B-2 Spirit Fly By - 2019

In June of 2019, there was an air show a few hours north of where I live.  The event was called Wings  over Northern Michigan.  I had a few posts for the event.  The event should be every two years.  Unfortunately the event will not happen this year.  I was cancelled prior to Covid.  Seems the event had grown too much for the airfield to handle.  So, it wasn't moved to handle the crowds.  Just cancelled.  Or maybe the growth wasn't the real reason.  I did have a good time.  To me it wasn't a particularly large show.  There were no national events.  There were no national sponsors, some local.  There were a lot of lawn chairs.  I'd certainly go again.

One of the unadvertised participants for the show was a B-2 Spirit fly by.  Stealth Bomber.  Many years prior to the modern version of this aircraft, I was fascinated by the original versions.  They were never totally successful.  The YB-35 and YB-45 models designed by Northrop in the 40's were passed over for other USAF projects.  The early models probably could have performed better with more powerful flight control computers.  

But the time is now for the flying wing.

The show followed a pretty good storm crossing the region.  When I arrived at the airfield, it was still raining.  I remember the vendors who were setting up their stalls were pretty well soaked.  But the weather forecasts for the day were correct and the storm passed as forecasted and the show went on as planned.  

However, the skies didn't clear up right away.  Interesting to re-visit the photos of show and see the weather improvement through the course of the day.  As there were mostly prop driven aircraft for the show, I was in total prop mode.  Slow shutter speed.  And I might have previously mentioned that the B-2 flyover was unadvertised.  So when the fly by started, there I was shooting at 1/200th of a second.  Rookie.  I did figure out my error at some point, but the fly by was about 75% done.  That being said, I did get some good shots but only from one perspective.  It could have been much worse.

As an early event, the sky was just plain AWFUL.  

B-2 Bank

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/Nikon AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

232 mm, f/7.1, 1/1250 sec, ISO 100 (AUTO)

EV 0, MANUAL Mode, Size DX

Technically, it's in focus.  Not something you'd hang on a wall though.

Photographically it needs help.  I could replace the sky.  Nice clean lines, easy to mask.  But an unplanned sly replacement to me is usually option of last resort.  What the photo really needs is just some definition in the sky.  A tweak.  A little blue would be nice, but I'll settle for cloud definition.  What this needs is a touch of HDR.  Just a touch.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) has come a long way.  On my personal journey I've enjoyed every setting from full blow clown colors to helping save a photo.  The software has evolved as well.  Working with RAW files helps as well.  Not sure if this pulls with JPG.  In this case, the HDR is not too offensive.

With the HDR, the contrast of the sky was not to my liking.  A few years ago, would have been great.  And on the dark aircraft - the contrast doesn't show as much so who cares?  But the sky was a bit distracting with all the contrast noise.  A little (Actually, a lot!) Topaz DeNoise helped out.  There were a few small areas where the noise or HDR remnants remained so I tried a new trick in Photoshop.  New trick for me anyway.  I used the healing brush at 10% flow, instead of 100%.  I may never use 100% again.  It's all about the journey.

This takes me back to when I'd try to offer a question - is it a photograph or a drawing?  This HDR process offered up some unintended consequences.  And I like all of them.

First off, the cockpit window really stands out now.  It shows up a bit in the original. but here it is catching.  What also stands out, when the photo is viewed at 100% is the serial number and the AF logo behind the cockpit window.  All cool stuff.  The coolest thing is the subtle changes to the aircraft skin.  That is real aviation stuff.  Love what RAW files capture.  Once you know what to look for, you can see it in the original shot.  Low level flying interacts with the temperature of the fuel in the wings - and other areas.  High altitude flying is always cold, and when you bring warm air in contact with the cold skin this is what you get.  Condensation.  I can only guess that this is realistic on the special skin of the stealth aircraft as I only know what normal paint, camouflaged or flat, will do.  I'll go with this is pretty close.

It's a nice save of a good photo in a lousy environment.

