Author Archives: tyson robichaud photography

*The Mirrorless Diet, how to lose weight instantly! Part 2

by in Photography gear, Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, The Mirrorless Diet, Travel and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

PanhandleGapDaleBLOG

PART 2: Shooting your trip

You’ve already suffered through my long winded gear explanation in the previous post about gear weight in part 1. Here are some of the images and techniques I use with the gear being utilized for each shot, laid out. The above panorama shot was a handheld series of 5 frames, shot in portrait orientation using the Canon EOS-M and 22mm f/2 lens. The third and final part in this series will focus on the actual processing of the shots and won’t really have much to do with backpacking per se, nor the weight saved, but hopefully can show that with these small cameras, image quality is not compromised.

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*The Mirrorless Diet, how to lose weight instantly! Part 1

by in Photography gear, Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, The Mirrorless Diet, Travel, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 39 Comments

mirrorless diet

PART 1: Preparing for a trip

Have you ever had to pack for a trip, a hike, climb, vacation or another adventure where you’d be carrying everything on your back or slung over your shoulder?  Gear laid out on the floor the night before leaving for the trip after having unpacked and repacked to see if you could fit everything in less space getting rid of everything you can to save weight.  For those that saw their toothbrushes in half to shave off a few grams, or anyone that could stand to lose a little weight in the camera bag, this series of articles may be useful.  Now, the question is, can we do this, and still carry quality photographic gear with us?

This will be the first part in a three part article focused on capturing images while backpacking and wanting to keep weight down while not compromising image quality.  It is also potentially useful for any travel situation where gear weight may become cumbersome.

I’d like to thank Yukon Trading Company, Marmot, JetBoil, LEKI Trekking Poles, 43rumors.com, Expert Shield screen protectors, and B&H Photo for the continued support, and particularly for much of the stuff provided for me during this trip.  Losing weight isn’t always fast and cheap, but they’ve helped make it sexy.  Throughout these articles, I’ll be mentioning and linking to various products that I use(d) and highly suggest looking into.  Fortunately for me, we got hooked up with companies that put quality at the top of their list.  It doesn’t hurt that they also engineer some of the best, lightest and highest performing gear on the market, so, thanks guys!

Never has weight been more a factor for me than when trying to stuff all my gear into a pack with the realization that I’m going to have to carry all this stuff on my back for days on end, all while climbing, hiking and sliding around in the snow. I will start by disclosing that I am far closer to resembling a photographer than a back country, mountaineering aficionado. I’ve certainly been adventurous throughout my life, spending many nights in the elements, climbing and hiking my way to the next spot so that I may eat dried fruit, ramen and nuts for dinner, or do my best to create aches in areas I was previously unaware my body had by forgoing any type of sleeping pad or pillow. Most of the time, when I travel, or set out on any type of adventure, photography is a very large part of it, and I’ve tended to sacrifice other comforts to enable the room for my camera gear. Since adopting a mirrorless setup, I’ve not had to sacrifice at all…

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*Topaz ReStyle, killer quick cross processing effects. Brand new and on Sale!

by in Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

restyle

Topaz continues to kick out awesome plugins, and their newest release ReStyle keeps with the recent pattern. Like most Topaz Plugins, us early adopters get a substantial discount which they offer as soon as the software is released. Read on for my take and a few examples, or if you’re already sold, go here to TopazLabs.com and use the code “restyleit” to get 50% off ($59.99 reg, or $29.99 now through August 31st).

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*Canon EOS-M: Almost there, kinda.

by in Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

canon eos-m

The last few years have seen a very large push in the photographic landscape toward smaller, lighter, high performing mirrorless interchangable lens compact system cameras. Most of the major camera manufacturers have produced something in this new segment. As Panasonic started the whole party off with the G1 a few years back, Olympus, Sony and Samsung jumped in quickly thereafter. Pentax and Ricoh have even had some interesting ideas since. Nikon and Canon watched this segment closely I’m sure, and calculated their entry into the mirrorless ring. Nikon took a different tack, creating a very small (comparatively) sensor system and Canon came up with this, the EOS-M. A few weeks ago, and after what many saw as a response to very poor reception and subsequent lack of sales since its introduction, Canon dropped the price of this APS-C sensor, mirrorless compact camera through the ground and I bit. Here are my thoughts on the camera itself, the Canon approach and where I think they need to go in the future with this…

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*TRP Gallery Site Refresh

by in General ramblings | 6 Comments

TRP

I’ve had my gallery site, run through SmugMug for the last 4 or 5 years.  While I found it to be a good platform for gallery and print generation, I always felt the default templates left a lot to be desired.  Well, now that they jacked the annual price up well over 100% with very little warning, they have at least finally provided some halfway decent templates for those of us unwilling, or unable to find the time to learn CSS to program our very own customized websites.

If interested, you can click the image above to see my website in all it’s Smugged out glory.

While I’m not going to say I’m thrilled with it, I will say that it is a far better looking layout than what it was previously.

Anyone else use SmugMug to host their website?  Tips, tricks, suggestions or criticism?

Thanks all,

Tyson

*All Alien Skin Plugins are 50% off until the end of the month!

by in General ramblings, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

birthday-special

 

If you’ve been waiting for an Alien Skin software sale, now may very well be the time.  I’ve not ever seen them offer any more than 50% (I don’t even remember seeing a half off sale in the past!) so it is as good as I’ve seen it!

