Photography and more
Martock Slush Cup – Saturday March 24
1I have been invited by the Ski Patrol to shoot Martock’s annual Slush Cup again this year. This event is a lot of fun for skiers and non-skiers. The Slush Cup starts 1:00 pm on Saturday at Martock near Windsor, Nova Scotia.
The link to the pictures will be posted here after the event. For more information on the Slush Cup check Martock’s web site.
You can see my photos from 2009 on Flickr
Here are the photos for 2012.
Lilith from the 2009 Slush Cup
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Welcome Skaters!
0Photos from the Skate the Common Marathon will be available on Monday, February 20. You will be available to browse through all the photos from the event and purchase prints. We are offering three packages:
- Two 5×7 photos on archival Premium Lustre paper for $12 plus $7 shipping and handling.
- One 8×10 photo on archival Premium Lustre paper for $12 plus $7 shipping and handling.
- One 11×14 photo on archival Premium Lustre paper for $20 plus $7 shipping and handling.
Orders for 5×7 and 8×10 photos can be combined to reduce shipping costs. 11×14 prints will be shipped separately in a shipping tube.
You can order images online from the order page.
Digital Imaging For Photographers
0I will be one of the presenters this year at the Digital Imaging for Photographers workshop this year on Saturday March 3rd in the Burke Auditorium at Saint Mary’s University. It is hosted every year by the Photographic Guild of Nova Scotia. All presentations will be from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Registration starts at 8:30 am and the cost is $40 per person.
I’ll be be talking about colour management for photographers. Learn how to use Xrite’s ColorChecker passport with Lightroom to make it easy to capture colour accurately. I’ll also be demonstrating some of the new features in Lightroom 4 for printing and soft proofing.
Using the Xrite Colorchecker Passport to get excellent colour.
Skate the Common Marathon Photos
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Sample Photo for Skate the Common Marathon
I’m the official event photographer for the Skate the Common Marathon at the Halifax Oval on February 18th and 19th this year. I’ll be there all weekend with my crew taking pictures of all the competitors in each race. We will be printing the photos on site so competitors can buy a souvenir photo to take home with them. One 8×10 photo is $12 or two 5×7 photos are $12. The photos are printed archival Premiun Lustre paper and packed in a crystal clear bag for safe transportation. A portion of the proceeds from each picture will be donated to the Halifax Regional Speed Skating Club to support their programs for skaters.
Learn How Your Camera Works!
012 months ago
by PeterS
in Uncategorized
Camera Sim is great website to learn how each of the settings on your dSLR will affect an image.
Viewpoint Gallery Show
01 year ago
by PeterS
in Uncategorized
Image featured on poster by Elio Dolente / Concept and design by Peter Steeper
The Photographic Guild of Nova Scotia is presenting a show at the Viewpoint Gallery. I’m one of the orgnaizers for the show and one of my images will be featured during the show. Everyone is welcome to come to the opening reception on June 2nd and to the artist talk on June 19th. Hope to see you there!
Colour Issues on Digital Presses (updated)
01 year ago
by PeterS
in Uncategorized
In my day job I’m a production colour analyst/colour consultant at Xerox Canada. I’m often involved in troubleshooting colour printing issues on digital presses. Colour problems can be caused by hardware issues where the digital press is not functioning correctly or by using the wrong colour settings in applications, PDF files and print drivers. When I go on site my challenge is to determine whether the problem is with the digital press or the customer’s workflow. I use the procedures on the Colour Printing page and we have been training all of our service reps in these procedures so they can quickly determine if the digital press is printing colour accurately. These procedures have been recently updated to use the GRACoL 2006 Coated printing standard and G7 Gray Balance developed by the IDEAlliance. IDEAlliance sets the printing standards for North America including the SWOP and GRACoL standards.
The new Quality Control Document uses the GRACoL 2006 Coated profile and all our new digital presses now use this profile for CMYK press simulations. GRaCoL has a wider colour gamut than SWOP and uses more of the colours that can be achieved on a digital press. The Quality Control Document can be downloaded on the Colour Printing page and full instructions are including for using it to evaluate your digital press.
Learn More About Colour Management for Digital Printing
Xerox and the IDEAlliance are offering the Digital Colour Management Certification Course. Part I of the course includes 20 modules of online training covering all aspects of colour management in digital printing. The course is hosted by Dr. Abhay Sharma of Ryerson University in Toronto. Dr. Sharma has written books on colour management and is actively involved in developing printing standards with the IDEAlliance. Part II of the course is hands on and is presented by your local Xerox Colour Consultant. Contact your Xerox sales rep for more info and pricing.