MCAS Beaufort 2019 Memories

It is single digit cold outside today, no trip to the park for me.  Michigan gray sky.  No birds flying around the house, so guessing the same at the park.  Trying to get warm with a little trip down memory lane to the 2019 MCAS Beaufort Air Show.

Looking forward to the 2021 show in a few weeks.  Being in South Carolina, it is one of the early shows on the circuit.  Michigan needs to get its vaccination program in gear!

The day we were out at the show was prefect weather-wise.  I seem to remember some rookie sunburn mistakes were made, but that is another story.  We were able to get some good seats in the bleachers, which contributed to the sunburn.  No cover.  This year we have pavilion seats.  Covered and socially distanced.  But, back to 2019.  Love the military airshows.  Pure air power.  Noise.  Heat.

This air show I was really concentrating on shutter speeds.  With the shots posted today, shutter speed didn't matter much.  Jets.  But I was constantly adjusting speed depending on jet or prop or rotor driven aircraft was the subject.  Game within a game.  The camera lens combo for the air shots is the D500 and 70-300.  For the most of the shots that was plenty of lens as we were very close to show center.  Except for one shot at the end of the runway.  And we'll get to that later.

AV-8B Harrier Taxi

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/Nikon AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

600 mm, 1/4000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 360 (AUTO)

EV -1, MANUAL Mode, Size 1.3 DX

When looking at this shot, I'm recalling the following.  For a 1.3 DX shot, that is about as clean an image as I can get.  The trick is that the subject did fill the frame, there is very little cropping involved.  It usually doesn't work out that well for me.  Also that day, one environmental factor that showed up in most shots were the heat waves.  A number of my ground shots show this phenomenon at some point in the shot  (Yes, if you had the word phenomenon on your blog bingo card, you can finally mark it off.)  Most of the air shots did not suffer from this.  We shoot, we learn.

And speaking of learning, I was experimenting with spot metering on some shots.  And what I learned from the day was - stop experimenting with spot metering.  I won't make that mistake again.  Also looking back at the shots, the EV is almost always -1.  The sunshine would often create hot spots on airframes with a more shiny paint coat.  The -1 setting usually did the trick of better exposure.

F/A-18 Hornet Touchdown

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/Nikon AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

600 mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250 (AUTO)

EV -1, MANUAL Mode, Size 1.3 DX

This is the older model Hornet, which is pretty much phased out of the inventory now.  That didn't keep it from putting on a great show.  I think everyone tries to get that exact moment of touchdown with the smoke from the tires.  And really looking forward to the Blue Angels show this year with the Super Hornets now that the SH is the team aircraft.  Back to 2019.  This was shot at the end of the runway.  All sorts of distortion due to the heat waves at that distance.  And this too was a 1.3 DX shot.  And because this was so far away - this required a pretty good crop.  Had to go into my bag of tricks and super software to get this to come out.

F-35 Lightning II Taxi Head On

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/Nikon AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

600 mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 (AUTO)

EV -1, MANUAL Mode, Size 1.3 DX

When I see military aircraft from a head on profile, I think that air opponents who see this are not going to have a good day.  I first thought about that line when I saw an A-10 at a static display.  The F-35 may be missing the cannon, but can still deliver a punch.  This profile illustrates the benefit of being as close to show center as possible.

Blue Angel Low Pass

NIKON D500 Ver.1.15/Nikon AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

330 mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320 (AUTO)

EV -1, MANUAL Mode, Size DX

This is a creeper shot to me.  It creeps up on me.  The more I see it the more I like it.  If I was going to put this in a contest or something, I'd remove the light posts  on the right side of the frame.  Just a bit on the distracting side.  Other than that - think about this.  I was standing on the top row of the bleacher seats.  The bleaches had maybe ten rows.  And you can see the top of the wing.  Eye level.  Awesome.

The day was fun.  Looking to getting there this year.  Especially when I look outside now and see snow.

Weekday Quick Visit to For-Mar

The days are getting longer!  Today was sub-freezing all day. but the sun was out and it felt like spring skiing.  There was two to four inches of fresh snow overnight.  I usually don't get out much on weekdays, especially work weekdays.  But there are sometimes you just have to get out.

