Thursday, December 3, 2009

Short n sweet post!

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen,

Yes, well I’m still learning all about this Canon 7D its like, for me learning a whole different new system. Previously I owned a Canon 450D, beautiful camera and as I mentioned in my previous blog the 7D is a more professional machine which means I’ve really got to work at it. Sure it has automatic settings but that isn’t good enough for me. I’m going up north this weekend so hopefully the weather will be fine for me to play with it.

Ladies and Gentlemen I have to say the instruction booklet that was supplied with the 7D was so small it is like reading the smallest font imaginable! I use the instruction book a quite a bit so that’s why I got it reprinted and bound A4 size so much easier to read.

Happy photographing

Wayne Frost

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Rainy December......

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen,

So, in my previous blog I mentioned that I was going to Franklin Road to photograph some Xmas tree lights, and I did! It was a wonderful night, no rain! A bit unusual for Auckland isn’t it? Anyway we arrived at Franklin Rd but I soon realised it was a hard place to take photos as there is heaps or tress and just about every angle you’d get something that you would want in the photo. In saying that I did get some shots that I thought were good but not perfect.

Well here we are 1st of December 2009 and its still raining in the City Of Sails, what is going on with our weather. Us photographers want to get out shooting so I’d strongly recommend get a rain jacket for your SLR they retail from $59.99 and most camera stockists.

For those of you that are wondering where to go to take photos, go to Western Springs Gardens. I went there a week ago, the park is huge and there are plenty of things to photograph and be creative with. OK, now for one of my creativity tips: When shooting on location we tend to concentrate on shooting the big things like building, cars, people etc……… Well as welll as concentrating on the big thing try the small things. I’d give you an example lets say you’re at a Marina trying taking pics of people getting on boats or old sailors hats (if you come across them. Remember your pictures have to tell a story

Merry Xmas,

Wayne Frost

Tips for taking xmas tree lights!

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen,

OK, Here are my top 10 tips on how to take creative Xmas tree lights at nights

1. You want to set your camera on Aperture Priority Mode on canon SLRS, this is the Av mode. You want to choose a large f-stop such as f/28 or f/34. IMPORT TIP: Use a tripod the shutter speed maybe long.


2. A creativity tip here if your DSLR has movie mode put it on and when you start have you movie out of focus start recording and slowly bring it into focus! I’ve tried this myself, works well! A tripod may not be necessary here


3. Set your camera on BULB and try taking picture with the shutter open 1 or 2 or even 5 minutes at a time. You can get some very interesting results from this.


4. Increase and decrease your exposure! Increasing and decreasing your exposure can sometimes give you some interesting effects.


5. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment! Remember the days when film was around and you had to pay 20-30 dollars to get it developed? Not any more play with your SLR, doesn’t matter if you takes you a couple of hours!


6. Don’t worry about composition or framing. When taking Xmas lights you can forget about composition and framing just concentrate more on the colours, shutter speed and aperture!


7. Take your time. This has to be one of the most important, playful tips in my book. Take your time, experiment!


8. Never use flash! This can ruin your image making it look dark and boring


9. Use cameras self timer or cable release, you need to eliminate camera shake any way you can.


10. Shoot in RAW once you get home you will have so many more option to play with inside of Adobe Camera RAW.


If you don’t follow any of these tips please at least use a tripod!

One last important tip: Always make sure your lens is clean! Because your taking pictures at night, if your lens isn’t clean, your just wasting your time!

Wayne Frost

Monday, November 30, 2009

New Camera!

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen,

How are we? We are now approaching the Xmas season, which means getting some wonderful shots spending time with our friends, and family also it’s a great time to start photographing Xmas lights. I will be heading to Franklin Rd tonight, which is well known for houses dressed up in lights. There is a couple of thing that we need to be aware when we are photographing lights, so I will be doing another blog sometime in the week regarding this.

