Tag Archives: toronto

HDR, Pentax K200D, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8, Urban

An Evening Walk in Koreatown

Leave a comment

Bathurst Street Theatre, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Golden Evening

Last week I was lucky enough to have some time to go for a lovely walk through Koreatown in Toronto in the late evening with the camera and take a few pictures. I haven’t been out shooting as much as I would like the last few weeks, but I am hoping to get out more soon. I haven’t even had a chance to use my newly acquired tripod yet! What about that photowalk you say? Well I may or may not have missed that due to some Jagerbomb caused, self inflicted illness…


An Evening at Bloor & Christie, originally uploaded by jezza323.

HDR

Both of these shots are HDR’s as I thought they would show off the lovely soft golden evening light the best. Both shots were taken handheld with my usual Pentax K200D, and I used a lens I haven’t used for a while, the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I took the 3 shots for the HDR using bracketing at +/- 2.0 EV. To process them I imported into Lightroom 3, then used the Photomatix Lightroom plugin to export the 3 base images to Photomatix for blending. I used the standard Tone Mapping method to generate the final HDR’s which the plugin automatically re-imports back into the Lightroom library for you. I made a final crop and adjustment before exporting to JPG and uploading to Flickr.

Articles, Gear

Tripod and a Photowalk

Leave a comment

Tripod News

Just a quick post with some updates. I managed to get hold of a tripod yesterday, a great 20+ year old Manfrotto ART190. It is a bit beat up and scratched up but it works great, everything is smooth (much smoother than my old tripod!) and it seems very solid. It has a very old 3 way head on it at the moment, which I will replace with my Benro ball head as soon as I find myself a screwdriver of the appropriate size to undo the locking screws on the head baseplate. This was a great craigslist find, and only cost me a quick $40 and a detour 2 subway stations out of my way on the way home. A big thanks to the seller, by far the most organised craigslist seller I have encountered thus far.

Photowalk

In other news, I am planning on attending my first ever photo walk on Saturday. More so in an attempt to meet some new people in Toronto than to get any photos, but I am sure I will take some of those as well. I discovered a local Flickr user who appeared to have been attending a number of photowalks (based on their photostream) in 1 of the many Flickr Toronto groups. I sent him off a Flickr mail and received a reply back with links to a local Photowalk Flickr group and their website – torontophotowalks.ca. The next event is on Saturday, and happens to be in my neighbourhood, so I will join in and say “G’day”!

Pentax K200D, Sigma 30mm f1.4, Urban

Some more Street Art

Leave a comment

*, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Got It

I finally managed to get myself down to the nearby subway and get some photos of the remaining wall paintings there. I also had a little venture up an alley way nearby and got some graffiti shots as well. The angle on the Wolf annoys me a little, but it at least shows how striking the painting is. That light pole is very frustrating!

This post is very picture heavy, but worth it to see some of the great art on display in the area. I was armed with my usual gear for an outing on the bike, the K200D and Sigma 30mm f1.4. I had to bump the contrast quite a lot on these shots to get the colours to really pop.


Wolf, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Midas Blue Jay, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Snowy Owl, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Down the Alley

Down beside a construction site is an alley giving access to the rear of some of the shops which line Bloor St West. I only went to the first building in and took some photos of the great graf art. I will explore further down the alley in the future though.


*, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Salt O The Earth, originally uploaded by jezza323.
Pentax K200D, Sigma 30mm f1.4, Urban

Buick Electra 225

Leave a comment

Buick Electra 225 – Front, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Lesuirely Ride

Yesterday morning I decided to go for a leisurely bicycle ride around the neighbourhood. On the way I stopped off and took some more photos of the street art behind the shops along Bloor St West (pictures to come!). After that I went to visit a Yard Sale. There was a huge amount of dark room equipment for sale, but unfortunately I am lacking storage space just at the moment. Perhaps another time.

Nice Car!

On my way home from the Yard Sale I happened to pass this great old Buick. I made a quick stop and took a few photos of it. I took a couple from the front at different apertures, and a couple from the back with different orientations. Choosing the best shot from the front was easy! However I could not decide which of the photos from the rear I preferred. As I was writing this post I finally chose the portrait orientation shot. You can see the other option here on flickr.

Shot and Processing

I was carrying my Pentax K200D with the Sigma 30mm f1.4 mounted whilst riding. All 3 shots are single exposures, with little processing in Lightroom 3. Just a bump in contrast, fill light and a slight crop for each (straighten for the rear, and centering for the front). I would have liked to get the Buick badge on the front a little more in focus, perhaps a smaller aperture would have got it just right, but I think its good enough that it still works.

Pentax K200D, Sigma 30mm f1.4, Urban

OH HI!