When I got to the park, I headed out to my tree stand with hopes that the little birds would want to get out in the sun.  I arrived at the stand and .......  Silence.  Only the traffic noises.   But I still got out and walked around.

The tree stand is probably fifty yards long.  The first forty five yards can be best described as above.  But the last five yards had some bird chatter.  And some small birds.  And some color.  I thought I was taking photos of robins - but it looks like they were the Common Redpoll.  The photos aren't all that good.  Small birds at 30 yard morph into very small birds to photograph.  Those photos could be a rainy/snowy day project for AI Gigapixel.

But what I did get was this American Goldfinch.  Nice yellow and black.  Pittsburgh colors.  Give it a cap/helmet and a ball.  This was relatively at a distance and a pretty good crop.  In other words, I've done better.  And that's OK - room to improve.

American Goldfinch

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR

500 mm, 1/2000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 500 (AUTO)

EV 0, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

For the small bird shoots, I need to use the D500 to get the extra 250 mm of reach.  And maybe a chair.  With the monopod.  And more time.

So after my pass by the tree stand, I did a short loop through some of the trails.  I was out, not one to waste a good walk.  I had to watch my footing a bit on the trails.  What was icy last weekend was now covered with a couple of inches of snow which helped a lot.  But still had to be careful.  I'd walk a bit then stop to look and listen.  Never much noise.  But the best part of the day for me was to spy this small group of Mourning Doves in the trees.  No noise.  Just me looking around and seeing something that was different.  A birdwatcher moment?

Mourning Doves

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR

500 mm, 1/2000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250 (AUTO)

EV 0, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

That's like a 360 degree view.  Front and both sides.  Fun 90 minutes to get out of the house.

It started as a bird chase

All week I'd been thinking of taking a suitable camera/lens combo to a bird stand I found during last week's nature hike.  I wanted sunny skies and 70 degrees - but would accept 50.  Maybe 40.  It's January.  I'd been looking at the Weather Channel website all week.  Sunny skies from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM.  Wind around 5 MPH.  Whoo Hoo!  Temp - 18 at 8:00 AM.  24 at noon.  No one said this would be easy.

There were multiple objectives for today's outing.  First - birds.  I'll settle for birds at rest - or not in flight.  Second objective was to work with a monopod.  A late entry for the third objective was to say warm.

Woke up this morning to cloudy skies.  Dammit.  And 18 degrees.  Well, they got that part right.  Dammit.

Ten o'clock arrived, so did the sunny skies and 20 degrees.  Time to go.

I found a lot of robins in the bird stand.  I took multiple photos of the robins that would be later deleted.  Technically OK, but they could have been seagulls and been just as interesting.  Practice.  What I did find out was using the monopod was easy.  But getting it there and walking around with it ain't fun.  Logistics.

I took the monopod back to the truck, then took off for other parts of the park.  The park paths were covered with ice, but the sides were OK with a crusty snow or solid ground.  Still had to look down a lot to stay off the ice.  But I wanted to keep my eyes to the skies.  Looking for anything in the trees.  I wasn't expecting to find...

Squirrels.

The squirrels I saw must have been deaf.  I was crunching on lots of snow.  So I was off the walking path, walking in the snow, out of the ice, looking down.  I stopped at some point to scan the trees, and this one couldn't have been more than 20 feet away.  Sitting in a tree, doing its thing.  Eating.  And keeping one eye on me.

Nothing to see here

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR

500 mm, 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640 (AUTO)

EV +.67, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

OK, its a squirrel, but....  That D850 takes a good shot when coupled with the 200-500 lens.  This was hand held.  Close enough to see the nose whiskers.  I'm good with that.

I tried to find a way around the squirrel without disturbing it.  No luck.  When I did get by, the squirrel moved from the tree, crossing the path above my head.  Not sure what the squirrel was thinking.  There were many possibilities.  Like, I got you pegged man.  Or real nature photographers use Canon.  Loser.

