Four Cormorants on a Tree

Before this year, I never knew what a Cormorant was - or even that they existed.  Now I know.  There are many in residence at the Shiawassee Nature Refuge, from flying to swimming to perching on a tree.
I've seen many of them flying.  Small, fast.  Maybe next year I'll catch one in flight.  I'll be ready for them.  But for this year, I have one in the process of transitioning from swimming to flight here.  
I did catch these four just sitting on a tree in a pond.
I like the green, yellows, and the orange on the bills.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/400 sec, 600 mm

This was taken with the D7200/70-300 lens, 1.5x crop.  It won't enlarge very well.  This is as much as I can crop it and it still look good on the monitors.  The argument for a 500 mm lens.  
We'll see how that fits in for next year's budget meeting.  Ha.

Grand Haven Light - Looking Inland

It's been a few years since I've been to the Grand Haven Lighthouse.  And wow, there have been some changes.  Most notably a lot of the old iron was removed and the jetty was resurfaced.  As to the old iron, this was a structure connecting the lighthouse and the back light.  It was eye-sore beautiful.  The resurfaced jetty or walkway from shore was just great.  Sure, I like worn structures but this new look was great.
During my visit, there wasn't much action going on.  No waves.  Lots of people getting a nice autumn walk in.  In a few weeks, this area won't be as pleasant.  Too bad it's so far away, at some point I'll want wave action!
I usually don't like to have people in my photographs.  Today was a bit different in that there were people fishing and they looked to be part of the scenery.  To me they are interesting, not eye distracting.
In the original image, there were two couples at the base of the light that I need to remove.  If I was going to leave people in the shot, why remove them?  Well, I always like a good challenge.  And they were also catching my eye.  One person had on a lime green coat that just didn't look right against the red light.  Off to the side, OK.  Not so much where they were.
I would have liked more color in the trees and I really thought this time of year the colors would have exploded.  But they are as they are.
This photo, from concept to post processing was an interesting journey.  On site, there was sun at my back, there was some color in the trees and there was a great sky/cloud pattern.  What's not to like?  The dynamic contrast of my eye exceeded that of the camera.  The sun shining on the red light and the white objects just off the beach were pretty much blown.  The fix is exposure compensation.  For this image, I dialed in a -1 or under-exposed by one stop.  That gives the original image a very dark look.

This definitely was not what I saw that afternoon.  And this is why we shoot RAW.  Recovering from a underexposed shot like this is not much of a challenge.  As long as there is color information on a pixel, the image can be processed.  When in doubt, shoot dark.
The challenge was I did not want a universal sunlight effect.  The sky/clouds still needs to be somewhat dark.  Additional sunlight on the red light would be too much.  Just wanted to highlight the trees, and if there was some golden color, get it to come out.
For targeted work like this, I use On One.  All the universal work and object removal was done with Photoshop.
I joke with my photo club that I don't like to take more than five minutes on any shot.  This was fun.  I worked on it for over two days, on and off.  Not that the final image is multiple hours of work, but I did bits and pieces - deleted and started over again and did bits and pieces and deleted and...  you get the idea.
Once I had everything worked out, start to finish was probably ten minutes.  One of the time contributors was an error on my part.  This was taken with the D500 on the first day.  I missed the setting to compress (lossless) the RAW file.  This file is huge and it does add some time for each process.  Quoting HJS, "DOH!"

ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/800 sec, 36 mm (EC -1)

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

That's a lot closer to what I saw.  The trick is to not overdo the highlights.  You can make it look very fake, very quickly.  Which I did a few times.

B25 - Semper Fi

The Commemorative Air Force is an organization that works to restore/fly vintage aircraft at air shows.  There are a number of chapters across the US and Canada.  At the Air Races, the CAF had a few aircraft perform at the show.
One of the aircraft from the CAF was the B25 Mitchell bomber.  I had never seen one, up close, before.  History.
I have a lot of interesting photos of the aircraft in various phases of flight.  But what's really interesting to me about this, is I am essentially eye level with the flight deck.  Have I said, our seats were just plain awesome?
I'm guessing based on cruise information I could find, this pass was around 220 MPH.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/2000 sec, 600 mm

NIKON D7200 Ver.1.04/70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

The fact that I froze the props isn't telling here.  Did I mention, our seats were just awesome to be able to get this view?

