AEIRA Gallery

My photos for the 6 hour Ice Race @ Telford Lake are now up on my smugmug account. You can find them here:

http://www.albertamotophoto.smugmug.com/gallery/7231775_RL64F#464658303_gXPW3

The rest of the Ice race season looks like this:

Feb 1 Chip Lake 6 Hr

Feb 8th Telford Lake 6 Hr

Feb 14/15 Sandy Beach Numb Bumb 2 Hour

Feb 22 Sandy Beach 6 Hr

Mar 1st Grand Prairie 6 Hr

Mar 8th Chip Lake 6 Hour

Go to www.aeira.com for more details.

I am hoping to go to a couple more Ice races this year (I'll be at the next Telford Round)

AEIRA Jan 25th Telford Lake

I was out today on Telford lake doing some photos of the Alberta Endurance Ice Racing Association 6 hour race. I took about 3000 photos and it will probably take a week or so before I finish processing the photos and start uploading them to my smugmug account (www.albertamotophoto.smugmug.com) . But for now here are a few photos.

Comox Photos Part Deux

A few photos harbor shot photos of the same subject. The first shot is with my Sigma 15-30mm at 15mm and f/9.0. The second shot is using my Canon 70-200mm at f7.1 from the same location.

A few Comox photos

Here are a few photos I took on my last few days of my Vacation. The first one is made from 6 photos that are stitched together. The masts lined up quite nicely!

The second shot is 3 shots stiched together. This photo is from the walkway along Comox Harbour.

Third shot is into the sun along the Courtenay Bird Sanctuary.

All shots were taken with a Sigma 15-30mm f3.5-4.5 EX Aspherical DG DF wide angle lens. It's quite a nice lens and I love the sharpness and colour that the lens seems to produce. It seems like I need to do little post processing to make a decent image. The only big annoyance I've had with it is with sun flare. At certain angles, even when the sun is fully out of frame I still get flare. Sigma replaced the lens with its 10-20mm, but from some reviews I have read the 15-30mm is better overall. It may be out of production, but if you look around you can still find them on ebay and kijiji. For what I paid for it, I think its a great value.

There are Fred-Miranda reviews here:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=94&sort=7&cat=37&page=1

some nice reviews here and here as well:

http://www.bythom.com/1530lens.htm

and

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Sigma-15-30mm-f35-45-EX-DG

I also used my 15-30mm for the Rememberance Day photos in my November blog entry and for my night shots Blog on October 13th. The legislature shots are quite nice.

IIHF Under 17 Volume II

Here are a few action shots from the game. They aren't the best as they were taken six rows up and through the rather dirty glass. Had to use high iso to get them to turn out at all.

First picture is of Team Ontario player John McFarland (#18) shooting on German Goaltender Lukas Steinhanuer (#2). The shot went wide.

Second and third shots are of forward Sam Carrick (#22) outhussling the German defence.

Forth shot is of Jeff Skinner (#19) waiting for a cross ice pass.

Last shot is of Tyler Toffoli (16) checking Maik Blankart (5) to the boards. It was called a hit from behind and Blankart.

World U-17 Hockey Challenge

Here are a few photos I took from the 17 Under Challenge game between Canada and Germany on January 1st. The photos aren't the best. For these ones I was against the plexiglass as the German team practiced. Used a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 at ISO 1250-1600 and set the shutter speed to about 1/400 a second. Poor lighting conditions and the plexiglass made it a bit of a challenge. But it was nice to try something a bit different.

Pictured in the first and fourth photo is #3 defenceman Konrad Abeltshauser. In the second photo is the guy who I thought was the best German player, goatender Lukas Steinhanuer (#2). Also pictured is #15 forward David Elsner .

The Germans played hard and were competitive for the first period, but were eventually worn down and beaten 5-1 by Team Ontario