Canada Winter Games 02-2011
01 year ago
The start of the 10K race for Skate the Common Marathon.
I’ll be shooting at more preliminary events and during the games. You can see more of my images in my Winter Games collection on Flickr.
Digital Photography Basics Workshop – September 18 at SMU
01 year ago
Every year in September I organize a workshop for the Photo Guild called Digital Photography Basics. The hot topic this year is HD Video and most new dSLR cameras will feature HD video. The last episode of “House” this spring was shot using a Canon 5D MkII dSLR. This offers new creative opportunities for photographers and new skills to learn.
We will be featuring a presentations in the morning on High Definition Video as well as Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. In the afternoon we take everyone out in the field to practice the new skills they learned in the morning. I’ll be leading a group in the afternoon. We will be learning how to use the basics like aperture, shutter speed and focal length creatively. Other groups in the another will be working with video, macro photography and other skills.
Registration starts at 8:30 am, Saturday, September 18. The morning seminars are at Burke Auditorium at Saint Mary’s University. Everyone is welcome and admission is $40 for a full day of workshops.
Check the Photo Guild website for updated info as more details are announced.
Using a Cybersync to Trigger a Camera
01 year ago
by PeterS
in Photography
Big Comfy Couch Session
Ashley is home from Queen’s University and Friday night she and her some of her old friends from high school and new friends from Queen’s came over for a lobster boil. Her friends learned how to eat lobster and I had chance to test out some new gear.
After supper, the kids spent the night in the photo studio having a blast creating some classic images which I’m sure they will enjoy the rest of their lives. Ashley, the laughing blond on the left, has a Cybersync remote radio trigger in her hand which she used to trigger the camera for this image. The camera was connected to my computer and one of the monitors was turned to the couch so the kids could instantly see the results. This generated a lot of laughter!
While the kids were emptying my beer fridge, I setup the leather couch in the studio with a new 14″ x 63″ strip light softbox above and just behind the couch to use as a hairlight. The softbox came from Studio 98 on Ebay. I am pleased with the quality of the softbox and it did an excellent job of lighting the full length of the couch. I also ordered a 2×2″ grate to go with the softbox but it is starting to come apart. The softbox was an excellent value at $59 but I can’t recommend the $20 optional grate.
I recently bought a cable from Flash Zebra that allows me to use one of my Alien Bee Cybersyncs to remotely trigger my camera. I bought it to trigger my camera for wildlife photos in our backyard and woods. To set it up, I connected a Cybersync to the Alien Bee AB800 flash above the couch and connected another Cybersync with a AB800 and beauty dish in front on the left. At my camera, I connected another Cybersync using the cable from Flash Zebra. The cable from Flash Zebra has a mini-plug on one end to connect to the Cybersync and the standard Canon remote jack on the other end.
I clicked the remote trigger and checked the camera but I had a black frame. After checking my settings on the camera, I tried it again and verified the flashes were triggered. Although the flashes fired I still had a black image on the camera. Apparently there is a slight delay as the camera focuses so the flashes do not sync with the camera shutter. To make it sync, I would need a second trigger on the camera using a different radio channel to trigger the lights. I only have one trigger.
I solved the problem by using my Canon 430ex flash on my camera to trigger the optical slaves on the Alien Bee flashes. I set the 430ex to manual and minimum power. I had to remove the Cybersyncs from the Alien Bees as the optical slaves do not work when the Cybersyncs are connected. This worked!
The camera was tethered to my computer using a USB cable so the images could viewed immediately on the monitor. The monitor was turned towards the couch and the kids had a great time seeing their pictures. They were laughing all night!
Adobe Lightroom 3 now supports tethered shooting and I tried it with my Canon 50D. The transfer times were very slow so I switched to the Canon EOS Utility. Transfer times were faster so we used it. I don’t know if Lightroom is just slow or I was using the wrong settings. I need to investigate.
The only cable used with setup was the USB cable from the camera. I’d like to use a wireless connection to the camera but I can’t afford Canon’s $700 wireless adaptor for the 50D. Eye-Fi has a “Pro Wireless” memory card that can transmit the images through your wireless router to your computer. While the Eye-Fi Pro version supports RAW images, it only comes in a SD card format. It seems to me that a pro version should come in a compact flash version. I know you can get SD to CF converters so I may get one sometime.
The new gear worked great and the kids had a great time creating their own images in the studio.