What it takes............

I have fun sharing my photos.  I have fun taking the shots.  I have fun with the software.  I have fun with the 'pressure' to get a good shot.  I have fun with the mental exercises to get the good shot.  It is all fun.
When you think of what the photographers of years past had to do to get a good shot.  I have fun because out of hundreds of shots, I get two or three and I think it is a good day.  I have memory cards that will hold thousands of images.  All of it still costs $$$s, but for me it is paid for.   All  the cost is up front.  That's not always how it used to be.
Photographers back in the day had to be good.  Or broke.  No one could have the miss to hit ratio that I have and survive to tell about it.  In golf terms, I'm a hack.
That's OK.  As long as the ratio gets better, I'm doing OK.  When I was playing golf, if I had one or two memorable shots a round, I was happy.  In the photography game it a bit different.  Sure, looking for the one 'money' shot is good but I look at it as a two track adventure.  The first track is the 'artsy' one.  Do I have the 'eye'?  Do I have the sense of story telling with one image?  The second track is technical.  Is it sharp?  Is it in focus?  is that a bird, or a dust spot?
When both tracks meet, that's the one.
Yesterday I was testing the D500.  Looking at the two tracks, the story just wasn't there.  The story was never going to be there.  Weather was nice.  No real wave action.  Unless someone fell off the pier, nothing interesting.  But I can work on the technical stuff.  Sunlight off the white tower presents some pixel washout, unless you can work the camera, ie exposure compensation.  Work it.  While not a total loss, I wasn't expecting much more.
A lot of time when I go out, it is just working the settings.  Shooting (photographing) the Sea Gulls.  So when the time is right, I'll be ready to forget everything I've learned.
When I went to the Air Races, the story was in front of me.  No excuses on that end.  Just don't screw up the technical stuff.
But even when the story is in front of you, not every shot is a winner.  I took probably close to 5k shots in the four days.  In the end, I was looking for about 25 per day that were keepers.  There were plenty of multiple shot sequences that produces good shots, but they count only as one.
In the case of the Air Races, it was all fun, even when this happens.

No saving this one.  When you think about it, so many things had to go right.  The story was there.  It is tough for me to tell the distance, but let's call it .2 mile.  Let's say each aircraft is traveling at 500 mph.  Closing speed, round numbers 1,000 MPH.  I'm .2 miles away, trying to catch a scene at 1,000 MPH where I can only guess the money shot will be?  In this shot, I only missed by a couple of feet. 
Out of the 5k shot, let's say 4k were action.  There were many that were near "hits".  But you keep shooting away.  And then you get something like this.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/4000 sec, 450 mm

NIKON D7200 Ver.1.04/70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

Aesthetically you either like it or not.  But technically, it is there.  And I definitely had fun.

It's Sunny Somewhere (The D500 initial outing)

I've been home bound the past two weekends, for the real job .  This weekend, the weatherperson responded to my cabin fever by providing a nor'easter on the east coast drenching all my favorite photo haunts.  And it's pretty much peak color weekend.  Thanks Weatherperson.
When life deals you lemons, you change the scenery.  Took me 450 miles, but I found the Michigan sun.
The D500 arrived Friday.  It was not going to stay in the house for very long.  At the very least, I had to see if the focus worked, right?  The QXD card is still in the mail so I had to use an 'old' SD card.  It was landscape shooting, set to 3 PFS.  I was sure there would be no buffer issues.
My favorite area to photograph is east of here, and not really good today.  So I headed west to Benton Harbor and the light at St. Joe's.
Prior to shooting, things I like about the D500.  Uses the same battery as my D7200.  The menus are basically the same, or similar enough I can use it today.  (The book is on the way as well.)  Things I don't like.  The USB connection is different.  (Would have been nice if they were the same.)  Also the question of a remote shutter release.  The D7200 unit is $25.  The D500's - substantially more.  Change is good I tell myself.
So I ran away from the rain today to view a few lighthouses, or lights on the western side of the state.  My first stop was the light on the northern pier of St. Joseph's.
I have many photos of the area in the winter, such as this one from 2015 - st-joseph-light-january-2015 and this one with some nice wave action st-joes-light-and-waves.
Today, upper 40s and a light wind.  I could walk all the way out to the front light.

ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/1600 sec

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

First test passed.  It works in sunlight with no pressure.

Through the Cut

One of the curses I find about returning to a location to photograph subjects, is I have a number of shots already lined up in my head.  And I will get that photograph at any cost.  And this is one set-up that I had in mind.
I wanted to get the length of a train measured by some landscape.  And that was all I saw.
Too bad.
I didn't notice any of the imperfections until I finished the stack process.  Most of the source photos are out of focus to begin with and I didn't see this coming.

In case it doesn't show up. but the right quarter of the image has some green thing that is too close to the lens and is out of focus.  Badly.  There are a few other 'imperfections' that need some tending to as well.  Most notably, there are what look to be green colored bag ties on the left and right trying to blend into the trees.  Easy fixes, but the green focus mess on the right is a problem.
I tried to delete the trees, clone over the trees and even replace the trees.  Note for next time, just make sure the shot is clear of this sort of thing.  Probably would have been a lot easier and less time consuming.
But like the bull headed idea to get this shot, I will do something reasonable with it to save it.
The first thing to do was figure out how much of the right I could save.  There is a slight out of focus area that if cleaned up would get some breathing room.  Some creative cropping may do the rest.

ISO 100, f/6.3, 1.6 sec, 50 mm

14 shot focus stack

But the story can't end here.  While this might be an OK shot, it still isn't doing it for me.  The club will go back to the DMRRC in a few months and I'll come up with something else.  What I did learn this year, is a prime lens is a must.  I have to keep on that track.  One of the issues is that minimum focus is a foot.  Doesn't sound like much. but when working in tight quarters, every inch counts.  Enough about next time.
Still trying to save this one.
I'd like to do something sketchy.  I came up with this, and just a hint of color.

The 6187 in the keystone had to stay sharp, after that everything else was negotiable.  Looks more sketchy as a screen saver on my monitors.

Great Egret and a pair of Ducks

One of the many 'new' missions for next year will be Ducks at the Refuge.  The colors and patterns really catch my interest.  I clearly don't know enough about Ducks, why the colors and patters are the way they are.  I need to know.
One of the other odd things I've noticed, which I can only describe as odd is the head position against the body when the head is turned.  Doesn't look right.  In many paintings or other illustrations I've see this but I assumed the oddity was a limitation of the artist.  How wrong I was.
And the Great Egret.  Well, it's white.  Yellow eye.  Orange-yellowish beak.  Black legs.  Sure in it's own way it is an interesting bird.  I'll see them next year too.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/800 sec, 350 mm

This was a fun image for me.  On all my visits to the refuge, I never really saw two different species that close together.  I'm not sure of the territorial interests of the birds, may I just never noticed it.  So right off the start, I liked this one.  The camera was a bit 'fooled' by the light off the water, the original image is quite dark.  I'm not happy with the water properties.  I rarely shot with a polarizer on my visits.  Usually the sky was crappy enough on those days so the water wasn't a concern.  Clearly on this day a polarizer might have helped.
In the upper right hand corner, there was a water plant of some sort that was a bit distracting.  I removed with the new content aware tool in PS.  That is an awesome upgrade added feature.

