Michael Anttila's Picture Of The Week

Week Of July 25th, 2010

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Well, as you can guess we have been super busy with the new house. The first weekend Christine and Aaron came over to help us clean up the place and prep for painting. Then I took a week off work and Reg came over for three full days to help me paint 7 different rooms. I spent most of the time up on a 10 foot stepladder cutting in. Fun times!

On Friday, Kevin from Fergus Pools came over and gave us a fantastic tutorial on how our pool works. We are having him take care of it for us this week while we are preoccupied with packing and getting the new house ready for moving. It's great to have it up and running so that we can jump in if we get too hot working on the house!

Once we get settled in we will be able to play around with the solar heating system and pump timing to get everything working smoothly so that Angela can start swimming every morning. For now, she has to put up with just visiting the pool for a few minutes each night and looking forward to the days when we are actually living in the new house!

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 28mm, ISO 400, f/8 for 20 seconds.

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Week Of July 18th, 2010

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This Friday was closing day! That means that it was time for the traditional "pizza and beer" celebration! This time, instead of having it on the living room floor, we brought some chairs and had our dinner out on the back deck.

Everyone was excited to see the house, especially us! We've been hard at work since then getting it ready for painting and some minor renovations before we move in.

On a totally unrelated note, I have managed to find time to experiment with my new camera some more. This week, I got my first decent video of Marabelle eating a cricket. That video really pushes the camera to its limits, but it does alright. You couldn't do this with just any camera!

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 28mm, ISO 200, f/8 for 1/40th of a second.

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Week Of July 11th, 2010

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This weekend we had our moving sale to try to get rid of as much extra stuff as possible. It was quite a success! We had a steady stream of people come through from 8am to just after noon. Angela's coworker Merren also came by and set up a table of stuff to sell, so we had a good variety of items.

We get the keys to the new house on Friday, so we are very excited! We bought all of the paint we need for next week, so we are ready to buckle down and start working.

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 33mm, ISO 100, f/8 for 1/60th of a second.

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Week Of July 4th, 2010

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We are busy packing everything up in preparation for our big move. Our goal is to have most things packed up by July 16th, because after that point we need to spend time working on the new house, getting it ready for us to move in on August 7th. I didn't realize we had so much stuff until I started stacking it in the living room. Now it is starting to look like an episode of Hoarders.

We are having a garage sale this Saturday (the 10th) if anyone wants to buy some ~~old junk~~quality hardly used goods from us. Also, if you can lift a box and want to be our best friend in the whole world, please send us an email and let us know that you can come by on August 7th and help us move! :) Our goal is to get so many people out that everyone can stand in a line and just pass boxes.

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 28mm, ISO 1600, f/8 for 1/60th of a second, with my Speedlite 430ex II flash.

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Week Of June 27th, 2010

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Today we went to visit the new house and take measurements so that we can start to figure out how we are going to paint the place before we move in. It was very exciting to be there... it will be all ours in just over two weeks! I thought this picture would dovetail nicely with my photo from two weeks ago, but I couldn't get the house in the photo, because you can't really see it from the road!

July 16th can't come soon enough! Exclamation point!

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 28mm, ISO 400, f/8 for 1/60th of a second.

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Week Of June 20th, 2010

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Even though there is a lot to do to prepare for moving next month, life still goes on around us. Thus, this weekend I found myself in Waterloo Park making signs, cleaning chairs, starting generators, and getting everything ready for the first concert of the Music In The Park series put on by the Waterloo Concert Band. This year, the Ceremonial Band of the Waterloo Regional Police Service had the honour of performing the first concert.

It was a beautiful day for it. Similar to when we caught them back in 2007. During the concert, I took a few photos (I always need new POTW material), and I decided to try taking some video footage to test my new 5D Mark II's video capability. You can take a look at some of the footage I shot on YouTube.

Right now I'm limited (due to low hard disk space and overheating CPUs) to shooting in standard definition. I also didn't edit this clip in any way... I just hit record, then stop, then uploaded it straight to YouTube. I'm pretty happy so far with everything I'm seeing from the camera. About the only thing that needs improvement right now is the photographer!

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + EF 70-300mm IS at 190mm, ISO 100, f/5 for 1/80th of a second.

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Week Of June 13th, 2010

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I was a bit behind on my photo this week because I was waiting for this to happen: We have sold our house on Margaret Ave! That means there is absolutely no turning back, and we will be moving into our "dream home" in Elora very soon!

Right now Angela and I are busy packing up our stuff and planning for an intense few weeks of cleaning, painting and fixing before we move into the new house on South River Road. Exciting times!!!

Technical details: This photo was taken my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75mm at 28mm, ISO 100, f/16 for 1/40th of a second.

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Week Of June 6th, 2010

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On Saturday we headed to Aurora for Chloe's 2nd birthday party! Angela decided to try out my new camera and lens by taking some photos of Chloe, Darren and Julia. Chloe was smiling all day long, but she seemed to be quite confused whenever the large lens was pointed in her direction. I think she might just be used to small point and shoot cameras.

Angela took this photo after asking Chloe to turn around and face the camera. I was very excited to see the results from my new Tamron lens (and the 5D Mark II as well). There were no lights on in the house, so it was actually very dark in the living room. Angela was shooting with the lens wide open at f/2.8 and at ISO 400.

The results were very good, in my opinion. I didn't feel the need to run any noise reduction filters on the final image, and the lens let in enough light to feel confident shooting without a flash. I also love the decreased depth of field from the combination of wider aperture of the lens and larger sensor of the 5DMkII. It really makes Chloe pop out in this photo!

Technical details: This photo was taken by Angela with my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75mm at 28mm, ISO 400, f/2.8 for 1/40th of a second.

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Week Of May 30th, 2010

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Angela surprised me this year with a combination anniversary + birthday present, a new Canon 5D Mark II! This camera is incredible, with a full frame sensor, the ability to shoot high definition movies, and incredible high ISO performance for low light shooting.

The first thing I did was sell my EF-S 10-22mm lens in order to raise money to buy a walkaround lens for the 5DMkII. Since the 5D has a larger sensor, I can't use my EF-S lenses on it, so the 10-22 had to go, and my Rebel XT's kit lens can't be used on the 5D. After hours of research, I finally decided to pick up a Tamron SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) zoom lens. Although it has a very long product name, it is a fairly basic zoom lens with a large aperture and good performance for its value.

Eventually I will have to get a new wide angle lens to replace my beloved 10-22, but that will have to wait until I have a bit more money. The one I have my eye on (the Canon 17-40 f/4L USM) is a little out of my budget at the moment.

Anyway, I am looking forward to taking some great photos with this camera. I suspect that this will be one of the last POTW taken with my trusty old Rebel XT.

Technical details: This photo was taken with my Rebel XT + kit lens at 55mm, ISO 100, f/8 for 1.6 seconds.

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Week Of May 23rd, 2010

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One of our last things to do on Vancouver Island was to watch the sunset from Long Beach. This is at the southern end of the beach, and I took this photo as Angela was watching the tide come in.

Technical details: This photo was taken with my Rebel XT + EF-S 10-22 at 22mm, ISO 400, f/8 for 1/500th of a second.

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