Evan's photography phun (3 Viewers)

[Lucky13]

Some beautifil pics there Eric!
Good luck with the museum!

 

[evangilder]

We're up in the Sierras for a few days, so I am playing around with some different settings. This huge cloud formed while we were out on our hike yesterday that looked pretty cool. I also got some cool stream shots cranking the F-stop way up to about F/25 to give the water blur.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great shots Eric.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots Eric!

 

[ontos]

WOW, great shots Eric, my two favorites are the Squirrel and the awsume cloud formation, well they all are great.

 

[evangilder]

Thanks guys. I got some more of the cool clouds today along with other shots. Bee crazy busy for being on vacation! Tomorrow we have a mine tour.

Before we went out for dinner tonight, we took the kids to the driving range. My son has good form, and I even caught the ball in flight.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

The ball is dead center between the club head and the end of the fence about shoulder high. Great shots Eric. The cloud shots ROCK. They are spectacular. And is that a Fox Squirrel?

 

[evangilder]

Thanks Aaron. I was told that is called a Chickory Squirrel. I learned a few things about the cameras this week too, believe it or not. I am always experimenting to get better photos and with nature shots I have sometime shot full auto for a few shots just to see what the camera is doing. Being that I shoot shutter priority most of the time with airplanes, I have used that for scenery as well. Until now. I have been playing with aperture priority and found a way to (finally) get my D80 to not overexpose. Lower f/stops on the D80 will definitely do the trick. Higher f/stops causes overexposure most of the time. When shooting full auto, you cannot change the metering away from Matrix Metering. I will get some examples together to show the difference, and while subtle for most photographers, it made a HUGE difference in a cloud formation I shot yesterday as an experiment. Auto blew out highlight on the clouds, even with the D50, whose metering is much more even.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Thank you for the information! I will check mine when I go to breakfast this morning and see what it is set on. I remember seeing it a while back but I have not ever bothered with the metering. And the squirrel, I thought maybe it was a young fox squirrel but it looked different. Not ever seen one of those before. Cool!

 

[evangilder]

Here you can see the difference. Both photos are unedited aside from resizing and adding the watermark. The time difference was the time it took me to spin the adjustment from Aperture priority to full auto. Look at the cloud highlight just right of center toward the middle. Highlights are blown out at full auto. Aperture priority will underexpose a little, but it is easier to enhance. Once the highlights are completely blown out, you can't recover them.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Interesting. The second shot to me looks just a little underexposed. Both seem to have the same sharpness though. I take that back. the underside of the cloud formation has more detail and color variation in it in the second shot.

 

[evangilder]

Yeah, it's always better to underexpose than to overexpose. You can always bump exposure/contrast/brightness/levels in photoshop to enhance the photos, but when the highlights are blasted out, you can't get them back at all.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

So that's why I do that.

 

[evangilder]

Got back today from our Sierras trip and while I enjoy vacations, it is nice to be home. It was a great trip with a lot of firsts for my kids. My daughter caught her first fish on her first boat fishing trip. My father in law and I coached my son and got him up on 2 wheels for the first time. He is high functioning autistic, so sometimes getting him to get motivated can be difficult, but once he gets it in his head he's going to do something, he can concentrate well. He was starting up and riding on his own in about 15 minutes. It wasn't without a lot of protest and drama, but I was so proud when he got it. He went from frustrated and taking a break to get some water to throwing the water bottle in the car and saying "I'm going to do this". And with that, one more false start and he was up and riding!

I have more pics to post when I am done going through them all.

My mother in law caught this shot while getting Jacob to practice.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

VERY COOL!!!!!! A very fruitfull vacation it seems. I bet you were kinda proud.

 

[evangilder]

A little more than kinda, Aaron.

 

[GrauGeist]

Looks like you had an awesome vacation, Eric!

All those shots rock and that little squirrel looks like one we have around here (pretty rare though) called a pine squirrel, but our's as more of a red hue to it's coat.

Especially loved the long exposure on the water, I've always had fun with that tecnique, though I also love to "stop" the water when the lighting and BG colors allow for the droplets to be highlighted.

It's been two weeks since my vacation came to an end and I've finally got caught up with things here at home and at work...and as promised, I looked up in the closet and found the Kodak goodies. Grabbed a quick shot with the iPad so you have an idea of what I was talking about...shoot me a PM and they'll be on thier way!

 

[evangilder]

Thanks Dave. You've got some real gems there. They'd be a great addition to the museum! I'll get a PM together for you.

I was getting some photos together for a friend this morning and found this shot taken earlier this year. Look closely at the gauges.

 

[evangilder]

I sent my final car payment in a few weeks ago and yesterday spent the day washing, and waxing it. Whoever called this a "mini-van" never had to wax one! After I finished the polish, I checked the mail and my free and clear title arrived for it. I still have some work to do to make it shine better (it has been an outside car it's whole life), but it looks a lot better with less oxidation.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

People actually wax those things? Hmmm, learn something new every day. It is a great feeling not to have a car payment, I haven't had one in over three years now. It looks great Eric. I don't see any spots that were missed.