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Stackables - Pumpkin Style

Stackables - Pumpkin Style, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

This is another one of my favorite shots from Halloween this year. It took me a while to get the lighting just right. I like the way the masks fade into the darkness as the stack ascends.

Skull Bright

Skull Bright, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

I finally got around to posting a few of my favorite Halloween 07 photos to my Flickr account. Check out my Halloween 07 Flickr set.

More Photos on Facebook Than Flickr

Photojojo

Twelve Essential Photographic Rules

PopPhoto.com, the on-line home of Popular Photography & Imaging Magazine, sports Twelve Essential Photograhic Rules - a collection of photography rules-of-thumb that will increase your chances of capturing the moment the way you see it.

From Sunny 16 to Moony 11, 8, and 5.6, these facts, formulas, and photographic rules can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.

 

Pumpkins For Sale

Pumpkins For Sale, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

Fall is in full swing here in Oregon and the greater Pacific Northwest. The pumpkin patch is one of my favorite places to explore with my camera in hand. The pumpkins contrast with the other fall colors to create lots of fantastic opportunities to capture the light. I took this picture at a popular patch in Pleasant Hill Oregon - Northern Lights Christmas Tree Farm. Enjoy Fall - capture it with your camera!

Yachats Oregon - Goodnight

Yachats Oregon, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

One more shot - almost dark by this point. Long exposure and tripod mounted. The rocks and the tidal pools here are a great place to spend the day. See my Flickr for a few more. Had a great weekend in Yachats Oregon. Goodnight.

Yachats Oregon - Coastline

Yachats Oregon - Coastline, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

The rocks off of the Yachats coastline a little after sunset. A great place to play.

Yachats Oregon

Yachats Oregon, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

We spent the weekend playing on the beautiful Oregon coast near Yachats. Great weather, good food, and great friends. Had an opportunity to take some interesting long exposure shots as well.

Father's Day Picaboo Photo Book

It's Father's Day here in the United States today and my most excellent family surprised me with a beautiful photo book from Picaboo.com. The photo book is hard-bound and the photo pages are excellent quality. My wife was able to insert her own custom captions and text to give the book a very personal touch. This is the 1st time we've used an on-line service for something like this and we're both impressed with the quality of the book and Picaboo's service as well. A friend passed a promotion code over to my wife last month so she gave it a shot - we got a $29.99 photo book for $8.99 including shipping - great deal. We're also planning on giving competing sevices like Scrapblog and Blurb a shot. I'd really like to get more of our pictures off of the computer and back into the real-world where people can enjoy it. Happy Father's Day Dads!

Speed Demon Photography

H2 Bling

H2 Bling, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

I love taking pictures of my kid's toys. H2 Bling Bling.

NOTE: I think the H2 is a terrible vehicle for a lot of different reasons - still, this mini H2 looks pretty cool. It's electric ; )

Is my blog boring? The cute kittens don't think so.

Hi, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

According to Scoble your blog is boring if you resort to posting cute pictures of cats for traffic. Is he right?

This is a picture of a couple kittens I took at the Green Hill Humane Society.

Cute? Or, boring?

Robin, I Can't See

Robin, I Can't See, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

Lately I've been getting a kick out of taking pictures of the toys my kids are playing with. We have a good time prepping each toy for the photo-shoot, they can be a bit nervous about all the picture taking, and the kids enjoy looking at the end result. This picture of my son's Batman action figure is called "Robin, I Can't See."

I also enjoy taking pictures of toys because it helps me appreciate the details of the design work that goes into each toy. How much time do you think somebody spent designing this Batman figure? See the detail in the ears? Somebody put a lot of effort into this and the design behind a toy often goes un-noticed by parents that are more focused on trying to keep the toys in the right bins. Spend a few minutes looking at the detail work that goes into the toys your kids play with. I'm guessing their toys are more interesting than most of the other things in your house.

More toy pictures in my Flickr "Toys" set.

Shooting w/ a Canon Rebel XTI

Back in December I blogged about my search for a new lens for my Canon Rebel 300D. My plan was to keep the older camera for another year or two - instead, investing in a Canon L series lens. Well, the plan changed a little.

I'm now shooting with a Canon Rebel XTI 400D and I'm loving it. I was a bit concerned about the size of the camera (its grip is smaller than the 300D's) but by adding the optional Canon battery grip I solved the problem and doubled my power capacity - nice if you don't like having to worry about keeping the camera charged. I bought the camera without the kit lens - instead opting for the highly regarded Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 XR DI lens. This lens takes fantastic pictures and it covers a popular focal range even on a camera with a 1.6 FOVCF like the 400D. I also picked up a copy of Canon's 50mm f/1.8 lens for shooting the kids indoors in low light situations without my flash. The 50mm takes fantastic pictures, with excellent background blur, and it's a steal at less than $100. This rounded out my end of 2006 camera upgrade and I feel like I'm set for at least a few years. Eventually, I'm going to want a full-frame camera like Canon's 5D but I'm happy for now. I've also got my eye on Canon's 85mm f/1.8 prime as well as a their 70-200mm f/4 or f/2.8 L lens but that will have to wait for a while.

