All My Blogs

Dell and Klaus.  Camping at the Cabin in August 2006. Klaus was an amazing animal.  He was a rottweiler and all muscle.  He was Dell's dog, and the both of them had a singular passion - they loved camping. I was always in awe of Klaus's skill set.  When he found a stick he liked he would carry it everywhere.  If you threw it, there was no challenge he couldn't be beat by.  Hang it from a tree (top left), he would eventually get it.  Toss it in a lake or river (bottom left) and he would swim to retrieve it eagerly.  Most impressively, in the pitch black of night, you could throw his prize into thick bush and he would disappear to search for it.  His dedication would always result in locating it, not some facsimile, and proudly return it to his master. Stick retrieving wasn't his only strength though.  He carried a pack on his back that contained his needed supplies.  He would sit nicely in a canoe for hours on end, happily watching t...

Female spiders typically have the job of staying where they are, especially around breeding time.  Male spiders, usually smaller, are more likely to wander in search of food and females.   The female flower crab spider is the large white one in the above image.  The male is the much smaller blackish one on the end of her abdomen.  The size difference is significant, with the female being three to four times the length and 10 to 20 times the weight.   I noticed the female at the front of my house in Maple Ridge.  Later on, I found a male in the back yard.  Curiosity got the best of me and I introduced them to each other.  What happened next surprised me. I half expected the female to devour the much smaller male in a single bite, but instead, she remained still.  The male, on the other hand, became suddenly very active and crawled all over the female's body.  I have never seen anything like it.  No fear at all - his reactio...

  Cindy Lacroix and Laura Richardson, Garibaldi teachers picketing in 2005 I have taught for 30 years and have been on strike three times.  In an ideal world, there would be no need for such actions.  Employers would recognize the value of employees and their need for work conditions conducive to everyone's well-being and production.  Although money is often a significant factor in the motivation to walk the picket line, there are other important issues that need to be addressed. For teachers, these issues include working conditions that facilitate the education of their students.  Every teacher I have known has a passion for helping children grow and being part of a system to develop the minds and bodies of our future.  It's about making a difference.   Making a difference in the lives of our youth is difficult when teachers are taxed beyond their ability to manage.  Too many students in a class, too many individuals with special needs that ...

Most lizards of the desert are carnivorous as plants often have a tough waxy cuticle and may also be equipped with sharp spines.  I have seen common side-blotched lizards in Arizona and California, although they are also present east toward Texas and south into Mexico.  They don't get much bigger than about 5 inches in length but are ravenous eaters of creatures they can fit in their mouths.  This includes insects, centi and millipedes, arachnids, and even small lizards. Their broken pattern of white and black spots on a brown field renders them very difficult to see.  They are crepuscular in nature, avoiding the hot sun or cool evenings.  They will hide in any available void in rock or earth unless they are actively hunting.  They will also bury themselves in sand.  During the early morning, they first come out to warm up in the sun and then oscillate between sun and shadow to maintain a reasonable inner temperature.  They also will raise their b...

Female Anna's hummingbird with honeysuckle flower What makes one photo more attractive than another?  Is it a perceptual thing or is it about inherent beauty?  The axiom, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" has a lot to do with it, but really it's not the eye, it's the brain. Part of what we understand to be beautiful is learned, but even this is based on the ability of our senses to observe what is around us.  Another part of our ability to consider something attractive is innate - our minds have a preset way of reacting to things.  And then there is the cognitive aspect of appreciation where we use our thinking skills to analyse what is in front of us. These three aspects of our biology are what makes an image stand out for us.  The learned component in the above shot would be the recognition of familiar components - the flower and hummingbird.  The innate part would be compositional guidelines such as our eyes following lines, using the rule of thirds...

Although not a DSLR, my Panasonic FZ2500 was a remarkable piece of equipment.  A bridge camera, its all-in-one body boasted a 24-480 mm zoom and used a 1 inch sensor to capture images.  It was my travel camera for a number of years, and I took it with me when we went to New Zealand.   The wonderful thing about this camera is how I came to own it.  I had announced my retirement from teaching and the staff from school threw me a celebration.  What's more, they passed the hat around beforehand and took up a collection, which was presented to me as a gift certificate to a camera store I was known to frequent.  The total came to a little more than $900 - a sum that quite frankly shocked me - and left me with the sense that I had made an impact after working there for 27 years. The camera was a great travel companion because it was small, powerful, and produced very good images.  The reason it is considered a bridge camera is because it does a lot more ...

