Flowers and Grass

Steven's Lake has an bald eagles nest. I went down there looking for the bird to photograph, but did not have any luck. We hung around for a while, but rain was moving in and I was not going to get the camera wet. I took some photos of the flowers as we were leaving.

Date: 05/30/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: Program
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/100 sec
Aperture: F/5.0
Focal Length: 100mm

 

Photoshop involved cropping a bit of the top off the photo and a minor tweak of the WB.

Walk Down the Road

As I was photographing the flowers, everyone went to "town" to get icecream. Dakota came back and we went for a walk down to the creek. I just loved this photo of her on the road. She looks so big!!

Date: 05/29/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: Program
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/250 sec
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 400mm

 

I'm fairly certain I didn't do anything in Photoshop...

Foggy Bridge

On our way home for the weekend, it was a nice sunny day until we get up to the Mackinac Bridge to cross northward.  As we approach, I see it is blanketed in fog, so we had to make an emergency stop to try to photograph the bridge in the fog. 

Several lessons learned -

1) In fog, any dust will stand out in the photo - I really need to clean my filters...
2) Why these bayfly bugs hatch, they are everywhere, maybe some of my "dust" are these bugs (I know it is some dust, since I looked at the filter since I got home),
3) Bugs are annoying when photographying, I should have had long pants on :-P

I was not thrilled with how the photo turned out.  It's not bad, but it didn't "wow" me. 

 

Date: 05/22/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF-S 18-200mm f/2.5-5.6 IS
Exposure: Aperture
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/125 sec
Aperture: F/16
Focal Length: 150mm

I did a little cropping, but the big help of Photoshop was the "spot" tool, to help me get rid of the dust/bugs that were dotting the photo originally. 

Mackinac Bridge

We traveled to lower Michigan for the weekend for Kerry's Grandpa's memorial service.  On our way over, I had to stop and try to get some cool photos of the Mackinac Bridge.  We stopped and had supper to give the sun a little more time to go down to get that better light for photographs.

 

Date: 05/20/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF-S 18-200mm f/2.5-5.6 IS
Exposure: Program
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/250 sec
Aperture: F/11
Focal Length: 50mm

This was originally taken as a vertical photo, but I cropped it, since the trees below and the blank sky above did not add anything.  Did some minor spot removal - not sure at this point if it was dust or bugs, since they were having a big bug hatch.

Cherry Tree

While working on our garden today, I noticed our choke cherry tree was starting to leaf-out.  I got a photo of it tonight as the sun was going down.  I pushed the zoom to the max, and really liked how the farm field and trees in the background completely blurred out.

Date: 05/08/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF-S 18-200mm f/2.5-5.6 IS
Exposure: Program
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/250 sec
Aperture: F/7.1
Focal Length: 200mm

I changed my ISO and went back to RAW+JPEG.  I cropped this photo so it was a vertical picture.  No other Photoshop editing.

Reflections

After the eagle was scared away by somebody driving past, the light outside was too amazing to simply go back in the house.  So with my pajama pants on, I wanted over to the pond because I thought I heard some geese honking. 

The geese were not there, but the water was as flat as a mirror!  It created awesome reflections of the gazebo and tree!

Date: 04/24/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: Program
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/160 sec
Aperture: F/5.0
Focal Length: 105mm

I did not do any post editing in Photoshop.  This is the JPEG that came out in my RAW+JPEG format.

Eagle's Perch

We were over to my wife's parents for the weekend.  I brought the camera and gear hoping to get out at some point to snap some photos.  Saturday was dreary, not a good day.  This morning however, was a big change.  I woke up, starting going down the stairs, looked out the window at the landing, and right back up I went to find the camera.

This eagle has a nest about a mile away, but likes to sit up in the tree across the street from Kerry's parents to scope out the pond and the open fields.

Date: 04/24/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: Program
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/200 sec
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 350mm

I cropped a bit in Photoshop, but that is all I did for post-processing.  

Flooded Farm Field

Down our street is a flooded farm field that I have noticed ducks, geese, and a few cranes flocking to the water each night.  After supper, I drove down and snapped several shots out the car window (some of the birds flew away with just me driving by and slowing down).

 

Date: 04/17/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: Program
ISO: 640
Shutter: 1/400 sec
Aperture: F/7.1
Focal Length: 400mm

I cropped the RAW file for this JPEG, zoomed in a little to make the ducks the focus.  

Full Moon

Today is a two photo day.  While taking the photo of the breaking storm, I turned around to see the break in clouds had the full moon out!  I knew it was not going to last long, since more clouds were fast approaching.  I switched lenses and started snapping.  A minute after this photo, clouds rolled in and ruined the opporutnity.

 

Date: 04/16/2011
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: Manual
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/80 sec
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 400mm

Little post-processing on this photo.  Just a square crop of the moon. 

Moon

The moon was nothing more than a sliver tonight, and I wanted to see what a 400mm zoom really could do.

 

Date: 04/06/2011

Camera: Canon EOS 40D

Lens: EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

Exposure: Manual

ISO: 800

Shutter: 1/160 sec

Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 400mm 

I was thrilled with the lens!!  I took the pics in RAW+JPG format.  I have been trying to get into using RAW more, but I have the bad habit of picking up my camera and just firing away (and since I was just in JPG mode, I forget about the RAW).  Once downloaded I quickly scanned through the JPG files, deleted the bad files, and then played in Photoshop RAW editor to set White-balance and crop out the black around the moon.

I really was blown away by the detail of the moon that was picked up!  I'm looking forward to a full moon and hopefully a clear night to try it again.  Maybe I do need to look at that 2X extender...... 0:)