Airshow/EOY Thoughts and the Stihl Sport Racer

It's been just over a month since the Air Races.  Truth be known, I'm just about out of photographs that I think are interesting.  There are still many worth commenting on, such as this one of the #30 Stihl Sport Class Racer.
The Sport Class definition:  Sport aircraft shall be any kit or amateur built aircraft that is certificated by the FAA and has completed a phase 1 flight test. Aircraft are to be powered by an internal combustion engine or engines totaling no more than 1000 cu in. and capable of a 200 MPH minimum qualification lap speed.  Stolen from here http://www.sportclass.com/.
The best of the Sport Class at the races moves over 380 MPH.  Relatively speaking, the air frames are small.  Let's see, on the list of elements to make photography interesting:  Small target, check.  Rapid movement, check.  Shutter speed limitation to catch prop blur, check.  And finally, rookie behind the lens, check.  Maybe the taxi photograph was the environment with the highest probability of a good shot?
Hold that thought.
Back to the photo.  It should be noted I liked this particular aircraft from the start.  It's orange.  And I am that shallow.  It's my first year at the races, a break here is required.  Anyway, Stihl is the primary sponsor and for that many thanks should be given.  Rumor has it, chain saws were given away on award night.  I can't make this stuff up.
As mentioned, this is on the taxi way.  The goal was to capture the propeller blur.  In the first pass, that goal was achieved.  And with the passage of time, this one shot represents to me why I need to go back next year.

ISO 100, f/20, 1/80 sec, 600 mm

All things considered, not a bad shot.  At the 600 mm focal length, general rules are the the minimum speed should be 1/600 second.  I had to slow the speed for the propeller blur.  The blur at 1/80 is right where I want it.  To get the speed that low on a sunny day, the ISO was as low as it would go and I had to go to f/20 aperture setting.  I usually like to shoot f/8 to f/11.  Optically best for the lens.  To get the 600 mm reach, I needed to shrink my sensor.  The D7200 has two sensor options.  The two sizes are DX format (23.5 x 15.6 mm) and 1.3x crop of DX (18.8 x 12.5 mm).  The DX format has a image size of 24.1 megapixels.  The 1.3x crop of DX achieves an image size of approximately 15.4 megapixels.  So what does all this mean?  It's all about the angles through the lens.  The lens I was using was built for a full frame sensor.  Because the sensor in the D7200 is smaller than a full frame, it has a different angle through the lens that effectively gives an extra 50% reach for the image.  Make the sensor even smaller, the angle changes even more, and I get to 600 mm out of a 300 mm lens.  But there is a penalty to pay.  A smaller picture.
When shooting nature subjects, the restrictions aren't as great.  For the most part - fast is good.  Light control - or contrast control is more important.  In other words, prepping for the air races by photographing birds didn't help much.  Well, for the jets it did - but to catch the prop driven aircraft I need a new tactic.
The simple answer is a neutral density filter.  I have a variable filter, but for good shots I need a better set up.  Good ND filters are expensive, so I need to figure out one or two filters.  Either way, I have to get better and more knowledgeable about using these filters.
The not so simple answer is what changes in equipment there might be in the future.  New camera, new lens?
The real answer - and the answer to most of the unfinished points raised here is I'm an amateur photographer.  To get to the next level is expensive, $4k at least.  I could upgrade  a lot cheaper, but that's not me.  But If I'm going to swim in the small pool I'm going to do it right.
And so the planning begins.......

Across the Yard

As mentioned in previous posts, this year's photo shoot at the Detroit Model Railroad Club, for me, was successful.  Many of the shots turned out like this one, that is the photo is sharp and the likability of the subject is up to the viewer.
This year, I was trying for different areas on the layout.  I have some older shots of this area, but not with this setup of trains.  In the original shot, the background wall didn't do me any favors.  The focus stacking played some odd tricks with the flat blue color.  Lately I've been getting a bit more aggressive with cropping, and that allowed me to do the same here.
This is the shot coming out of the stack process.

