Where Did Summer Go

Summer, so many plans, but where did it go???

With a new job getting the kids ready for school it was hectic. It was a wet summer and the garden did not do well but we did get some stuff canned. I have not been out shooting like I wanted to. With fall coming I hope to change that. I had my first portrait shot the other day and I am happy with the results. I have a couple of ideas for some shoots but lining up willing participants may be difficult. Last night I forced my self to go out and shoot a little and got some results I am happy with. I also have some new gear and will be talking about it later.

So now for the pictures. I ventured out after dinner to O. O. McIntyre Park District's Raccoon Creek County Park. I thought I would just hike around and see what jumped out as interesting. While hiking I ran across a mushroom. With light I used my tripod and 10mm extension tube on my 70-300mm.



I shot a quick Panorama overlooking the hills of the area.



While leaving I grabbed a bracketed shot of the Hummingbird Gazebo to try to put together an HDR. Using QTPSFSGUI



Last I stopped in town at the Bandstand in the Gallipolis City Park and snapped another set of bracketed shots for an HDR of the Bandstand after dark.



Thanks for looking and enjoy!

Vacation

I am still working on post processing my vacation pictures so I will throw some out here and there. You can view a larger image or go directly to the gallery by clicking on a photo.

We left May 24 for 8 days and 7 nights at Walt Disney's Pop Century Resort. We left right after school was done and drive through the night. We arrived at 7:15 in the morning and got checked in. Our room wasn't ready of course, so we freshened up and headed to Magic Kingdom. We arrived for park opening and headed for Dumbo the Flying Elephant first off. When we got in line we were up for the second trip of the day and with the sun out it began to rain.




We rode a few other family favorites including Peter Pan, Big Thunder Mountain Rairoad, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion. We had lunch at Columbia Harbor House and headed back to the room for a much needed nap. After a nap we started back to the park and it was really cloudy! We rode Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and rain looked emanate so we headed to an inside ride the Carousel of Progress. When we exited it was an absolute deluge. With no end in sight and 3-4 inches of water everywhere we decided to call it a day. I did not get many pics on the first day.

So day 2 finally rolled around and it was off to Disney's Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends. At opening we made a dash for the most infamous of villians, Darth Vader.




After Vader Jango Fett was close so we ventured over to see him.





We also visited Mace Windu, Princess Leia, and Ahsoka Tona before running into some jawa's. I stayed back but they moved in to try to trade Trevor's camera for a hair clip. Good thing he did not trade.




We also ran into some clone troopers before scouting a place to watch the parade. After the parade we returned to the room for a nap. After a nap we went back to Studios for the evening. We timed it just right because we arrived as the rain was ending.



We rode a few rides and headed back to the room. I left for the Magic Kingdom on my own for some photos during Extra Magic Hours.






Enjoy,
Chris

I'm Back

The past few weeks have been very busy. While on vacation I was offered a new job that is 3 miles from my house instead of 37 miles. So between the transition, my garden which was overgrown with weeds and life in general I have not had time to post so here goes.

Chris

Back from Vacation

Just returned from vacation and had a really good time despite a few issues. During the second day of the trip my Sony 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 "G" lens quit auto focusing. I neglected to bring my Minolta 75-300mm with my so I was stuck manually focusing this lens the rest of the trip and using my 50mm f1.7 for portraits. I love this lens for macro work, portraits, and for its zoom so needless to say I was disappointed. So Monday when I got back I shipped it to Sony's Laredo Texas service center for repair. It should be a warranty repair and I have heard only good things about Sony's repair services.

Here is a teaser from sunrise at Amelia Island Plantation.



Enjoy,
Chris

Vacation

I was hoping to put up another post before we are off to vacation, but things did not work out. I was hoping to get on at work Saturday but we had severe thunderstorms and the power was out for 2 hours and we ended up being busy any way. So Sunday we had a Cub Scout pack hike in the afternoon. Monday Isaac had a school picnic and parent conferences in the evening. Tuesday at work it was a busy shift. So basically the week was shot and here it is Thursday and we leave tomorrow after school for a week at Walt Disney World. While there I know I will have plenty of shots to discuss since last time we took 2300 photos. So I will get back here in a little over a week to add some more to the Evolution of the Shot.

Pomeroy Mason Bridge

On April 21, 2009 the Bridge connecting Pomeroy, Ohio and Mason, West Virginia met the first of several explosions to bring the structure down. The bridge was a cantilever truss bridge built in 1928 by the Mount Vernon Bridge Company of Mount Vernon, Ohio.

The center span would be the first to be destroyed. Due to river traffic the demolition company could only shut down the main channel for 24 hours without facing penalties. The approaches and piers would be destroyed later.

The day of demolition I went early and set up the camera on the tripod and got ready. I set my settings on manual and raw capture to get the fastest frames per second. I was working that day and got called away so I left the remote shutter release with Dad to take the shots. The only problem was, while I was away the clouds cleared up changing the exposure settings. Dad was not aware of the how I had the camera set and triggered the shutter on cue. The captures were overexposed by 2 stops!. Luckily I had used RAW and I could salvage the shots. I merged them into an animated gif.


So this week on May 14, 2009 the Mason, West Virginia side's time was up. I set up in the same location. This time I used RAW and aperture priority. Where I set up, the local news station had set up also. My youngest son had been talking for a year about going to watch the bridge blow up. He had seen the first demolition and did not like it because of the noise. This time I let him bring my ear muffs I use in the wood shop this time hoping it would help. It did not, he said it was too loud. Apparently it made a good news story because we made the local news.

Link to WSAZ News Video

It was an overcast day with rain, but I managed to get another series of shots and again merged them into an animated gif.



So after the implosion I drove across the new Bridge of Honor to Mason, West Virginia and took a few shots wreckage and equipment that had already moved in to remove it.



One thing I noticed is how clean the copper clad explosives cut the steel. Here is a photo showing the cut. You can see the copper on the inside of the cut and the c-clamps used to hold the explosives in place are still attached.



One of the features of the bridge design and construction was the eye beams. Shown here is the end of one of the eye beams protruding from the wreckage.



The cutters quickly moved in to remove the debris. It did not take long before some of the first large pieces were being hauled away.

This is not what I have normally been blogging about, but it was an interesting subject for my lens so I thought I would share.

Enjoy
Chris

Information pertaining to the date of construction and manufacturer was found on www.historicbridges.org

Eastern Tent Caterpillar

The Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum) is very active at this time of year. I've had to remove several "tents" from my trees and yet every where I turn I find another caterpillar. Most of the time they are moving rather quickly so the other day when I found one on sitting still on one of my roses I thought why not grab a shot.

I went and grabbed the gear. Put the camera on the tripod to make focusing easier, using the 70-300mm and a 20mm extension tube. My Sony HVL-F58AM flash off camera. I started with a small aperture of f14 and the hand holding the flash to the right. Popped off the firsts shot and drew back with a gasp.



The flash overpowered the shot and was on the wrong side of the subject. So I dialed down the flash EV -0.7 stops, switched hands and shot again.



The flash was still overpowering the exposure so I dialed it down to -1.7EV and gave it another go.



This time the exposure looked better but the depth of feild was too deep so I closed the aperture down to f5 and moved off center.



I liked to look but the main subject was supposed to the the caterpillar, not the leaf. So I centered and zoomed in a little more for the final shot.



So after importing the raw image using Ufraw and adjusting the levels, curves, contrast and sharpening for the final image.



This set required 12 shots to get the final image. You can click on an image to see a larger size.

Enjoy
Chris