This was my third time in Squamish to shoot Bald Eagles, and it will likely become an annual excursion.  Not only do I love Squamish and Brackendale, it is a great opportunity to practice wildlife photography with a photogenic subject.  Unlike my previous trip to the area when I visited in January, this time I came when the eagle concentrations were much higher.   There were several occasions when I saw up to eight eagles all trying to get one or two dead salmon, unsurprisingly some fights broke out.   As I was heading to a new location to begin my search for eagles, I saw an interesting log pincer thingy (correct name)...

I haven’t been hiking much this year, such is the life with young twins.  I look forward to the day they can join me, but for now the tougher hikes have to be without them.  Since it’s now fall, I figured this weekend was one of my last chances to get up into the mountains.  I decided to try Saint Marks Summit, which is close to Vancouver and only 11km so something I could finish before lunch.  I roped my friend Andrew into joining me, and he brought along his great awesome dog Genny. [See previous hikes in Lynn Valley, the Chief, and the Lions.] The overall route is 11km round trip, and it took us almost exactly two hours to...

On September 16, we had a full moon which was also our harvest moon.  The harvest moon is the full moon closest to the fall equinox (Sept. 22nd).  Since it was a beautiful clear night, I thought I would test out the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 VR lens.  Here is the shot, which isn’t too bad for a relatively inexpensive lens (and Nikon...

I have been a huge fan of Dale Chihuly for many years.   He is a glass artist from Tacoma, Washington (USA) and now has an amazing gallery in Seattle called Chihuly Garden and Glass.  I don’t have too much time to ramble on about each piece, each one can speak for itself.  His incredible versatility and technical execution makes each piece special.  I hope to own a few of his works one day.     A bunch more photos from the trip.  Click any image for a bigger version.   And one photo from our journey back.  Some random pub in a town I no longer...

I was eager to try out my new Nikon 200-500 f/5.6 VR lens that I received for Christmas from my lovely wife.  I knew that Bald Eagles were likely still in Squamish as I had been there previously.  I ventured out one very old morning to see what I could capture. The sun was rising as I pulled into Squamish and I noticed it was illuminating Mount Garibaldi.  I decided to see how the lens performs for a long distance landscape shot.  Nice detail despite the distance. The rig The shot I then walked around one of my favorite spots in south Squamish and did encounter a few eagles. One thing I realized is that I have a lot to...

Ok, so the headline is a joke, but it would be nice to own such a lens :)  I recently got the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens and was in Squamish looking for Bald Eagles.  With me I also had my Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 and Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 lenses.  The 14-24 and 200-500 represent the two extremes of the focal lengths I’m able to shoot.  I thought it may be fun to do a test to see just how much difference there is between 14mm and 500mm.  I threw in a few intermediate focal lengths as well.  The scene is in Squamish, BC, Canada beside the BC SPCA and looking northwest to Mount Garibaldi.  All photos taken with the Nikon D810. 14mm   24mm...

Today, when I took the dogs for a walk I decided to bring my camera along. I haven’t had very much opportunities to use it recently and needed to get my photo fix in somehow. We have had a very mild fall in Vancouver and there are still plenty of flowers in the neighbourhood. I also came across some mushrooms, and even a few critters. My route with the dogs The flowers, I can’t believe we still have this many at the end of October!   Some mushrooms   These flowers are still growing in my yard.  Maybe this global warming thing isn’t so bad ;)   Some of the...

Though I’m posting this in September, the photos were taken in March. It has taken me ages to find the time to edit and post these shots but such is the life with young twins. I have been to Chile several times in the past but often don’t have time to explore due to my work schedule. However, during this trip I had an extra day and decided to explore the city of Santiago. I contacted Cat at Foto Ruta to see if she had time to plan a custom tour. Not knowing the city well, it’s nice to have a local show you around. Cat was very accommodating to my schedule and interests and we planned an afternoon/sunset shoot.  We met at...

One shot from the Perseid Meteor Shower. Taken on August 12 near Horseshoe Bay (West Vancouver, BC).

I haven’t had time to process my photos from last night and given my backlog it may take some time :) I did want to get a few posted though, for those that missed the festivities at Canada Place.  These shots are taken from Waterfront Centre with the Vancouver Convention Centre on the left and Canada Place on the right.  Before the fireworks started, I managed to get a couple of short Hyperlapse videos of the crowd. This was my vantage point, couldn’t ask for better (iPhone panorama). A few photos from the evening, I’ll try to get some better edits and more photos up soon.  ...

Updated on August 21, 2016 for Nikon’s latest D810 firmware: C 1.11, L: 2.013. The Nikon D800/D800 Setup and Configuration post I made a few years ago has been one of my most popular.  Now that I have the Nikon D810, I decided to create a new list of my settings (and a new setup file for download).  If you want more info on why I upgraded to the D810, you can read about that here. The menu banks are not great because they don’t save all of the settings you need to change, but they are better than nothing.  The U1/U2 settings of the D750, D610, and D7100 are superior to the menu banks both in terms of features and ease of use.  I...

  Why I Upgraded In this section I list the main reasons I upgraded my Nikon D800 to a Nikon D810.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the D800, it was an amazing camera capable of fantastic results.  There were a few things that made the difference though.  In general, Nikon took an already great camera and made it better. No anti-alias filter.  Also known as Optical Low Pass Filter, Blur Filter, and probably a few other names.  When the D800 and D800E were released, it created a lot of speculation about the potential moire and false color problems that the D800E would face.  I had actually planned to get a D800E but my local shop had...

Updated May 5, 2015 Since I work in the IT industry, several of my friends have asked me how I back up my home computer.  Rather than repeat the same thing over and over, I decided to create this post to try and outline how I do things.   I’ll also tell you what you should do as a minimum to ensure the safety of your data. If you don’t currently back up your data, you should.  That is of course if you would experience any grief if you lost all of your photos, documents, email, calendar, etc.  Personally, I have a TON of photos that I simply can’t get back if I lost all of my data.  I can re-write my resume if needed,...

Being a native of Poland (specifically Łódź), I was happy to book a return visit to my homeland.  I haven’t been back for many years, and it being a work trip I didn’t have much time for sightseeing.  I flew to Wrocław via Frankfurt, and while at the Frankfurt airport I had the chance to stretch my legs so I took my camera along. They have a great kids area complete with a plane and a soft rubber floor.  I didn’t have the twins with me, so they couldn’t enjoy playing pilots.  Click any photo to enlarge. I also got my first glimpse of the new Airbus A380, the largest passenger airliner in the world.  I actually saw...

I remember developing websites when the web was just starting to take off (mid 90’s). Coding HTML by hand and using Mosaic 0.9 Beta as my browser. Over time, tools like Dreamweaver gave us WYSIWYG editors to make things easier. Today, this site is based on WordPress, one of the very successful web publishing platforms that sprung up in recent history to make creating websites and posting content easier still.  Themes, plugins, widgets, and other shortcuts means you never have to see the code, or do any heavy lifting.  It’s a great way to create a site, but you still need some tech skills to get it up and running.  I still go...