Rambles

Once again it’s been longer than I would have liked between postings, but I’ve been so busy doing other things to update and upgrade the web site that I figure it will all come out in the wash (whatever the hell that means).

Just by way of update then, since the last Rambles posting I have finally found and figured out how to get some different gallery styles plugged into my web pages. The galleries I have been using, under the “Galleries” section, were compromises made with the web authoring program I use because I hadn’t been able to figure out how to do anything differently. What I really wanted to do was to use galleries created in Lightroom, my main photo management program, but I hadn’t had any success in porting them into the website – purely a skill deficit on my part. Then all of a sudden it hit me and I had the answer of how to make it happen. So over the past week or so, I’ve started converting my galleries to what I think is a more user friendly and aesthetically pleasing format. If you have any reaction to the changes, let me know. Below are screen shots of some of the gallery pages.

My old photo gallery style.

The new gallery style I'm converting to in Photo galleries.

A new, and much improved, Theater gallery.

I’ve been doing most of the early work in the Theater galleries because we are in the middle of Pendragon’s summer season and I’m in the midst of posting images from the summer shows (check them out under the “Theater” section of my site). But I have managed to upgrade one of the Photo galleries – “Adirondacks” – and have plans to get the rest changed over soonly. This will, of course, include not just a new gallery style, but new images – certainly worth a look I hope.

I have been out doing some actual photography too. The acquisition of the new lens has certainly helped, but it’s also just a fabulous time of the year to be out with a camera. We were paddling home after a visit to the neighbors across the lake the other day when we noticed a couple of Bald Eagles hanging out in some trees close to home. Managed to get a number of pretty nice shots but this one was the most fun of the group.

Just as he/she left their post out on a limb.

More soon, I hope.

Burdette

A couple of months ago I had a slight equipment mishap and ended up having to replace my most used lens on the Nikon D300. The lens that fell and got stuck at f 95 was the 18mm-135mm kit lens that I got with the camera and had been quite happy with. I ended up replacing it with a 16mm-85mm VR lens that I’m really liking too, but it did include a substantial reduction in reach at the long end (135 to 85 is very noticeable). So, it was time once again to take yet another look at a decent tele-zoom lens. Several years ago I had tried a 70-200 VR lens when they first came out and sent it back because it was just too soft. Now, after a few new versions of the design and reading numerous favorable reviews, I decided to give it another try. But to be honest, I was still pretty leery. A little over a week ago, I finally bit the bullet and ordered the Nikon 70-300 VR.

It arrived a few days ago and I have been out testing it for a couple of days now. It’s sort of depressing to have to admit that the arrival of a new piece of equipment seems to be what it takes to get one off their duff (read “me” and “my” for “one” and “their” if you want the unvarnished truth of the matter) and get out shooting, but that seems to be the case. So be warned, there’s a bunch of pictures accompanying this post ’cause I’ve out “working” the lens.

My first concern, of course, was to find out if the lens was as “sharp” as I wanted/hoped it would be. To test this, I shot the same flower barrel with the new lens and with my 300mm f4 prime. I shot over a range of f-stops and was quite pleases with the results. Even wide-open and zoomed all the way out, the new lens compared favorably and at f8 they were almost indistinguishable.

Taken with the 300mm prime at f4.

New lens at 300mm and f5.6.

Even comparing shots with each of these lenses at 300mm and cropping in tight, the new lens looks good. The biggest difference in the lenses is not degrees of sharpness but quite a difference in color rendition. As is obvious in the pics below, the zoom produces a much warmer image.

300mm prime. (cropped)

70-300mm @ 300mm also cropped.

This being summer, flowers seemed to be the most immediately available subjects and once I started shooting them I just had to put my favorite macro lens on and do a few shots with it.

90mm macro just for fun.

Happy with the initial results, it was time to give the new lens the real test—a trip to the field. I took a walk down the road for some lovely roadside grass shots. I then paddled up the river hoping to find some wildlife and the same Black Ducks I had seen a couple weeks earlier were still there and willing to oblige. Everything was hand-held so I could get a sense of the effectiveness of the VR function.

