Arctic Exposure

Final Entry, here at Blogger

2011-02-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

I've decided to switch blog hosting services. I'm now going to be using Posterous, and I've imported all my old blog entries into the new blog that I've created there, and I won't be posting here any more, so if you want to follow me here's where to go:

Arctic Exposure @ Posterous

Pentax K-5: Firmware Upgrade 1.00 to 1.01

2010-11-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

Pentax has released a firmware upgrade to the Pentax K-5. This allocates more RAM to be used when you use continuous drive mode so you can do longer bursts before the buffer is filled up and the shooting speed slows down.

With the 1.00 firmware you get about 7-9 in RAW format (with either PNG or PEF), but after the upgrade you get around 25, which is a big difference (1 second to 3 seconds of burst). With JPEG I got the same amount, and with RAW + JPEG I got 25 as well.

I used the SanDisk Extreme III 4GB card which I get 20MB per second from when I copy the pictures and videos to my PC via a card reader, the small one that came with the cards (I've got three of these cards). I'll be upgrading and buying a few SanDisk Extreme III 30MB/p Edition 16GB which should, as the name says, be 50% faster, so I'll do a new test then to see if this changes the frame count in continuous drive mode since the camera then might be able to empty the buffer memory faster. This of course depends on what write speed the camera has to the SD cards, if the cards are faster.

Also, on the 4GB cards I have room for about 117 RAW files or 5:25 of 1080p video in full quality, so the 16GB cards will let me photograph or record video longer before running out of space.

Photography Competition: Fall and Winter

2010-11-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Norwegian photographer Lise Sundberg has a small competition on her blog. There are two themes, fall and winter.

I want to take part in this competition, so here are my photographs for these two themes:

Fall:

Winter:

Good luck to all those who take part in the competition :)

Midnattsrocken 2010 (and 2009 and 2008)

2010-07-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

So I went to Midnattsrocken 2010. But I got sick on the second day and had to go home, it was very sad! Hopefully I'll be back stronger next year!

I did get to record a couple of songs in the festival cafe HardJoik Kafé. The band playing was Violet Road and they played their songs Seek the Rain and All is Lost:

But as I had to leave early, I got no pictures this year. So here are some pictures from Midnattsrocken 2008 and 2009.

Midnattsrocken 2009:

(click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Midnattsrocken 2008:

(click on the pictures for bigger versions)

First Half of My 2010 Summer

2010-07-05T05:10:00.000-07:00

I've been one week in Kjøllefjord photographing for Arctic Coast, a tourism company that takes tourists traveling with Hurtigruten on various expeditions and guided tours during both winter and summer.

I also had some time to take pictures for my self during my spare time, and those you can see here.

These are some of my pictures. Click on them for a larger versoin!

The rest from this trip can be seen in their album here.

Unboxing the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder

2010-06-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

I just got my new Zoom H2 Handy Recorder sound recorder today. It's a small and indeed very handy recorder. Here is the unboxing of it. Later I'll post some videos with showing the sound quality it has and compare it to the built-in microphone of the Pentax K-x.

Early Spring Morning at Lathari

2010-05-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

I took my new bike trailer on a trip to Lathari (first proper trip witht the trailer btw.) and at about 02:30 this morning I took some pictures of the birds there doing their thing in the morning sun, which soon hid behind a cover of clouds.. Still, lots of birds to photograph and it's always fun to practice follow focus on fast moving objects.

(click the images to see a bigger version)

See all the pictures here (a total of 10 pictures).

Tospråklig / Bilinguality

2010-04-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

Soon this blog will be available in both English and Norwegian. I don't want to use Google Translate as I want the text to be properly written in both languages (as proper as I can write it at least :P). So I'll create another blog with the same name and content, just in Norwegian in addition to this one.

The adress for the new Norwegian version will be http://arctic-exposure-no.blogspot.com/

I'll be setting it up properly this weekend.

Everyone have a nice weekend.

Snowmobile trip to Joatkajárvi

2010-04-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

I had a trip this Sunday with my buddy Andreas to Joatkajárvi, a bit outside of town (Alta), on his snowmobile. I photographed and he had fun in the snow.

The new SMC Pentax DA* 60-250mm 1:4 ED [IF] SDM performed very well, and so did the kit lens I got with my camera, the white SMC Pentax-DA L 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 AL. For a kit lens, it's plenty sharp and has nice colors.

On Sunday next weekend there will be a snowmobile cross there, and I'm greatly looking forward to it :)

RC Spring Action with the DA* 60-250mm

2010-04-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

Today a friend of mine took out his RC cars, and I was there to photograph it all. This is my first test with the SMC Pentax DA* 60-250mm F4 ED [IF] SDM.