I like the AS plugins a lot, and have been absolutely loving the new Exposure 5.  You can read my take on some of their plugins via the links below, and you can buy any of these directly from AlienSkin.com (click here). I get no kickbacks from Alien Skin, and have no monetary incentive to sell their plugins, I just really enjoy using them and for those who may also be interested, it won’t get much cheaper than this.  Go get you some.

Exposure 5, the best gets better

Bokeh 2, blur it out

Snap Art 3, release your inner artist

*Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm, waste of time, or amazing value?

by in Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f/4-5.6

One huge benefit to a smaller sensor is the effective focal length multiplier.  Sure you can crop into an image captured at a wider angle, or on a larger sensor but as we have seen in the focal length vs sensor size post, when utilizing a smaller (relative to full frame) sensor, you can actually decrease your depth of field with the same focal length if shot from a fixed location, all while generically increasing your focal length by way of the effective multiplier in that smaller sensors crop into the larger image circle.  Aperture is aperture as far as exposure is concerned, so even by this standard, f/5.6 is relatively quick when you consider the focal length and price.  This said, is the Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f/4-5.6 (<UPDATE! click the link to see it at B&H, and if you click on “Savings Available” the price is down to $499 if you purchase one of the three things that qualify, like the $10.99 software…) worth the price of admission when you consider you get a 600mm lens able to shoot at f/5.6?  Let’s see…

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*Am I insane? EOS M down below $300

by in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Canon EOS M w/ 22mm f/2

 

Dear friends and fellow gear geeks, I apologize for the sales pitch here, but B&H just sent me an email showing that they’ve knocked the EOS M with 22mm f/2 lens kit down to $299 until July 9th.  While I was no where near impressed when this camera came out at $799 or whatever it was, I’d be lying if I said I’m not very curious now at this price point, especially after the new firmware has literally erased the biggest complaint about the camera, in the slow AF.

I have heard very good things about the 22mm lens, and feel that it can be a perfect companion camera either kept in the glove box or stashed away in a bag in and of itself, regardless if I choose to invest in the system any further.  For $299, I’m looking at this as my (very) poor man’s Sony RX1 🙂

So, I had to buy one.  I have a backpacking trip coming up where I will pit this against the OMD EM5 and the GX1 (assuming I can cram it all in the pack) and report back in due time.

This rebate at B&H lasts until July 9th, so if you’re interested, you can see them here:

EOS M w/ 22mm f/2 kit $299

EOS M w/ 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit $349

To all my fellow ‘Mericans, have a safe and happy 4th of July tomorrow and thanks to everyone for the continued support.

 

All the best and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Creating an easily repeatable watermark

by in Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques and tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

IMG_9435 - 2008-07-04 at 21-55-27

With so many on line communities, forums and storage based solutions for photographers, we tend to share our images with far more people than we may be aware of.  I use flickr and have for years.  I have always kept my shared images on flickr to a maximum of 640 pixels by 640 pixels to minimize any actual usefulness to anyone who may want to steal them.  Now that flickr is seemingly trying to trick us into sharing larger files by giving us more showcase room, I feel uncomfortable putting certain images out there in any sizable way.  I’ve always been very cautious what I’ve put on there, largely because I know it has become the largest illegal stock stealing site the internet has ever seen.  Okay, that may be a bit of projective assumption, but I have had a few images stolen (that I am aware of) and used illegally.  The worst offender was a Nikon and Microsoft sponsored photography contest in the UK where I was alerted that three of my images were being used on the front page a few years back, without even a sniff of permission.  Yeah, a photography contest using stolen images… Anyhoo, c’mon in and I’ll show you how to create a quick action in photoshop where you can easily replicate a watermark with one click…

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*Topaz Time – Huge discount on Topaz Plugin Bundle

by in General ramblings, Software tutorials / reviews | 2 Comments

topaz labs plugin sale

 

I’ve not been shy about my love of the Topaz plugins.  They are powerful, fun and offer some of the very best values for the buck.  Right now, Topaz is offering their entire bundle (which includes Adjust, DeNoise, B&W Effects, ReMask, Lens Effects, Detail, Simplify, Clean, InFocus and DeJPEG – 10 Plugins!) compatible with Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture, (at a savings of $350 off of the per plugin price) for $199 (normally $299)  if you use the code “july4” when checking out here at Topazlabs.com.

While I wish that they would include the recently announced and released Clarity (click to see my review) in the bundle, it is still an amazing value with all of the other tools included.  (I’d strongly suggest checking out Clarity with or without the bundle, it’s rad)

I personally use and LOVE DeNoise which I feel is the best noise reduction plugin currently available, Adjust (haven’t reviewed this one yet but use it often), Clean which is a really cool plugin for skin retouching and Fractalius like effects, and even like to dabble with the newly updated B&W Effects which is a great, affordable black and white conversion plugin.  I’ve yet to use many of the others, but I am very curious about ReMask, Lens Effects and DeJPEG for their specific skill sets.  Perhaps I’ll try them out myself and report back 😉

You can check out, buy or download free trials of any of these, or any other plugins Topaz offers at the Topaz Website HERE.  Remember to use the code “july4” to get the 33% discount off of the bundle if you do choose to buy!

Topaz offers really good sales on their plugins often.  Sometimes its a bundle discount like this, or sometimes it is an individual or more general discount.  I keep up with their sales, so if you’re waiting for a particular plugin to go on sale, feel free to subscribe via email (at the top right of the page) or on Facebook or Twitter to keep track of them if you’d like. 🙂

Happy Summer, have fun, thanks for the read and happy shooting!

Tyson