Web Gallery Transition

An example of my previous web gallery look (left) vs. the new look with jAlbum (right)

Finally, just about a week ago with the latest update to Adobe Lightroom (v.15.5.1), the TTG Highslide export module that I had bought, extensively customized and had been using for the last 16 years, has stopped working properly. Exporting a gallery gave messed up formatting and visible XML code scattered all over every page, so finally it became totally unusable. I can’t really complain too much, since I did manage to eke out 16 years of use from that plugin!

Interestingly enough, a few weeks prior to the Lightroom update, I had already started hunting for alternative web gallery software since I had a feeling I might need something in the near future. Since I no longer wanted to be at the mercy of Lightroom updates, I tried a number of different stand-alone web gallery export programs and emailed a few companies for details when they didn’t have free demo versions. Unfortunately none gave me the flexibility and features I was looking for either, and no company I contacted even bothered to reply back to my questions. With some more research and more specific Googling, I finally came across jAlbum (https://jalbum.net) the other day. After some promising tests with the free, feature limited version and seeing some sample galleries online that seemed to do most of what I wanted, I decided to give it a go and bought the mid-tier package.

Website is up on new servers...

My new server for www.sublimephoto.com has been up and running for a few days now, and I've gone through and fixed all the links to galleries and embedded images that were missing and not working on my blog pages. If you see any blank images, just hit reload and they should load. I see I started the blog in June of 2010, so getting close to 16 years already! I still need to go through all the galleries and links on my website, to be sure they are all working, but the vast majority (if not all) should be fine now.

Possible downtime...

I will be transitioning to a new domain host in the near future and in the interim, it could be that my image galleries will either load slowly, or possibly not at all. In addition, the headline images for the posts in this blog may also not show properly. My previous domain host was bought up twice, most recently by Network Solutions, and I suddenly received notification that a huge charge for a three year renewal was attempted to be charged to my credit card. I never received any notification of an upcoming bill, nor could I even see on their domain hosting page how much the renewal was for, for what term it was and what services were being renewed.

After a very frustrating few hours in a support chat, I was promised a reduced rate for a one year renewal, which was still substantially higher than I could get from a different domain host. After I grudgingly agreed to that charge, despite the fact that they refused to send me an email detailing the charge and the subsequent renewal price after the promised year, they charged my credit card. I then received the confirmation in the mail that said the charge was for only one month of renewal and not one year as promised - WTF! They apologized for the confusion but refused to do anything further about it, so I asked to be refunded. My website (www.sublimephoto.com) still works for now, and so do the galleries in this blog that are hosted on my site, but perhaps not for long...

So... I am now in the process of signing up with a different domain host and laboriously uploading all of my content again. What a massive pain since I have about 25GB worth of image galleries online. In any case, I absolutely DO NOT recommend Network Solutions as a domain host. Their account pages provide almost no detailed info and either the billing support person I spoke to was, at best, terribly incompetent or at worst, guilty of trying to scam me into paying for one month of service at the price of a promised year of service. What an annoying way to start a Sunday morning!

Wedding! August 2023

Gallery (30 images): Wedding!

Yes indeed, I am now married to my incredible, lovely partner, Emily Min! We met in January of 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Had we met even a few weeks later, things may have turned out differently as the world shut down and everyone started social distancing, but timing was just in our favour and we stayed together during COVID. Emily is the most kind, caring and conscientious person I have ever met, and I consider myself extremely lucky to have met her when I did. She works as an art conservator and I was (and still am) astounded that she can repair and restore a damaged piece of artwork just as seamlessly (or more so) than what I can do for an image in Photoshop. Her skills are amazing.

In December of 2022, I proposed to Emily and to my delight she accepted, and in early August of 2023 we got married. The above linked image gallery is a small subset of our wedding photos, which were taken by my good friend Ted Marshall. My father George Mander, who is 92, hybridizes roses and he provided some his own roses for each table at the reception, and a bunch for our sweetheart table as well. A few of the roses can can be seen in photos 27 and 28 in the gallery.

We had about 55 guests at our wedding, which took place at the Celebration Pavilion in Queen Elizabeth Park, and the reception after was at the park restaurant, Seasons in the Park. A shout out to the incredible service and delicious food at Seasons which helped make our wedding day perfect. Another shout out to the bakery that made the amazing wedding cakes for us, Cadeaux Bakery. We asked if they could decorate the cakes with roses and mimic the colouration of one of my dad's own varieties, and we feel they did a tremendous job as can be seen in photo 27! Note that to respect the privacy of our guests and their families, I am not posting any of the many images which included them, other than a handful with my father and Emily's parents, and one with Emily's brother.

