The Story

This here’s a story about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue
Two young lovers with nothin’ better to do
Than sit around the house, get high, and watch the tube
And here is what happened when they decided to cut loose

Wait… that’s a song, not my story. My story goes like this…

Come home from work and start the process of closing the pool. First time doing it without any help from the kids. Actually goes better than I anticipated. I changed the method of attaching the winter cover to utilize weighted gallon jugs in place of the wire cable. I think it is going to provide better protection from the wind. We’ll see…

End up working for two hours but I get everything done in one evening. Dinner is waiting when I come in the house which is great since I didn’t have to cook it. Gobble my food down quickly, jump in the shower and then head out with the camera because the sun is setting through some haze which is calling my name.

I drive over to my favorite state park to catch the last few minutes of light over the lake. Well, that was the plan anyway. Today was an abnormally hot and humid day for September in Upstate NY. We reached 90 degrees and very high humidity. I opted to run the air conditioner in the car on the 10 minute drive over to the lake. It was just enough to cool down my camera and lens so that when I walked down to the beach the lens had fogged over.  Everything I needed to clear the lens was back in the camera bag in the car.

The sad part is this isn’t the first time I have done this… hopefully next time I’ll remember this lesson. Here is the sunset through the condensation on the lens.

Lens Haze Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/8s, 28mm, f/18, ISO 100

Lens Haze
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/8s, 28mm, f/18, ISO 100

Back to the Beach

They all went home... Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/10s, 17mm, f/18, ISO 100

They all went home…
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/10s, 17mm, f/18, ISO 100

No $#!^ Creek Anywhere Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/10s, 24mm, f/16, ISO 100

No $#!^ Creek Anywhere
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/10s, 24mm, f/16, ISO 100

Playground

Delta Lake State Park is less than 10 minutes from my house. It has become my favorite playground with my camera. I can walk the trails there and still find interesting views to capture. Lately, the sunsets have just been incredible affording me great opportunities with the camera. Last night was another great end to a beautiful day.

This is one of the first images I captured as I walked onto the beach. I still had an hour until sunset but the light on the trees was too good to pass up. I decided this week to leave the 35mm lens on the camera and learn to find the best compositions without being lazy with the zoom lenses. It definitely gets you thinking and working the scene more. It was a great exercise for me!

Playground Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/125s, f/8, ISO 200

Playground
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/125s, f/8, ISO 200

Rock Beach

We interrupt the regularly scheduled snowfall to bring you this alien landscape from one week ago…

Rock Beach
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/3, 1/13, 1/50s bracket), 17mm, f/18, ISO 200

Beachcomber

Sitting on the edge of the beach waiting for the sun to set I spied this lone rock disturbing the sand. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a close-up. Luckily, I had done my research before I bought my tripod earlier this year. I made sure the legs reverse folded allowing me to get the camera very low to the ground. The wide angle lens gave me the close-up of the rock I wanted, and it still provided a nice view of the beach and sky. I knew I would be taking this one into Photomatix for a little HDR help so I used a 3 image exposure bracket to capture the scene.

Beachcomber
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/40, 1/10, 0.4s bracket), 17mm, f/16, ISO 200