Eye in the Sky

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR

500 mm, 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640 (AUTO)

EV +.67, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

Still lots of great detail.  Love it when the sun hits the area.

And another squirrel saw me coming.  I thought it was yelling at me, but just was carrying around lunch.

Keep Moving Pal

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR

500 mm, 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 900 (AUTO)

EV +.67, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

You can miss a lot when you have to keep your eyes on the path.  So stop and look up every once in a while.

I wanted to make one last pass through the bird stand before calling it a day.  This was a little past noon.  No activity at all.  Squirrels must have warned them.  But I didn't leave empty handed.  I saw a few deer in a clearing just off the path.  And then I saw this framed shot.

Framed Deer

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR

410 mm, 1/2000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640 (AUTO)

EV 0, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

I didn't notice it at the time, but the front legs have something odd going on.  There are some knees not going in the right direction.  Do I need a Bernie in a chair in front of the deer?

Good time to get out of the house.  Turned out to be a nice day to walk around.  Close to noon probably isn't a good bird hour.  Needs to be in the 8 to 9 area.  My guess.  Thankfully there are more weekends coming up.

Owl Prowl and Nature Walk

2021 seems to be starting out well.  Getting the Flint River kayak photo was a great way to start the year.  There was a wintery mix forecasted for yesterday that might have added to scenery for today's hike.  Never happened.  Michigan gray today.  And spoiler alert - no owl photos.

One of the county parks here is For-Mar Nature Preserve & Arboretum.  I've only been living here for twenty some odd years and I'm just finding out about these places.   To be fair, to me, I've know about the location but not about some of the interesting things you can do here.  And on this weekend's schedule was a Friday night owl prowl and Saturday morning nature Photo Hike.

The owl prowl was very interesting to me.  I am owl ignorant.  I could only go up from here.  It was way too dark for photos and I really just wanted to know about the owls who lived down the road from me.  There will be other photo opportunities.  I learned about owl calls.  I learned where they were in the area.  And more importantly I got out of the house for a few hours.  If you ever get a chance to go on an owl prowl, take it!  We had two screech owls fly past our group.  We were able to find where one perched so I have now seen an owl in the wild.  I do need to get out more.  And as much as I learned about owls in the wild, one of the more interesting facts of the night was turkeys sleep in trees.  Yep, what you can learn when you get out of the house.

In the category of other learned lessons, I need to up my technology.  In the field of of night lighting.  Subcatagory: Flashlights.  I was carrying around a 20+ year old, 3 D Cell mag light.  Dim dirty yellow.  And the batteries were new.  Nothing like an old, cold flashlight.  And for $10 I could have had a AA LED.  Ha.

This morning's nature photography hike was nice.  Temps just below freezing.  No wind.  And I bundled up like Charlie Brown.  Maybe 75% Charlie Brown.  The guides from the owl prowl were the guides for the nature hike.  What a neat job!  Something for retirement?  I liked the opening briefing.  The guides started out by talking about getting off the AUTO setting and moving to Manual.  Magnificent.  We walked around a bit, didn't appear to a set pattern.  Again, just good to get out of the house and talk to people.  Socially distanced people.

Since this was my first photo hike at For-Mar, and I could only guess what was going to happen, I spent way too much time over-thinking what camera/lens combo I needed.  The widest range lens I have is a 18-200 DX.  The first 'upgrade' lens.  Eleven years ago, I added that to my collection for use with a D90.  With all the upgrades in the last few years, that lens has not seen much duty lately.  Still a good lens.  So that was the front end on the D500 for the hike.  Most of the shots ended up being over 70 mm.  Next time out, the 70-200 will do.

There wasn't much going on, nature wise. What I do know about 'naturing' is that the critters are much more active at feeding time.  And 9:00 AM may be a bit late for the breakfast shift.  And middle of winter sort of cuts down on the residency numbers as well.  But there are full time residents.

Turkey Two Trot

NIKON D500 Ver.1.30/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

105 mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1100 (AUTO)

EV +0, MANUAL Mode, Size DX

In aircraft terms, the Turkeys are in the T-6 class for me.  Big, slow, easy to photograph.  And somewhat colorful.  I stood still for a while, less than five minutes, and these two walked less than ten feet away from me.

