Macro photography : Seeing in another perspective Part II

I hope you enjoyed my last post, here are a few more of my macro shots :)

Here are a few of my images. They are all mine and taken with my Canon 30D + Tubes + 50mm f/1.8 and occasionally my cheapo ebay flash ($60) + cheapo ebay flash triggers ($11)

More fruit! Anybody here like papaya?

Mar 1 - Papaya

Shot with Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8 + Various attachments.

Guess what and who this is! Hint: think money :)

Mar 29 - Dix

Shot with Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8 + Various attachments.

A very close-up of an African Violet! These are the leaves - they're very soft and fuzzy.

April 10 - African Violet

Shot with Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8 + Various attachments.

That's it for now, thanks for looking :)

Macro photography : Seeing in another perspective Part I

Hi guys, I'm going to feature today's post on macro photography. With macro photography, we get to see things different that we would normally overlook daily.

I can't afford a real macro lens, so I'm using a $5 extension tube set that I put in between my camera and lens. They are really painful to use as I have to set the aperture, trick the camera into thinking the lens is still connected by removing the lens while holding down the DOF preview button, mounting it onto the tubes, and then trying to look through the viewfinder which is now so dark that I can't see anything (Because the aperture is manually held half shut). Then on top of that I have to set manual settings for the shutter speed and focusing.

It is extremely time consuming and frustrating, but something is better than nothing :P.

Here are a few of my images. They are all mine and taken with my Canon 30D + Tubes + 50mm f/1.8 and occasionally my cheapo ebay flash ($60) + cheapo ebay flash triggers ($11). A Canon flash would cost $400+ and a set of pocket wizard triggers would cost $300+. The triggers I own are known as the "Poverty Wizards". :D.


This is a macro shot of a spinach leaf, I put my flash under and snapped this. I really like how the "veins" light up with contrast.

Jan 5 - Spinach Macro

Shot with Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8 + Various attachments.

Guess what this is :D? A strawberry! Pretty cool, huh? It actually looks like there is glitter inside.

Feb 9 - Sparkle

Shot with Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8 + Various attachments.

This was taken when it was snowing at my place. It's not that great of a shot but I don't have many macro photos and I'm saving some for my next post ;D

Feb 21 - Snow Cone

Shot with Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8 + Various attachments.

That's all for today, let me know what you guys think :) The next post will have a few more of my other macro shots + a photo of my tubes and camera for those interested.

Thanks for looking!

Vancouver Biennale

Woot! I went to downtown today to work on a project that required photos of three of the Vancouver Biennale sculptures. The Vanouver Biennale is pretty much an international open air museum. The project only required me to take photos of the three sculptures on downtown, but I took photos of everything on the way there :D.


Here are a few of the many photos I took:

"We, 2008" sculpture by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa.

 English Bay.

"A-maze-ing Laughter" sculpture by Chinese sculptor Yue Minjun.

For some reason my friends and I call these "The Trolls". :D

"Meeting" sculpture by Chinese sculptor Wan Shugang. There were 8 of these guys in a circle, staring into the center. The board is a friend's.

Downtown, Vancouver!

A cool circular walkway that extends over the water. http://bit.ly/goAJOl

All were taken with my Canon 30D + 17-85mm. Let me know what you think, thanks!

Photowalk :D

Woohoo! It was a really sunny today so I went out for a brief photo walk. I took some photos around my neighborhood and the local community center. I took a bunch of photos so I'll upload a few :)

I was walking around the park when I saw this Avalon milk truck parked under a cherry blossom tree. I thought there was no one in there until I walked past it afterwards :P. Avalon is the oldest continously operating dairy in BC. They are also the only BC company that still delivers milk to homes in glass containers.

I have been to this park many times as child and today was my first time visiting in in a long, long time. I didn't even remember that this building existed :P

I thought the pink tips looked really interesting.

OM NOM NOM.  :3

 An inuksuk! One block away from my house. 

I can't get enough sky pictures. Today they looked as delicious as ever so I decided to take a photo with some cherry blossoms in it too.

All were taken with my 30D + 50mm f/1.8 today on April 5th.

That's all for now, let me know what you think and which ones are your favourites :D

Thanks for reading!

More photos for the photoblog

There's not too much to say for each photo so I'll keep it brief :)


I took this photo on the front steps of my house. I was just about to head outside to take some photos when I looked up. Only minutes later the wind blew the clouds away.

