Sweet socks of victory!

I went to Darwin's office today, where he was nearly taken out by the hands of doom. Anyway, the top group won the small group contest......beating out the beauty queens. I took my 28-75mm lens. Shot in A mode with flash most of the time....other times I went to 1600 ISO. Both worked ok.

Fall leaves with flash

I took my 60mm macro and my flash outside this afternoon to play with Manual mode. I'm starting to get more comfortable with using M mode and it is so neat. I used about -1/3 flash to take these pictures and they pop off the screen.

Angel Dogs

Last night I took pictures of volunteers and their dogs. It was very fun. I usually set up in a gym that had low tables for physical therapy. This allowed the dogs an easy jump up to get more posed. I figured that I could achieve the same thing with my massage table! It worked great. I put my backdrop on a wall and then set my massage table about 8 feet in front of it. I put a backlight on the backdrop and away I went.

I used my 28-75 lens at F6.3 ISO 400 with my continuous light set up. Most pictures were in the 44-59mm range on the lens. It did a fine job. I thought about adding a fill flash to minimize face shadowing, but decided that might be more trouble than it was worth with glass wearers and post processing. I used LiveView and focused manually. It was a bit of a pain, so I am going to test and see if I turn on all focus points, how that would work for a person and their pet.

Overall, the night went well. You can see that I shot small dogs and giant dogs. The small dogs sat on my box that I use with my pilates machine! I use whatever I have!!

I set up my camera on my Gitzo tripod. It was very solid. What I liked was that I was confident that if it got bumped it would not fall down.

For post processing, I had to remove a catch light from the eyes of both the person and the dog. There is also a handle on the black box that I thought looked better gone and on a couple of pictures, the backdrop light tripod was visible. Not any more.

Overcast day......WOW

Top two with 70-200 and bottom 10-22mm. It looks like my tree has one more day left...

Morning Fall - No Wind & Perfect Light

I went outside to my backyard this morning to visit my sugar maple tree. Oh, how pretty! I took my Gitzo tripod, so I could get really high and used LiveView with remote shutter release. How amazing! Most of these pictures were shot above F14 using either my 60mm macro or 70-200.

Sunset this evening

I went with Pam back to Holmes Lake for the sunset today. Once again...spectacular!

Nebraska City Tree Adventure

Deb & I went to Nebraska City today. Wow was it ever a diamond day. We ate at the Lied Lodge...I need to remember they have the best corn chowder! We walked over to the Tree Adventure and ended by picking our own pumkin....which we had to carry back about 1 mile to our car! I took the Tamron 28-75mm with polarizer today. It worked really well and was nice not to be changing lenses all day.

Beautiful Fall Morning Light

Oh the colors of the morning light! Just beautiful this week. Absolutely stunning. Shade provides a nice backdrop too. 28-75 with polarizer

Fall Dog Day

See the words "pie garden"? We were tempted to stop here on the beginning of our trip.....but we actually stopped at the end of our day on our way home.

We went to southeast Nebraska today. Every town we drove through we let the dogs smell. When we got to Indian Cave State park, there were 20 miles of smelling to do.

This picture needed a polarizer and the .6 grad nd filter. Helped pull the colors out. I think you can see 4 states from here (Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas & Missouri) and the Missouri river.

This was our along the road stop. The sumac was the same color as this barn.

Our last stop was in Nebraska City for apple pie & a walk. Yes, we shared with the dogs. They love apples! Here you see that we left Lincoln and forgot the dogs leashes. We remembered in Auburn and stopped at a farm supply store and now they have matching purple leashes that will stay in the car for such occassions.

My neighbor Margaret

I walk with Margaret nearly every morning. Have had the wonderful opportunity and blessing of doing that for the past several years. I wanted to give her a birthday present of a picture with her 3 sons. I took this picture in her backyard with these settings....M mode F9 1/250 and flash on High Speed Synch with -2/3 exposure with my 28-75mm lens. I wanted to be sure that the tree was in focus since it was a gift from her sons several years ago. I probably didn't need F9, but it worked out. I think they both turned out really nice. The picture of Margaret & Charley is the best one I've ever seen of Margaret!

Sad Day

Our dear friend Jeanette left this earth this morning. We will all miss her and hope that we will see her again.

Stormy Weather

More weather today..... This was taken with my 2 stop graduated neutral density filter on my 10-22mm at 10mm. It is a good example of how it allows you to take really nice landscape pictures that otherwise would be impossible to balance out without extensive shots and lots of post processing.

Muddy Fall

It's been raining the past month, it seems. Everything is super muddy. I got a new (used) carbon fiber tripod and wow, is that nice! Instead of 5 lbs, it only weighs 2.7. Solid as a rock too. Went out today in my yard to take some pictures with it and this is what I found. I wonder if I am ever going to get tired of taking pictures in my yard??? I'll have to keep planting interesting things.

Friends

I learned something very important today. I was going to take these pictures outside....but wait....they both wear glasses that change with the light! Ugh! Oh well, I had my flash along and came up with some nice inside pictures. I guess you have to plan for everything. 28-75 + flash

Fall at the Lake

I walked to the lake this afternoon with the dogs. The colors are just starting to show up. Last night I found that I had a 52-77mm step up ring which made me happy so I can use a polarizer with my 60mm Macro lens. That lens is such a good all-around lens. 60mm + polarizer

Distributing Food

Someone's Grandma received these donut holes tonight.

Stuffing Envelopes

I took pictures tonight at a church event. I used my 200 L which allowed me to be 10-30 feet away from the subject. Everyone just worked away and didn't even notice me taking pictures. It worked fairly well. All pictures taken at 2.8 ISO 800 without flash.