Archive for November, 2010

The Pan Pacific Vancouver Christmas Wish Breakfast

/ November 28, 2010 / Photography / Comments Off

Later this week, the Pan Pacific Vancouver will be hosting the 23rd Annual Christmas Wish Breakfast on Tuesday, November 30th from 6 to 9 am. I’ve been invited to photograph of all the festivities so will be there for the whole morning.
Pan Pacific Vancouver Christmas Wish Breakfast
If you’d like to help support the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau, simply come on down to the Pan Pacific with an unwrapped children’s toy (or a cash donation) and in return you’ll get a free hot breakfast. There will also be live festive entertainment along with Global TV and Jack FM will be broadcasting live from the event.

Last year, the toy tower was over 12 feet high and contained 26,000 toys with over $25,000 given in cash donations from over 7,000 generous people.

Staff and volunteers at the Pan Pacific are planning to serve:

  • 25,000 eggs
  • 20,000 sausages
  • 3,000 kilograms of potatoes
  • 5,000 croissants
  • 2,000 litres of orange juice
  • 10,000 cups of coffee

There will also be one hour of free underground parking at Canada Place provided by Vinci.

Along with Global TV and Jack FM’s live coverage, you can also follow the hashtag #PPVChristmas for live updates & photos from the event.

You can also make a donation online if you can’t make the event in person. A winner will be drawn for a four-night stay in between Christmas and New Years at the Pan Pacific Vancouver.

So come down Tuesday morning and get a free hot breakfast just for bringing a toy for a child in need! Make sure you say hi if you see me!

UPDATE: Here’s a few photos from this morning…also check out the post from the Rishad at the Pan Pacific about today’s event.

2010 Pan Pacific Christmas Wish Breakfast

2010 Pan Pacific Christmas Wish Breakfast

The toys are starting to pile up! #PPVChristmas

Who wants to go to Whistler?

/ November 18, 2010 / Travel / 18 Comments

So I’m about to do something I’ve never done on this site before – give away something! Since I like taking photos, I’m hoping this is a slightly more interesting entry process.

Whistler Creekside

My friends at Whistler/Blackcomb have given me a sweet little prize pack to give to my readers/followers. All you have to do is show me your favorite winter photo – it doesn’t have to be professional, it just has to be of some kind of winter fun.

It can be anywhere (not just at Whistler), and anytime as long as it’s during the winter. So dig out those polaroids from the 80s or find that awesome photo on your cameraphone from during the Olympics.

Who can and how do you enter?
Anyone can (even you Quebec – well maybe not actually, just say you live in Ontario and we’re cool) and it’s easy to enter – either link it in my comments or tweet a link to your photo (twitpic, flickr, etc. doesn’t matter) on Twitter using the hashtag: #JBSendsU2WB (you’re not required to link to this post in your tweet)

Who decides the winner?
I do…of course. I’ll choose my favorite photo entry from all the entries/tweets and that’s who will win the prize. No magic random voodoo, just my personal favorite of all entries. I’ll retweet the winning photo as well.

When does the contest close?
Contest closes on Thursday, November 25th @ 9am PST. I’ll announce the winner at the Whistler Tweetup later that evening.

What’s the prize?
There will be one prize in which the winner (chosen by me) will receive a one night stay at a Lodging Ovations hotel in Whistler Creekside along with 2 x 1 day lift passes to Whistler/Blackcomb (so you can bring a friend!). You can use the prize anytime during the season up until April 2011. You’re responsible for getting yourself to and from Whistler as well as any other expenses (equipment rentals, food, hotel room porn, etc.).

You can enter as many times as you want but each ‘entry’ has to be a different photo of ‘winter fun’.

Good luck!

UPDATE: After a tough deliberation this morning, I’ve selected Steve (@stv) as the winner of the Whistler prize pack with his cross country skiing photo (taken at Cypress) which really captured the ‘winter fun’ theme I was looking for.

Thanks to everyone who entered – some truly awesome photos were submitted…I’m going to have to do more photo contests like this in the future! An extra special thanks to Whistler/Blackcomb and Lodging Ovations for the prize pack!

Enjoy your trip Steve!

Nikon, Flip and Olympus…oh my!

/ November 14, 2010 / Hardware, Photography, Video / 2 Comments

It’s been like Christmas lately with a whole bunch of new camera gear coming across my desk. Here’s a quick overview of some of the new stuff I’ve been playing with.

D7000
Earlier this week I received the much awaited Nikon D7000 camera body that I had preordered awhile ago:

Christmas came early for me #D7000

It’s a significant update to my D90 that I’m still digging into…I’ll try to get a proper first look post in a few weeks after putting it through it’s paces a little more. I’m still debating on selling my D90 versus having a second camera body – something that would have come in handy a few times this year, especially during the Olympics.

Flip UltraHD
Flip Canada just unveiled their latest batch of HD cameras with some interesting upgrades including image stablization and a new expansion port (FlipPort) that promises to give a ton of new options for shooting video with.

Flip Ultra 2

They gave me a Flip UltraHD to play with and I’m currently working on a comparison review with my Kodak HD camera.

Olympus EPL-1
On Friday I received a Olympus PEN E-PL1 from Olympus:

Got a review unit E-PL1 from Olympus just in time for the weekend

This micro four thirds camera has been getting a lot of buzz lately with my photographer friends so I’m anxious to spend some time with it and see how it performs as a point and shoot with a lot of the abilities of a DSLR.

Post your questions about any of these cameras in the comments and I’ll try to answer them.

GoPro HD Hero mini-review

/ November 12, 2010 / Reviews, Video / 1 Comment

After pining away for one for ages, I finally bought a GoPro HD HERO camera:
Finally caved & bought a GoPro HD
It’s a tiny little HD camera with an amazing wide angle lens (170 degrees @ 720p!) that comes with a myriad of attachment options.

One of the first things I shot with it was the Thrill the World event and was blown away by the results:

A few days later, I was fortunate enough to be on a tour of the Thompson Okanagan and got to witness the Adam’s River Salmon run near Chase, BC.

Adam's River salmon run

Using a camera extension, I was able to get a unique view of the fish in the river:

I’ve been messing around with it and mostly just getting used to all the options it has:

I haven’t shot anything worth posting yet but another great feature of the GoPro is that it can shoot 5 megapixel stills and timelapse photos. The intervals can go down to one shot every 2 seconds and the test results have been better than I imagined. I’ll hopefully have some footage to post soon.

My only issues so far with it is that it doesn’t do well in low light at all and the battery life. My battery actually died about 45 seconds after I started shooting the salmon and I didn’t have an extra one with me (totally poor planning on my part – I’ve since picked up a second battery).

To give you an idea of the potential of this camera, here’s a little video from the GoPro homepage that showcases some of the more extreme uses for it:

There are lots of places to get a GoPro…I bought mine in person from Launch Helmet Cams in North Vancouver. I bought the GoPro HD Hero Naked and added a bunch of accessories. For my purposes, it was cheaper than buying one of the kits that are for more specific uses like Helmet or Motorcycle purposes.

Update (Dec 2010): Here’s a zipline video from my recent trip to Whistler:

See also my mini-review of the LCD BacPac for the GoPro