The 2018 Perseid meteor shower

The 2018 Perseid meteor shower this weekend meaning Ottawa is either going to get severe thunder storms or heavy snow fall.  I actually just looked at the Clear Sky Chart for Ottawa and guess what?  No rain, no snow, no clouds.  Which means I'm going to take a few photography friends, drive out into the country and go do some photography.

I'm also going to shoot some drone footage today and tomorrow as it's supposed to be a nice weekend.

Timelapse from today

Since my contract ended early due to shortage of work and looking for work on a Friday, I decided to give myself a break and have some time to relax I went downtown to shoot a time lapse of Parliament Hill from the Quebec side.  There were a lot of nice and fluffy clouds.  The clip should be up and approved soon on Shutterstock, Pond5 and Storyblocks.

Subscription versus ownership

Oh Adobe how you had me before the subscription service.  I was a big Photoshop and Lightroom user.  Now, not so much.  ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 and Serif' Affinity Photo are my software packages of choice.  Just as feature rich, just as if not more stable, ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 and Serif' Affinity Photo are the software of choice of hobbyist, semi-pro and pro photographers photo editing software.  Starting at $9.99US a month just for Lightroom and Photoshop and ending at $82.99US a month for all the software plus Adobe Stock is just not worth it.

When I was using the $9.99US option with Adobe, I just used Lightroom for 99.9% of my edits.  Lightroom was just fine.  I never went into Photoshop at all.  Maybe once ever six months to see some new features.  But that was about it.  Paying $9.99US was just not worth it.

I had asked some of photography buddies to see what they were using.  90% were using ON1 Photo Raw 18.5. For $99.99US (as of this time) you get a pretty damn good Digital Asset Management tool.  You get a discount on it now as well her for a grand total of $49.99. So basically this is what you will pay for Adobe in 5 months in a one time payment.  I'd say that's a lot better.  And you own the license to the software.  With Adobe's Creative Cloud, there is no license.  Everything is stored in the cloud as far as licensing goes.  You can still store your photos locally on your hard drive along with the programs.  But as soon as you stop paying for the subscription, the majority of the program stops working.  

ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 has a slight learning curve but I seem to pick it up easily.  All the concepts are pretty much the same.  Just the interface is a bit different.  Both ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 and Affinity Photo are great, proven programs with pretty much the same features as Photoshop and Lightroom.  If and when Serif comes out with a Digital Asset Management software, I will be switching over to that.

Now I gotta pack up my stuff so I can go fly my drone so I can edit more videos.

Passive income from photography

I primarily sell on 3 microstock agencies that are actually worth the time.  They include:

• Shutterstock
• Pond5
• Storyblocks

Granted, I sell more photos than I do footage but when I sell footage, it makes me a lot more money. If you asked me 4 or 5 years ago if I would ever do footage, I'd tell you you're crazy.  I remember being at my favorite location to photograph animals.  I had taken the day off from work.  The light was just amazing.  At that time I was using a Canon EOS 6D and a Sigma f5-6.3 150-500MM lens.  I shot the video just to see if I could and see if it would actually sell.

I got home.  Dumped all my files onto my computer.  Edited and uploaded everything to Shutterstock and luckily it got accepted.  I believe it was a few weeks later that it actually sold.  And it has been my best selling video since.  You can view it here.

So now I only upload to the above mentioned sites and it's been great ever since.  You too can sell photos and videos as well.  Shutterstock is by far my best website where I sell my photos and videos.  You can sign up here and start today.

Loyalty

To family and a few friends.  I can count on one hand how many loyal friends I have.  At times I don't think I even need hands to count the amount of friends that are loyal. Today I feel like I can only count on my family and my girlfriend.  I'll pick myself up by doing some photography.  That always cheers me up. Because photography is awesome.

Image theft in the age of Google.

As a photographer who sells his product on several micro stock sites and thru my own website, image theft and unauthorized image reproduction is the biggest threat to my business, my livelihood and my number one income online.  

One has to ask themselves.  Why do people steal someone else' photography?  The answer is quite simple.  Because they can.  People will steal and claim it as their own.  They bought the camera, they went to school and got an education in Photography and image editing.  They bought the computer, learnt Photoshop.  They're the one that took and edited that really good photograph.  