I realized RC cars are the hardest things I've tried to photograph so far. Motor cross, snowmobile cross or birds have nothing on these speed demons which change speed and direction at the blink of an eye. Also they're so small compared to the speed they have.

This makes it even more rewarding when you succeed :) Here are a couple of images, but if you want to see the full collection of almost 40 images check this album.

Also, check the last few photographs. The shutter speed on the ones with the wheel is 1/6000th, and it didn't stop the action, so it's rotating very fast! So fast the wheel burst and slapped the hand that held the car so hard it started bleeding :P

Unboxing the SMC Pentax DA* 60-250mm F4 ED [IF] SDM

2010-04-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

I got my 60-250mm today, and here's the unboxing video from unpacking it. A review is coming later.

Round Trip to the Nordkinn Peninsula

2010-04-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

Right before Easter I had kind of a round trip on the Nordkinn Peninsula to take some pictures and meet some friends and family.

It wasn't a very long trip and I didn't get a lot of pictures, so I'm going back soon.

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

Concert Photography

2010-04-09T08:38:00.001-07:00

I had big plans for Easter this year, but they mostly flopped due to my own fault (I messed up a time table), but I did get to take some pictures at a concert during the Easter Festival in Kautokeino where Sagittarius played.

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

I tested two lenses I was concidering as well during this trip:

SMC Pentax-DA 10-17mm 1:3.5-4.5 Fish-Eye ED [IF]
SMC Pentax-DA* 60-250mm 1:4 ED [IF] SDM

I liked both a lot, but I can't afford them both, so I've sent them back, but I'm waiting for a brand new DA* 60-250mm as it's very versatile and has fantastic image quality! I'll post an "unboxing" video when I get it. It's truly a fantastic lens :) The 10-17 fish-eye is also very very cool, but it's more of a specialty lens, so it has to wait. I will be getting it later I though.

Finnmarksløpet 2010

2010-03-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Finnmarksløpet 2010 is the world's northern most and Europe's longest dog-sled race. Here are my photograph from the beginning of the race where the sledders start out from Alta town center and from when they enter Karasjok and have their obligatory 8 hour rest in before starting on the last part back to Alta town center where the race ends.

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

Pentax 645D - 40 Megapixel goodness.

2010-03-10T04:53:00.001-08:00

So it's finally announced properly.

I will never be able to afford it, unless I win the lottery of course, which would send me to Japan as soon as release has arrived, to get one :P But it's nice to see that Pentax has finally gotten to where they can announce it.

The old Pentax 645 and Pentax 67 cameras were very popular medium format cameras, and handled like other SLR cameras, just a lot bigger due to film size.

The price isn't too bad considering what you're getting. I've already read about people now considering this over EOS 1Ds Mark III, the new IV that is eventually gonna come, and Nikon D3x.

It's of course not for sports, in the normal sense at least, no high burst rate, it's only 1.1 FPS actually, and no auto focus system with a million focus points, but I do shoot sports just fine using 1.1 FPS and 11 focus points on my K-x and my old K10D when I had that, so I'm sure it will do fine if you try it :) (for the record, the K-x has 4.7 FPS as max, and the K10D has 3).

It does have a newly developed 11 point auto focus system though, so it will be interesting to see how that performs. The old on the K10D and K-x (they both have SAVOX VIII, 645D has SAVOX IX+) works very well still. I track birds and football players just fine.

This is for everything else. It packs 40 million pixels and has a sensor 1.7 times larger than fullframe, 44mm×33mm. It can use the old 645 and 67 lenses, so you can use your money on the camera, for once, and use little on the lenses, and buy old lenses and get the stuff of legends. Of course, you might miss out on auto focus with a lot of them, but there are 645 auto focus lenses.

It will be very interesting seeing reviews of this camera when it's out, specially compared to things of the same price. In Norway, the price is around the same as a Nikon D3x.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the 645D is sealed to be weather resistant. This will be a great camera for nature photographers.

Here you can read about the camera.

Alta IF vs. Kirkenes IF

2010-02-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

I had the chance today to go with a friend to photograph an unofficial match between Alta IF and Kirkenes IF. Since it wasn't an official match, there were also very few spectators.

I don't have my dear SMC Pentax-DA* 50-135mm 1:2.8 ED (IF) SDM anymore, so I had to use my Sigma EX 105mm 1:2.8 DC Macro to get proper image quality at f/2.8 and autofocus. So some of th eimages are cropped quite a bit (those that look the most grainy), but other than that, I'm happy with the image quality.

