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188/365: Ball Game.

Went geocaching tonight (as I do every Friday night) with the BFL Crew. Along the way, we spent most of the time wandering around a sports park in the north end of Brampton –  though there was that 500M trek through the bush to contend with. This photo was taken near the end of the night. Here, my friend John was taking photos with a tripod of the scene above – a ball game surrounding the second last geocache of the night. I opted to try a couple photos of the scene as well, but without the tripod. Amazingly, the D800 stepped right up and didn’t bat an eyelash – this is taken as the last twilight of the day is leaving the sky well after sunset. The photo is right out of the camera – no edits. I shot using a predefined picture mode, which is Black and White with a “Red” filter simulated by the camera itself. All I did was set the camera to f/8, select my custom Picture Control and press the shutter. 

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187/365: Excise.

Headed down to Vistek to see about that oil problem on my camera sensor. While I was down there, I realized the Distillery District wasn’t far away so I wandered over to explore and photograph things. This is a building that is at the north end of the complex, and isn’t open to the public (yet). I have a thing for old buildings and entranceways, so I spent some time concentrating on this spot. Found the government excise signage interesting too. 

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186/365: Apocalypse. 

This rather desolate looking scene is actually the opposite. It’s the site of a new building going up in the business park in the Mississauga Road / Steeles area. These white concrete monoliths have been rising from the ground and I have been wanting to take some photos before the rest of the structure begins to be erected around it. The black and white treatment was done in camera using a red filter preset in the Picture Control menu. Pretty cool being able to do that and visualize the result immediately rather than in post later. 

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185/365: No Escape.

Just having some fun with this one. I’m stuck working late at the office, few things from out west and well I’ve got my camera here. While waiting for a compile, I started fiddling with the camera a bit and I created a new “Picture Control” I call “Extreme”. This is basically Vivid+, taking the saturation up to, well, stupid levels. Why? Because it’s fun, and it’s art, and I can do what I want with my camera. Anyhow, I’ve pointed the camera at the door that leaves the office part of the building literally a few metres from my chair. I love the grid in the glass and the whole industrial corridor that’s barred from entry thing here. Even though I have a key and can go right through the door. It goes well with my current eBook, AMPED by Douglas E. Richards. So here’s my photo of the day. Cropped in Aperture, otherwise a JPEG right out of the D800. EV was set to -1, focus is on the LOCK DOOR sign and Nikon Active D-Lighting is set to Auto, as is the ISO. 

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184/365: I’ve Struck Oil.

Sigh. Remember the other day I mentioned I had found some sensor dust on my D800. Well, today I got home, where I have the “industrial” size blower and I went to town on the sensor to clean it, and then my worst fears came true. It appears it’s not dust, it may be that sensor oil issue others have found from the manufacturing process (it’s believed the mirror or shutter action flings oil onto the sensor). So tomorrow I’ll have to take steps to get that oil off the sensor.  Seems to be a common problem with Nikon’s pro SLRs so I’ll start with a Visible Dust wet cleaning kit rather than put my camera into Nikon’s service centre in Mississauga. Last time I did that with my D200 it took almost three months to get it back and I’ve got photos to take in the meantime. 

The photo above is a composite from four images. I took the photos in sequence using the stop down and defocus technique for spotting sensor dust in between. I aimed the camera at my white drapes. Other than cropping out a 6 megapixel image out of the 36 megapixel sensor it’s unmodified from the camera. Yay. 

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183/365: Lavender.

Happy Canada Day! I’m half way through the 2012 photo-a-day project now. While most people in the country are off watching fireworks, listening to concerts or paddling around in cottage country I did something for the first time today. I went to a “Lavender Festival” in Chatham, enjoying that rather much. Here’s a photo of another attendee at the festival, a yellow butterfly (or moth, I’m not an expert), inspecting some of the lavender. 

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182/365: Getting a Jump on Canada Day.

Locals setting off fireworks in the yard at Tecumesh Public School in Chatham. It’s the night before Canada’s birthday but that’s not stopping anyone! In other news, this is the first time I’ve noticed dust on my D800 sensor, and it’s the welded type that’s a pain to get rid of. I’ll have to clean it when I get back.

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181/365: Bike Root.

Spotted this while geocaching in Mississauga with the BFL Crew. The colourful bikes were placed in a garden along the Sawmill Valley Trail system. What’s the most fun, is this is a handheld photo taken a good half hour after sunset. 

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180/365: Twittering About.

Read up on some focusing tricks the D800 has, and heard that 3D tracking is “da bomb”. So, tonight I stopped on the way home at a spot I know has lots of red-winged blackbirds around. These things are notoriously difficult to capture in flight for me, but this time I set the camera on 3D continuous tracking, put the focus point on the bird and waited for motion. Even though it flew right over my head the camera seemed to have an easy time tracking it, and that was with my older 70-300 lens too. 

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179/365: Limehouse Mill Race.

Wanted to go photograph something interesting today. It was overcast when I left the office, which had me thinking “head into the woods” but when I arrived here at the Limehouse Mill ruins, the sun was back out. I tried a few in camera HDR images here and used my Gorillapod to hold the camera steady a few inches above the water for some photos, and a video too.