When I see one of my images being used by someone else who claims it as their own, it hurts me more financially than emotionally.  Of course I get insulted and mad that someone takes credit for my work and makes money off of my hard work.  I do a lot of nature and landscape photography.  On a regular trip to take animal photos, I travel at least an hour out of the city to see if I can try and get a photo of a moose or a bear or a deer or some bird I've never seen before.  Before I even enter my vehicle, I have to make sure my batteries are charged for my camera and camcorder.  I have to verify all my equipment works.  I have to pack it up and make sure I have all of it before I go.  Then there's the gas to get to where I'm going. Wear and tare on my vehicle, gas for the car.  If I go out, I'm probably eating breakfast, snacks during the day.  There's also my time.  That is exactly what you're stealing.  Image thieves can be high school students to multi-billion, multi-national corporations.  They are in fact one and the same.

Google and other search engines are the greatest threat to online piracy of pretty much anything and everything.  I can google my own name and hundreds of my own photographs and videos come up and all I have to do is right click on the image and I get a high definition image downloaded right to my computer hard drive.

As I upload to places like Shutterstock, Pond5 and Storyblocks, these agencies have or should have a legal departments to protect themselves and their contributors like myself from image theft.  But what if you post to your own website like I occasionally do.  There is code out there you can place on your website that will disable the Right click functionality of a users mouse so they cannot Right Click on your image and download it.  I've placed it on my website.  

What legal recourse do you, as an individual have to fight image thieves?  Litigate, email campaigns?  All take time and money right?  You can start a take down notice through the DMCA.  I haven't used it yet but I'm pretty sure it's the fastest and easiest way to start besides emailing the company, user or school using your work for financial gain.  

Value your work and go after the people and business' who steal from you.  It is your livelihood.  It is your passion.  Take care of it.

No Social Media

I finally shut off my Facebook account today.  Instagram and Twitter were completely useless as far as marketing my services go.  Never ever made money with social media.  All I got was trolls and spam email and requests to send money to someone in Nigeria.  

Those platforms never really did work as I only upload my photography and footage to sites like Shutterstock, Pond5 and Videoblocks.  I've recently started to blog in the hopes people find my photos and footage appealing.  I think it also helps people to know me a little better.  

Facebook and Twitter for me were very polarizing.  Especially over the past decade or so with what's come out about Facebook and Twitter, with what they've being doing and trying to do in recent elections.  There is a lot of fake news and a lot of propaganda which is dividing people against each other which does not help.  I don't want my blog to be about politics, censorship or anything of that nature.  I want my followers to be constructive when criticizing my photographs or videos.  Don't make hateful or offensive comments.  It does not add to the discussion but rather detracts.  I am open to ideas.  Good and bad.  I am willing to help and learn.  I want to teach what I know.  I want to learn from other people.

I find social media makes people very anti-social.  Smart phones are making people not so smart.  Growing up, we did our own research.  We did not have Google.  We actually read books.  That's where we learned from.  Now you can find everything on Google or YouTube.  Well almost everything.  I hope that people actually use less and less social media.  I hope people instead go for walks and drives out into the country.  Take their cameras and camcorders with them.  You actually have a device that fits in your pocket that does both.  Actually talk to each other.  More importantly listen to one another. 

I have to go back

This place is just so amazing.  The American Southwest is completely mesmerizing.  I went there 2 and a half years ago.  It was about 10 months after my divorce.  I was not in a good place emotionally and I just needed a break from work and everything.  I've never been on a vacation by myself to anywhere.  I just needed a place to relax.  I had two choices at the time as I remember.  Either go to Arizona or California.  

In California, I wanted to go on the Pacific Coast highway for a few days and I wanted to go see a couple of the national parks.  I remember watching several YouTube videos and seeing all the homeless in San Fransisco and Los Angeles.  That alone swayed me to go to Arizona.  One of my profs in college went there and I remember seeing his pictures of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley.

Needless to say I made the right decision.  I instantly fell in love with the state when I landed in Phoenix.  I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.

Lets just say even with the louse cold weather I had an amazing time.  It's an amazing wonder to see in person.  Never seeing it before and walking up to the cliff to see the majesty of the Grand Canyon is a once in a life time experience.  I only spent about 6 hours at the Grand Canyon but what six hours those were.  I am hoping to go back very soon to try and recreate the experience.  I would suggest that you go there as well as it should be on anyone' bucket list.