Most are 1/800th, ISO 2000 or ISO 2500 and f/2.8, camera Pentax K-x White of course:

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

Hopefully I'll have the chance to do this again some day :)

Oh, I also talked to a girl photographing for a news paper, and she used the Canon EOS 7D and the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8, and I got to test it. The zoom was great, but heavy, monopod needed for sure, and the zoom a bit too great when you're that close to the field, but the focus speed was very good and so was the continuous speed of the 7D :P 8 FPS is fun.

I'm hoping to be able to by the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG Macro II HSM before the summer, hopefully before easter for the snowmobilcross and reindeer racing in Kautokeino. I might rent it or the SMC Pentax DA* 60–250mm f/4.0 ED [IF] SDM, but I think I want 2.8 for the depth of field, a more blurred background.

Here are the images of my friend that I came with, he does this a lot for newspapers.

New Years Cross 2010 (Snowmobile racing)

2010-02-04T12:18:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I attended the New Years Cross 2010 held at Kvenvikmoen in Alta. I've had some technical difficulties, so that's why I haven't posted about it until now.

I took a lot of pictures and it was great fun to watch and photograph all the action. Here are the pictures from the event:

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

I also recorded some video with the Pentax K-x (which I also used to photograph with of course =) My camera handling is a bit dodgy, but the camera performed excellent!

On the upcoming Saturday there will be reindeer racing in the center of Alta and on Sunday there will be another snowmobile cross, and I'll attend both events to photograph and record video. This will be great, I'm really looking forward to this weekend :)

So on Sunday evening or most likely Monday or Tuesday I'll post the pictures and videos from those events.

Have a nice weekend meanwhile!

Some New Photographs

2010-01-17T02:33:00.001-08:00

Now I've had my K-x for a few weeks, and I've used it frequently, but not nearly as much as I should have :P

I thought I'd share some of the pictures I have captured with it so far.

A short trip to Lathari where all was frozen or freezing:

I've also tested some still life photography when I got my new Skullcandy Full Metal Jacket 11mm as my old broke:

I took a walk around Elvestrand, but it wasn't very long, macro took up a lot of my time, though it produced nothing useful, I played around with filming with my Sigma 105mm EX 1:2.8 and a 2x extender. I did get a few other photographs though:

Finally, a couple of nights ago I tested some astro photogrpahy. I used my SMC Pentax-M 50mm 1:1.4 and SMC Pentax-FA* 24mm 1:2 AL (IF). Manually focusing utilizing the live view system on the K-x, and it worked very well, so it was easy to find focus. No more test exposure and small adjustments in between to find focus:

I'm very new to astro photography, and I don't think these are as good as it can get without an equatorial mount, which I plan on getting at a later time, and it's very fun, so I'll be doing much more of this I suspect. Lots of constellations to photograph :P

Happy 2010 - With the Pentax K-x White

2010-01-01T04:56:00.000-08:00

Happy new years, hope the new year will be a good one for all!

I've had my K-x White for a few days now and been using it a bit, testing live view and video recording. Both are pretty nice I think, a proper review will come later. The K-x White is a pretty little thing!

While watching the fireworks last night I both photographed and recorded video. Here is th elink to the photographs: (arrow keys can be used to flip between the images)

Happy 2010 in Alta

And here is the video. It's quite noisy, but it was very dark, and I haven't used any noise reduction on it. I'm working on different noise reduction procedures to figure which is the more efficient, and will write about my findings in the review of the K-x. However, I don't mind the noise actually, noise in video feels completely different from in photographs as it's always moving, so I don't feel it ruins the video.

All audio is recorded by the in-camera microphone, an external microphone and recorder will come later for proper sound.

Please watch in HD and fullscreen:

If you prefer Vimeo, you can check it out here.

Alta Time Lapse

2009-12-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

I've created a time lapse video with footage from Alta, my hometown.

I created it with my Pentax K10D and a wire release with at timer on it (a review of the wire release is coming at a later time). This was the last thing I captured with my precious K10D before I sent it away to its new owner. I hope it gets a good home there, and I think it will :) I'm waiting now for my new white Pentax K-x.

The downtempo tune in the video is The Journey by Briareus released under the Creative Commons license "Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported" CC BY-NC 3.0.

These are the lenses I used for this video:

SMC Pentax-DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL
SMC Pentax-FA* 24mm 1:2.0 AL (IF)
Tamron SP AF28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO

I'll be doing more like this when I get the K-x, either with filming, as it records video at 720p, or like I did with the K10D if I can get some sensible way of doing it, since the K-x doesn't support a wire release, only remote control. I'm also planning to buy a few new lenses which definitely will be used for this purpose (a fish-eye is one of them).