At the start of the reception, Emily and I donned traditional Korean wedding attire to perform the Korean Paebaek Ceremony (a link here which has a good overview), and there a number of shots in the gallery of that. One aspect of the ceremony is for the groom to give the bride a piggyback ride, signifying his strength in being able to support her in the future. That was a lot of fun, as was the entire Paebaek Ceremony, and everyone enjoyed the colourful outfits and spectacle!

NEW! Hands-on with the X-Pro2

A slew of big announcements from Fujifilm marks this day! A Fujifilm rep was kind enough to lend me a preproduction X-Pro2, an X70 and the new 100-400 zoom a short while ago, just so I could prepare a bit of a hands-on preview in time for the official announcement. Please note that the camera I tested definitely had beta firmware, and I did notice the occasional typo. I also cannot be sure how the camera's performance will change, or what features might still be added, once the final firmware is out. I will publish some more hands-on impressions of how it is to shoot with, once I get my hands on a production camera for a while.

So, now to the X-Pro2… finally! Many have been waiting for an upgrade to Fujifilm's first interchangeable lens X-system camera, and soon the wait will be over. The X-Pro2 improves on its predecessor in pretty much every way. First off, rest assured that Fujifilm's superb Hybrid-VF is still present, and it has been upgraded to offer an optional zoomed EVF focus preview in its lower right corner, even when in OVF mode, just like its cousin, the X00T.

NEW! Fujifilm XF100-400mm zoom, X-E2s and X70...

Along with the X-Pro2 announcement, Fujifilm has announced a slew of other products, including the highly anticipated XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6R LM OIS WR zoom. Above is a photo of the preproduction X-Pro2 on the new zoom and as you can tell, it isn't exactly a svelte lens! Thankfully, it isn't quite as heavy as it looks, but you sure wouldn't be lugging this around for casual shooting. Carrying this lens will mean you are going to be wielding it with purpose, motor-sports, wildlife, birding etc.

Since the lens was preproduction and I had very little time with it, I am unable to comment on its image quality. That said, I did do a few indoor handheld shots at between 1/10 and 1/15 second, and even wide open at 400mm (a 600mm equivalent), they were mostly tack sharp. The 5-stops of image stabilization that Fujifilm is claiming certainly does not seem exaggerated. It features a weather-resistant design, has fast focusing, a lens hood with a built-in, sliding polarizer adjusting door, a tripod foot and apart from all the usual controls, also has a focus limiter switch. Here is a comparison, hoods off, to the largest of Fujifilm's other tele zooms, with the new big gun on the left, the the XF 40-150mm f/2.8 zoom in the middle, and on the right, the XF 55-200mm…

Gallery: Southwest 2010 / Days 1 - 3

Gallery (65 images): Southwest 2010 / Days 1 - 3

I may have mentioned before how far behind I am in processing trip images? The last big trip I completely finished editing and processing was Germany in 2011 and now I am going back even further, starting on my US Southwest trip from May 2010 with my friend Bill. We made it all the way down to Big Bend National Park in Texas that year, on the Rio Grande river at the Mexican border. The colourful lizard above is one of many I saw at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve on day three.

All posts from this trip: Southwest 2010

The last fully processed set of trip images were those from my Southwest 2009 excursion, and that one is still on my sublimephoto.com website, which ends with galleries shot in 2009. I actually have one more earlier trip to process, a solo one down to southern California in March of 2010. However, I decided to work on this one first since I may be heading back down to Texas, this year in spring, so I wanted to remind myself of the locations I visited last time.

I thought this might be an opportune time to mention some of the gear transitions I've been through in the last few years...

That May 2010 vacation is actually the last major photo trip I did with my Canon system, even though I didn't switch to Nikon until late 2012. I had been shooting with Canon digital SLRs since 2004, starting with an EOS-20D, then moving to a 30D, 40D, 50D and lastly the 7D. On this US trip in 2010, my Canon kit was comprised of an EOS-7D body and an IR-converted EOS-20D (my original 20D), with a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, then the Canon lenses, a TS-E 17mm f/4L tilt-shift, the EF-S 15-85mm kit zoom, an EF 24mm f/1.4L II, an EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro, an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS and finally an EF 400mm f/5.6L.

This was a substantially big an heavy kit, which is why I decided to lighten my load for my trip to Germany in 2011 with a combination of Panasonic and Fujifilm gear...

