How time flies

Wow, my four days off have disappeared very quickly. They were very "productive"...I was able to sleep in, take pictures and read (both for pleasure and catch-up on some reading for work), while still having time to sort, process and upload pictures to the web.

In the last Cayman Islands' camera club, Paul Aiken, a new club member and an accomplished photographer strongly recommended that members start uploading their pictures to Flickr for others to comment on. He believes, and I agree, that one only improves when they receive feedback. As I researched Flickr, I found a number of groups that hold "contests". I joined two: fotocompetition and challenge you. While neither of these verbally provide you with direct feedback, you quickly learn whether your picture is liked and by how many when the voting starts.

Let me forewarn you, this becomes very addicted for us competitive types ;-) I have had a few winners, including:



and



And yes, I have managed to play with the 5D Mark II:





The last picture was taken at a private residence which must have spent 10's of thousands of dollars on Christmas displays and lights. I have more pictures here.

My new 5D Mark II has arrived

I was absolutely amazed this morning when I was handed a courier package with my new Canon 5D Mark II camera. This was my Christmas gift that I had all but given up hope that I would receive before Christmas. My colleagues were laughing at me as I ripped into the box to pull out the battery and start charging it.

I am not sure who was more excited that I received the camera, Brigitte or myself. No, its not like Brigitte and I will be fighting over who will be using the camera as photography has not been one of her hobbies. She was happy because she know how much I was looking forward to playing with it over the Christmas holidays. What I did find very promising was that she and Miriam were out today with our Canon 30D taking pictures. Brigitte later advised me that she has laid claims to the 30D :-)

When I showed the camera to Brigitte she noted that it looked very similar to the 30D. When we put the two cameras together she was correct, at first blush there was not a significant difference in appearance. The major differences relate to weight (5D is a little heavy) and the LCD is bigger. However, as they say...never judge a book by its cover. The LCD is absolutely wonderful, as is the ability to adjust each lens using the AF Microadjustments. In my opinion this feature in itself is worth the camera as my Canon 85 f/1.2 L was back focusing. With a calibration of +6, done in a few minutes the lens was providing absolutely stunning pictures. I highly recommend reading this article if you would like to micro adjust any of your lens with the 5D MII, 1Ds MIII or 1D MIII.

I will post later this week some pictures taken with the new camera later. In the meantime, I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Photographing a Cayman Island beach wedding

Last weekend I was fortunate to photograph a beach wedding in the Cayman Islands. Haydee approached me asking if I would like to be their wedding photographer. I was quite honored and immediately accepted. However, prior to the wedding I was quite nervous. I had never shot a beach wedding before and if you have ever tried to shoot individuals wearing white against a bright beach background, you will know why I was nervous.



I thought it would be really nice if I photographed Haydee and Eric sitting on the shore while I waded into the ocean. I had the angles worked out and was originally planning on only wadding in. But while I was in the water I saw different angles that I wanted to take which meant going further and further into the ocean. I really didn't mind as I could always change my pants. Unfortunately, what I forgot to do was empty my pockets. I had a Sandisk flash card with a number of wedding photos on it. The card barely got wet, but it was enough for it not to work. What a rookie mistake, but one that I can guarantee that I will never make again. Fortunately, after the card dried out, I was able to retrieve all but three pictures from the card.



I thoroughly enjoyed taking the pictures and was touched by the reaction I received when Haydee, Eric and their families viewed the slide slow I produced.

Congratulations, Haydee and Eric and thank you for including me in your special day.



If you like to see additional pictures of Haydee and Eric's wedding, please click here.

Must have freeware programs

Do you use programs that you cannot image living without? Are there programs that you think I would enjoy using? If there are, please share them with us. In the meantime, I have noted a number of freeware programs that I use and you may find useful. I have enclosed a link to the website with a brief description from the software provider.

Must have freeware programs

2BrightSparks
"SyncBack is our freeware program that helps you easily backup and synchronize your files to: the same drive; a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc); an FTP server; a Network; or a Zip archive."