Mar 22 - Rays of Light

Taken with 30D + 17-85mm

This next shot I took at a friend's house. The room was dark with only a light shining on the flower, thus leaving everything but the flowers in darkness. I named this photo after the new The Strokes song - Under the Cover of Darkness :)

Mar 19 - Under the Cover of Darkness

Taken with 30D + 50mm f/1.8

I will update with more photos later. Feel free to leave comments below :) Suggestions are welcome too, preferably stuff I can find in my home as it is raining everyday here and I'm struggling with my Photo-a-Day project indoors :(

Some of my first lightpainting pictures.

Hi guys, I don't have enough of my own work on here so I'll dedicate this post to my first lightpainting photos:)
For those of you who don't know what lightpainting is, it's a totally different type of photos that involves light sources and looong camera exposures. I'll talk more about it in another post, so here are my first photos.


This photo I used a strand of dental floss (couldn't find tape haha) and taped a red, blue, and white LED to it and spun it around :)

Mar 4 - LEDs

Taken with 30D + 17-85mm

For this one I just painted around my guitar with a blue LED on a chopstick :)

Mar 6 - Electric Feel

Taken with 30D + 17-85mm

Thats all for now, let me know what you think :)

Best Buy Giftcard

Sweet! I just got a best buy giftcard in the mail from my cousin! I normally don't shop at best buy as their prices are not the best.

It's a $50 best buy giftcard, what should I buy? Photography stuff is out of the question as everything there is a rip. I'm thinking of maybe some music...

My Cameras!

Hi all, today I will show you guys what I use to take my photos. I don't have the best equipment out there but I'm happy with what I have (and how much I paid ;D ). For those of you who have no idea how they got here, I am a Canon fan. I think Nikon is just as good but I prefer the controls and ergonomics of Canon.

I will start with my Canon S95. This is probably the "highest end" piece of equipment I own, because it is widely accepted as the best point-and-shoot camera currently on the market. I just got this a few days ago and I love it :) I bought it because I couldn't carry my DSLR around with me all the time, which was a problem for my Project 365. It is 10.0 Megapixels and I paid $330 for it on craigslist.

Canon S95 - April 2nd

Taken with - Canon 30D + 50mm f/1.8

Next up is my Canon 30D DSLR. It is my first camera and I love it! Although this camera came out in 2006, it is a semi-pro DSLR so it has a top LCD, magnesium alloy body, and many controls over any Canon Rebel DSLR. Unfortunately there is no live view so some shots (camera close to floor) are a pain to take :( It is 8.0 Megapixels and I bought it for $380~ on craigslist over a year ago, but you can buy one now easily for $300.

Canon 30D - April 2nd

Taken with the above Canon S95 :D

As you can see, there is no comparison for the background blur, or bokeh, as the DSLR has a much larger sensor. 

Here is a group shot of my lenses and cameras. I have other odds and ends like trigger cables, tripods, flash equipment that I left out.

Group Shot - April 2nd

Taken with my sister's Canon SD1400

Enough blabbing about my stuff, thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below :)

Suckerpunch

Sorry guys, not a photography related post!

I just saw this movie a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it. My initial reaction after seeing the movie was "meh", but after reading up on the director's direction of the movie and plot explanations, the movie made much more sense and I like it a lot more now :)

The girls were great and the CGI was awesome. I mean, who doesn't like a movies with hot girls, guns, explosions, nazi helgast, and dragons? But one of the things I enjoyed the most would be the music. The soundtrack selection was awesome! What's even more awesome is that Emily Browning/Babydoll sang 3 of the songs!

Unfortunately I can't list the songs here but I'm sure you can find a way to find it on google ;)

My favourites so far:

01 Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Emily Browning
07 Where Is My Mind (feat. Emily Browning) - Yoav
02 Army of Me (feat. Skunk Anansie) - Bjork
08 Asleep - Emily Browning

The rest are great too, but these are stuck in my head! The Where Is My Mind cover is my favourite I think.

Has anyone else seen this movie? What do you guys think of it?

Project 365!

As all  none of you know, I am currently challenging myself to something called Project 365. It is a project where I take a (good) photo a day (You can take as many as you want, but you have to choose ONE image to represent that day) and publish it on flickr.

Needless to say, the project is very hard. I started on January 1st, 2011 and have only missed one day so far (I was on a Mass Effect 2 marathon that day :( and I totally forgot....). Now it is easy to cheat, but what would I gain from that?

I really enjoy this project and I can say with confidence that it has improved my photography skills and I recommend anyone who love taking photos to try this. An easier alternative is to try to take a photo a week, instead of every day.

Feb - 19 - Cypress Mountain
Taken with a Canon SD1400

Since this is a photography blog I will put atleast one image for each post :P