Fort Henry, Ontario - Arial view

Just one of the videos I took over Fort Henry when we were in Kingston, ON over the August long weekend.  The drones are a lot of fun to fly but I fear losing it.  I try and keep it in visual site.  I think next year I will upgrade from the DJI Spark to the DJI Mavic Pro just so I can take better video with the drone.  The DJI Spark takes really good videos but I want something better.

Fort Henry, ON - Canada

So we were in Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario yesterday which was fantastic.  Weather was sunny and hot.  And I mean real hot.  We went back today only to find out that the wait to get in was about a two hour wait just to pay to get into the park.  My girlfriend and I decided it wasn't worth the two hour wait as they already closed the big beach there as it reached capacity.  We decided to head to Kingston, ON as my girlfriend has never been to Fort Henry.  

I took the opportunity to fly my DJI Spark.  Take some pictures and some video.  I'm learning on how to fly the drone as it's a bit scary the first few times.  On occasion, I would lose sight of it in the sun.  I keep forgetting to look at my Apple iPhone 8+ to see what I'm actually photography and taping.  I've just finished uploading to my Shutterstock, Pond5 and Videoblocks portfolios.  Hopefully they will be accepted and available for sale soon

On a side not, I got a nickname of Red Lobster because of the sunburn.  

This is way too...

...early to be up n a Saturday morning.  I've been up since 5am.  That is all.

Will be heading to...

...Sandbanks Provincial Park near Kingston, Ontario this weekend.  I will be taking the drone and cameras.  Hopefully the weather will co-operate and my back will be ok.  The last time we went, my back pretty much spasmed out and we had to go to the hospital for the back pain.  I could not sleep on my back and it was really uncomfortable.  Luckily we went to the chiropractor and my back seems to be ok.

On a side note, Google in its infinite wisdom does not support the blogger app in the Apple app store.  So I'm looking for a blogging IOS app which is cheap and good.  Let me know in the comments section please.   Thanks everyone and have a good weekend.  Especially the long weekend here in Ontario.

Review of the Sony RX10 Mark II

This bridge style camera is a really good travel camera that produces excellent pictures and 4k video. It uses the same chip as the RX100 line and the Sony FDR AX100 B 4k camcorder.  Being a bridge style camera the 24mm-200mm f2.8 is non removable.  

Yes there are two new models, the III and IV with longer lenses but they are also slower at the long end capturing less light than the f2.8 Carl Zeiss lens.  You can look at my Shutterstock profile here to see the capability of this fantastic little camera.  It's quite a bit bigger than the RX100 line of cameras but way smaller and lighter than a regular DSLR camera.  It also does not over heat when shooting in 4k mode.  It has the same 1" sensor as the RX100 line of pocket cameras.

It shoots 4k video at only 24fps or 30fps.  But at 1080p you can shoot all the way up to 960fps slow motion.  With the 20 megapixel sensor, this bridge camera takes great photos and videos.  Sony is really known for their sensors supplying other camera manufacturers.

Some pros of the camera are:

1. Great photo quality
2. Great video quality
3. Shoots 4k video
4. Shoots slow motion video
5. Light in weight
6. Very portable
7. Picture profiles for both still and videos

Some cons of the camera

1. No inter changeable lens
2. Battery life
3. Feels small in the hand

In the near future I will be upgrading to the Sony RX10 Mark IV just for the reach of the lens being a 24MM to 600MM.  Really great for those nature shots.

The best camcorder ever!!!!!

Yes.  It's the best prosumer camcorder ever built.  It shoots 1080p/60fps.  No it does not shoot 4k.  I'm glad it doesn't.  Yes 4k televisions are falling in price.  In Canada, the major cable providers only have 1 or 2 4k channels.  With dwindling cable subscribers  I don't see the major providers upgrading their equipment to fully support 4k in the near future.  I have a 4k television at home with an Apple 4k TV set top box which we, being my girlfriend and I don't hardly watch.  We don't watch a whole lot of television rather looking at our phones or iPads or computers which only support 1080p or 1440p.  But on a phone, you cannot differentiate between 1080p and 1440p.  There are a few phones that have 4k displays but again, they're a small screen factor.  That is why I'm still shooting 1080p.

