Birds in Flight
I went to Glenn Hilton Park again for a little while to continue learning the new Sigma 150-500mm lens. There are a lot of really nice wildlife photo opportunities in the park on most days, and it's really a great place to take advantage of a lens like this. Over at DPChallenge.com this week, there is a "Birds in Flight" photo competition so I thought I might be able to pick up a shot or two that I could enter into that competition. The above photo is a fair but I had hoped to get something a little better. Maybe if time permits I will be able to get back down there for a while early one morning this week and see what finds its way into my viewfinder... I still haven't taken the time to play around with the new 100mm macro lens or the 85mm f/1.8 yet, but that will come soon enough... I have had a really heavy work schedule lately, so time off is precious at the moment :)
Some New Lenses
I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a few new lenses for my camera bag this week. One of the new lenses is a Sigma 150-500mm telephoto zoom lens. I decided to take it to the park for a while late this afternoon and give it a try. I was quite impressed with the results. This lens is rather large and heavy, so I mounted it on my monopod and took a walk around the park...
There are always a lot of ducks and geese at the park, and today was no exception. I shot quite a few photos while testing out the new big lens. This lens has the OS function (optical stabilization) which helps out a lot with camera shake at slower shutter speeds. I had good sunlight today, so I didn't really get a great opportunity to try out the lens hand-held in low light, but I will do that soon...
First Snow of 2011
I decided to go to Union Square for a little while this afternoon while it was snowing. With my luck, the snow died down about the time I arrived so I just piddled around with the camera a little and shot a few photos just for fun. It was cold... about 23°F and the snow was in the process of changing to freezing rain. There was another photographer out there with a few models shooting photos of them doing various crazy and fun things in the snow, so I watched them for a while before packing the bag and coming back home.
It felt good to get the tripod back out. I haven't taken the initiative to shoot much serious stuff outside of my newspaper work for quite a while now. I think the new year might push me a little harder to get back to my roots and primary interests in photography... We'll see what happens...
Vacationing in November
November has been a fun month, but it's over now... We went to Oahu for 8 days, came home for a week, and then went to Myrtle Beach for a couple more days... I took the above photo at the Ripley's Aquarium at Boardwalk at the Beach in Myrtle Beach... The trip to Hawaii was long-awaited and had been planned for over a year, but the trip to Myrtle Beach was just a little extra. I tagged along with Tonya because she was going down for three days of software training. I spent those three days just wandering around and shopping at the beach. Being at Myrtle Beach during the off season is a little different. No lines, no crowds. Quite nice actually! If you wanna see some of my photos from the Hawaii trip, the links are below:
Hawaii Photo Gallery on Flickr
I'm not sure where we will be going next, but I'm thinking Gatlinburg, TN might be happening before too long...
B-17
I made a brief visit to the Hickory Aviation Museum this afternoon to check out the B-17 and B-24 traveling exhibit. I have never had the opportunity to see a B-17 up close so I didn't wanna miss this one. This exhibit is going on today, Sunday, and for a few more hours Monday morning. There is also a P-51 Mustang on site. You can purchase rides in these historical planes as well. I think the 30-minute rides in the bombers costs $425 per person. The P-51 ride is $2200 for 30 minutes, but if you are a bargain hunter, you can get a full hour for only $3200!
An Interesting Pair
I went down to Glenn Hilton Park for a couple hours this afternoon with the camera. The scenery there hasn't changed much lately, but I have noticed quite a few young wood ducks along the banks. I haven't seen any mature males, but I hope I will one day soon. They are quite photogenic. The park is also overrun with people during the summer months when the weather is nice. I felt lucky to even get in the park this afternoon. Usually a police officer is parked at the entrance turning people away because the parking lot is full.
As I was coming out of the boardwalk area, I noticed these two ducks sitting on a log, so I found a good spot and photographed them for a while. I didn't really get anything I was very happy with from the shoot, but I definitely enjoyed the time I spent doing it...
The Varsity
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Atlanta was a lunch stop at The Varsity. It has been a very long time since I have eaten here, but they still serve the same fare consisting of hamburgers, hotdogs, fries, onion rings, fried pies, shakes, and a few other odds and ends. The most interesting part of it is that they have been going strong since 1928. If you are ever passing through Atlanta on I-85, I hope you get the chance to stop in and give them a try. They are right at Georgia Tech, so keep your eyes open!
Georgia Aquarium with the SX20IS
My short trip to Atlanta was a blast. We had a good time and visited some interesting places. We went to the Federal Reserve Bank, CNN, Chick-Fil-A Headquarters, World of Coke, and the Georgia Aquarium. One of my personal experiments on this trip was to give a workout to my new small camera, the Canon SX20 IS. I wanted to put it through its paces as a point and shoot camera, so that's exactly what I did. I put the camera in fully automatic mode and left it there all weekend. I didn't touch a single setting on the camera. As I was scrolling through my photos from the trip, I didn't find any that had any problems at all until I got to my images from the aquarium where it was pretty dark for everything I shot. Shooting in the dark with telephoto lenses usually creates a really tough situation with camera shake, but this camera performed as well as I could have asked for. The image stabilization worked beautifully and I came home with a ton of great images from the visit to the Georgia Aquarium. HERE are a few samples of those if you want to take a glance...
I'm really happy with this camera. I bought it because I wanted a small camera that had a good zoom, and at 20x, this one works well. I still have my Canon G9, but the SX20 IS is going to become my front-runner camera for non-sports photography now...
Some More Snow
It's been snowing here all afternoon, but the temperatures are still above freezing, so not much of it is sticking to the ground. The birds, however, are fighting for position on the feeders. This usually provides for some entertainment as they push each other around for a chance to get some of my sunflower seed.
I shot this photo with my new Canon SX20IS digital camera. I have been really happy with the results from this camera so far. I'm taking it to Atlanta with me this weekend instead of the big camera bag, so it should get a nice workout... I bought this camera as a companion to and possibly a replacement for my Canon G9. The G9 is a fantastic camera, but it only has 3x zoom. The SX20IS has 20x optical zoom...
Raptors
I had an interesting assignment this afternoon. I went to Geitner Park to photograph the release of a rehabilitated bald eagle. This event was held by the Carolina Raptor Center and the Catawba Science Center. I didn't catch any really great photos of the bald eagle though. It was a rather quick process. The eagle was wrapped up. When it was unwrapped, it was released very quickly. The vantage point I chose for the eagle release turned out to be a poor one, so I don't have any great photos of that, but I turned in what I had and decided to shoot some 'portraits' for myself of the other birds they had on display at the event. The above bird is a red-tailed hawk that is a permanent resident of the Carolina Raptor Center, and the photo below is a barred owl from the same source.
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