Fusion 2014 and PHOTO Graphie

If you haven't checked out the great list of speakers that will be at Beau Photo's Fusion 2014 show, you should! While the focus is still of DSLR video, this year there are other more photographically oriented talks as well. In addition, the trade show will feature exciting new products from Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Hasselblad, Sony plus others like Sennheiser, Steadicam, Profoto, K5600 and many more.

Yes, you read that right... SONY is listed too. Beau Photo Supplies is now a Sony dealer and soon they will have stock to sell and also be well-equipped with Sony rental gear, including the amazing new A7S full-frame mirrorless camera, the king of low-light filming that can shoot up to a nearly unimaginable ISO 409,600 - yes, over four hundred thousand! The compact A7S is capable of 4K video and with lens adapters, can use most lenses from Canon and Nikon as well. Beau Photo will also have numerous high quality Carl Zeiss and Sony primes and zooms available to rent, as well as the 36MP A7R, the SLT-A77 Mark II DSLR, the NEX A6000 and also the compact RX10 with a 1" sensor, capable of very high quality video and equipped with a fixed Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 24-200mm equivalent, constant aperture f/2.8 stabilized zoom.

For more info on Fusion 2014 click here: Fusion 2014 Info

Happy Holidays!

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and all the best for the coming New Year!

Road-trip! Brand new 2014 Subaru Forester 2.0XT...

View into Succor Creek Canyon in Oregon (click image for gallery)

Sorry for the long delay, as this is the first update in a few months. A few people have already asked me if I had stopped blogging! Nope, I was just really busy at work and hadn't been doing all that much shooting. Mainly lens tests in fact, including the new Nikkor AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G and the Nikkor AF-S VR 70-200mm f/4G... both of which I bought actually. The brand new 18-35mm replaced my AF-S VR 16-35mm f/4G and the 70-200mm replaced the bigger and heavier f/2.8G VR II. I find both these lighter, less expensive lenses to generally perform as well (or even better) for my needs than their heavier and more expensive counterparts. For example, the 18-35mm is actually more flare resistant than the costlier 16-35mm! I also tested the new AF-S 80-400mm Nikkor zoom and although it is excellent, it has a zoom range that I don't often need, so I cannot justify its expense at this time.

Anyway, in mid-May I left on a solo road trip to the Southwestern US again, this time making my way through Yellowstone National Park and Dinosaur National Monument on the way down to Utah. I also visited Fantasy Canyon southeast of Vernal, Utah for the first time and it truly has some bizarrely eroded sandstone formations! Watch for more blog posts in the near future with some additional photos from the trip.

This "off-topic" blog posting is mainly all about my new vehicle, a brand new 2014 Subaru Forester 2.0XT, the Canadian "Touring Edition" model. It conveniently arrived (barely) in time for my trip and after being shod with some proper off-road rubber (four 18" Yokohama Geolandar A/T-S tires), and after a quick 900km break-in drive through the Fraser Canyon where it proved fully functional, I was off and heading south. An image gallery with twenty shots of the new Forester on my trip can be accessed by clicking on the above photo, which was taken on the way home through Oregon. Many of the photos were shots of various backcountry campsites where I stayed (not official campsites, just nice out-of-the-way spots on public BLM lands) and a few just show the Forester within the spectacular scenery I was driving through.

The Big Switch: Nikon D800 Image Quality

D800 with AF-S 16-35mm f/4G VR zoom at 24mm, ISO 100, f/11 at 20 seconds  (original)

As many of you already know, back in July of this year I bought a complete Nikon system built around their superb new D800 body. I had been shooting with Canon DSLRs since 2004, so this really is a BIG switch. Much of my Canon gear has already been sold. I had written a fairly long article about my Nikon switch back in August already but I was never quite happy with what I wrote so it never got posted to this blog. I went through two more revisions and again, I was never quite happy.

So... I have decided to start fresh and this is a complete rewrite. In addition, now that I have been using the system for nearly four months, I have a bit more experience to draw on, over 7000 frames worth. For the images in this article, clicking on them will open a larger version. Also, each image has EXIF data and a link below which you can click to see the original, converted with my default Lightroom settings, in other words, how it looked "out of camera" prior to adjustment. The "original" versions may have some slight cropping, straightening or perspective correction applied to match the adjusted version in order to make it easier to compare them and see just how much the final image has been manipulated from a contrast and colour standpoint. For the complete article, containing many sample images, read on...

Update...

Well, after many good intentions on blogging during my recent Utah trip, circumstances never really allowed for it.