I upgraded from the 300D to the 400D because I thought the enhanced feature set warranted it. I also felt like the time was right to sell my 300D - resale value will decrease sharply this year as 10MP cameras become the standard. I managed to get $425 for my 300D on eBay - that's pretty good considering I paid about $700 for the 400D body.

I'm not going to bother with specifics about any of these products because they are all reviewed by better resources already - instead, I'll provide you with links to some of the resources I used to research my upgrade.

Related Resources: 

Lens and Camera Reviews:

The-Digital-Picture.com - great resource for Canon lens and camera reviews

FM Reviews - a lot of professional opinions here / Canon and Nikon lenses

photo.net - detailed lens and camera reviews

dpreview.com - the ultimate camera review site

Buying:

Amazon.com - always competitive, great for lenses

B&H - bought the camera and one of the lenses here 

Flickr's Best of 2006

Autumn Leaf and More

Autumn Leaf is an excellent time-lapse photography piece - recommended by Thomas Hawk. Interested in this type of thing? Check out Thomas Kranzle's time-laps photography - click "SHOWREEL" in the NAV bar to get it started.

Reflections

Reflections, originally uploaded by Cale Bruckner.

I like the way this turned out. Shot here in Eugene, Oregon - by me.

Microsoft Media Center SDK Features Thomas Hawk's Work

Microsoft Media Center SDK Sample Application, originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

The new Microsoft Media Center SDK includes a sample application that features Thomas Hawk's photographs. Hawk, in my humble opinion, is a fantastic photographer and I just love browsing his work on Flickr. Check his work out for yourself.

Flickr's Best

Flickr is teaming with fantastic photographers. Here are some of the best.

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth

Photosynth, a Microsoft Live Labs production, was a big hit at the Web 2.0 conference and it's easy to see why. Scoble dug it.

Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
• Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.
  
  Link to source >>

Camera Lenses

I'm an amateur photographer. I wasn't much of a photographer until I had kids. It was my desire to perfectly capture the moment that pulled me into the hobby.

Currently, I'm shooting with a Canon EOS 300D - an older generation Digital Rebel. I'd like to upgrade the camera but I think I've decided to focus on the primary lens 1st - the camera is good enough for now.

For years I've been using the kit lens and an inexpensive telephoto lens from Tamron. I'm finally at the point where I want to upgrade my lens. A high quality lens can really make a difference in the quality of your photographs. Mind you, composition and mastery of the basics should come 1st, before you start spending thousands on equipment but you do reach a point eventually where you want/need better equipment to take you to the next level.

I'm looking for a good general use lens to replace the kit lens that came with my Rebel - an 18mm to 55mm Canon lens. The kit lens is a decent lens but it isn't very fast and the optics are, well, entry level. It's time to move up.

I'm writing this post to share a few favorite resources for reviewing the different lens available to amateur and professional photographers. The-Digital-Picture.com is fantastic if you're into the Canon lens. They do cover a few of the 3rd party lens but they're mostly focused on Canon equipment. Photo.net also features excellent lens and camera reviews. I recommend both of these resources for learning more about the equipment available to photographers these days. And, last but not least, there's dpreview.com - the ultimate digital camera review site.

I'm not going to write a lot more about this but I will share with you the three lenses I'm considering at this point to replace the kit lens that came with my camera. If there's a lens that isn't on this list, that should be, drop me a comment.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens (optically excellent, EF-S mount only)
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM Lens (optically excellent)
Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II Lens (EF-S mount only)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I took this shot with my Canon SLR while out trick-or-treating with my kids. Halloween night offers a lot of really cool low-light photo taking opportunities - I always enjoy it.

Canon A620

I recently newegged a Canon A620 and I'm oh so glad I did. I'm the proud owner a Canon SLR as well and I love it but I don't always feel like taking it with me everywhere I go - sometimes it's just difficult, sometimes I don't want to risk breaking the thing. I needed something smaller and less expensive. It's a lot easier to grab and go with the A620 and for less than $250 it's feature packed. Highlights include: 7.1 MP, movie (with sound) recording that's pretty slick, tons of built-in family friendly (like Kids and Pets) automatic shooting modes, a flip out LCD screen, zoom, it goes on and on. Read the detailed DP Review of the A620 if you really want to get into the details. Great value - hard to believe what you get for less than $250 - oh and that included a 2GB SD card - took advantage of a NewEgg combo deal.

Flickr Toys