ISO 100, f/6.3, 1.6 sec, 50 mm

16 Shot Photo Stack

All that stuff in the upper right looks bad.  That boys and girls is what a dirty sensor photo looks like.  In this case, it is not.
At first, I tried to clone it out to keep some originality.  And in the end, it looked worse.
Next I tried sky replacement.  I spent quite a bit of time erasing the background, more time than I like on any photograph.  I wound up erasing more and more of the background.  With what I think the format that the club likes, this is what I finished up with.

To me there's not enough to distract, but if I was to re-edit I'd lighten the blue a bit.  Other than that, the photo is OK.  Just OK.
But, since I've been cropping to a size that is more monitor friendly I might be able to get that mess totally out of there.

Actually, this looks so much better to me.  No background, all subject scenery.
I'm not sure why I'm not totally happy with this shot.  On my screen saver, it is sharp.  All the numbers are clearly readable.  All the tracks are in focus.  Still not happy.  I think, it is because it looks indoors?  The light ain't right.
I could play with the light levels, or......  I like what B&W or monochrome effects did for the F15 shot.  (Here)  After all, this is a railroad shot.  Looks way too clean.
This is what I finished with.

Now this looks a little more like a railroad yard shot to me, or what I think it would look like.  I need to expand my horizons more.

Because I was Inverted.....

One of the best movie scenes ever comes from the movie Top Gun.  With a rumor of Top Gun II, I'll have to say one of the best scenes ever comes from the movie, the original Top Gun.

So the saying 'Because I was Inverted" was all over Reno.  Tee shirts, mugs and probably one piece baby outfits were outfitted with this.
The air racers never inverted, but the show performers would often fly with their gear above the cockpit.  And I guess since the 'original' Top Gun film, no airshow is complete without the reenactment of the maneuver.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/2500 sec, 450 mm

Photographically speaking, again, I could shave some speed in favor of ISO on this day.  From many of the shots, the morning and early afternoon sky is virtually cloudless.  In many shots, I was using ISO 800 and getting crazy speeds.  I think I could get away with 200 ISO on sunny days and 400 ISO whenever a cloud gets lost and shows up over the field.  (I put this in so when I read this a year from now I can read it and still forget it before the next show.)  I think if I need a speed bump with those settings, I can go f/11 or so.  It doesn't show up much here, but when looking very close the image noise shows up.  Some post processing cleanup helps, but a lower ISO would go a long way.

F15 - The Story

Like a lot of people, I like fast.  I should say, I like to watch fast.  If it's noisy, so much the better.  And if it's the Sound of Freedom, home run!
Of all the aircraft I've seen in action or close up, my favorite by far it is the F4 Phantom.  If you're not up on your USAF fighter life cycle, the Phantom was retired from the US inventory many years ago.  However, I did get to see them fly when I was stationed in Okinawa in the early 80's.  They were being phased out at the time by the F15s.   But to watch them fly, I really liked the lines.  Just plain bad ass.  No other description necessary.

This is a photo from 1981.  Film.  Rookie.  Anyway, I was on a flight from Okinawa to the Philippines on a KC-135, and this was one of our gas guzzling customers.  On the same flight:

As with many things in life, once you begin to like them they go away.  So long gone is the F4, unless one is flying around somewhere that I've lost track of.   It looks like some other countries may still employ the aircraft, but the last use in the US for the Phantom was for drone practice.
Anyway, segueing into a F15 story, the F4s in Okinawa were being replaced by the F15s.  Although I liked the lines of the Phantom more than the Eagle, the Eagle appeared to have the performance edge by a wide margin.  When the F15s required a functional flight test after major maintenance, free flight time was granted over the field.  What a show!  And it is that sound I remember.
So I'm at the Reno Air Races a few weeks ago.  I knew that there was a F16 Demo team that had time every day on the schedule of events, and I was looking forward to seeing them perform.  Fighters were going to be seen.
At the end of the first day, I was 'recovering' with friends at a campsite.  The campsite was really a parking lot for the airfield just off the runway.  
Then I heard it.  
There are many engine sounds I remember from over the years.  By far, the most enjoyable to me is the C5 whine.  Hours of touch and goes.  I have no idea on the number of take-offs, but there were lots.  And with each acceleration the dump of fuel into the TF39s to get them off the ground produced a sound I'll never forget.  Close seconds go to the F4, the F15 and the SR-71.  I always keep asking myself, how did I get this lucky to see all of these engineering marvels do their thing?  
So, back to the campsite, I hear a familiar noise.  There are two F15s doing a flyby of the field!  Awesome.
So two Eagles arrived.  I was hoping I'd see them as part of the performances between races, but it was not to be.  They sat next to the F16s on the military side of the spectator area for the remainer of the event.  But I paid them a visit every day.

