I’ve got some work on display at a group show titled Less Than, at Dade Art and Design Lab. The show opens tonight and will run until December 23rd. Artwork by local, Calgary artists will be shown and all the works are less than $1000.

Be sure to check out the show!

Little Marko is such a cute baby and I got my camera out for some shots while he was at the gift opening of my wedding. When Marko’s parents take him for a stroll in the park and are bringing him through some low-hanging branches of some bushes, they’ll say “We’re going through the forest, Marko!” He closes his eyes and squeels as the branches pass over him. He loves the feeling!

The Zeiss 35mm I was using is a 100% manual focus lens and thankfully it’s designed with this in mind. I focused on him and then pulled my body forwards and backwards, keeping the distance and frame, instead of relying on a servo focus to do the job. How can you expect a servo focus to stay focused on a certain area with the sliver of deapth of field F2.5 gives you? I was sitting on the floor and it was fun when little Marko was smiling and laughing as he crawled up my legs. I just leaned further back, calling “Marko!”, keeping him framed in the shot.

I have to say kids are fast and a real challenge to photograph but it makes it fun. If somebody says they need the latest and greatest in auto-focus and auto-exposure they don’t know how to use their camera and honestly I think they’re just lazy. I only shot about 18 pictures of little Marko and ended up with about 6-7 that the mother (and myself) liked.

I’ve been shooting with a Zeiss manual focus lens for almost a month now and I can safely say my manual focusing ability is getting better. I’ve previously had frustrations with auto-focus on wide angle lenses because I usually want to focus on a single point and doing that is tough. I either have to pick the point with the camera’s controls, or focus the center point and re-frame. Picking a focus point wastes valuable time and re-framing often leads to out of focus shots.

It takes me about a second, sometimes two, to get a shot in focus with the Zeiss. When I try to manually focus my Canon lenses it’s horrible. The focus rings have “slip-play” where I can move them slightly and the focus mechanism inside isn’t moving. There’s a gross grinding feeling of plastic-on-plastic, even on many of the higher end L lenses when I handle them in a store.

So overall I am VERY satisfied with my Zeiss 35mm F2 Distagon. I am no longer nervous to bring it for an event and I’m sure I will consistently get many good shots from this lens. After using it for a month I have to say again, it’s highly recommended.

It was a lucky girl’s sweet sixteen birthday party yesterday at Dade Art and Design Lab. It was full of energy with 16 year old young-adults running all over the place.

I was present at Dade’s grand opening in Calgary. They needed an event photographer so I took up the task. They’re a great space with fine art and fine furniture. Darcy and Greg are beautiful people both inside and out and I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to shoot their great event!