Leave a comment

OH HI!, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Quick Stop

Here is a shot I took this morning on my way to work. Just a quick one I had to get because it made me giggle a little (yes I giggle…)

Patience or not

Obviously someone had some fun with this fire hydrant. I made sure to shoot with a large (wide) aperture for this shot to isolate the subject from the background. I used my Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens @ f2.0 to give a fairly narrow Depth of Field but keep the subject in focus. The road behind was quite busy, so I waited for a break in traffic and snapped a couple of shots off.

Post Processing

For post processing I used Lightroom to straighten it up a little bit (I am going to blame the slope I was standing on) and bump the contrast a little bit to help the colours and subject pop.

Motorsport, Pentax K200D, Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6

Porsche GT3 RS

Leave a comment

Porsche GT3 RS, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

Another nice car from the Yorkville Exotic Car Show on Sunday. This Porsche GT3 RS certainly was eye catching, the Ice White combined with the bright orange/red of the highlights made it easy to spot. It also had an interesting numberplate, as you seen in another shot I took here. Makes you wonder if the owner has taken the car there?

NRDSCHLF, originally uploaded by jezza323.

As per the previous shot posted, the lighting was harsh, and the crowds were immense. The best way I found to get around the crowds was to get right up against the barriers with the wide angle lens to capture the cars without people all over the shot. To help with the lighting I used lightroom and bumped up the fill light quite a lot to bring out the detail in the shadows.

Enjoy!

Motorsport, Pentax K200D, Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6

Porsche 356 Carrera

Leave a comment
 

Porsche 356 Carrera, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

Yorkville Exotic Car Show

I went for a wander down to the Yorkville Exotic Car show yesterday, and the Porsche club had this beautiful Porsche 356 on display. It is clearly very well looked after, but not babied, with a number of historic rally participation stickers adorning its window and front bumper. The only things this car was missing are chrome bumpers and the chrome hubcaps. I am pretty confident that the owner would have these parts tucked away safely, they wouldn’t be worth risking in motorsport events.

Hard to Get a Good Angle in Good Light

It was so busy, with so many people there to see the cars. The only way I could get reasonable shots of the cars without people in the way was to get right up against the ropes, and use my wide angle Sigma 10-20mm lens at the wider zooms. It was also very bright, which made for some harsh lighting and shadows, but a big bump in “Fill Light” in Lightroom has helped balance out the lighting without introducing too much noise.

Thanks!

Big thanks to the owner of this car for putting it on show, it was great to see it. And congratulations on a magnificent Porsche as well!

Pentax K200D, Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6, Urban

Yonge St, Toronto

Leave a comment

Yonge St, Toronto, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

Seeing Toronto

This is from when I first arrived in Toronto. My wife and I got ourselves a CityPass which allows you entry into the most popular attractions in the city at a reduced cost. I can highly recommend the CityPass, as you save an awful lot over paying the individual entry fees. One of the places a Toronto CityPass will get you into is CN Tower. The viewing area there gives an amazing outlook over the city, Lake Ontario and the islands.

The View

This is a shot looking North from the tower over the Toronto Entertainment District, with the Financial District on the right, and the line of building’s stretching towards the horizon is Yonge St. I had originally posted this shot to flickr in colour, but about 3 weeks later I was reviewing all the photos I had taken since we arrived, and decided to give black and white a try. I made a virtual copy in Lightroom, converted to black and white then adjusted the levels somewhat to come up with this image. I think it works much better than the colour version.

In Colour

Yonge St from above

Architecture, Pentax K200D, Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6

Osgoode Hall

Leave a comment

Osgoode Hall B&W, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

Doors Open

This photo shows Osgoode Hall and was taken during Doors Open Toronto. Osgoode Hall is found on the corner of University Av and Queen St West in downtown Toronto. This previous post is from inside the Great Library of this building.

Colour or Black & White?

I originally posted this shot to Flickr in colour, but looking at later I realized it would probably work even better in black & white. I think it does, what do you think? Black & White or Colour?

Photo Details

The photo is a single exposure, taken with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 lens at full wide 10mm. The only editing was levels and cropping in Lightroom.

Pentax K200D, Sigma 30mm f1.4, Street Photography

Subway

Leave a comment
 

Subway, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Buy art

The final shot which I will blog from my Saturday morning walk in downtown. I was finished up, so I headed down to the subway to go home.

Packing Up

As I sat there removing the Tair-11a from my Pentax K200D body, and the tricky M42 adapter ring, I noticed this man reading quietly next to me. Looking down the platform I decided it would be worth getting a shot of the train pulling into the station.

Preparation

I popped the Sigma 30mm lens on, dialed in a slowish, but not too slow exposure and waited for the train to arrive. Fortunately my subject remained seated and reading until the train came to a complete stop, so I was able to get the shot I was looking for. I actually fired off 4 quick shots (I often do this if shooting a slower shutter speed, as 1 of them is bound to be sharp enough). It is a kind of cliche shot but I enjoy it.

Processing

All editing was done in Lightroom. I cropped the image to a 16:9 ratio (I do enjoy 16:9), adjusted the levels a tiny bit, made it black and white, then increased the contrast quite heavily.