I am back.....

I can't believe it has been over two months since I have been out with my camera. What a beautiful day to pick up my camera bag and head out on an adventure with Bill. I have been wanting to see the historic covered bridge at South Yuba River State Park at Bridgeport. With the Iphone "map" app in hand we set off to find it.

On the way we passed these cows and I asked Bill to turn around. Why in the world I found flies swarming on the cow interesting, but I did, so here is the picture (sorry).

At the same location I liked how the barbed-wire was coiled around the fence post.

Another exciting thing about today is that Bill picked up my Nikon D5100 and had his own photo experience. I viewed some of the downloaded pictures he took, he has a great eye. Maybe in the future I will share this blog with him. 

YAY!!, we found the covered bridge. The river was low so we were able to climb down to the beach and take two different views of the bridge.

We found some walking trails across the river, and decided to take the Buttermilk Bend Trail to see a different view of the river.

At the top of the trail we had great views of the river. This looks like a great place to enjoy a hot summer day. We decided we need to come back and float in the river or enjoy a warm rock like the fella below.

We decided to head home a different route, through Marysville. On the road we saw a sign for Englebright Dam. So we took advantage of the day and took the turn-off. Another good find we must return to when we have more time to enjoy the lake. You can rent boats and houseboats. These look like they are lived in, but according to the brochure many are available for rent.

Folsom Powerhouse photo shoot

I attended my first Folsom Photography Meet-up at the Folsom Powerhouse last weekend. If you aren't familiar with "Meet Up",  you can go to meetup.com and find a group with about any interest you can think of.  I joined a few photography Meet Up groups but had been too intimidated to participate in one of the events. Recently a Folsom Area Photographer's group was started so I joined and jumped right in to attend the first event which was, as I mentioned, last weekend.  Tricia organized a group of four photographers and a model for a portrait session. Below are some of the pictures I took of "Ms. Olivia" our model. This is my first experience using a model. We will be meeting again this weekend to critique our photos and shoot some more pictures.

Lessons learned:
CA state parks require professional photographers to obtain permits to photograph in a park if the photographs are to be sold. If you are conducting business at the park by taking portraits a special permit is required which you would then be obligated to pay a % of your profits to the CA park district.

And of course I needed to take one of the powerhouse

Viva Las Vegas

While in Las Vegas we visited the Hoover Dam and Red Rock Canyon. I tried my hand at bracketing and will need to spend some time figuring out how to Layer in Photoshop. 

Hoover Dam Visitor Center

Hoover Dam

Red Rock Canyon

Red Rock Canyon with Las Vegas in the distant back ground

Bill set this shot up

This was a night shot of the Excalibur casino towers

A picture worth a thousand words... leaving Las Vegas

A great day for a photo outing

I purchased an online photography course through  The Great Courses called "Fundamentals of Photography" offered by Professor Joel Sartore a National Geographic Magazine photographer. The lesson I just completed had an assignment to take some photographs using the "aperture" setting.

Cameron Park, CA has a lake so I thought I would head over there to take some pictures while the course was fresh on my mind. I figured I would see some ducks and was happy to find quite a few geese and three swans. The birds were very entertaining.  Today I have a few stories to tell with my pictures.

I was happy with this picture, I especially like the reflections. The lighting was good, it was about 12:00 pm. I used my Nikon D7000 and my Sigma 50x500mm lens.

These two geese were too caught up in a conversation and didn't seem to mind me getting close to them. I shot this with my Nikon 18x105mm lens about three feet from them.

Now this is an interesting story. I had been over by the shore taking some pictures earlier of the swans (these three swans cracked me up, they looked like synchronized swimmers) when I spotted one white goose, I thought to be a Snow Goose, but I am not positive. Watching her interact with the other geese I could see she was very bossy. One swan was finally coming closer to the shore so I positioned myself to get a better shot when the white goose entered the water to chase the swan away from her territory. She came back to the shore looking awfully proud of herself.

As I was packing up a father arrived with his daughter and she immediately ran off to chase the geese. Funny how the little girl's behavior was similar to the white goose chasing the swan ... although I think the goose got more pleasure out of intimidating the swan.