During the hike, one of the hikees who wasn't watching where they were going spotted a solo hawk flying through the trees.  The entire group watched it for a while as it tried to keep us from watching.  At one point, the hawk was marginally close to us and this was the best I could get.

Far Off Hawk

NIKON D500 Ver.1.30/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

200 mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 (AUTO)

EV +0, MANUAL Mode, Size DX

After the hike was over, I did some extra exploring.  Why waste a good Charlie Brown get up?  I found myself in a grove of trees with a lot of little birdie wildlife.  Small and fast.  Sport class.  Among the bird I recognized was the common Robin.  Lots of those around here.  And to be honest, I wasn't interested it wasting disk space on one.  But while I was in target acquisition mode, the Robin departed.  Definitely a press and pray.  I may have had the best shot of the day for me.

Robin Exit Flight

NIKON D500 Ver.1.30/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

135 mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2200 (AUTO)

EV +0, MANUAL Mode, Size DX

And in the final category for the day's events, something new.  Cedar Waxwing.  I have never seen one before.  Or maybe I have and thought it was a Robin?  With the Robin shot and this one, I almost feel like a real birder.  If they only made the noise of two Pratt and Whitneys in full AB.  Probably better that they are mostly quiet in case they decide to buzz the house.

Cedar Waxwing

NIKON D500 Ver.1.30/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

200 mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640 (AUTO)

EV +0, MANUAL Mode, Size DX

All in all a real good day and a fun evening spent in the park.  Really need to take the big lens out there.  Time to get comfortable with a monopod.  And practice patience.

The Aperture Factor - Path to a sharper image

 Over the years I've had many philosophies on how to approach my everyday photography.  With every new venture out in the field, or new subject identified, that philosophy changes.  Usually just a little bit at a time.  Some time ago, I started to drift into getting the sharpest image possible.  That sounds bad, like I started with getting the most out of focus image I could and I would be happy with it.  Like all things photography, we're talking degrees.  If we understand how and why aperture is a factor in our environment - those degrees will start to fall in our favor.  And the path to a sharper image started.

First, what is aperture?  Aperture, along with shutter speed and ISO are the three main factors that balance our images.  Aperture is what controls the amount of light in the process.  In my opinion, in most circumstances, control of aperture is the most important factor in the balance.  You would think that in shooting my favorite subjects shutter speed would be my initial consideration, but it is not.  And I'll cover how I got to that statement.  

Technically, aperture is the term associated with the opening of the lens diaphragm.  Sorry if this takes you back to high school but the opening measurement is a geometry thing.  The measurement of the opening (area) is pi = radius squared.  Same for all lenses.  That number becomes part of the focal ratio.  It is the number we control in this ratio.  The second number in the ratio is related to the focal plane and some higher level physics that honestly confuses me.  So, since I can't do much about it - I ignore it.  But the focal ratio morphs into the term we associate to aperture setting, f-number.  The f-number is the reciprocal of the relative aperture (the aperture diameter divided by focal length (1)).  And in photography slang, f-stop.

And what a photographer needs to know in the field as a camera operator is the lower the number the camera displays the larger the diaphragm opening.

And what a camera operator needs to know in the field as a photographer is how the diaphragm opening affects the photographic process.

And here is where we get into degrees.  In some of these areas, we're going to get into trade-offs.  If you gain here, you might lose something there.  

What does having a lower f-stop value do for you?  Easy answer, lets in more light.  I'm a big fan of more light.  More light, faster shutter speed and lower ISO.  It's all good - except.  Yea, that pesky Depth of Field thingie.  I could probably do an entire post on DOF but for now at the most simple definition is DOF is what is sharp in a photo.  Small f-stop number, large diaphragm opening, short DOF.  Physics, nothing artsy about it.  

The characteristics of the lens are very important.  Your purchase of a lens is based on the max aperture (largest diaphragm opening).  The max aperture is part of the lens name.  I could devote another post on how to read how lens' name.

