New website is LIVE!

This has been a project for not too long time, however it did a while to think it over of focusing more on photography. It is clean and simple, focusing on the images and nothing else. The result can be found on www.eddokloosterman.com.

Please leave feedback if you do have anything to say about my new site, either tweet, email, send smoke signals ... you catch my drift ... ;-)

Another photo licensed

About a week ago I received a message via Flickr with the question if it was possible to use one of my Cycle Vision photos of last year for a poster of some recumbent meeting in Madrid.

In my mind there was nothing but to agree with this, though I had a couple questions. A number of messages later we both agreed on the licensing of this image for this single event... Somehow I now do hope that more of such requests will follow, allowing me to invest a bit more into my photography ... at least it has given me a good feeling of being asked.

SHORT: Back from Slovenia

To start of this blogpost, it was a grand week spent in Slovenia with a number of friends and acquaintances (whom have now become friends). Most of my time was spent paddling on the Soča and the Koritnica, almost all sections have been paddled (except for the extremely dangerous sections and a few other stretches of the river). I'd like to give you that this is a very short summary of the whole trip, working on some larger posts that give a bit more detail.

Personally I had one rest day where I had planned to go paddling, so hiked up a mountain with two others ... after snow was encountered we turned back ;-).

Though to get back on the topic, Slovenia, paddling and photos...In advance I had a few goals to actually paddle some nice stretches of white water and also create a number of grand photos. Oh yeah, also to have a great time. All these three goals have been reached in this 10 day stretch of vacation.

Arrival was in the morning of April 30th, after having driven through the night in my sturdy car ... quite a long time even with four drivers taking over the wheel after some period. A large coffee did taste pretty good in a German Autohof somewhere in South Germany during this night. The rest of the day was spent chillin' on the Soča in not all too good weather, but rain doesn't hurt anyone on the water.
As this was my first time in my second-hand Wavesport Z it took a bit of time to get used to the kayak, but felt really good and way better than my previous Bliss Stick Flip-stick as river runner.


Ivette in her Pyranha Inazone 230 on the Soča

From monday on the weather turned for the better during the day, though at night still quite cold. Even discovered one early morning that the tent had actually frozen stiff, must mean that it was quite chilly. In the evenings a fire kept us going and with these low temps the distance between person and fire was not all too far.


Camp by night

The day before last I was finally able to actually work on my photography goal that I had also planned, was just too tired to actually paddle the Trnovo slalom course the correct way and get all the required eddies. So took my DSLR and ran from spot to spot along the course itself, with some of my friends as willing volunteer for photos (who wouldn't want some spectacular images of him/herself on white water :p ). In the photo below Arend-Jan is taking a nice line through a small hole in the first section of the course.


Arend-Jan on the Trnovo slalom course

More posts of this trip will be published in the next few weeks, though for so far more photos can be enjoyed on my Flickr-page.

Going kayaking in Slovenia :)

After having not been on a vacation for a number of months, its time again to go on another trip again. This time heading to Slovenia with a couple friends of the student canoe club DKV Euros for a week of white water kayaking.

Have been in the same region for a few times now, and paddled on the same rivers also. Everytime has been a blast, what is better than to have fun on and off the river with friends, and spending the whole day outside for a whole week?!

However, this time I am going to add a bit of more purpose to the trip besides learning to paddle better on white water; my goal is this time to take a number of spectacular kayaking and lifestyle photos. The underlying goal of this will be to improve my photography and photo portfolio of outdoor adventure photos.

I promise to write a bit more about this sometime later in the coming week ...

Short review on the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L

OK, a while back I promised on Twitter that, after having purchased a second-hand Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, I would post a review about this lens on my blog. Besides, the Interwebs is also about sharing information, not only gathering info; so here is my contibution that I hope to do more.
A note here: I am not a professional photographer, merely an enthusiast that is eager to learn more about outdoor adventure and travel photography...

Having previously owned the incredible Canon EF-S 10-22mm my reasons to go for the 17-40mm were the weather sealing in this lens. I found myself shooting in the rain and in horrible conditions sometimes and just didn't want to do that to the 10-22mm. So in those cases I would go out with the Canon 50mm f/1.8 and not bother about the weather.... but missed the wider shots then in those conditions.
The 17-40mm is presented as a lens with good weather sealing, if fitted with a screw-in filter on the front. However, up to so far I really haven't had a proper chance (errr... taken the time) to go out in bad weather conditions with my camera and the 17-40mm. So no comments yet on the weather sealing...

The first time I had the lens on my 20D body I could feel the difference in weight, in comparison with the 10-22mm. The 17-40 is quite a hefty lens, and is also a bit longer than the 10-22mm. The difference in weight is  just over 100g (385g for the 10-22mm, and 500g for the 17-40mm), which is a significant increase in weight coming from the 10-22mm. I do like the additional weight on the whole combination, as it is a bit easier to keep the camera steady for those slower shutter speeds (up to 1/2th of a second, personally).

As there is quite a difference in the term wide-angle when comparing the 10-22mm with the 17-40mm on my body, my first impressions of the lens were that I would lose quite a bit of wideness. Though, now that I have used the 17-40mm a bit more I tend to focus more on the things in the frame and try to get a little more closer to the objects I want in the frame.
Below I have posted two images while riding my recumbent, one is taken with the 10-22mm and the other with the 17-40mm (sorry for the hairy legs on the last photo ;-) ). I do like both images, and the difference in field of view is quite large, but I personally don't miss the super-wide-angle anymore for my photography. The image quality between the two lenses does not differ in my opinion, both are excellent sharp at f/4.





My conclusion to this short review: I have gained a great quality lens that will enable me to photograph in practically all weather conditions, resulting in high IQ photos.

