Germany: The Abbey at Ottobeuren

Well, this is actually day 7 already, and we just got back from the Alps. On the way back to Reutlingen, we took a slight detour to see the Benedictine Abbey at Ottobeuren. I have a fast, free and reliable Internet connection and decided to post a gallery of images from today, out of sequence but I wanted to get something else up before hitting the sack. Tomorrow afternoon (for me), I will follow up with a gallery of pictures from the Alps, specifically the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany at 2960 metres, and also the Alpenspitze... plus a few I took at a Bavarian folk fest. For lots of photos inside the extraordinary abbey, you can either click here for the image gallery, or on the above photo.

For a preview of what the next image gallery will contain, here is one shot I took of the main Zugspitze building after climbing to the actual highest point. The weather in the Alps was absolutely perfect for taking photos - I have been very lucky on this trip so far...

Germany: Days 2 & 3

For a quick gallery of images from days 2 & 3 here in Germany (yesterday and the day before for me), click on the above image, or click here. No time for much in the way of explanation or reporting. Suffice to say the beer, coffee and food is great over here! Driving is generally a blast. People over here sure know how to get around quickly and if they are slower, they get out of the way fast! I had no Internet yesterday and I am not sure how the next few days will go, but I will update the blog when I can. That's it for today, now it's off to the German Alps...

Germany: Day 1

Typical German countryside as seen from Burg Hohenzollern

Greetings from Deutschland! Well, despite being severely jet-lagged and fatigued, I thought I had better post something before hitting the sack. I was up for nearly 35 hours yesterday (flight day), and after only 6 hours of sleep last night, today was still tiring.

Before I get into the photos, I wanted to mention that a massive stroke of luck delivered a small shipment of Panasonic's new autofocus Leica branded 25mm f/1.4 Summilux DG lenses to Beau Photo on Friday, my last day at work before flying to Germany on Saturday. Although the shipment caused my bank account to get lighter yet again, once I decided to take one of the lenses and shot some tests with it, I was ecstatic that I was able to secure one before my trip. Many of the photos following were taken with it. And yes, there are more available in stock at Beau Photo now! If you are a Micro-Four-Thirds shooter, this lens definitely deserves a look!

August 2011: New Canon Rebates

Wow, check out that $200 instant rebate on the 5D Mark II! We actually have inventory at the moment as well (bodies and kits), so don't miss out on this great offer, or on some of the others either...

Lizard Woman

(click image for full gallery)

Amazing makeup and prosthetic work by Lisa Bradley! A makeup job that was inspired by some lizard photos I had taken in Death Valley a few years back. The lovely model is Emily Backman.

Calling this a "makeup job" though, doesn't even begin to hint at the tremendous amount of work Lisa did, not only in applying the prosthetics and makeup to Emily on the day of the shoot, but also in the months of preparation, creating the prosthetic moulds and casting all the many small ridges, bony protrusions, horns and spikes. Emily started having the makeup applied at 5am, which took many hours to complete. Then she and Lisa spent the day at a makeup trade show and finally in the evening, after 7:30pm, we did a very quick shoot for about an hour and a half and a couple of different locations. Emily still had an amazing amount of energy at the end of the day, even after wearing this outfit for over 12 hours.

The images were all shot with my EOS-7D and any additional lighting was simply supplied by one or two 430 EXII flashes on radio slaves. No light diffusers were used as I wanted dramatic shadows to really bring out the amazing texture on these prosthetics.

X100: We have one in stock...

[Update: It's gone now...]

For the first time since Fujifilm started shipping the X100, we are actually caught up on pre-orders and have one in stock, ready and waiting for the next lucky customer who wants one! I have put it in our showcase, so I don't expect it will last too long.

We also have genuine Fujifilm NP-95 batteries in stock. However we are not yet caught up on the hood/filter-ring kits unfortunately, nor the premium leather cases...

Art Wolfe: Vancouver Seminars

Click image for a larger, more readable version!

The dates are fast approaching. If you want to experience Art Wolfe's inspirational seminars, please hurry and register! Registration and information links for his site here...

Art Wolfe: Between Heaven and Earth (August 6th)

Art Wolfe: The Art if Composition (August 7th)

Silent Auction Supporting Cancer Research

Pocket Wizard, Sekonic and Dynalite Workshop!

For more information on this exciting workshop at Langara College on Thursday, July 7th, please check out the PDF linked here: Lorenzo Gasperini Workshop Info

You can also email Ken Shymka at Beau Photo for more information, or just to register.

Panasonic GH2: Review

Panasonic Lumix GH2 with 7-14mm f/4 Lens

Over the next few days, this blog entry is going to be updated with a review of the GH2 and a variety of different lenses, including the 7-14mm, the 14mm f/2.5 and 20mm f/1.7 "pancake" lenses, the 14-140mm f/4-5.8 Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilization), the 45-200mm f/4-5.6 Mega O.I.S. and the 100-300mm f/4-5.6 Mega O.I.S.

While I have no intention of generally replacing my Canon EOS-7D system with a Panasonic system, because I was looking for a smaller and lighter kit with some lens versatility (and good image quality) for my upcoming trip to Germany later in the summer, I indeed did go and buy a GH2 and a variety of lenses for myself.

I am also planning to take my Fuji X100 to Germany of course since it is small, light and has superb image quality. It still has better colour, better dynamic range and is much cleaner in low-light/high-ISO/time-exposure situations when compared to the GH2. However, while I feel Fuji made an ideal choice for a fixed focal length camera (35mm equivalent), I definitely wanted an ultra-wide and a longer telephoto for some shooting situations and just couldn't bring myself to cover those focal lengths with one or more P&S cameras, which is what I had originally planned on doing.

Make no mistake, the GH2 has excellent image quality, but it simply is not quite up to the X100 with its substantially larger sensor, or the top end APS-C digital SLRs, like the Canon EOS-7D or Nikon D7000. That said, under normal to moderately low lighting conditions, the GH2 image quality can easily be on par with the likes of the X100 and EOS-7D, just not under really difficult (high) contrast or really dim lighting.

Anyway, my review will cover my impressions of the camera and lenses - please don't expect a super detailed review with menu screenshots and the like. As a teaser, here is a link to a gallery of images I recently shot with the GH2 and a Lensbaby Tilt-Transformer...

http://sublimephoto.com/exhibit/2011/0620_tilt_transformer/

Review Part 1 - Suitability and Lenses continues after the link...