DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... The Camera/Picture Taking Thread Pt. II

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How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?




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Damn paparazzi, bugging a guy on his lunch break. lol

Had a storm just skirt us last night, and it brought some phenomenal looking clouds.


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Earlier this morning while riding bikes I took this photo from the top of one of our bridges. The Portland Fire Boat was spraying water for display purpose only as today was our annual "Providence Bridge Pedal" (charity bike ride). I love the rainbow being created with the sun and water spray.

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I will refrain from saying what I think.

Absolutely gorgeous day out in bush Alaska, yesterday.


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This weekends woods walk.





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The second one screams perfection. I love the way the foliage frames the shot, and the little extra in front of the deer puts the icing on the cake.

Thank you Rocket, glad you liked it.





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The detail on that second deer is fantastic. I'm assuming that last pic is a Mississippi Kite? Beautiful bird and good job snagging him in flight like that. Were you able to use the 10fps on him? When I catch a bird like that against an open sky, I'll work that trigger button and expand the autofocus area (and then forget I did it, and then catch a rare bird in a tree and focus will lock on branches, leaves,....everything but the bird, lol).

Yes that 10 fps is amazing and I did expand the focus area on the fly but my thumb did have to hunt that trigger and remember to pull it, not push it, because I've not quite got the feel committed to memory yet.

You know, if you program a custom shooting mode into c1 - c3 you'll be able to make focus adjustments on the fly and once you stop shooting and the info screen goes off it will revert back to what you programmed initially, when programming a custom mode just leave "auto update set" to disable. If you want the changes to permanent just set it to enable. This feature is one of the pleasant surprises I wasn't expecting from this camera.

On that egret shot, you can see it in this small version but if you'll enlarge it and from there even click it to enlarge it farther, with the way the light is hitting the bird from the upper left, you can clearly make out the bone structure in the wings. Also you'll notice the way the bird has cocked it's head slightly to it's right to look down. I'm not sure but it looks like it was watching me taking pictures of it.

The stillness and clarity of your pictures is amazing Tulsa ... thanks man

The custom functions are one feature of that camera that I've not played around with. Now you've got me interested in setting some up (and for the lens also).

I love the custom functions.

On C1 I have my wildlife settings
Shutter priority with a default shutter speed of 1/1000 (being able to set a default shutter speed is an awesome feature. I couldn't do this with the 7D)
Auto ISO
Standard shooting mode
AWB
AI Servo
Spot Metering
High Speed Continuous
RAW.

With one click of the dial I have my HDR for Landscape or Architecture settings
C2 Aperture Priority
Auto ISO
2 stop exposure bracketing (with high speed continuous set I shoot a 3 shot bracket with one shutter release of 2 stops under exposed, exposed properly and 2 stops over exposed.)
One Shot AF
Spot Metering
High Speed Continuous
RAW

As mentioned you can change any or all of these settings on the fly and when you're done with that need and stop shooting, it will revert to what you originally set up. The 7D couldn't do this either.

The Mark II is such an incredible camera.

My Nikon D5500 has the ability to store custom settings too. I have not played around with it either. Your post makes me intrigued to begin setting my own AP & SP settings for various shots.

A few questions about your HDR custom settings. I've never tried creating HDR images, and a few things puzzle me. First, why auto ISO? When combining images with different ISO settings, wouldn't the varying noise levels make things difficult? Also, wouldn't center weighted or evaluative metering be more effective than spot metering? It seems to me that with HDR the concern would be the exposure of the entire image, unlike shooting critters.

It looks like you're really getting that camera down. I agree, it's a remarkable camera. It was quite the upgrade from my 50D.

You bring up excellent points.

You have to under and over expose two of your three shots to give your HDR software the range to work with. Since I'm using aperture priority and more often than not, I'm handheld, and setting it at high speed continuous to take the fastest three shot bursts, I have to leave the ISO flexible to increase and decrease the light on the sensor without camera shake. Trying to merge 3 shots into one with camera shake can bring motion into a picture your software may not be able to align properly.

On metering I use the philosophy, you have to set it to something.