Other than to me, not much of an interesting photograph.  For whatever reason, I missed centering it.  And one of the lessons I need to remind myself, don't get so close up that there's no room to maneuver.  I needed to leave more room off the right side wing.  I pretty much limited my options.  The other self criticism is I'm just off center enough to be irritating.  Not a side shot, not a nose shot, no-man's land.  PPPFFFTTT.
I don't want to lose this shot, I'd like to do anything with it to keep it alive, only for the subject.
Before we too deep into this, there are a lot of  small 'imperfections' that need to be removed.  Anything that is between the wing underside and above the taxiway above the grass needs to be 'gone'.  
Once those were removed, I really want to center the attention on the aircraft.  Sky is nice, the mountains are nice.  It is possible someone's eye could drift off the prize.
I was playing around with a number of filters, when I landed on doing a B&W theme.  I don't do many like that, but in this case it works.  Kind of artsy, eh?

ISO 200, f/9, 1/1250 sec, 70 mm

D90/18-200

In a perfect world, I'd leave more room off each wing.  It almost looks like the wings end with the flaps.  If I ever do a redux, I'd start with the wing tips.  But for now, I like the effect.  There was another effect, which I might work with which was very harsh.  Really brought out the clouds and mountains.  it's from one of my older filters that I started to shy away from, but again with this subject harsh works.  On another rainy, snowy day.

USAF Heritage Flight - P51 and F16

One of the Air Races non-race activities this year was a flight by the F16 Viper Demonstration Team, and as a part of that show is a fly by of the Falcon with an aircraft from the USAF history.  In this show, it was with a P51 Mustang.
For me, it is one thing to see the F16 demo flight, which was awesome,  and see the P51s in the races.  It is altogether a different sight to see the two craft together.  See kids, history can be fun.
Photographically speaking, two things.  There won't be many more memories I will have from this event that what I saw here.  Sure, the races are fun, interesting and exciting.  To me however, this is another level.  And the fact I could capture the image is even better.  I won't mention that there were four shows, one a day, and after the first I knew what was coming.  Still, there was room for error.  The other thing, I'm always amazed at what light, glass and electronics will capture.  It is tough to tell how far away I am from the subjects, but through all the photography elements the pilot of the F16 is really very visible.  That is just awesome.
The only 'touch ups' I did was to add some light to the F16 tail as it was dark due to sun position.  There were also sun reflections on the canopies of both aircraft.  Again, due to the distance involved, to get the final image I'd be happy with I need to crop a little more than I'm used to.  With the crop, it has to fit as a screen saver on my 24 inch monitors, that's the test.
From the original image, the blown sun reflections:

I was surprised a bit by how much the light objects impacted the image.  All were very small, but they were eye catchers.  For the sun reflection on the canopy, I used the Content Aware Fill process.  In this case, surprisingly it worked very well.  I used the same process for the very light object inside the cockpit.  I used a small clone adjustment for the sun reflection on the pilot's helmet.

As part of my post processing, I also hit the image with a bit of smoothing.   The 'perfect' sky wasn't so perfect to me.  It these two close ups, you can really see the noise in the original image and in the processed image, not so much.
Usually when I process my photos, I go from the original 300 PP to 150 PP.  It used to be for image file size considerations.  I could very rarely tell the difference.  But for this image, I was going to crop off a lot more than I usually do.  So I kept the 300 PP and saved at a higher JPG resolution.  Seems to have worked.  From what I can tell, it will work on my monitors, and that's the final test.
The final image.