But DOF is the easy answer when asking what does the aperture setting control.  However there are other considerations when answering that question as well.  And this is where we get into degrees.  Most of the degrees we're talking about here can't be seen, unless you are looking for them.

A camera lens is designed to let light through.  But the last object on light's way through the lens is the restricting diaphragm which is controlled by the f-stop set by the photographer.  And that's where the light gremlins strike.  A small (maybe) list of other aperture setting characteristics.

Auto-Focus:  Most newer cameras autofocus with the aperture wide open.  Right before the shutter is activated, the diaphragm moves as selected.  If your camera's auto focus does not do this, as the aperture is closed down autofocus may suffer.  When looking at reviews for the 200-500, I considered Tamron and Sigma's lenses in the same category.  Many of the reviewers would go into AF and the best situations for each lens.  Again, degrees.

Diffraction: Diffraction is a physics concept that happens when the path light takes to the sensor is altered.  Light is 'managed' through the lens by various internal lenses.  The path is is even more complicated in a zoom lens configuration.  But light is managed until it hits the diaphragm.  You can think about light going through a lens like water going through a hose.  With no attachment at the end of a hose, water flows freely in a smooth stream.  Put any attachment at the end of the hose, and the water flow is altered disrupting the smooth stream.  From this analogy you can tell that the more restrictive the opening at the end of the hose, the more the water flow is altered.  In a previous discussion we had about noise on the sensor, this also disturbs the light on the sensor.  Remember, we're talking about degrees of disruption here.  A photo shot at f/22 is still useable.  There are situations where f/22 might be a necessity such as everything needs to be in focus.  But if you're using f/22 for something else, there are probably alternatives.  Diffraction isn’t a huge problem, but it exists. For me, I try not to drift above f/8.  I try to be conscious of what my DOF needs to be and change accordingly strictly for diffraction considerations.  But if I need to make the DOF tradeoff, I will.  And the photo will still be fine.  Just when pixel peeped, not as fine.

Added diffraction note:  There is a multiplied effect on a sensor smaller than full frame.  On my D500, the crop factor is 1.5.  With a full frame lens, 50 mm is 75 mm.  With a DX lens on the D500, f/11 would be roughly equivalent to f/17 in a full frame environment.  Not sure what the effect is when I use a FX lens on a DX sensor.  As most diffraction occurs around the edges of the frame, the smaller sensor takes it's light from the center of what light is let through the lens.  Edges are not captured because it falls outside the sensor area.  The situation is probably close to a wash.  Degrees again.

Lens quality/Aberrations:  Aberrations are fun to talk about.  For me, aberrations are issues with photos that I didn't cause by poor technique or over thinking the situation.  Aberrations for this discussion can be characterized as optical issues.  Stuff you can't fix.  Hubble telescope, original version, stuff.  As mentioned in the previous paragraph, aberrations are more common in the corners of the frame.  Some common aberration types are spherical aberration, field curvature, coma, distortion, astigmatism, color fringing.  So how does the aperture setting inflict this much damage?  Simple, the diaphragm blocks light by closing the light path area from the outside.  Take light away from the outside edges.  The edges of the frame is where the disruption happens.

Dust specs:  Dust specs tend to show up more with smaller aperture openings.  For dust specs on your lens, mostly DOF.  A dust spec that close to the sensor is a bit larger that a dust spec at 10 feet.  And dust specs will show up on a sensor at f/16 before they show up at f/4.

So what does this mean?  Take a breath.  It's all good.  If you need f/16 - use it.  But know what f/16 will cost you.  The photo will still be fine.  But if you are taking a landscape shot where you need full focus, you can use f/22 - or learn photo stacking.  If you want to block light, try a neutral density filter.  I try to keep my apertures in the f/3 to f/5 area.  And as mentioned before, I'm willing to trade a higher ISO for that setting.  I set my aperture first - which would make it the most important setting.

See how I tied that up?  It's all good.