Just grass at the edge of the driveway (but sharp).

Ferns in sun.

The line up.

Showing off.

Also found an abundance of water lilies that with memories of Monet I can never pass up. And it was a nice way to get a feel for the closeup capabilities of the lens.

Lily and reflection among the pads.

Just too pretty to pass by.

Then, as a nice test of the range of the lens, I spotted an immature Bald Eagle sitting on the upper-most branch of a tree. Got off a couple of shots at the low end of the zoom (70mm) and then a 300mm shot just as he launched himself into the air—having had enough of my meddling no doubt.

Eagle in the tree top with 70mm.

Into the air. 300mm and slight crop.

I’m sure there will be more to report on the new lens later, as it’s still new after-all and provides that extra incentive to go out shooting, but it will also hopefully just get me back into the habit of more regular outings. What I really need to do is come up with a new project. Heh, I’m scheduled to have another show at the Guild a year from now. Is it time to start planning? You bet.

Burdette

Talk about measuring success in small packages, I finally got out in a boat with a camera a couple of times and I’m calling that a success. Well, in a way it is and doubly so. I not only managed to finally get out on the water again but I took a camera along and actually used it.

An evening on the lake.

Of course the first day out, the timing was occasioned by friends visiting who brought their own canoe and were determined to go for a paddle, we had some great bird sightings (eagle, merganzers, black ducks and loons) and I had the wrong lens on the camera and no camera bag with an option. I got some interesting shots, but not the kind I was wishing I could have gotten. The eagle was in the middle of a meal and sat quite patiently, but there’s only so close you can get without upsetting things and an 85mm lens just won’t do it.

A troop of mergansers all in a bunch.

Just out of reach with the 85mm.

Preening Black Ducks.

So the next day, when I went out with the lens I had wished I had on the previous day, the pickings were much slimmer—though not absent. But here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a more photographically prolific period.

Getting in closer to the Black Ducks.

Ducklings that got so close they were inside the minimum focusing distance of the lens.

Burdette

The big project of the past month or so has been completed. “The Imaginary Invalid” opened on Wednesday night to a sold-out house. What a great way to open. The next two nights were smaller audiences, but they didn’t let their size diminish response. The show is off to a great start and promises to be a lot of fun for both cast and audience for the rest of Pendragon’s season.

Right after that show got opened, the focus at the theater shifted to preparations for one of the big special events of the 30^th Anniversary celebration. We did one read-thru and one sorta blocking rehearsal for one staged reading of “The Royal Family” by Kaufman and Ferber. The cast was made up of former company members reaching back through Pendragon’s entire 30 year history. It was a lot of fun and proved to be a great way to celebrate. It got a lot of us on stage with others we had never had the pleasure of playing with before.

Here's most of the reunion cast of Pendragon's Royal Family.

Now, with any luck, I’ll be able to put my photographer’s hat back on and get crackin with making some new images. I think I remember sort of how that camera thingy works. No photography, no paddling and no biking for way too long. Time to change all of that.

Burdette

Things have been very busy lately, but not busy with taking pictures. I am in the midst, actually nearing the end, of directing a show at good old Pendragon Theater. The title of the show is The Imaginary Invalid (a grand old chestnut written by the French playwright Molière in 1673). We’re working with a delightful adaptation by Constance Congdon and are having a lot of fun with it.

But it is a lot of work, so I haven’t been out and about with a camera in-hand much latley at all. The best I have been able to manage are some PR shots I took the other night at rehearsal.

Beline and Argan in Invalid.

Angelique and Cleante (the young lovers, of course).

Angelique and Beline (her overbearing stepmother).

The show opens at Pendragon on the 14^th of July. So if you’re in the area, come by and check it out. It will be running through the summer and right into the fall.

