Category Archives: Photography

Posts regarding photography and related topics.

My Favourite Image of the Year

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Hi Folks:

Mostly every year since 2010, on New Year’s Day we’ve taken the opportunity to make some images of Marcia, and without hesitation it’s my favourite image of the year. We started out doing this at Government House, but for the past several years we’ve headed to Beacon Hill Park instead. This is the image for 2025:

This is a portrait orientation image of Marcia - sporting a bright red hat, a multi-coloured scarf, black raincoat and black pants, leaning against one of the giant sequoia trees in Victoria's Beacon Hill Park.

Marcia, New Year’s Day 2025

I know she looks beautiful here, but the image doesn’t really do her justice. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

From Marcia and me, we wish you a new year filled with as much happiness, health, prosperity, excitement, love, peace and adventure as you can handle!

Hugs,
M&M

2025 Photo Calendars (part two)

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Hi Folks:

This is just a quick update to our previous calendar post as we’ve gone through the thousands of images we’ve made this year and picked out 12 for our calendar. As usual, some of the images were made with our cell phones and some were made with the Sony a7rIII camera. Some of the images were made by Marcia and some by Mike, but none of that really matters. All of this year’s images were made in and around Victoria, BC except for October’s, which was made on Mayne Island, BC.

Combined, our calendar looks like the image below. If you’d like to download a copy for yourself, click the image to link to a .pdf version.

This image shows all 12 of our calendar pages, each with an image at the top and the monthly calendar at the bottom. They're aligned in two rows of six months each. Continue Reading →

2025 Photo Calendars (part one)

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Hi Folks:

As we’ve passed mid-November, we’re slowly closing out 2024. That means it’s time to make our photo calendar templates available, both for MS Word users (for those who don’t use graphics programs) and as .png files for those who do. As before we will be making our own calendar available in .pdf format for those who are interested, but (as we did last year) we’re doing the post in two parts. For our calendar we use images made in that month (i.e. the image for May 2025 was made in May 2024). Since we haven’t yet gotten to December our calendar isn’t yet complete, but we wanted to make the templates available so others can work on their own calendars. Continue Reading →

Making Panoramas in the Rainforest (part two)

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Hi Folks:

Making digital panoramas is essentially a two-part process. In part one of this post I covered a bit about digital panoramas in general and some considerations that become important when collecting the images to be used for the panorama. Part two is focused (pun intended) more toward what to do with the images once you have them on your computer.

NB: If you have a smart phone you can use the panorama mode on your phone to make a simple panorama. Some even allow you to create a panoramic image from a video. Depending on your phone and your expectations, that may be sufficient for your needs. For me, it’s mostly not, because one of the benefits I find in making a digital panorama is the increase in resolution I obtain from joining together several images into one. The downside to that is that file sizes can get quite large, so when rendering the final image file it’s best to balance what you want against the capabilities of your computer. Sometimes I try to make smoke come out of mine… 🙂

This post is (typically) very long, and so we’ve broken it up into segments for you. Clicking on the subtitles will bring you to the relevant section:

How Panorama Software Works
Projections
Panorama Software Options
Making Panoramas
Stitching Errors
Exposure and Image Noise
Parallax
White Balance
Chromatic Aberration, Fringing Colour Artifacts
Image Cropping
Keystoning
Final Thoughts

Continue Reading →

Using Capture One Pro in Black and White

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Hi Folks:

Yes, I’m aware I haven’t yet posted part two of my ‘Making Panoramas in the Rainforest‘ post. It’s coming. Truly!

Okay, the idea for this post came from a couple of sources, but most notably from an image I made recently with my phone camera. I have a Galaxy S21 phone, and in pro mode it allows me to shoot in raw/dng format. I can open those images in Capture One as raw files the way I would any other.

Before we continue I want to reiterate a couple of things. Those who have read our previous posts will be familiar with them. The first is a reminder that digital cameras don’t capture images. Digital cameras capture light as information, and we can take that information and arrange it in such a way that it looks like an image – either on screen or in a print. This happens because we arrange that information into a grid of little coloured dots (on paper) or little boxes (pixels) on the screen. Continue Reading →

Making Panoramas in the Rainforest (part one)

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Hi Folks:

I’ve been making digital panoramas for a lot of years now, and I’ve written at least a half-dozen different posts on different aspects of them. This one is for a specific case scenario rather than a general post on panoramas, but before we get too far, we need to cover a few basics. If you want to skip the basics and go straight to the rainforest part, click here.