I decided to buy Nikon's Zfc camera, a 20 mp APS-C format classic design body, partly because it was on sale and partly because I wanted a second body for my Z series lenses.  I could use the Z7ii in crop sensor mode, which produces a 20 mp DX image instead of a 48 mp FX image, but the second body would give me some redundancy should my main camera fail. I actually haven't used it a lot, but I found the classic design appealing and now have it set up as a macro system.  I am hoping to get more use out of it this coming spring and summer when insect activity begins.   The one thing I don't care for is that it uses a different battery than all my other Nikon cameras.  The D600, 750, 7000, 7100,7200 and Z7ii bodies all use the EN-EL 15 battery and they are all interchangeable.  I have extra batteries that I keep charged so I can swap them out at any moment.  The Zfc uses different batteries and a different charger.  The reason, according to Nikon, is...

I have taught photography classes since the mid 90's.  It is one of the reasons I have tried to keep up with camera technology, transitioning from film to digital media around the turn of the century.  I have never jumped at changing immediately after its introduction but instead would research what it all entailed.  Eventually, if the idea had merit, I would make the leap. Mirrorless cameras had already been out for some time; my first mirrorless camera was the Nikon Z7ii, the second generation of Nikon's Z7 line.  I sold off a few bodies and lenses in order to make the acquisition.  I have used EVFs before (electronic viewfinders) and found them to be sluggish, choppy, and somewhat grainy in nature, but this was not my experience with this new camera. There were many pros and cons.  I loved that I could use a live histogram display in the viewfinder.  It was also great to have so much information immediately present without taking my eye off my subje...

The next camera I owned was my D750, a full-frame (FX) DSLR with a 24 mp sensor.  The interesting thing about this camera is that it produces very little noise from high ISOs or long exposures.  It is a popular camera for wedding photographers because they can shoot weddings with no flash and still get very good results. The tree Kathryn is under is the Hitachi Tree, native to Japan, located at the Moanalua Gardens on Kaui.  As trees go, it is very impressive, having a width greater than its height.  I will include a photo below of the whole tree with Kathryn underneath it for scale. I sold my full-frame D750 a while back and bought a Nikon Z7ii body and several lenses to go with it.  The Z7ii has a 48 mp sensor but uses Nikon's Z series lenses.  I will talk about it more on an upcoming blog. Thanks for reading. Eric Svendsen      www.ericspix.com

  Nikon's 7200 is one of my favourite cameras.  It has the same sensor as the D7100 but has a very large buffer that allows for numerous continuous images to be taken.  I have used this for photographing birds, for doing HDR images, and for creating panoramic images as above. The large buffer allows for 27 raw images to be captured in a row without the camera shutting down.  If you shot jpegs, you can take over 100.  My previous camera, the D7100, could only manage 5 raw images before the camera had to pause to let the buffer catch up while filling the memory card. You can do HDR without such a buffer, but you would need a tripod and take time between shots.  When I am not using a tripod, I find that I can set my camera to a high continuous frame rate AND turn bracketing on.  The camera allows me to bracket up to 9 images;  Keeping very steady, I frame my composition and then press and hold down the shutter button until all exposures are made....

This blog is a continuation of my series on DSLR cameras I have owned.  I took a photo of this dytiscus beetle larva using my D7100 camera and 105 mm micro-Nikkor lens.  I still use this setup today as I have had great results with it even though the camera was released some 12 years ago.  The 24 mp sensor is very capable of rendering high resolution images. These insects can get up to 2 inches in length and are tremendous predators often taking on creatures much larger than themselves.  Small fish, amphibians, and just about every aquatic insect out there are potential prey for this aggressive Coeleopterid.  The adults are very predaceous as well but tend to take smaller prey than their aggressive larvae. I have put a collection of some of my Dytiscidea images below. Thanks for reading. Eric Svendsen      www.ericspix.com

Even though I shot this image almost 13 years ago, I still remember the moment.  I owned two D7000 cameras, one had a macro setup on it and the other was equipped with my 80-200 f/2.8 lens.  It was the latter one that I used to photograph this insect. We had been travelling with the kids during the summer, camping somewhere in Washington, and were out on a day trip to whatever adventures awaited us.  We saw a garden center with lots of flowering plants and decided to peruse the place, my camera at the ready.  It was then that I spotted the swallowtail on top of a geranium in full bloom.  What's even better is that I managed to get in front of it without scaring it off. Nikon has made quite a long list of D7000 series cameras.  All in all, I have owned 5 different ones.  Two D7000s, two D7100s, and one D7200.  I still own and use a D7100 and a D7200.  Excellent cameras full of features and capabilities.  If you are in the market for a use...