Lets get back to the Canon Vixia HF G40 camcorder available for purchase here.  Like I've written previously it does shoot at 1080p/60fps.  What Canon does right with this camcorder is colour reproduction.  It does come with 20x optical zoom and 300x digital zoom.  Thanks to the sensors enhanced sensitivity, the Vixia HF G40 provides vivid, accurate recording through an improved signal to noise ratio.  The camera shoots in both MP4 and AVCHD with MP4 being web ready.  The camera provides dual SD card slots for never ending storage.  I have 2 64GB cards in the camera and I can shoot the whole weekend and not fill up both cards.  You can record to both cards at the same time just in case one fails.  I did buy an extra battery for longer shooting.  I can shoot about 90 minutes with the battery that comes with the camera and with my larger battery I can shoot over 220 minutes on a single charge.

The OLD screen is big and bright even during sunny days.  The electronic viewfinder shifts to 45 degrees and is easy to use and see thru.  For a guy with glasses, it's a big help.  The optical image stabilization is great when you want to shoot that is far away from you.  The lens is great on this camera being a f1.8 to f2.8 which means it's great in low light and is extremely sharp.  

Here are some of the pros of the camera:

1. Great price
2. Great lens
3. Portable
4. 1080p/60fps
5. Focal lenght
6. Multiple hot shoes to attach accessories
7. OLED screen
8. Viewfinder
9. Comes with remote control and lens cap
10. Weight of 1.7 pounds
11. Reach of 26.7MM to 576MM (35MM equivalent)
12. Wide angle and zoom lenses available
13. Has Wifi and FTP 
14. Superb video
15. Superb colour reproduction

Here are some of the negatives:

1. Does not shoot 4k (is that a negative?)

You can buy two teleconvertors.  One wide and one a telephoto.  I currently have the wide lens and it's amazingly sharp.  The camera does have audio in which unfortunately doesn't provide phantom power.  I currently use the Rode Video Mic Pro+ available here.

When I was in Calgary last year for work I brought this camera with me.  I decided to buy a Sony 4k camcorder thinking 4k is the future.  Let's just say I sold the 4k camcorder and I kept the Canon.  With the Canon I don't need that many hard drives as the files are smaller and I don't need as much processing power.  If I wanted I could use my iPhone 8 Plus running iMovie to edit my Canon clips for my portfolios.  You can check my portfolio links on my blog to see what the camera is capable of.

Best pocket camera in the world

The Sony RX100 Mark V is possibly the best pocket camera in the world.  Currently you can buy the Sony RX100 Mark VI as well but the Mark V is a bit cheaper.  The Mark VI has a 24-200MM lens compared to the 24-70MM on the RX100 Mark V.  The Mark V takes amazing photos and videos and I'm guessing the Mark VI is slightly better.

The Sony RX100 Mark V has a one inch type Exmor RS CMOS sensor with a 21 megapixel sensor (20.1MP effective) which shoots great photos and even better videos up to 4k.  It can shoot up to 4K UHD video and regular video at 1080P.  It can even shoot slow video up to 980fps.  I've had the camera for over a year now and it is very reliable.  I take it everywhere with me since it does fit into my pocket.  You don't feel like a paparazzi with the camera.  You will not get stares as you would with a gigantic DSLR and a 70-200 lens.

The Sony RX100 Mark VI does have a 24-200MM lens which is awesome and is the only reason I would ever upgrade to the Mark VI.  The Mark V is very versatile little camera.  It's pretty much travelled with me every where I go.  From Calgary to Vancouver to Ottawa and down south to Florida.

The pros of the camera are:

1. Pocket size
2. Shoots awesome video
3. Shoots awesome photos
4. Easy to setup and use
5. Great for vlogging
6. 24 photo burst rate (Raw images)
7. Non-invasive 
8. Descent audio capture for such a small camera

The cons of the camera are:

1. It overheats when shooting 4K video 
2. 5 minutes limitations on 4k video
3. Battery life.  Buy lots and lots of batteries.  At least 2-3
4. Menu system is atrocious.  But once you learn it, it's ok.
5. No input jack for better audio

For me, I shoot mainly stock photos and videos so I don't really need audio recording for my needs.  This little camera does pretty much everything.  I actually sold all my Canon gear and bought the Sony RX100 Mark V and a Sony RX10 Mark II when I was out in Calgary for work.  I took it to the mountains whenever I was out there on weekends.  

If you would like to purchase it, please click here and help me out a little.  I do get a little back from Amazon when you purchase something.  It helps me buy new equipment and software and helps me travel to new places to take better pictures and videos.