Photography in the time of COVID-19

Photography, especially, landscape, nature, wildlife, astrophotography is probably the best type of photography to learn and do while social distancing in the time of COVID-19.  You are surrounded by nature socially distancing from everyone.  No one is around you.  You’re out in the fresh air.  It’s fantastic.  

These four photos were taken in Moosecreek, Ontario which is situated roughly halfway between Ottawa and Montreal.  The sky glow in the bottom picture is actually sky glow from Montreal which is about 45 minutes east of the location.  It’s almost like photographing the night sky in daylight which is not good.

The shots were taken with the Sony a7R Mark II with the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM lens.  Pretty good ISO at 1600.  Hardly any noise.  All photos were edited on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro with the 12.9” screen and the 512GB hard drive.  All pictures were edited on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro in Affinity Photo. I am using the Apple Magic keyboard to type this and it’s actually an amazing typing experience this blog.  My configuration consists of the 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9” using the Magic Keyboard to type and the Magic Mouse as my primary pointing device.  I am using the USB-C card reader made by Apple to get all my photography.  I also have the second version of the Apple Pencil for very specific editing.

I’ve gone out twice to do astrophotography in the last 2 months which is twice more than I’ve done in the last several years.  It took me a while to find focus since I’ve never used this camera for astrophotography before but I think the pictures came out very well.

I think this summer, the fiancée and I will head up to the Algonquin Radio Telescope for night and do some photography from there.  I haven’t been there in a few years and I need to revisit the place with my new photography setup.  

New Apple keyboard for the 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9”

I received my the new 2020 Apple Keyboard for my 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9” iPad Pro.  I have to say that the 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9” with the 512GB hard drive IS a laptop replacement.  Typing is simply incredible on the keyboard.  It is more tactile with the key travel being a lot better than with the keyboard folio made by Apple.  I’ve had the 2018 Apple iPad Pro for over a year now and I can now say, with the new keyboard, I am never going back to a Windows or Mac OS X based laptop or desktop.  As a photographer, this iPad Pro is a beast.  There is not much difference as far as horsepower goes between the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pros.  From what I hear, the 2020 iPad Pro is only 1% faster than the 2018 iPad Pro.  The only reasons I’d upgrade to the 2020 iPad Pro is if I bought the 1TB version for the extra 500GB of space and the extra 2GB in memory.  But with the iPadOS being so efficient with the memory use, there is no point in having 6GB of RAM.

If the next iPad Pro has 8GB of RAM and larger SSDs like a 2TB or a 4TB model with a better GPU, then yes I would upgrade.  But the 2018 Apple iPad Pro handles my 85MB RAW files from my Sony a7RII like a champ.  There is absolutely no lag in processing the Sony RAW files.

The only thing I miss on the new version of the Apple keyboard are the function keys.  Actually the only function keys I miss are the ESC key and the volume Up/Down keys.  Other than that, that is all I miss.  By the way, if you go to https://www.josefpittner.photos, you can purchase my photography from the St. Lawrence Seaway.  The border between Canada and the U.S.A is unfortunately still closed which isn’t cool.  Maybe next time we go down there, the border will be open and we can actually cross into upstate New York and do some photography there.

New website to purchase photos from

Opened up a new website hosted by Smugmug.  You can go to josefpittner.smugmug.com to purchase just photography at better prices I think.  If you’re a photographer needing a new place to sell your photos, Smugmug is great.  Here is a 20% discount code: https://secure.smugmug.com/signup?Coupon=R256Bb

Algonquin Park - Landscapes

It is 23:15 on Saturday night.  Just got home from Algonquin Park maybe half an hour ago.  I transferred all my photography and videos from my various SD cards and here are the first two shots that I edited from our day at Algonquin Park along the Highway 60 corridor.  Quite the successful afternoon from the park.  3 moose and lots of lakes that were photographed.

From looking at most of the photography today, it looks amazing.  Tomorrow will be more video stuff from the Tulip Festival here in Ottawa.  Thankfully they opened up the city parks this past week.  Most people are social distancing thankfully.  I still think this whole corona virus is way overblown as pretty much all the deaths are in long term care facilities which everyone knew was going to happen.  But that's just my opinion.

Shooting with the Sony a7R Mark II and the Sony f3.5-63 24MM-200MM

Went out again with the Sony a7R Mark II and the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM lens today  I am really impressed with this camera and lens combination.  I went to Dows Lake which is centrally located in Ottawa, Ontario - Canada.  It's where the tulip festival is held every year.  Luckily this year, there aren't hoards of tourists from Toronto.  Typically there are 3-10 bus loads of Asian tourists and it's impossible to move.  Luckily this year the park is clean due to the lack of people.  Typically tourists just throw garbage everywhere and spit all over the place.

The Sony a7R Mark II comes with a 42.4 megapixel full frame sensor.  It outputs roughly 85 megabyte uncompressed RAW files.  So a lot of information to pay with.  I edited the above photos in Affinity Photo 1.8.3 on a Windows 10 based laptop.  The Apple iPad Pro 12.9" with the 512GB hard drive running iPadOS 13.3.1 has been acting funny the last two days.  I've reinstalled iPadOS once already and I'll give it another day or two to settle down.  The two images above are available for sale on my website. 

I really enjoy using the camera to take the photos.  I will post more photos once I am done editing them in Affinity Photo.

Mating Canadian Geese

Couldn’t set up my 4K camera in time.  Shot this on my Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max.

I’ve had enough with laptops/desktops

So I do my photography with a Sony a7R II, a 42.4 megapixel beast.  I shoot my footage with a Canon Vixia HF G50, a 4K/30fps camcorder and I edit everything on a 2018 Apple iPad Pro with the 512GB hard drive, the 12.9” screen and 4GB of memory.  I was thinking of upgrading the iPad Pro to the 2020 iPad Pro with the 1TB hard drive and 6GB of RAM.  From what I have read, the new 2020 Apple iPad Pro is only 1% faster than the 2018 Apple iPad Pro.  Is it worth upgrading?  Hell no.  Not for $1949 plus tax.  I did get the new Apple keyboard though for the iPad.  It should be here in a few weeks.  I have absolutely no need for a laptop or a desktop to edit my photography or my footage.  The iPad Pro is just a beast of a powerhouse.  Maybe I will upgrade in 2021 when they bring out the A14X chip.  The 12.9” screen is just fine.  I can edit fine detail in my photography in Affinity Photo or Pixelmator Photo.  Apple Photos is just fine for my video editing I believe.  I don’t do heavy edits in any app.  I just shoot in RAW for photography.  File sizes are about 85 megabytes and the iPad Pro has no problem handling these types of file sizes.  The Canon Vixia HF G50 outputs 500-600 megabyte files for a minute of 4K footage which is all I use to upload to Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Pond5 and Storyblocks.

The only problem I can foresee for myself is file storage.  I may need to upgrade in a year or two for the 1TB hard drive.  If Apple puts a 2TB, 4TB or an 8TB hard drive into future iPads, there will be no reason to buy a laptop or a desktop.  Apple will just need to upgrade their online storage.  With the current 2TB cap for $12 a month is just not enough.  I’d probably need 4-8TB of online storage.  I would be willing to pay $20-25 a month for 4-8TB of online storage.