  Up to this point, all of my DSLR bodies have had APS-C sized sensors (DX).  They have a crop factor of 1.5, meaning that a 50 mm lens performs like a 75 mm lens.  The smaller sensor requires the individual wells making up the pixel-capturing cell of the sensor are very small and crammed tightly together.   A full-frame camera body does not have a crop factor (FX).  The D600 was the first full-frame DSLR I ever owned.  For it I purchased a 28-300 FX lens that allowed me to shoot full frame without having to severely crop images.  I used many other lenses of course, but the photo above was taken with that particular lens. The camera itself was good, but it suffered from having oil microdroplets fall on the sensor from the shutter.  This caused black dots and smudges to appear on the image - and always at the same place.  I had to get the mechanism replaced with Nikon footing the bill.  They in fact did this to all of the D600s and D...

Top:  Dad, me, Leanne, Kathryn, Josh. Middle:  Roberta, Jennifer, Katie, Dana Bottom right:  Monica, Danielle and Ashley My venerable D300, an iconic favourite of many, was an amazing and reliable camera.  Although it's some 18 years after its first introduction, there are still a lot of them around.  The 12 mp DX sensor produced reasonable low-noise images at high ISOs and the camera could shoot at 6 fps (frames per second) up to 40 images continuously.   I have always had a passion for wildlife, with invertebrates holding a special place in my heart (and no, I am not talking about heartworm).  The D300 allowed me to take my macro photography passion up to the next level and I captured many memorable images with it and various lenses and accessories.  Below there is an image of a male Polyphemous moth; the large feathered antennae giving its gender away. The D300 was, for me, the camera that could be.  It had a broad range of features a...

As is my habit, I buy and sell photography gear somewhat regularly.  Some equipment I have had for a very long time because of its quality and/or irreplaceable function.  Others I buy and use for a while and then sell off in quick succession.  Such was Nikon's D90 camera. The lens I used for this photo was Nikon's 80-400 telephoto zoom, not the "S" version that I currently own.  The combination of camera and lens was good, but looking back I find that the images are somewhat soft and lack the quality that I currently expect from my equipment. One of the problems with low-megapixel cameras was that they used something called an anti alias low pass filter just in front of the sensor.  Its purpose, somewhat ironically, was to produce a tiny amount of blur on the sensor to reduce the effects of moire.  You rarely get this problem in nature, but the human world relies so heavily on repeated patterns that moire often shows its head.  What is moire? Moire is ...

This is the third image in a series of blogs remembering the DSLR cameras I have owned.  After using the S1Pro (1st blog)  and then the D70 (2nd blog) , I ponied up and bought Nikon's D200.  It was a much more advanced camera and boasted a 10 mp sensor.  I bought it used from Henry's in Ontario, but some of the controls were a bit stiff and it limited my enjoyment of it.   It turns out that 10 mp is quite a lot in terms of resolution; maybe not enough for significant cropping, but I have created 16x20 prints of this very shot that are stunning.  I used a slide scanner that was 10 mp and found that it was very capable of reproducing good digital images of my pre-digital world.  Today, many cellphone cameras produce images between 9 to 12 mp and are plenty large enough for the average user. I sold my D70 at some point and bought a D90 as a second body.  I like to have two cameras, one with a long lens for wildlife and a second for landscapes an...

This is a continuation of my blogs on DSLR cameras I have owned. My next camera, after the venerable S1Pro, was Nikon's D70.  It was a remarkable camera and one that I used for many years.  Although it was only 6 mp, it was still an upgrade to Fuji's 3 mp, and it had a few other features that were also improvements. For one, it had a flash synch speed of 1/500th of a second.  Most cameras today limit out to 1/200th, although that can be altered by using high-speed synch (HSS) on modern cameras.  Of course, you need to have a flash that is compatible with that feature.  Another cool feature was its ability to connect wirelessly to off-camera flashes.  I used (and still have) a wireless macro flash, one that I used to shoot the above image with. I photographed weddings, school events, wildlife, and, of course, macro with it.  It was a great all-around camera and allowed me to further explore many aspects of digital photography.  All of my lenses fro...