So, I hope you enjoy the video: (please turn on HD and click for fullscreen for the best quality)

If you prefer Vimeo to YouTube, you can check that out here.

Back again.

2009-12-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the away time here. It's been hard times lately, but I'm back again now.

It's snow here, not too much though, but snow at least. Christmas decorations are up and I do have the old Christmas feeling \o/

I've just put my dear old precious K10D for sale :/ I can't resist the K-x. I'll order a white one. They look cool, remind me of storm troopers form Star Wars :P And it fits the name Arctic Exposure I think. Laying down in the snow to photograph and being dressed in white with a white camera, how cool will that be? I just need to find my old military camo for snow :P

With that I'll be filming also, so that will be good.

I hope everybody will have a nice holiday and that the new year starts of well :)

Bird Photography at Runde

2009-10-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Between August 2007 and May 2008, I attended Sogndal Folkehøgskule (a Norwegian folk high school where people from all over the world can attend, apply here). I was in the Nature Photography class, and it was fantastic! Everyone should spend at least one year of their lives at a folk high school, any age. I was almost 10 years older than most of the other students, but it was very OK still.

Nearing the end of the year my class and I visited Runde, the bird island. It's famous in Norway, and abroad I believe. If not, it should be. It's a magnificent place and a haven for bird photographers.

We were very lucky with four days of sunny skies and close to no wind. Our teacher who has been at the school for more than two decades said he'd never experienced four days with such nice weather during any of his stays at Runde.

Going there, I didn't have much tele, the most I had was my dear (and now sold, unfortunately) Pentax DA* 50-135mm 1:2.8, so birds in flight was mostly out of the picture (pun intended) if I wanted any details on the birds. But the Atlantic Puffins there don't mind people much and you get really close, something my photographs show, and you can get great images with even such short tele.

Here you can see my photographs from this trip. I suggest you use the link below this Flash presentation and see the images in full quality and size as the resizing used in the presentation below isn't of very high quality.

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

Alta Canyon, Northern End

2009-10-15T11:52:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I took a hike to the canyon here in Alta with two other photography enthusiasts. I've never been there before, but wanted to go for some time. It wasn't a very long hike in distance, but being photographers, we took our sweet time getting there and back.

I had a very unfortunate miss-hap when I copied my photographs to my computer, so I ended up with only a few exposures left. It was just an idiotic mistake by me, which I'll never repeat. But, it's insentive to go back up there, which I will. Next time with a tent and plans to sleep over, and also visit other parts of the canyon, it's a beautiful place!

Click here to check the full size images and better image quality.

Except for the sunset, which I used my Tamron 28-75mm 1:2.8, and the photograph of the actual canyon, which I used my kit 18-55mm for, I used the small beautiful and always a performer, the Vivitar 70-150mm 1:3.8 CLOSE FOCUSING AUTO ZOOM. An article about this lens is coming soon, just a few more exposure left to make with it first.

Welcome to Arctic Exposure

2009-10-04T03:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my Arctic Exposure blog.

With Arctic Exposure I want to show photographes I make and video I make from my surroundings, like trips, events and reviews etc. and maybe even a tutorial or two as time goes by.

First a little about me. My name is Alexander Evensen. I'm 30 years old ('78 model), 31 in november and I live in Alta, northern Norway.

I've discovered photography december 2006, so I've been living photography for almost three years now, and I don't think I'll stop any time soon. I'm working towards making it my living, one way or another. The plan is to study photo journalism next year at HiO (Høgskolen i Oslo, the Oslo College) to get a bachelor degree in photo journalism.

I'm a Pentaxian. My cameras are Pentax, and my lenses are K-mount. Not because I'm religious about my brand, I just really like it. I know other brands are good also, but I prefer the Pentax-flavor. It's a good one :)

I plan to move up to Pentax 67 as soon as I can. I'm really looking forward to those really big exposures, 39,2 square centimeters of beautiful film exposure. It's for properly big copies and prints of landscape and macro photography, and some, or maybe more, portraits. Big prints is the way to go, and this is a good way to get it. I want large format of too of course, but I'll start with the medium format that is Pentax 67.

Now I own a Pentax K10D, it's my first and only digital SLR, and I love it. I haven't really seen the need to upgrade, though the K-7 looks very nice, but I'll probably wait for the K30D which hopefully will be announced next year. I also have the Pentax Z-1p 135mm analog camera. It's simply a fantastic camera. There's nothing like it!

I have a couple of new lenses, but several old ones. I'll be making posts about them as I test them, show what kind of photography i use them for and how they perform. This will mean both photography, text and video.

I think that's it for now. The blog will change and adapt as time goes by, so stay tuned for more and better functionality, and hopefully content :)