Photoshop PS6

I am tired of posting how I am frustrated with my struggles of learning Photoshop. I decided to play around with my pictures from today. Below is my version of a collage. I liken it to the Highlight magazine game of my youth... "hidden picture". See if you can find three birds.

Birds of a feather....

Bill and I headed out to the Davis Wetlands and Yolo Bypass Wildlife area today to do a little bird watching and get some practice using my new Nikon D7000.

Our first stop was the Davis Wetlands. Unfortunately we were not able to get close enough  to the Tundra Swans (without risking arrest), even with my Sigma 150 x 500mm lens; but it was still great to be able to view them.

There were many Killdeer out today.

Our last stop, the Yolo Bypass Wildlife area is where we spotted this Great Blue Heron and ducks. One great thing about  this area is that you can drive around to view the birds. That sure beat walking with all of my photo equipment. 

I love my new Nikon D7000

Santa brought me a Nikon D7000 with an AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm lens. I have been reading the manual for the last week and felt brave enough to go out and try to take a few photos. I headed out to the Folsom Railroad Museum this morning around 10:00 am only to find it closed. While looking through the wrought iron gate I saw it's shadow on the cement and thought it would be a fun shot.

Since that idea was a bust, with the railroad in mind I remembered an area off of Sibley Rd. that I had wanted to stop and take a photo of when the trees were in full color a few months ago.

I love this camera and lens and it is awesome that I can use all of my lenses with it (it is compatible with the lenses purchased for my Nikon D5100). It is going to be so nice not having to change lenses all the time. Now I just have to figure out what lens to have on what camera.

When I set my mind to something.....

Last month Bill and I went out to Folsom Lake for a walk. I brought my camera and only one lens. I happened on a pine tree where an Acorn Woodpecker was busy doing what woodpeckers do. Unfortunately two things were against me that day... it was a cloudy day and I had the wrong lens. When I downloaded the photo below, I saw something I couldn't see from where I was standing to take the photo. I didn't know that woodpeckers placed acorns from the oak trees into the holes they pecked to open up the acorns.

November 25, 2012, 3:30pm

Since there were so many holes pecked in the tree I knew I could go back to this tree another day to try to get a better photo. Today (a month later) I went to the same tree at the same time of day. This time it was a sunny day and I brought my Sigma 150 mm x 500 mm so I could zoom in to get a closer shot.  I really like the picture I was able to get of the two woodpeckers, one with an acorn in it's beak.

December 24, 2012 3:45pm

Long time no post

It has been a month since my last post. I have been out a few times to shoot pictures, but as the season changes the weather and lack of light has been a struggle for me.. I have been taking this time to read my photo books (got a couple great ones as early Christmas presents) and am hoping Santa brings me an external flash. Below I am sharing my first try at editing a picture I took in RAW and  also saved as a JPG file. I really wanted to do some fancy editing in Photoshop but I am soooo overwhelmed when I open the program I revert back to Picasa for editing. I will take the time this winter to master (yeah right) Photoshop.

RAW (edited then saved to JPG)

Edited in JPG

If at first you don't succeed.....

It never fails, I will be out and about without my camera and miss a photo opportunity. Last week I was out walking Roxy and heard hundreds (not exaggerating) of birds hiding in the trees and reeds. I went home and returned with my camera waiting around trying to capture the birds in flight. I knew I had to set my shutter speed to capture the action and the only way this novice knew how to do this was to change the ISO setting to 800. Below are two pictures from this day and as you can see they are very grainy due to the high ISO setting (around 3pm).

 

Bill and I went out to Lake Natomas in Folsom this morning to walk and I decided I better take my camera. Bill found these two shots (he has an eye for photography... it is only a matter of time that he catches the bug and wants to learn how to use the camera).

I decide I needed to go back to the marshy area by the house to try making some adjustments and get some clearer photos (still bothered about the pictures taken last week).  I decided to forget about capturing the birds in flight and focused on the trees, pussy-willows and a few birds hanging around the trees. I took these around 1:00pm with at 100 ISO.