  I thought I would do a series of photos with the theme of the camera body used to take it.  The above photograph was taken in 2005 with Fujifilm's S1 Pro DSLR camera.  I was photographing snow scenes at the time and was using the rule of thirds as a compositional guideline.  Exposure compensation was used to make the snow white instead of gray.   The Fuji camera was the first DSLR I bought.  I was using film up until that point, although I had some experience with compacts.  I purchased the Fuji camera because I could use all of my FE II's lenses.  It was a period of learning for me as the difference between film and sensor-captured images is significant.  It did, however, allow me to meld my computer knowledge with my photography knowledge and I wrote my first edition of The DSLR.  It is currently in its 4th edition and now is called DSLR and Mirrorless Cameras .  I am teaching a course on it starting next week. It has been ...

Barbie riding on western pond turtle; demands fair treatment. News flash - As we now know, the producers of Disney's Toy Story  used real toys to produce their films and the feature film was later converted to "Digital Tune" (DT) format to make it look animated.  All was well and good and toys found that they developed improved relationships with children all over the world as the young ones granted them newfound respect and value. However, it seems that Barbies did not share in that reformation as they were shamed for their "too-perfect" body image.  "We can't help it, we were moulded this way," was their cry.  They were once considered the epitome of toy-culture and oft-sought by children during the Yule season.  Lately though, their curvaceous body image has been the focus of shaming by many.  It seems that their figures have prompted youth to develop unhealthy desires in terms of what they should look like. Supporters of Barbie agree with the s...

  I photographed this turtle in 2010.  At the time I was using a D7000 Nikon camera.  Although the D7000 today is considered somewhat old and out of date, it is still capable of capturing good images.  The 16 mp sensor never let me down.  I used a wide angle zoom lens (data not recorded in exif) for the shot, the relative focal length is 52 mm (the D7000 uses an aps-c croped sensor). My very first DSLR was a Fujifilm S1 Pro - at just 3 mp it was relatively anemic compared to today's cameras commonly boasting 24 mp.  Even then, it introduced me to the world of Digital Photography.  Over the years I have bought and sold over a dozen DSLRs and currently own 5 bodies.  The oldest one, a D7100, is used for doing macro shots and it is still a reliable work horse. I know people that still use D300 cameras.  I owned one in 2009 and got a lot of years out of its service.  A remarkable camera for its time.  If you are looking for an older goo...

I use this photo as the cover of my book on Photographing birds.  I created about 300 copies of the book, spiral bound, printed in colour, with 6 chapters.  I also run a course by the same name, 10 hours in length.  I wrote the book in 2018 with the intention of publishing it through Amazon and selling it to book stores, but Covid came along and dashed all hopes of that. The problem I had with Amazon was formatting; they didn't want me using my existing formatting and I had to totally revamp my book.  After two submissions and many hours of work, I gave up on doing this. It later came to my attention that, if I wanted to sell stuff through Amazon from my house, I would need to buy a commercial insurance policy in addition to my regular home coverage.  That extra policy was $2000 at the time and is probably even more now.  You can sell stuff from home on Amazon, but if something happens at your place you won't be covered.  Insurance agencies have change...

A friend of ours has a collection of Barbie dolls, all in very good shape, that she has asked me to sell for her.  I previously used the photos she took and placed them all on-line but got no interest.  So, I decided to break the set up into lots and sell them as groups for a fixed amount.   But how to go about making the shoot?  I tried doing it horizontally with the doll standing, but getting it to stand was awkward and the accessories did not come out well.  So, instead, I set up a copy table format shooting vertically.  I decided to go with indirect flash using an umbrella setup that has worked favourably for me in the past. I set both camera and flash up on manual mode.  The flash (SB 900) was set to 1/4 power and the camera (Nikon Z7ii) was set with an aperture of f/5.6, a shutter speed of 1/200th, and an ISO of 100.  The first shot (above) came out fine and I needed to tweek the exposure, white balance, and saturation a bit.  It w...

This is the time of year where I do very little photography.  Although opportunity still exists for discovery of scenes and creatures, it isn't at all like the summer when such things abound.  It is for this reason that I will create some blogs on photos of the past.  I don't have a plan for what they will be, but I hope to follow inspiration and see where it leads. Yellowthroats are a type of warbler and are found throughout most of Canada south of the territories and much of the US, except where it is very dry.  I have seen them numerous times, but rarely get such a good photo.  I took this in the Creston valley of BC, a place with lots of wetlands and great opportunities for discovering wildlife.  Some of my best bird photos have come from this area. Although I have only ever seen them in fresh water wetlands, they also inhabit drier areas; in both they are fond of dense bush where they can easily hide and build a secretive nest.  They are insectivo...