Thursday, March 27, 2008

Changes & Congratulations

Changes:

We’ve added links to some of our favorite sites they’re under the heading of “Other places to visit” yes our website is there too…

We are experimenting with what Google calls AdSense this should place ads that are relevant to this blog, specifically photographic in nature – if it works fine – if it doesn’t then we’ll taken them down.

Congratulations:

March has been a very good month for our friends; first Ken Doo (Kendoophotography) wins an accolade of excellence for one of his fine art landscape images. Way to go my brother from a ‘nother mother!

Our next wish of congratulations goes to a certain Deputy Sheriff on the LASD who will be retiring March 31st. Way to go Bro! Now you’ll have the time to really learn the new camera and maybe do some landscape work. Remember - be safe the end is near….

That’s it from this end

Sandy & Don

Monday, March 24, 2008

This and that

We’ve had a few inquires as to what we shoot and where the heck we got our equipment from so here goes.

Up till just a couple weeks ago Sandy shot all her images with a Canon 5D. The 5D is a really good camera, however Sandy wanted just a little more and decided to move up to the new 1Ds III. So far with two outings under our belts, the 1Ds III is great. The file size, auto focus, ease of use is outstanding as it should be being the flagship of the Canon professional line. Sandy likes the new camera so much the 5D has already been sold.

Up till February 2007, Don took all his images with a Canon 1Ds II – landscape and nature. Wanting to move up to a better system for landscape he decided to make the move to medium format and since then hasn’t looked back. Don uses a Mamiya 645 AFD II camera body and a Phase One P30+ digital back for all his landscape work. The file size and image quality are first rate. Medium format maybe the way to shoot gorgeous landscape images but it simply will not do for wildlife when the critters are moving around too fast; for that Don still uses his Canon 1Ds II.

We have a huge stock of lens for both the Canons as well as the Mamiya ranging from 17-40 to 400mm for the Canons and 28mm to 300mm for the Mamiya.

Where do we go for our equipment? The lenses have been brought all over the place from E-bay to professional camera stores. The Canon 1Ds III as well as the Mamiya and Phase One P30+ were brought from one place, Capture Integration. We have developed a very strong and lasting relationship with Chris Lawery at Capture Integration and whole hardly endorse them. Anyone who might be considering medium format photography or a purchase of a Canon should check them out.


Link to: Capture Integration


Till next time


Sandy & Don

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter

We decided to return to the Tonto Lower Cliff Dwellings to see if the wildflowers had bloomed anymore. While they had we didn't get any decent shots that were worth sharing so we decided instead to share the following:

The first shot was taken with Sandy's 1Ds III along with a 300mm lens. The path to the Cliff Dwellings is approximately 1/2 mile and we were only in the very first part of the path.




The second shot was taken with Don's Mamiya 645 AFD II and Phase One P30+ using his Mamiya 300mm lens. This shot was taken within yards of Sandy's.



We figure this is enough of the Lower Tonto Cliff Dwellings. If you're in the Tucson or Phoenix area and want to see and experience cliff dwellings we highly recommend the drive to Roosevelt Lake and Tonto National Monument. We're off to the Gila Cliff House in New Mexico next month then on to Alaska in May.

Again, Happy Easter to all....


Sandy & Don

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

WOW!

WOW! Its been several months since we last updated.

We made the decision to redo our website thus we moved from Smugmg.com and opened our new site in early February. The new site is (we think) cleaner and offers just the best of our images. We had a choice to add a shopping cart but decided against that as we would prefer to speak to the client prior to them placing an order, besides if we were going to spend several hundreds to thousands of dollars we would prefer to speak to someone before handing over the cash - it just makes sense.

We went to Carmel CA to celebrate Don's 60th birthday with a very good friend and very talented photographer, Ken Doo http://kendoophotography.com/. Had a great time visiting Carmel and the Big Sur area and went as far North as Pigeon Point Lighthouse; one of the oldest and tallest in the US.








Sandy took this with her Canon 5D and the really great Canon 400DO lens. This was actually the last trip that Sandy used the 5D as she got the Canon 1Ds III shortly afterwards.

Walter Borchenko, Editor and producer of Knowledge Integrated interviewed Don for Phase One's January/February on-line issue of "Phaseplus". This edition was released during the same time we were in California.

Since returning home from California we've been busy printing and filling orders as well as the never ending planning state for our upcoming Alaska trip. We'll be leaving Arizona in mid May driving up to Alaska and returning home around mid July with stops in Fairbanks, Denali, and Homer. And of course Dawson Creek BC and the beautiful ALCAN Highway!

And just to keep everyone up to date, we just returned from the Tonto Lower Cliff Dwellings where Sandy had a chance to finally take the 1Ds III out and make beautiful images.






Sandy took this with the 1Ds III and 17-40mm lens

And as a comparison to medium format, the following was taken with Don's Mamiya 645 AFD II and Phase One P30+ digital back utilizing the Mamiya 28mm lens.






Well this enough of an update for now, we promise to be better in the future.

If you want to learn more about medium format photography the very best place to go is Capture Integration of Atlanta GA - Chris Lawery, My Medium Format Guy At Capture Integration

Until next time.....


Sandy & Don

edit: This is the first time posting images to the blog if they turn out too small we'll attempt it over again or just go to our website Iron Creek Photography