ISO 800, f/6.3, 1/6400 sec, 450 mm

To my 'critic' friends who would say something along the lines of nice photograph, but if you were really any good, you wouldn't need that shutter speed.  In fact, if you were to slow it down to 1/100th, maybe you'd get some prop blur.  Maybe, but at this angle the prop blur or lack thereof isn't noticeable.  But I'll keep it in mind for next year.

Walking Bridge into Fall

Fall is just around the corner - or maybe here already and the trees in my yard just didn't get the memo yet.  I equate fall to the change of color in the trees.  For mid-Michigan, the turn is generally the second week in October.  And of course, work will interfere with and extended fall foliage trip next weekend, but we'll see what can be worked out.
So this is a photo from the past, 2011.  The camera then was the D90 with the 18-200 lens.
As I look back at my photography history, I've gone through phases of file collection.  By the time I started using the D90, I was all into RAW files, but I would often change back and forth whether or not I would also create a JPG file.
Early on, I'd look at the JPG and use it as a reference to what I had created from the RAW file.  In the end, it turned out I was never happy with the JPG and I quit creating them.  But as I go back through my old files, when I do find a JPG file I'm happy to see it.
So, today as I was looking for a fall themed photo to play with I found this one from 2011 and a corresponding JPG.
From the set of shots that I took this day, I found some old one I'd 'touched up' and it was a bit on the funny side, as they were pretty much all 'grunge' settings from Photomatix.  Ah, the good ol' days.
This is the original JPG from 2011.

ISO 400, f/9, 1/40 sec, 18 mm

I think it is nice fall photo, but needs lots of 'little' tweaks.
First, the close bridge supports need to be straightened,  The 18 mm lens distortion is a bit annoying.  If I can't straighten them, I could crop them out, but I'd like to keep some part of them for framing reference.
I need to do something with the wood bridge.  I'd like some heavy contrast to bring out the grain, but that might not go well with the foliage.  Doable.
I also need to pop the foliage colors a bit.  It's fall, celebrate!
I used ACR to adjust the lens corrections, to straighten the bridge posts and to pop the colors a bit.  I used On One to create a layer mask over the bridge to increase the contrast on the wood and metal.
This is what I cane up with.

And the trees look a bit more upright as well.
Welcome to Fall.

Williamsburg Governor's Palace - North Side

At last night's photo club meeting I volunteered to do a demo on Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).  We have some new members who don't understand what it does, other than it annoys them.  We have members who use PS and Elements, so this 'discussion' will be beneficial to both groups.  My 'discussion' will be in essentially five weeks.  Unlike my school days, I will try to prepare more than a day out.
Since any chat about ACR on its own might take 20-30 minutes, I'll have to do some demoing.  That can fill up the other 90 minutes.
Tonight I was looking for RAW file images to use.  My criteria was to have some dynamic range, but not outrageous.  For the club, I want to use a somewhat realistic image not one that was deliberately taken to prove a point.
This is a photograph of the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Most people approach the Palace from the south side, main entrance.  Apparently I got lost and found my way to the lesser known north side.
I like this landscape shot.  Nice carpet of grass, bricks for detail, a not very common gold seal on the doorway and most importantly a sky that I won't have to replace.  There is a landscape dude that will have to be dealt with by some form of removal or crop.  We'll go for removal because I like a challenge, plus for the club I have cred that needs a bolster every now and then.
Here is the original image.

May 19, 2016 - I did have the D7200 at that time.  The lens is my 18-200.  ISO 400, f/11, 1/250 sec, 38 mm.

First step - open RAW image file in ACR.

There are two settings in ACR that I know of that are not available once the image is imported to PS.  I need to make my selections here.  I also do my initial light level sets.