Well I am a very happy lad, I have just purchased the Canon 7D I picked it up from Photo Warehouse last Wednesday and I can tell you its an advanced machine I guess you could say its like going from a Toyota to a Porsche! With its 18 MP sensor the images quality is amazing. There is only one thing that annoyed me though, when I took my first RAW image (oh and by the way I only shoot RAW) I noticed that there was quite a bit of noise when I put it into Photoshop camera raw. To cut a long story short after doing days of research, as it’s a brand new camera it requires the latest version of Camera RAW

So here is the answer: Get camera RAW 5.6 NOT camera raw version 5.5 it has to be version 5.6, which you can download here: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_5.6

One of the reasons why I brought the 7D was because it’s able to record HD Video. Before I brought I was kind of unsure what the quality would be like as some people said the quality is amazing and other people was saying you still cant beat a video camera, well folks I here to tell you the video capability of the 7D is amazing you will not be disappointed. Final Cut Pro also handles this fine too. In fact I’ll go as far as saying that a 7D would be perfect to video a wedding. As far as the sound goes its not the worst it pretty good but if you want it perfect like I do you still have to use a pro microphone. The file size for a 7D video 44 seconds = 247.8 MB which is not bad as I’m recording the highest setting 1920x1080 at 25 frames per second!

This works perfectly with the 7D oh and when you first open it will say “as this is a beta version it will expire in …….” Trust me they say that but it wont.

Of course the 450D, my previous canon is still a beautiful camera perfect for a beginner to intermediate it credit my 450 To giving me a understanding of DSLR, I think I will still keep it.

Please support my friend, Rick Sammon by going to http://dpexperience.com/ when the site is open I'm sure its going to be excellent! Rick Sammon has to be one of my idols look at his photography and you will see why! Not to mention Scott Kelby, listen I urge you to look into these guys you can learn a lot from them.

Keep those shutters rollin’

Wayne Frost

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Cornwall Park

Hey guys I thought I better do a quick blog just to tell you how great Cornwall Park was. I was really surprised that only one person showed up, come on guys make an effort to come!!! Anyway it was awesome as I never been to the park before I was impressed there was so many photo opportunities and my creativity just opened out, there was heaps of people there and some of them had cameras too but they didn’t belong to FotoFX.

Attached with this blog entry is a photo, this has to be one of my favourites because the way I shot it, it looks like a road going to no where, don’t you agree? I would love to hear your thoughts. You can see some of my photos from today on
www.flickr.com/photos/waynefrost
I’m in the process of planning something big for next year its going to be a show called “Frostys Stuff”. Basically its going to be a show about anything of everything! Photoshop tutorials, tech reviews, daily goss and more green screening is going to be used also. Keep your eyes peeled for that one, the first episode should be in the new year.

Anyway, keep shooting!
Wayne Frost

Monday, November 2, 2009

Creativity Tour....

Creativity Tour……

On my last blog I posted I mentioned something about a FotoFX creativity tour….well it has all been confirmed and is going to happen on 12 of December, right before Christmas! Yes it is a quite a way off yet but I’m planning it so its going to be a really fun day. I will be there showing you how to be creative with your photos and camera techniques also be covering things like different exposures, angles, time lapse, Photoshop techniques, different kinds of sepia and black and white photography. Some of you might think, “the Viaduct, yeah well there is some photo opportunity’s but cant we go somewhere else that these a little more to photograph?” I know where your coming from but trust me once I show you some of my creative ways to capture photos you will be pleased that you came.

It would be handy if you knew a little bit of Photoshop because I will be telling you different ways how to make your images even more creative with filters, sepia, black & white etc……
If you have any suggestions for this meet up, chuck me an email at : waynefrost16@hotmail.com I would love to hear your thoughts!

Well that’s me for now

Regards,
Wayne Frost

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Weekend Events.....

Hello everybody!

