WestCoastWonderlust Camera Gear

Our Camera Gear 

 Canon Power Shot SX50 HS

     
     Why we choose this Camera has a lot to do with the weight, the 50x optical zoom and its versatility to take a wide range of good quality photos without having to pack and haul several heavy lenses while we are hiking. This camera has great battery life and has been very light when bringing it on longer, more difficult hikes. The zoom on this camera is incredible. Not only is its zoom capability fantastic, but the ability to take good quality macro shots is equally impressive. As far as a point and shoot cameras go, I have never seen a better package. To us this is one of the best cameras you can buy in quality and capability before getting into  DLSRs. The display screen is large and movable making it easier for individuals to see what they are shooting regardless of the angle. For anyone who is interested in photography, but doesn't want to haul around a bunch of lenses I highly recommend this camera especially to any outdoor enthusiast who wish to get good quality photos without the added weight of the DLSR camera lenses. 

Price: Listed at 429.99$ Canadian on Canon's website. We found our camera cheaper for 328$ instead after shopping around. 

 Camera Features Overview:

• World's first 50x Optical Zoom (24-1200mm) and 24mm Wide-Angle lens*¹ with Optical Image Stabilizer delivers magnificent images whether you are up close or far away.

• 12.1 Megapixel High-Sensitivity CMOS sensor combined with a DIGIC 5 Image Processor creates the Canon HS SYSTEM for improved low-light performance up to ISO 6400 and enhanced image quality.

• Capture stunning 1080p Full HD video in stereo sound with a dedicated movie button; zoom while shooting and play back videos on an HDTV via the HDMI output.

• High Speed AF greatly improves focus speed and High-Speed Burst HQ allows for continuous capture at a maximum of 10 

• frames*² while maintaining superb image quality.

• Intelligent IS automatically chooses from six different modes to optimize image stabilization for the shooting condition.

• Bright 2.8-inch Vari-angle LCD with 461,000 dots for shooting at a variety of angles, plus an Electronic Viewfinder.

• Smart AUTO intelligently selects the proper camera settings based on 58 predefined shooting situations and the Face ID function adjusts focus and exposure priority based on pre-registered faces.

• Full range of shooting and recording modes including RAW+JPEG for the ultimate creative control.

Sourced from: Cannon: http://estore.canon.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_12152_10102_10243_-24#.VKh5mivF9Z8

Canon Power shot SX50 HS Photos

The moon. Photo by: Kait. P

Photo by: Kait. P

Maximum 50x zoom. Quality in detail here sags a little as you can see. Photo by: Kait. P 

Wide angle photo looking towards Salmon Arm. Red circle marks the focus of the next photo.

Maximum 50x zoom looking at Salmon Arm Waterfront. 

Night Shots and Light Painting:

Landscape Photos:

Macro Shots:

Canon EOS Rebel XS

      Our other camera we own is a Canon Rebel XS. It's a few years old now so it doesn't have the latest and greatest features found in the new XS models, but in all honesty after playing around with a brand new one for an hour I haven't noticed any differences in ability or quality. It performs wonderfully and has been a lot of fun to use. I've been getting more into photography as a hobby and have been investing more into lenses and accessories as well and I haven't been disappointed with any of the gear I've used so far. 

Key Features of the Rebel XS: 

• 2.5" LCD moniter with Live View Function (turns the LCD display screen into an active view finder).
• EOS integrated cleaning system.
• SD and SDHC card compatible.
• Compatible with upwards of 60 EF/EF-S lenses.
• Is Canon's lightest DSLR to date.

*These features were sourced from the Canon website:

http://www.canon.ca/inetCA/en/arcproducts/method/gp/pid/905#_020

Accessories

All the gear I own, excluding the cleaning equipment and a couple usb adapter cable doodads.

 Lenses

From left to right: 75-300mm, 55-250mm, 18-55mm.

Extended to their max length.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

Cost: $200

The standard lens you get with most DSLRs off the shelf. This lens is great for photos indoors and in tight spaces as well as landscape shots. 

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6

Cost: $250

This was the first telephoto lens I ever used and I am very pleased with it. The image stabilizer was great when I needed to shoot with longer exposures and Kait and I were able to get a lot of great nature shots of all kinds of wildlife with this lens. 