First I will set the profile to Adobe Landscape.  For my light levels, I just hit the Auto setting.  First pass, I'll detail it later.

In this image, that is not so necessary, but is some other darker images this step will at least let me see what is there.  

The options that are not available later are the lens corrections.  I need to set them now.

I want to use this options to remove chromatic aberrations and enable profile corrections.  (It will change the image!)

From here I will take the corrections and open PS.

PS will open with the image as the Background layer.  As practice, I never work on the background layer, so I make a copy layer using the shortcut Ctrl+J.  Layer 1 is created.  Again as practice, I make Layer 1 a Smart Object.  This will allow me to make changes at a later time if necessary.

At this time I will open the RAW Editor Filter.  This is ACR inside PS, except for the two parameters I've already changed in Lens Correction.  I'll use the shortcut Shift+Ctrl+A to open the editor.

From here, I'll set the temperature and tint levels.  For this shot, I'll bump the temperature a bit, to give the illusion of some sun light.

I'll also move the other light levels as necessary.  I want a good photograph with a good sky.  No blown pixels, some (small) black areas are OK.  I'll also set my Clarity, Dehaze, Vibrance and Saturation.

When the colors and light levels are set, I move to sharpening.  For this, I generally use the heavy preset.

From here, I'll move to the Transform section.  Because I've already it the image with Lens Correction, there won't be much change unless the level is off.  I start off with the 'waffle' selection.  Unless I'm off at an extreme angle this will do the trick.

Nothing can ruin a good photo like spots.  Dirty lens, dust on the sensor, even a small flying critter will subconsciously catch an eye.  I always check for spots in the sky.  ACR makes this really easy to do with the spot removal tool and the Visualize Spots option checked.

No odd images in the sky.

Last stop in ACR is the Adjustment brush.  I didn't make any spot changes.  Usually when I do, it will be to over or under expose a small area.  There are some dark areas in the image, but non that I want to tackle.

At this point the image is basically done.

For the final touch, I need to remove the lawn service dude.  It would easy to crop the image and remove him.  But the Content Aware Fill option worked really well.  I did some touch up cloning along the brick wall just for fun and practice.  I also removed the top of the lightning rod that extends out of the picture.  Personal preference, not real fond of items that extend out of the photo if I can avoid it.  I'll finish by cropping it to 1920x1080 and adding the frame.

Fun image to work on.  Little bits of everything.

BUFF - Older is Better

As I log more time above the daises every day, I appreciate the memories archived in my mind even more.  I don't see as many air planes as I used too.  And I don't see as many of the military variety.  So, when I do get a planned chance or even better an unplanned chance, it is always a wonderful trip down memory lane.
I have wonderful memories of watching the BUFFs (B-52) making Okinawa a temporary home when Anderson Field in Guam would evacuate in the face of a typhoon.  The paint scheme was slightly different in the 80s.  There was also more smoke from the engines.  The planes would park on the same side of the base where I worked as "we" were both attached to SAC.  Back then my days would begin with a FOD walk in our area.  When the BUFFs were there, we'd walk right in front and back of these magnificent craft.  Memories.
Something else to that I never lose track of.  With the advancement of computers and aerodynamic studies, this is a 1950s design.  Slide rules.  Draft paper.  Sharp Pencils.  And in the next 50+ years nothing better has come along.  Yea, there are other more modern designs, but this is still a front line asset.
So to the memories, I remember the approaches and take offs from Okinawa.  Lots of smoke.  My plane at the time, KC-135, was a smoker as well.
When I was at the Air Races a few weeks ago, there was a B-52 fly over.  These two shots are from the air plane doing a slow pass dirty, hanging gear and flaps.  The noise was awesome!
On approach, here is the sight - and the smoke.

ISO 800, f8, 1/800 sec, 600 mm

And the overhead pass.

ISO 800, f/8, 1/500 sec, 480 mm

And the noise.  With engine upgrades over the years, it isn't quite the same sound as I remember - but close enough.  Nice time travel for me.