Welcome

Welcome to my photoblog. I try to keep it updated daily with a new photo from either my personal or professional life. It is not intended to be taken as my professional portfolio (please visit the main website for that), but instead it is more of an informal and fun way for me to share some of my personality and creativity with you. Many of the photos on my blog are available for purchase as fine art prints, please visit the main website and/or contact me if you are interested. Enjoy!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Unboxing - MSI Special Edition Military Class 4GB USB Flash Drive

  
A short while ago I kindly received an MSI Special Edition Military Class 4GB Flash Drive from a company I regularly do business with. Not only was it a very nice gesture, but it's also a very useful device for me to transfer my data from place to place. I figured since it was a special edition item, I should capture a short unboxing of it. So here it is... the MSI SE Military Class 4GB.


The case is actually quite nice, full metal case with a plastic window. It's a little bigger than it needed to be, but still quite nice.


Popping off the top reveals everything that comes with the drive. The drive itself is inside the little rubber military guy, and it comes with two types of rope attachments, one with a quick release, the other a screw on cap.



Here we see the front and back of the rubber protective military guy. To access the drive you need to slide it down and out the bottom using the hole in the back.


To give you a sense of scale, the 4GB drive is actually about the size of a Tonnie, as seen in the following front and back photos.



It really is amazing how small these things have gotten over the years. Here's a shot of it plugged into my laptop.


It's a nice little drive, but it has it's problems as well. It can be a little difficult at first to actually insert it into a USB port since it is so tiny and does not have the usual metal bracket. I've learnt that you really have to squeeze the rubber military guy while putting it into a slot so that the drive does not just slide back up into the holder. It's also not the fastest drive in the world. I get only around 4Mb/s write speed to the drive, which is terribly slow, and an average of 14Mb/s read speed, which is in the slow-regular range of speed.
Either way, it will come in handy!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Krista & Vanessa at Mackenzie King's Estate - Part 2

  
Here are a few more shots from the photo session of Krista and Vanessa at MacKenzie King's Estate from October 11th 2010.
Enjoy!



Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Diefenbunker

  
The Diefenbunker. At the height of the cold war it was once a secret bunker just outside of Ottawa, built to house the Emergency Government Headquarters in case of a nuclear attack on Canadian soil. This massive 4 floor underground bunker was built not only to protect the safety of our Government leaders, but also to house all of Canada's gold bullion in a massive safe. After the cold war it was decommissioned and has become Canada's Cold War Museum. I visited the Diefenbunker earlier this year when we had Door's Open Ottawa, and I got plenty of interesting photos of the old school equipment and interesting relics still left in the museum. Enjoy!




















Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Carleton University's Butterfly Show 2010

  
Last week I got a chance to visit Carleton University's annual Butterfly Exhibit and I was amazed by how many butterflies there were dancing all around me. There were so many different shapes, sizes and colours that it was a blast to try and photograph each one. They were quite difficult to shoot because they do not stay very still for long, and I guess all the little kids running around trying to catch them dident help, but it did make it more fun! I ended up using my Canon 70-200mm with a 2X teleconverter most of the time, which helped me stay back far enough to not scare them away, yet give me the zoom power to get some tight shots. Here are a few of my favourites. Enjoy!














Monday, October 11, 2010

Krista & Vanessa at MacKenzie King's Estate

  
We've been having a few beautiful fall days over the last little while, so Krista, Vanessa and I went up to MacKenzie King's Estate to get a few photos taken with the leaves. The colours of all the leaves made for some wonderful backdrops for a few portraits and some family fun. Below are just a few of the wonderful shots we took, more to come soon!



Sunday, October 10, 2010

Sliver Of A Moon

  
Today's shot for the "Photo a Day" project is called Sliver Of A Moon


Exif Data
Camera: Canon 5D mkII
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure: 1/400
Focal Length: 200mm with 2X TC (400mm)
Flash: Not-Fired
ISO: 800
Post processing included cropping, contrast adjustment, noise reduction, and unsharp-mask