Well what a fantastic weekend it’s been, I have just spent it up north with friends and family up in the sunny Hokianga! It was beautiful weather up there but unfortunately I didn’t get very many photos as we only spent 1 day up there. The weather has been fantastic I’m sure you all know what that means, MORE PHOTOS! Anyway while I was away in the weekend I had my aunty with me which she has flown out from Australia a couple weeks ago anyway, I thought it would be nice to take her to a lookout that I have been to several times before, so we were in the car driving there and when we got there it was blocked off and it wasn’t worth the photo, because the view from that point wasn’t all good. It was a shame because she would of loved the view from up there and why I brought this up is because the reason it was blocked was due to vandalism which is a shame as it blocks keen photographers missing out on good shots!!! I hope it reopens someday……. But why do other people have to spoil it for us?!! Sorry but it just frustrates me
Its exactly 6 days intill we have our next meet up in Cornwall Park, which at this point according to the forecast its going to be real nice! If you want a map or general information about this meet up head over to the website : www.fotofxclub.com
I have some fantastic news “FotoFX” is going to have its first creativity tour! Dates will be released shortly so keep on eye on my website for details…..

Intill next time keep those shutters rolling!
Kind regards,
Wayne Frost

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Busy Days....

Ok, so here it is it has been over a month sinced I’ve blogged, which is shocking so once again I’m sorry! Time has just gone so fast for me I only have 2 more weeks at uni and then I have 3 months off (and yes I will probably get bored, but just see what happens) Anyway you have probably noticed that I’ve recreated this site in flash what do you think?

I’ve had record numbers of visits to this site over 1200 this month and still counting thank you to all of you that visit this site and joining up to this great club!

Just a reminder we are having a meet up on the 7th of November at Cornwall Park at 1PM, for those of you that haven’t been to Cornwall Park, it is huge so there’s plenty to take pictures of. I hope to see you there.

The xmas season is creeping up and I’m thinking about running a seminar on how to take xmas lights with SLR cameras if your interested send me an email and the more emails I get the more likely I will do one.

Anyway I’ve got to get back to my study.
Until next time, happy photographing!

PS. Has you have probably noticed I've been trying to host my blog on my website, unfortunetly its not working, so for now on it will be on this website!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Exciting days...

Howdy folks!

Its been a while since I have posted on this blog, sorry about that. But to make up for that, I have some exciting news which is the first "FotoFX" Club meetup has been scheduled to the 10th of October at Long Bay Beach - 1 pm. RSVPS too my email. waynefrost16@hotmail.com . We will be meeting at Long Bay Regional Park, Northern car park by the miniature railway, Please to here of a map : http://www.fotofxclub.com/sites.html Once we are there we will be able to share ideas amongst each other as well as take some cool photographs as Long Bay Beach is full of awesome photo oppertunitys.

I took part as a group yesterday organized by Michael Provost (www.webpix.co.nz) it was a "CBD & Viaduct walk and talk. As the was my first meetup I was blown away by the amount of people that showed up and soome of their camera were HUGE!! You can see some of my photos that I took during this meetup here : www.flickr.com/photos/waynefrost

Untill next time,
happy photographing,
Wayne

"FotoFX" Club - The newest photography club on the North Shore
www.fotofxclub.com

Friday, September 11, 2009

Early days yet.....

Hello fellow photographers!

As you probably know my name is Wayne Frost, founder of FotoFX (www.fotofxclub.com) I trust that you have seen that website, if you havent, head over there and check it out! Oh and by the way as this club is new Im open to comments and suggestions! Ok we have that all out of the way let me tell you about Foto FX, it is the newest photography club on the north shore the objective of this club is just to really have some serious fun! As well as getting together, sharing thoughts and ideas as well as covering the technical side of things like camera operation, abit of Photoshop and After Effects.
So if you havent joined, you can do it anytime by going to www.fotofxclub.com.

I hope to see you (and your camera) soon!
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Intill next time,
Happy Photographing!

PS. You can see some of my images at :
www.flickr.com/photos/waynefrost