Photographer Jaana Kotamäki was special guest star in my work communes camera club meeting. She showed some spectacular pictures from Tall Ship’s Race event that was held in Turku last summer. It was definitely biggest event in Turku area that year. Jaana also won the Memorable Photography Trophy -competition with these pictures: Silver Trophy serie by Jaana Kotamäki.
Slide show was excellent with good music and effects (zooming in to the picture and out of it and also some horizontal movements). Of course you can always improve the presentation, but then you will never be ready… Presentation was created with Boinx FotoMagico -application – same app that I also used when slide show presentation is needed. It is very easy to use and still you can create professional level presentation, unfortunately it is only available for Mac OS.
Photo competition topic was quite challenging – ‘Change’. I was really surprised the amount and especially quality of pictures that was sent in. Surprisingly my ‘ring / heart’ picture won the competition. Certainly some other judge would have different choices, but like I said – this time I was the lucky one.
Like always, it was last minute panic when I realized that I don’t have any pictures to next competition. And it was the same morning already. iPhone picture has been in my mind earlier but my idea was to take it outside of Apple Shop. Luckily the local newspaper has this whole page ad just before competition. Idea for change is that youngster in the picture still has some old mobile phone but she would like to switch to this sexy and trendy iPhone.
Ring-picture started form the idea that getting married is big (or huge) change for everybody. First picture I took with two ring with the bible, but then I remember this heart-shadow issue with ring and open book. Testing couple of different rings this one was the best – it’s my oldest daughters class-ring – and she got that just day before. Picture is taken with Sigma 150mm macro-lens and light comes from morning sun.
You can see all top pictures from our camera club gallery.
That was the topic in our monthly photo competition in Turku Nature Photographers meeting. Unfortunately I missed that meeting and therefore I don’t know what kind of feedback judge said of my photos. Esa Mälkönen, chairman of Finnish Nature Photographers association, was the special guest (and judge) in the meeting. He showed nature pictures all over Finland.
This time my pictures didn’t succeed.
First picture shows event that is not so easy to photograph – Small Tortoiseshells mating. Normally they are hiding because mating takes quite a long time. I was moving some old wooden platforms in our backyard and this couple was hiding there. Of course I took lot of pictures with different lenses because I knew that this could be once in a lifetime chance. But I didn’t have the heart to disturb them too long and finally I build a new hide for this lovers.
And ‘nature in the city’ part comes from the buildings…
This other picture has been taken in autumn 2003 with my Ixus v3 pocket camera. Location is center of my hometown (see map) and it definitely belongs to this competition topic. Picture has taken from Tuomaansilta (bridge) and this scenery can be count to be somekind of national scenery in Turku. You can also see some famous buildings in it – like Cathedral of Turku and Observatory in Vartiovuori.
Top 6 pictures can be seen from Turku Nature Photographers pages.
My camera equipment consist 5D mark II and 1D mark III bodies plus several f2.8 lenses. Using two cameras with different lenses (medium zoom and tele) is the way I like to work in football field. But still I kept wondering that should I change 1D to 7D. That would give me needed extra pixels for high quality large prints plus also another body with video possibility.
7D worked quite well on my first test, but the focusing speed was not what I expected. I though that it would be quite close of 1D mark III, but maybe I need to change some cF-functions before I made the final decision.
Couple years ago I used 20D and those pictures are still good – and 7D is light year ahead of that model so I know that it will be good also in football field, but first expression was not so good as expected.
Here are some pictures from last Inter Turku game with different cameras.
by TW
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