Canon EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 USM

Cost: $260

This lens I was lucky enough to inherit from my sister after she began using a Nikon and while I haven't used it a great deal in the time I've had it, I'm very happy to have it in my collection nonetheless. This is another telephoto lens that has been great for wildlife shots, however the only downside I've noticed so far is that because this lens doesn't have an image stabilizer, you have to be more careful when taking photos. If there isn't enough light to shoot with short exposures, the images will be blurry without the use of a solid tripod.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

Cost: $120

This is my new favourite lens. Regardless of what I'm using this lens for, which is typically portraits and astrophotography, this lens performs flawlessly. The max aperture of 1.8 allows me to take great photos of the night sky with less noise. It is also lightweight, coming in at only 130 grams. The cost is also a great reason to get it. It typically costs roughly $120 and I was lucky enough to find one for only $100. I highly recommend this to anyone using a Canon DSLR who hasn't yet bought it. The only downside that most people find with it is that the focus motor can be pretty loud (not as bad as you would think). Other than that, it's awesome!

My favourite lens, the 50mm f/1.8

A photo taken last week using the XS with the 50mm f/1.8

Tripods

The Manfrotto 190 as compact as it can go.

Manfrotto 190D Basic Tripod 

This is another piece of equipment I was lucky to inherit. While I won't say this tripod is the best of the best, since I think most tripods will do a reasonable enough job, the 190 has been great for astrophotography. The height of the tripod itself can be easily adjusted using the two separate locking notches on each of the legs and can be as compact as approximately 1.5' and can reach to be almost 6' tall. 

Ultra Pod II

The Ultra Pod II was a Christmas gift and is a very handy tool to have if you take your camera with you everywhere-especially on long hikes, or if you are into rooftopping and/or urban exploration. I use it often for astrophotography as well as taking pictures of Kait and I when we're hiking together. It is ultra-light and very compact. 

Ultra Pod II in use. And a cat.

Odds and Ends

Some other accessories that I've come to own recently (thanks again Kath!) are a scalloped lens hood- to prevent lens flares as well as protect the lens itself from bumping into things- as well as 3 new Polaroid Studio Lenses and about 19 different lens filters. 

Scalloped lens hood.

Attached to the 18-55mm lens.

Polaroid Studio Lenses and Filters

The fisheye (left), 2x Telephoto (right), and the Wide Angle (centre). All come with a macro attachment (see below).

     The Polaroid lenses are things I had never heard of until recently. They attach onto my pre-existing lenses by simply screwing onto the threads. The 3 I now own are a Wide Angle Lens, a Fisheye lens, and a Telephoto lens. I still have to play around with them lots before I can pretend to know exactly what magic they perform, but from the title you have some idea of what each one does. So far I have only used the wide-angle lens on my 50mm f/1.8 lens and it has definitely increased the field of view, though not as drastically as one might think. Still, the effect is noticeable and is nice to have. 

The detachable macro lens.

    As far as the filters go, each one alters the pictures I take in their own unique little way. There are 9 colour filters which came in a set: red, blue, green, yellow, orange, brown, grey, pink and purple. 

Red, Blue, Green, Purple, Pink, Yellow, Brown, Grey, and Orange.

The orange filter on the 18-55mm lens.

    

     Then there are 3 other sets of filters. The first set includes a UV protection filter, a circular polarizer filter which from what I can tell increases contrast and saturation, and finally there is a fluorescent filter which is supposed to cancel out a green tinge that fluorescent lights induce on pictures. The second filter set includes a soft focus filter, a 4 point star filter which adds little effects to light sources, and a warming filter which warms the photos (no way!). And finally, the third and last filter set includes a 4 different diopter or close-up filters. These are supposed to decrease the minimal focus distance and essentially allows you to take macro shots regardless of the lens you have on your DSLR. You can even stack them all on top of each other to get really up close and personal. I look forward to playing around and experimenting with them.

In correct order.

Again, in order.

The macro lenses were simply labelled "+1, +2, +4, +10."

     Thanks for reading!

WestCoast Wonderlust Christmas 2014

Christmas 2013

     Last year Aaron and I had our first Christmas together. It was a small and quick holiday season. We headed over to Vancouver Island and stayed on Quadra Island. We took a day trip to the west side of Vancouver Island and spent our Christmas Eve in Tofino at Long Beach, and we couldn't have asked for a better way to spend Christmas Eve. The day was beautiful, warm and sunny. Tofino is 270 km away from Campbell River with a drive time of 3 hours and 41 minutes. 
     On Christmas Day we set up a Christmas Geocache and hid it just on the outskirts of Rebecca Spit. We are looking forward to adding to it this year.  

                          

                                     Christmas 2014

     This holiday Season has been very busy. We even recently added a new member to our little family, and as furry as she may be, she's still family. This year Aaron and I started the Christmas decorating early. Our Christmas Tree was up on December first. We then came to the realization that we didn't really have any Christmas decorations. Both Aaron and I like to make things so this was the perfect excuse to start creating our own collection for years to come!