Adventure Cycling Association annual photo contest

It is already a while ago that I heard of this photo contest. Not sure anymore how I got hold of this contest, probably via Twitter or Facebook, but decided that I wanted to participate.
The brief was to submit a maximum of five photos "highlighting the beauty, adventure, and inspiration of bicycle travel".
One of the photos was the photo that is depicted above, which made it as first photo in a blogpost by the Adventure Cycling Association.

Unfortunately I did not win this competition, though stoked to have made it as 'inspiration'.
Please check out the winners, these are spectacular photos...

Memories of NZ - A photo slideshow

About two weeks ago I was asked by Blanche (@worldcyclevideo) if whether I also made videos after following her on Twitter. As my focus is on photography instead of cinematography, I could create a slideshow of my New Zealand travel photos.

So this weekend I committed myself to doing just that, using Apple's iMovie software.

Please enjoy!

Selection of photos published

Today, a little less than a week since I have returned back home, a set of some (in my opinion) sweet images have been published online. The images can be found on the link below. Enjoy!

Photos.

Leaving in a few months

Time starts to catch up pretty quick again, my trip to New Zealand is only about two months away. In that time I still have to manage a pretty hard deadline from work, complete my gear, and clean my bike ;-).
It is now also time to see if I do have all the gear I want to take, and if it actually fits in all my bags. The most heavy part of my entire luggage will be my bike, I really hope that I can clean it out that much that it fits inside a box and that the weight is below 20kg. As the tires (Schwalbe Marathon XR 57-559) on the bike already weigh about 0.8kg each, I might put them in my regular check-in luggage (advantage of foldable tires). But those details will be managed during the Christmas holiday.

For now my mind is set to working my butt off to finish a pilot-project with a working prototype to create and order documents online, finding my own place in Zwolle, and getting the last items for my trip. Oh yeah, also finding some time to actually ride some long miles on my bike, to get in shape for cycling each day in New Zealand. And no, I am actually not that busy, still have quite some time to actually just sit at my computer at home, or watching TV in the living room. It was a lot busier in the last months working on my thesis. It's currently pretty laid back actually :).

Gear wise I think that I have almost everything except a few items, such as a foldable seat (Tatteljee Stele), a pair of light, waterproof hiking shoes, and maybe a Trangia cooking set. A seat would be an extremely useful item to add to my collection of camping gear, until now I have been improvising this with trees and sleeping mats, but an actual chair would be nice.
And "to take a hike" in New Zealand I would like to have a couple of sturdy shoes, that can take me across some mountains and national parks, and be comfortable to wear them for long hours in an airplane. My current shoes are either too heavy, or not up for the job of hiking up a mountain.
But then, why a Trangia set, you do already have a Coleman stove?! That's easy, I will not be able to let my Coleman stove pass customs, as it will have to be entirely empty and look like its new .. well, mine isn't. And I have thought about another lightweight solution, and that is a Trangia set with a cooking pan and one to bake, just large enough for two persons (plan for the future ;-) ). Trangias also burn quite clean, as they use spirits (or alcohol), instead of petrol.

One of the main reasons for me to go to New Zealand, besides the apparent reason that my sis used to work there (read some of my first posts), is the rugged outdoors that cannot be found in the Netherlands. As an aspiring photographer of outdoor activities I do like to take loads of photos and not have to worry about storage. Therefore I'll take a whole stack of about 40GB worth of Sandisk Ultra II and Extreme (III) CompactFlash cards with me, and a backup unit to create a copy/backup of the cards once full. Everything is stored in waterproof (submersible) bags or cases, such as the Gepe Card Safe Extreme memory card cases.
I am actually still in doubt whether to take a small SD camcorder (such as the Canon FS200) with me for those moments where still images just don't cut it. It would be a great learning opportunity to just let still images tell the story of my trip, and maybe have some sound recorder for sounds that I don't want to miss. Some food for thought ...

A step closer to New Zealand

What a day it was friday, working on the final version of my thesis to ensure that it was correct and that it didn't contain any more errors. Once delivered, and almost sent to the printer my direct supervisor found a small error in the preface, which included a wrong name. Oops! But eventually everything turned out alright .. pfew!

In the midst of all the hectics of the last two weeks I found some fun in the iPhone app "Best Camera" created by Chase Jarvis and Ubermind Inc. If you have followed my Twitter you'll have noticed that I sent a couple processed photos direct from my iPhone. It is a nice app that is based on the paradigm of "the best camera is the one that's with you", which is indeed true. The most memorable moments are the one's where you don't carry a full DSLR kit with you, and the cameras in phones aren't that bad actually (well the iPhone 3G's isn't that great, missing autofocus). As this is a nice little app you can expect more photos to come from me, a little more frequent than my Flickr-updates.

That being said, first my photography was more or less capture everything and selecting afterwards often missing just the shots I wanted. I tend to be a bit more selective in what I shoot these days, trying to add some personal creativity in the mix as well. This creativity expresses itself some personal touches, and from somewhat different angles and views (wide-angle lenses are quite fun). You might have noticed this on my Flickr photostream, which has reached recently exactly 1000 photos!

With creativity being one thing, the impact of photos on other people and the story a photo tells are both other important aspects of a good photo. Explorer Ben Horton has both in a video and a blogpost a great way of putting it. Wish I could go on a trip across Antarctica like Ben did...

During my trip through New Zealand in January and February I am going to try to capture some of the scenery -in such a way that each image tells a story of its own and together with other images- but also the more human side of it all. This will include some Maori people, and capturing some of their art, including the dances. Hopefully I can watch an All Blacks rugby game, to see the traditional haka performed in a modern day culture.