is of a hummingbird, just not sure which one it is since the lighting is horrible on it. I cropped the photo to about 90% tried to increase the light levels and bring out any colour I could with Lightroom. I then tossed it into Photoshop CS4 and run NoiseNinja on it to clean it up a bit. Not bad for what I had to work with, maximum focal length at 200mm in a tree whose leaves are almost the same size of the bird and with no sun being out!

I should get a hummingbird feeder out sooner than later now! It seems that Spring is here…

Since the clouds were out and about it’s always a good time to do a hand-held HDR photo of Coal Harbour. The Westin (far left behind marina) is home to not only I.O.C (International Olympic Committee) but also to various families of the Olympics too. I heard a rumour that President Obama was supposed to stay there too but it looks like he pulled out and now the Vice President will be in town for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

So what, now the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics are 9 days away? What will I be doing? Probably just wandering around with my camera taking photos of whatever I happen to see. Too bad I couldn’t get accrediated to do some sporting venues for the Olympics I would have really liked to see Shaun White and them on the Half Pipe like I did at Cypress last year.

Yeah, I have been going through some of my photos taken during the LF FIS WorldCup event up at Cypress Mountain last year. I even did a first attempt at creating a sequenced shot in Photoshop too, I don’t think it turned out half-bad.

There is still some time left in this Winter season, perhaps I can get up to Grouse Mountain for an event or two, or at least head over to Whistler for the upcoming 2010 Telus World Ski and Snowboarding Festival!