I leave it set on spot as my jumping off point. Since I'm usually fixed on one subject, spot is a good starting point but of course your lighting determines your final settings. I know when I switch to C2 I don't have to adjust the camera to take a 3 shot burst, bracketed, it's already set. If I have a tripod where camera shake isn't a big concern I can switch to a fixed ISO. If I shoot indoors in a room or area with a brightly lit window, I can switch metering modes to bring the windows light into consideration. If I’m doing wide shots with a lot of sky and terrain, evaluative is a good choice.

For C2 I also set spot focus where I can focus on the subject and recompose the shot as necessary since I’m not expecting this subject to fly away.


Here's an example of an HDR shot I took this weekend, with tripod, (actually it was that monopod with feet I sent you info on), so I switched to a fixed ISO of 100 and kept spot metering on with a focal length of 17mm. It was cloudy and dark last Saturday.

The three exposure shots.




Now the HDR result.




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Oh darn, I could've had a V8!




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That's awesome! Once again, I think you have a great crested flycatcher.

They look so peaceful.




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But they are death from above!




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Who knew woodpeckers closed their eyes before striking the tree?





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My little chickadee...




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Touched by Goldfinger.




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Hummmmmm




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B-29 Fifi was in town this weekend.









Cleveland airshow is next weekend, be prepared to be flooded with aviation photos.

Got to do a bit of traveling this past week. Y'all get to take another trip into my world of bush Alaska. You'll notice much of this may remind you of the Florida swamp, and that's quite the accurate comparison.
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Much of the terrain between the hub city (only reachable by aircraft), and my village looks like this. Not many trees can be found out where I am.

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Lots of little streams and rivers, but they sit far from villages. I know a teacher who once went from the hub city to his village by kayak. It took his group three weeks to cover 100 miles.

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Quite easy to get lost down there if you don't have a map. You'll sink right into mud, or water. Some villages only can use boardwalks to get around. Me? Our ground is much higher above the water table, so I get to walk around.

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Lots of good sized lakes out this way, too.

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That's my mode of transportation when I need to get into the hub city. No roads go out to where I am. Cessna 208s fly out to where I'm at, and another company uses 207s.

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Eventually, you reach the edge towards a much bigger body of water.

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You traverse over the water, and find yourself on the edge of another land mass.


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This ends up as quite the beautiful landscape, too.

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On the land you find a typical bush Alaska airport. No fancy terminal, but just a dirt runway that any capable Cessna can land on.

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The journey continues after a landing, and a takeoff. My final stop sits back behind me.

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This is 4000 feet above a typical bush Alaska village. The one I live in is a bit bigger than this one, but I fly over this one quite often. Notice the top left corner? That's a cellphone tower.

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This concludes a post into my life in bush Alaska.

Nice view! So how much is a plane ride from one point to the other. Gotta think it's a bit more than your average cab ride.

The smaller airline companies actually do call themselves air taxis. They're decent rides, but sometimes the turbulence catches you off-guard.

Excellent photo's Tulsa. My gosh, how rare is that to photo a hummingbird just sitting?

Great pics. Thanks for the tour.

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This one really needs to be viewed larger since you'll barely see the egret in the tree with the fish stirring the water below.

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How do you get the image to show up instead of a link like archbolddawgs?

Here's some photos from my Burnung Man experience. The art was amazing. I wish I could share my entire album with you all.
I will be posting more photos of our art and links to some recent news outlets regarding it in the 'Any Artists' thread. It was a huge success. We're very proud.
Now onto the other photos...


The Temple.
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The Lighthouses.
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Helios.
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The Catacomb of Veils. (The largest piece of art ever burned on the Playa)
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A couple more...

The Temple.
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La Victrola.
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thanks portland. great pics!

Wow! Amazing pics of amazing art. On that Catacomb of Veils pic, it looks as if there's a fire tornado on the left side.

It is a fire tornado. It spawned one after another after another. It was breathtaking. I wish I could post the video I took.
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jc
Cleveland Airshow:

Those are fantastic pics. I love that Mustang(?) flying in formation with the fighter jets.