First, understand that digital cameras don’t capture images. Digital cameras read light and render it as information; that information can be displayed in a way that makes it look like a photograph. All digital cameras capture raw files; not all digital cameras give you access to them. Now, raw files require digital post-processing on a computer (as compared to .jpg files, which are post-processed using an algorithm provided by the camera manufacturer and the processing power of the camera). The other side of that comparison is that raw files provide much more information to play with than .jpg files. This is especially important when shooting in the rainforest, as we’ll get to below.

Second, to do this with any degree of efficiency it’s important to understand at least the basics of colour management as it relates to cameras and computers. Remember: it’s less about accurate colour and more about consistent colour between devices.

So that we’re all on the same page, it’s important to understand the difference between a panoramic image and a digital panorama. Compare these two images:
(click on any image to see it larger)

a 1x4 aspect ratio image of the shoreline near Dallas Road in Victoria, BC. This is a grayscale image, with a winter storm bringing in waves from the left of the frame, and colliding with the rocks, driftwood and beach on the right.

Dallas Road shoreline, Victoria, BC

a digital panorama of sixty images, showing the north cliff face of Third Beach, near Tofino, BC. The ocean is on the left, and there's a small beach and some rocks in the foreground

Third Beach, Tofino, BC

Continue Reading →

Pacific Rim Whale Festival Auction

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Hi Folks:

Mike here. Although the Pacific Rim Whale Festival (in Tofino/Ucluelet, BC) ended yesterday, there are still 6+ days left in their online auction (ends March 31, 2024). One of those items is a print I donated to the auction. The image is of Cox Bay, Tofino, BC from a photograph I made a few years ago.The print itself is 12″x24″ (30×60 cm) and with the mat it extends to 18″x30″ (45×75 cm). I didn’t frame it because framing is a personal thing and I wanted to leave that open to the buyer.

This is a 2:1 wide image of the surfing beach at the north end of Cox Bay near Tofino, BC. Although a colour image, the colours are so muted that it appears to be grayscale. The waves are rolling into the shore, and several people are on surfboards, enjoying what may be the last ride of the day as the sun is setting behind the clouds in the background.

Last Ride – Cox Bay, Tofino, BC – October, 2020

If you’d like to support the festival and own a Mike Nelson Pedde original you can find the auction page here:

There are a number of other excellent auction choices as well. All proceeds from the auction go to support the whale festival and raising awareness about whales and the health of our oceans.

Hugs,
M&M

2024 Photo Calendars (part two)

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Hi Folks:

This is just a quick update to our previous calendar post as we’ve gone through the (5000+) images we’ve made this year and picked out 12 for our calendar. As usual, some of the images were made with our cell phones and some were made with the Sony a7rIII camera. Half of the images were made by Marcia and half by Mike, but none of that really matters. All of this year’s images were made in and around Victoria, BC except for October’s, which was made in Tofino, BC.

Combined, our calendar looks like the image below. If you’d like to download a copy for yourself, click the image to link to a .pdf version.
A composite image showing all 12 of our calendar pages for 2024. Each calendar occupies on letter-sized page, with the image at the top and the calendar portion at the bottom. —–
This is the fourteenth year that we’ve made our photo calendar templates available, both for MS Word users (for those who don’t use graphics programs) and as .png files for those who do. As before we will be making our own calendar available in .pdf format for those who are interested, but (as we did last year) we’re doing the post in two parts. For our calendar we use images made in that month (i.e. the image for May 2024 was made in May 2023). Since we haven’t yet gotten to December our calendar isn’t yet complete, but we wanted to make the templates available so others can work on their own calendars. Continue Reading →

2024 Photo Calendars (part one)

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Hi Folks:

This is the fourteenth year that we’ve made our photo calendar templates available, both for MS Word users (for those who don’t use graphics programs) and as .png files for those who do. As before we will be making our own calendar available in .pdf format for those who are interested, but (as we did last year) we’re doing the post in two parts. For our calendar we use images made in that month (i.e. the image for May 2024 was made in May 2023). Since we haven’t yet gotten to December our calendar isn’t yet complete, but we wanted to make the templates available so others can work on their own calendars. Continue Reading →

My Capture One Pro Workflow

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Hi Folks:

There are innumerable posts and videos about using the tools built in to Capture One to process your images to achieve certain looks… this is not one of them. Rather, this outlines the steps I take before I get to that stage. Before I get started I’ll quickly mention that I hopped on the Lightroom bandwagon from the first Beta, and jumped ship after v. 6.14. I moved to Capture One at that time, and although it has its own quirks (and frustrations), I’ve been mostly happy with it ever since. I’m currently using Capture One Pro 23. I should warn you that this post is (typically) both long and detailed. Some might mark it tl:dr and move on, but if you stick with it I trust you’ll find something of value. Continue Reading →