Glass – heath ofee dot com

Shadow Play

Heath OFee — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:10:00 +0000

I processed this shot last night around 7pm while trying desperately to keep my eyes open. The ridiculous sickness that I’ve had for the past week and a half has absolutely kicked my butt, and until yesterday, I hadn’t had the time or energy to shoot, process, or post any new photos. So I apologize for my absence.

I toted the new X100 with me to work, and snapped a few frames on the walk back to my car yesterday afternoon. This is my favourite of the small set. Gotta love some abstract reflections

Fujifilm Finepix X100, Fujinon 23mm f/2.0, 23mm, F 11, ISO 100, 1/70 sec

This is Why We Use UV Filters

Heath OFee — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:26:07 +0000

I’m back from my trip to Palm Springs, and unfortunately, while I was there I had my first major camera gear accident. Until five days ago I have never dropped a camera, lens, flash…heck, I hadn’t even dropped a CF card, but my luck changed on Tuesday. I was shooting an awesome abandoned warehouse just outside Niland, CA with my brand new Promote Control. I had just set up for a wide shot of this van seat when I spotted a few shotgun shells lying around and thought they’d be a nice addition to the frame. So, I picked up the nearest shell and started walking over to the seat not thinking that my Promote was in my pocket and still attached to my camera. Before I could do anything, my camera was toppling over lens first and the Promote was pulled from my pocket…not a fun moment. Thankfully, my beloved 10-20mm lens was saved by the UV filter you see in the frame below, but the Promote didn’t do so well. I got two more sets of brackets out of it before it froze and then died. First day shooting with my new toy and I break it…brutal. So, what’s the lesson here? ALWAYS stick a UV filter on your lenses! You never know when they’ll save your ass.

I’ll probably take my Promote to the local camera shop to see if they can do anything to fix it…but I’m doubtful.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 20mm, F 11, ISO 100

Rehab

Heath OFee — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:56:19 +0000

Hi, my name is Heath, and I’m a tilt/shift addict.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon TS-E 17mm f/4.0L, 17mm, F 4.0, ISO 100, 5 Exposures

Telephone Building

Heath OFee — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:11:11 +0000

This building is right across the street from my office downtown, and I see it every day when I walk back to my car. For most of the summer I had been telling myself that it would make for a pretty decent photo, so I’m glad I was able to get this shot when I was out last week.

I’m finding myself very quickly becoming a fan of Nik Color Efex Pro, and I’m about to shut everything down and install a trial version of OnOne PhotoTools and give that a try. All these photographic tools at our fingertips…we are very lucky to be living in these times! Oh, and I have a Canon TS-E 17mm lens in my possession for the next 7 days, so with any luck my next few blog entries will contain photos taken with that amazing piece of glass!

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 20mm, F 16, ISO 100, 5 Exposures

Bellagio Ceiling – Chihuly

Heath OFee — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:07:38 +0000

This photo is 100% inspired by Trey Ratcliff over at Stuck in Customs. After seeing the images he was able to capture in Las Vegas, I made a point to try and find a few of the locations and see what I could come up with.

The picture below is a set of 3 handheld brackets of the amazing ceiling installation in the lobby of the Bellagio. All the glass sculpture is done by Dale Chihuly and you can find a few more of his masterpieces around Las Vegas…they really are quite stunning.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 3.5, ISO 200, 3 Exposures

Iconic Reflection in Palliser South

Heath OFee — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:45:49 +0000

Anyone who has been to Calgary knows that the most iconic building (to date) is, of course, the Calgary Tower. Although not the tallest tower in the city, its distinctive shape and red cap make it instantly recognizable. While walking back to my car from work a few weeks ago I noticed that on a clear day the Calgary Tower produces an almost full reflection of itself in the new Palliser South building…I instantly knew that I had to come back with my camera to capture the scene. Conveniently, the deadline for the 2010 Buildex Calgary Photo Competition was swiftly approaching and I wanted a couple extra photos to enter. So on my downtown photowalk a couple weeks ago I made sure to capture this really cool scene…hope you like it!

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 13mm, F 9.0, ISO 100, 3 Exposures

The details: 3 exposure HDR tonemapped in Photomatix, Lightroom for catalogue, color, contrast, clarity, Noiseware for noise control.

Cedarbrae Bus Shelter from the Archives

Heath OFee — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:11:16 +0000

Since I’m heading to Las Vegas tomorrow morning and won’t be back until late next week, I thought I’d post another photo right now since I’ll probably be skipping my post next week.

This past weekend I took the time to watch the HDR presentation Trey Ratcliff gave at Google Headquarters in California. I’m not going to do a full review here, but I will say that it’s well worth checking out if you want to learn a bit about HDR photography and see plenty of pretty pictures. One tip that Trey gave to new HDR photographers is to go through your old photo collection and give a few the HDR treatment for practice. Even though you’d only be working with a single RAW file instead of a number of bracketed exposures, the algorithms in Photomatix can still produce a very good HDR image. I took this to heart and went through a few dozen old photos from a photo walk I took in Cedarbrae/Braeside two years ago. I thought this detail photo of a bus shelter bench turned out kinda cool after the HDR conversion. It’s kinda gritty and dirty and old but I like it!

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 24mm, F 8.0, ISO 100

The details: single exposure HDR tonemapped in Photomatix, color correction, contrast, clarity, sharpening in Lightroom, noise reduction in Noiseware.