Andrew Spencer Kaikoura blog | Andrew Spencer Photography - Kaikoura New Zealand - Part 4 | Andrew Spencer Photography

Thanks, Happy Holidays and a Great 2010

December 22nd, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in » Nothing in particular

Another year gone by.

We would like to thank all our great Customers for making 2009 fun and happy.

Also a big thanks to all our service providers and support people for helping make everything run smoothly.

The best to everyone for a fantastic 2010.

2010 Kaikoura Desk Calendar – The New Wharf

November 14th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in » Around Kaikoura, shop

Who knows what we’re going to name the New – New Kaikoura Wharf. The New Wharf was called such since 1909, I guess now we have a New Kaikoura Wharf Version 2.0?

All remnants of the old New Wharf are now cleared away and apparently the new structure will be ready for action any day now.
We all look forward to being able to access this very special part of town after construction keeping us out for months.

One of the themes for our ever popular Desk Calendars for 2010 is - The Wharf. A collection of images of the New Wharf in it’s former glory, these images will be collectors pieces from here on.

The 2010 Kaikoura Scenes Calendar will be out in the next few days also.

Grab your Calendars over at the Shop, remember use the coupon code ‘kiwi’ at checkout for free shipping in NZ.

Tags: 2009 kaikoura calendar, andrew spencer photography, coupon code, desk calendar, former glory, free shipping, images of kaikoura, interesting place, kaikoura, kaikoura calendars, kaikoura new zealand, kaikoura photos, new wharf, photos of kaikoura, remnants

A Ford Thunderbird Kaikoura wedding with the Canon 7D

November 8th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in » Photography, Wedding

Crikey, that’s a bit of a mouth full of blog title. Read on, the post is not as onerous as the title!

A fantastic, good fun and great looking wedding party, Kaikoura scenery and a Ford Thunderbird, now just how good can it get. Cars are a cool wedding accessory, especially when they have some attitude. Classic and red always works and I’m lucky to get more than my share of kick ass wedding cars at wedding days. This weekend was the usual weekend treat. The wedding party were great fun, there were a few of them though and I had to do a quick head count each time before setting into a group shoot! The great thing about a large wedding party is that there is always someone coming up with an inspirational crazy fun idea for us to photograph and the ideas kept on coming this weekend and we soon ran out of time.

Canon 7D review update.

My Canon 7D has had a good shake down now, shot many thousands of images, been used every day since I took delivery and displaced the 1 series Canons that I have in my arsenal. My faithful 1DsII has come back from the Canon hospital with a brand new shutter, I’ve used it for one job but it’s big and heavy, the AF isn’t as snappy as the 7D. There always seems to be dust on the sensor no matter how often I get it cleaned and although the files are always crisp and clean and colour accurate, for the work I do the 7D files are perfect and I’m going to have this damned thing worn out in no time at all.

With my style of photography I choose to shoot in manual mode all the time which means I cannot comment on the metering capabilities of the 7D.

I’ve shot several hundred portrait shots with studio light in jpeg and found the histogram to be accurate for good file results.

I’ve used the 7D for weddings since I got it and I’m loving it.

Why I like the 7D for wedding photography.

Mostly for the reasons I outlined in the first review, but to reiterate:

Ergonomics and handling, including the weight compared to a 1 series Canon.

Big, bright viewfinder.

Snappy AF, works great in low light and with a Speed light is brilliant.

Performance (shoot rate)

Canon 7D workflow

There still seems to be some hiccups with the 7D workflow.

The Canon supplied software is not really an option for a professional workflow, although it produces quite nice files it is too clunky and slow for high volume use.

My 7D workflow at the moment goes like this;

Photo Mechanic for ingestion, selection, file naming, IPTC and Ex if meta-data.

RAW Developer for processing of RAW files to JPG usable files.

Adobe LightRoom for fast cropping, applying effects and cataloguing files.

Photoshop for any major editing or effects.

I convert all files to jpg with an sRGB profile straight from the RAW file unless it is some super duper image that I want to do a heap of work to. It is pointless to clutter your system with huge tiff files with Adobe RGB files when 99% of the worlds printers do a perfect job of printing with an sRGB profile and a jpg file with a compression of around 10.

In conclusion

Isn’t it so cool to every day be able to use the most amazing, cutting edge technology that mankind has devised! When I look back 10 short years to using film cameras compared to the most incredible technology and image quality we now have available I have to think that everything is just so perfect and how can we ever complain about the shortcomings of the amazing equipment we have.