Richfield Park Excursion

Woke up this morning to a surprise fluffy overnight snowfall.  A small amount of snow as forecasted, but there was more on the ground and in the trees than I expected.

When I see these mornings I recall my years when I really enjoyed winter.  I like winter these days, just not as cold or as long.  Back in the day, give me winter for 11 months out of the year.  Give me those nice walks on snow covers paths and streets.  Snow gives me that 'crunch' with each step.  Fluff, or not.  The sound, the feel and the peace.

So this morning, after clearing off the driveway I took off for Richfield park.  Home of the Richfield Eagle photos and the Richfield BMX track.  I was the first one there for the day.  Pulled up right behind the county truck that opened the park.  I'm guessing he was late due to plowing other areas.  I wasn't that early, but first is first.

And that reminded me of of being the first on the slopes.  With a few inches of fresh snow.  Nothing like it.

Back to the Park.  Beautiful drive.  In a way, a bit eerie as well.  In places, there was no color.  Just dark and light.  Silver.  Took me back many years.

The entrance to one side of the park crosses the Flint River.  Yes, that Flint River.  I saw this as I approached the bridge.  My first real shot of color in the Park.  What caught my eye was the white to greens and yellows and back to white.  Beautiful.

Winter Road to Green

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8E

62 mm, 1/500 sec, f/8, ISO 1100 (AUTO)

EV +1, MANUAL MODE, Size: FX

After crossing the river, I started to walk around.  Eventually I found my way to the bridge.  I figured a shot upstream and one downstream and move along.  Sometimes you just get lucky.  I think best shot of the day.

I like the whites and darks - and the shot color.  Awesome.

Flint River Winter Kayak

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8E

70 mm, 1/500 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 (AUTO)

EV +1, MANUAL MODE, Size: FX

With the overcast sky and the trees covered with snow, looks like a river of silver.

It was good to get out for a few hours today.  And a good photo.

It's a New Year!

It may not mean much - only 24 hours from this time in 2020.  But it is a big deal.  Mentally.

For the paying job, lots of good projects to keep me going through 2021.  I don't see much that will take extra weekend time.  That's good.  Will be able to get out more.

For photography I do have a few things for New Year's Day that need to be attended to.  Administrative stuff.

First, I have to change all my copyright information from 2020 to 2021.  I have a simple copyright statement set in the camera.  I also have a more elaborate statement in Photoshop.  I usually add the statement from Photoshop on my posted shots, but just in case I forget the camera statement will do.  And you would be correct in rolling your eyes at this point, yep if they're going to lift it the copyright won't stop 'em.

I also change my camera file names every year.  A few years ago I needed to come up with a method to segregate photos taken from different cameras.  Without using more directories.  I can set the first three characters in my file names.  This is what I came up with.  The first character is the year.  A=2018, B=2019, C=2020 and E=2021.  Yep, I skipped D.  One of Nikon's default file names begins with DSC.  I have plenty of older files that begin with DSC.  The second character corresponds to the event of the year.  The first event I go out to in 2021 will be A.  The next event will be B.  And the last character will be the camera, 5=D500 and 8=D850.  For each camera, that would be EA5 and EA8 to start the year.

I also reset the four digit values to start the year.  I haven't had to reset the counter during the year, but am not opposed to doing so.  I can see later in the year if I've gone to a few air shows and knocked out a few thousand shots at each that I might do a reset.  Not sure I'd take well to the camera doing a reset on its own.  Ha, and yes - I do think about it at that level.

I also take the time to check and update the firmware in the camera.  

In early December I saw both cameras had updates available.  For both the big update was for both cameras to accept CFexpress data cards in the XQD slot.  Theoretically a CFexpress card is faster than XQD - but at speeds that my cameras can't use.  And the price at this time is not any different.   But XQD is primarily a Sony thing and fairly proprietary.  The CFexpress may be more non-proprietary.  And I live by that.  So, won't be throwing away the XQDs just yet.

Other updates fix a flash issue on the D500, which I don't use, and menu changes in the D850.

So now that all that is done, the cameras are ready for 2021.  And so am I.  Bring it on.