At the moment, Fall sounds very good. We, along with pretty much all of the east coast of the US of A, are in the grips of a significant heat wave. Happily, one of the best air conditioned places in the area is the theater. It’s made rehearsals quite refreshing. The box referred to above is actually the theater. Usually when you’re in the midst of a rehearsal period, you occasionally glance out the door and wish you were outside and able to enjoy the summer weather, especially after a north country winter. But right now, with the heat, being inside the box ain’t so bad. See you at the play. Production photos will be getting posted in my Theater section some time soon.

Burdette

I’m at Great Camp Sagamore conducting my Photoshop Workshop (see the Workshop page), but I have to mention the nice little nature lesson we got to observe the other day. I was coming down the driveway after taking the dog for his mid-morning constitutional when I noticed something unusual at the end of the walkway—the dog noticed it to. I was concerned that he might try to attack it or at least rush forward to check it out. Neither of which would have been good—for the dog.

It was a large, dark lump with legs. It was a very respectably sized snapping turtle. A snapping turtle mama who was in the process of inspecting our yard for a place to deposit her eggs.

This is the Snapper by the walkway.

Here's a close-up of her "smiling" face. Similar to what I had on my home page last week.

This was about 9:00. She spent the next six or seven hours navigating slowly around the yard before she finally found a place that suited her. She seemed to be extremely discriminating about finding just the right place. But who can blame her? She was just being a conscientious mommy and wanting the very best for her future progeny. I’m not sure she found it, but what do I know about good places to plant turtle eggs? The dog, by the way, seemed to have known instinctively that this was one moving object (slow moving as it was) that he didn’t want to mess with and prudently kept his distance.

Either digging or planting, not sure which--hard to tell.

She eventually settled on a spot, and set about the deliberate and painstaking task of digging a hole and laying her eggs. It was a slow-motion operation, but ultimately a successful one. After she lumbered off toward the water, we were able to mark and protect the spot and now we are in “wait” mode to see what will emerge later this fall.

Burdette

A couple of weeks ago, returning from a little outing in my kayak, with camera of course, I set the waterproof bag containing the camera (not being a complete fool—he says optimistically) on a low bench while I put the boat away. While I was distracted by the boat, something apparently shifted in the camera bag and it fell off the bench. I heard the “clunk” and feeling my stomach do the same thing rushed to the bag. I immediately took the camera out and turned it on. It worked! Relieved, I put it back in the bag and went on about my business.

It wasn’t until a couple of day later that I had occasion to use the camera again. It was one of my early Monday morning sessions—4:30 am and mostly dark. I got the camera all set up on the tripod and got set to take my first picture. It was dark, but not as dark as the camera seemed to think it was. In order to get any image at all, I was having to open the shutter for more than 20 seconds! That was when I realized that the lens aperture was frozen at f/95. In other words, the camera survived the fall, but the lens hadn’t. I managed to get the shots I needed that morning, but it was a long, slow process. The lens that had been on the camera when it fell was the 18mm – 135mm kit lens that come with the D300 and it seems to be toast. So, time for a new lens, since none of my other lenses can handle the wider end of the spectrum on the 300′s APS sensor.

Getting a new lens can be almost as much fun, and as complicated, as getting a new camera—And, I might add, almost as expensive. I decided to not just replace the kit lens, but to do an upgrade while I was at it. After much searching (Thanks, Internet) and no small amount of angst, I decided to go with Nikon’s 16mm-85mm VR lens. It’s my first VR (vibration reduction) lens and so far I like it a lot. The VR feature helps to make up for the smaller apertures the lens has. To go with a similar lens with a larger aperture, like 2.8 or something, would have doubled the cost and I wasn’t quite in the mood for THAT much of an upgrade.

So here are some of the early pics with the new lens. It has a pretty decent macro capability which means I’m able to get in a lot closer than the old lens without having to change out to a dedicated macro lens. Good feature since I do like shooting up close and personal.

One of the first shots with the new lens.

Does well in close too.

Testing the VR feature, it’s very obvious that I’ve been able to get some nice sharp images (it seems to be a good sharp lens anyway) at slow shutter speeds. No question, it’s my new “standard” lens and it’s working.

And sharp. Even hand-held at slow shutter speeds.

Burdette