7-Zip
"7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio."


Eraser
"Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns."


Family Safety
"As a parent, you want to help make your family's experiences safer and more secure, and you want to provide good guidance. Windows Live Family Safety can help."


JujuEdit
"JujuEdit is a file editor, or alternatively a text editor with knobs-on...More specifically, it is an application which is as non-destructive as possible: When you open a file, JujuEdit does NOT convert it into an internal file format."


Keepass
"KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish)."

Lupas Rename 2000
"Lupas Rename is a FREEWARE program developed to rename a few or a massive number of files with a lot of features."


Moffsoft FreeCalc
"Moffsoft FreeCalc is a great replacement for your existing Windows® calculator."


Mozilla Firefox
"The award-winning Firefox Web browser has security, speed and new features that will change the way you use the Web. Don’t settle for anything less."


MWSnap
"MWSnap is a small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen."


PortabelApps.com
"A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind."


PuTTY
"PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator."


Skype
"Make calls from your computer — free to other people on Skype and cheap to phones and mobiles around the world."


SMPlayer
"SMPlayer intends to be a complete front-end for MPlayer, from basic features like playing videos, DVDs, and VCDs to more advanced features like support for MPlayer filters and more."


SpywareBlaster
"Powerful protection against spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers and other potentially unwanted software. Trusted and effective."


SteadyState
"You can't always prevent problems during a user session, but now you can undo the whole session. Learn how Windows SteadyState can return your computer and hard disk to its exact condition before the user touched it, simply by rebooting."


TrueCrypt
"Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux"


I also use the following, but do not classify them as "must haves".

AVG Free 8.0
"Basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. Limited features, no support, for private and non-commercial use only."


Cain
"Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It allows easy recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, recovering wireless network keys, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols...Be warned that there is the possibility that you will cause damages and/or loss of data using this software and that in no events shall the author be liable for such damages or loss of data."


Drupal
"Drupal, an open source content management platform. Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites."


Google Earth
"Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places and share with others."


HashCalc
"A fast and easy-to-use calculator that allows to compute message digests, checksums and HMACs for files, as well as for text and hex strings. It offers a choice of 13 of the most popular hash and checksum algorithms for calculations."


K9
"K9 is an email filtering application that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email program and automatically classifies incoming emails as spam (junk email) or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules or constant updates to be downloaded. It uses intelligent statistical analysis that can result in extremely high accuracy over time."


Mobipocket Reader
"From eBooks and eNews to reference material and desktop documents, Mobipocket Reader gives you access to thousands of titles including current bestsellers, world renowned dictionaries, as well as major enews websites, RSS feeds and weblogs.


Mobipocket Creator
"Whether you need to create personal content to take along with you, distribute or sell ebooks to others, or design more advanced content and applications, the Mobipocket Creator family of products enables to easily create ebooks from a variety of sources to be viewed on all the PDA and smartphone platforms where Mobipocket Reader is supported."


Opanda IExif Viewer
"Professional EXIF / GPS / IPTC Info Viewer"


Stunnel
"Stunnel is a program that allows you to encrypt arbitrary TCP connections inside SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) available on both Unix and Windows. Stunnel can allow you to secure non-SSL aware daemons and protocols (like POP, IMAP, LDAP, etc) by having Stunnel provide the encryption, requiring no changes to the daemon's code."


Tor
"Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security."


VMware Player
"This free desktop virtualization software application makes it easy to operate any virtual machine created by VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, VMware Server or VMware ESX, as well as Microsoft Virtual Server virtual machines or Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machines."


WireShark
"Wireshark is an award-winning network protocol analyzer developed by an international team of networking experts."


Programs I am currently playing with:

K9 Web Protection
"K9 Web Protection is our free Internet filtering and control solution for the home. K9 puts YOU in control of the Internet so you can protect your kids."