My purchase of a Roam Mobility SIM card for my iPad didn't help much since the majority of the time, I got "No Service" and the few times I did, it was at abysmally slow Edge data speeds. Had I been on my own, I would have made a point to blog when I had WiFi, but I did not want my friend Bill getting impatient while waiting for me to blog...

In any case it was a successful trip, having visited many new spots in Nevada and Utah that I hadn't been to before. More photos to come in the next few days! The above photo is of Sipapu Bridge in Natural Bridges National Monument.

Lastly, I have moved my main sublimephoto website to new servers, so service might be a little dodgy for a day or two. Soon I intend on updating the site as well, but as mentioned in the last post, I am drowning in photos and after shooting about 60 GB on the Utah trip, things are not getting any better!

Drowning in photos...

This blog has been quiet for far too long and I thought I had better post something! I am literally drowning in photos, that's how behind I am. Between spring cleaning at home, moving my website to new servers, a new vehicle, testing tons of new cameras and lenses, trade shows at work and more, I am so behind with processing photos that I don't know where to begin! The above photo was taken with a new Canon EOS-5D Mark III and the 17mm TS-E at Granville Island.

What I want to handle, ASAP...

For those who have been following my blog, you'll know that I am quite a fan of the Fujifilm X100. Well, I suppose you can then imagine that I was quite excited when Fujifilm finally announced what they had been hinting at, a full-blown interchangeable lens "version" of the X100. I hope to have an opportunity to handle this camera in person sometime in the next few weeks. If it turns out to be as good as it appears to me at the moment, after reading numerous previews online and watching various detailed demo videos, then I suspect that I will be buying into yet another camera system. At this point, I am pretty sure that I'll be fighting to get an X-Pro1 and all three of its initial prime lenses pictured above, when the system starts shipping in late February. Yes, I am that excited by its potential!

Season's Greetings!

As a favour, I photographed a warm and cozy apartment that a friend of mine decked out for the Christmas holidays. I used my X100 and my GH2 with either the 7-14mm f/4 zoom for the wide shots, or the Leica 25mm f/1.4 for the tight shots. See the gallery here...

A New Look!

You might notice a slight change to the look of this blog! I want to be sure to direct people back to the main Beau Photo store blogs page, so I decided to change the banner and remove the Beau logo. That way hopefully people won't think they are on the official Beau blog for some reason.

I also added a "Looking for Beau Photo content?" section that will appear above the regular blog postings for the next month or so, helping to direct traffic destined for Beau Photo to the real Beau blogs.

Lastly, since I was making a new banner anyway, I also took the opportunity to widen the layout a tiny bit. Without going into technical details, this will make it way easier to post images that are optimally sized to fit the exact width of the blog entries. You'd think that Blogger would have some sort of "fit width" command for images, but no. I had to essentially manually edit the HTML for every post that contained a horizontal (landscape) format image! The Blogger image presets either made for an image that was way too small, or one that was just a little too big. What a pain! I also made sure to make the Beau Photo blogs wider from the get-go, to make it easier for people to post images.

Anyway, I hope you like the new banner and slightly wider content. This change will make it much easier to post a quick blog entry in the future too!

New: Beau Photo Supplies Store Blogs!

Effective immediately, I will be changing the tack of new postings on this blog. I created this as an experiment originally, wanting to see how well received a Beau Photo information and announcement blog would be. In addition, I wanted to experiment with blogging my own images and gallery content on a more regular basis, versus less frequent website updates. Heck, my website is, at the moment, horribly out of date, finishing at the end of 2009 as far as image gallery content goes!

Anyway, this blog has been quite well received by Beau Photo customers so far, and despite the minimal "followers" that are visibly subscribing, I know there are many more checking it out on a regular basis. The feedback has been very good overall, so I have created a new store-wide Beau Photo Blog, with a permanent link in the Pages section on the right as well. From this point forward, this blog will simply be about items of personal interest, image galleries, trip blogs, photo projects, announcements of updates to my website and so on. Beau Photo content will be minimized here and the vast majority will be posted directly to the Beau Photo blog in the future.

At this point, I am not sure how feasible it will be to move my existing Beau Photo related postings to the new blog. Not very possible, as far as I can tell, at least not without an enormous amount of work. I will probably create a filtered link back to this blog from the Beau Photo blog and I may remove all the Beau Photo related categories from here as well, to avoid the clutter - In Stock at Beau, Rebates, Sales and so on. Those categories will no longer be relevant to future content I post here.

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.