Meet Our Christmas Kitty

     Aaron and I have been wanting a pet for quite some time now and fortunately for us this holiday season our landlord agreed to allow us to have a cat despite their dislike of cats. Aaron and I were really hoping in the next few years we will be able to get a dog to bring with us on hikes, but this is rather challenging to do when living in the Lower Mainland. 

     
     
     We adopted our kitty from the SPCA in Abbostford. We were concerned that the process would be difficult, but the whole adoption went smoothly. We adopted our kitty at the age of 2 months old and weighing in at a whopping 2 pounds! A pound per month I suppose. After bringing her home we couldn't be happier with her personality. She's very cuddly and social for a cat. She also will follow us around the house everywhere we go and she loves to attack any shadow she sees, which led to us cleverly naming her "Shadow." Although over the last few months, we've given her a few nicknames, the best one being "Trousers" due to her colouration. When she stands on her hind legs, it looks like she's wearing bright white pants.

Shadow, AKA Trousers.

Travel Day-December Twenty Third

BC Ferry- Sourced from Google Images 

     Aaron and I made our way to Horseshoe Bay around 7:00 am to catch our 8:30 am sailing to Departure Bay. The sailing was busy, but that's to be expected around the holidays. We fortunately got to ride on BC Ferries' newer Coastal Renaissance vessel. This particular ship is massive in size and 7 levels tall. On the 6th floor we found a cozy spot right at the stern (the back) of the boat where there were massive floor-to-ceiling windows providing its passengers with a remarkable view of the ocean landscape. The ferry had beautifully decorated Christmas trees on board too, adding to the coziness. Our voyage was a bit choppy with white caps surfacing and colliding with the wake, but the ride was uneventful until about half way through the journey where the captain announce there were a large pod of Pacific White Sided Dolphins off the port side (left side) jumping and playing in the wake.

Pacific White Sided dolphins- sourced from google images

Instantly, large groups of passengers of all ages crowded the windows to witness this amazing display of nature. Aaron and I were so excited to watch the dolphins leap out of the choppy water. Though we have made many trips to Vancouver Island, we have never been fortunate enough to see any wildlife during our travels.  We watched them follow the boat for about fifteen minutes, always staying about 100 yards trailing the ferry. Forty five minutes later we arrived in Departure Bay and headed North up the island to Campbell River.  

Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve, we started our day off with a delicious blueberry pancake breakfast and coffee. After breakfast and dealing with a minor social media kerfuffle, Aaron and I made our way to Drew Harbour just down the road for some quick beach combing. 

Playing around with the cameras.

     
     After roaming around for a half hour, my parents joined us and we all walked all around Drew Harbour to the end of Rebecca Spit and back, a total of 10 kilometres. We passed by We Wai Kai campground and got to see the many cool waterfront camp sites where families have built elaborate and unique driftwood structures over the years. The Gretzky family may have even visited at one point. The walk was long, but peaceful. We retired back to the quattage for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

Each beach front campsite had its very own personal driftwood deck. 

Maybe it was really them? Who knows!

Christmas Day

A cool app that show's the angles of sunlight depending on the time of day.

     The alarm began to blast. Aaron and I struggled to open our drowsy eyes to roll out of bed. Sunrise was at 8:19 am this morning, which is much later then what we have been use to in the past. The air was cold and fringed. We made our way down to Drew Habour. The tide was high at 14 feet with no visible beach to walk on. The sun rose high behind a small ridge south of Drew Harbour, and much of the colour wasn't visible from where we stood. As the sun rose the colour began to reach and stretch towards us. The water was calm like glass. Aaron and I were amazed how much the the angle of the sunlight has changed since the last time we got up for sunrise in August. We snapped a few more shots and soaked up some early morning light. It was the perfect way to begin our Christmas Day.

     After we finished opening all the gifts. Our family friends from Campbell River came across to Quadra for a quick visit and a Christmas day walk of Rebecca Spit. During our walk Aaron and I split from the group to head to our Christmas geocache we created last year. It didn't take us long to find. After we added to the geocache we made our way back to the group 

     Later into the evening we all went to Heriot Bay for their community Christmas feast. There is over 150 people that attend this dinner and it has been running for 4 years. This is a by donation dinner and gift exchange.

      Many locals and visitors to the island will all come to enjoy the amazing community-provided meal. Aaron and I have now gone to this Christmas feast for the 2nd year in a row. The food is always amazing, but what is even more amazing is the generosity of all the individuals who donate, serve ,cook and coordinate this wonderful event. I haven't witnessed this kind of community since I was a child. There is something so incredibly moving to see so many individuals come together and create such a warm, giving environment during the holiday season.
     When we got back after dinner, we had some pre-bed tea and then turned in for the night.