Dangerous Spouse Pics

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Just down the street from my house is the historic "High Breeze Farm", which is still operational. I go there occassionally, even without my camera, because the vistas across the farm and over a valley into the next town are so pretty. The farmer has a herd of cattle that ke moves to a different field every day, and if I'm lucky they will be in one of the closer fields when I take pictures.

So with this week's challenge being "Landscapes", it seemed like a natural to head there again. Unfortunately it's been raining off and on for days straight, and although there was a bit of a break late yesterday I did not get the kind of dramatic partially cloudy sky I was hoping for. Oh well. The cattle were in a bit of a far off field, but still visible in the distance (there are only limited areas where one can view the farm, as most of the fields are ringed with electric fences for the livestock, and there are no parking areas other than the farmer's private drive - which I couldn't use).

These are just a couple that I came away with. The first pic is the one I entered.

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Barret Farm 3-.jpg


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Barret Farm 5-.jpg


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I did try to get some wider shots with my Zykkor 24mm macro (Olympus mount w/ adapter) so I could get a shot with flowers in the foreground, but I don't think I was able to really capture it. More practice needed!

Barret Farm 6-.jpg



As I mentioned, I've been shooting pictures there for a while now. This is actually my favorite one I think, taken on a fall morning before the fog burned off, and when the leaves were just turning:

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This area where I live, at the southern end of New York's Hudson Valley, has lovely views seemingly everywhere. I took this a few years ago, before I really got into photography, with my little point-n-shoot Kodak. It's just across the river from West Point Military Academy:

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  • Barret Farm 6-.jpg
    Barret Farm 6-.jpg
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Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Well that's odd. Some of the pictures in my previous post show up as attachment notices, despite using the same method to post all of them. If you'll forgive the duplication(s), I'm going to put up each one as an individual post now to see if happens that way as well. Starting with picture #1:

Barret Farm 1-.jpg
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Well that's odd. Some of the pictures in my previous post show up as attachment notices, despite using the same method to post all of them.

jdeg thinks the problem some people experience while uploading images has to do with the server. And he already ordered a new one and is getting it provisioned. No idea how long it will take to implement the changes though.

Nice collection of images!
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Had some ideas for this week's "Blur" challenge - my cat leaping, me swinging a golf club with the intervalometer - but ended up deciding on a moving car shot. I toyed with making some kind of rig to affix the camera to the hood (bonnet) of the car, pointing back, to catch our faces with the motion blur off to each side. But there were a few problems with that, notably my lack of rig making skills and attendant fear of destroying a Nikon D500. So I went with handheld.

My wife gamely agreed to drive while I took some shots. Unfortunately the little bumpkin country roads up here are bumpy and slow. Slow enough that to see blur in cars coming towards us require 1/30 sec shutter speed. Handheld. And did I mention the roads here are bumpy? I took just over 140 shots, and these are the only ones that came close to keeping my wife sharp. Plus, and this was more of a factor than I originally thought, shooting through the front windshield meant using a CPF, and I kept having to rotate it every time the road curved.

Oh, and of course it started raining 2 minutes after we left. And not a steady rain either. It was one of those schmutzy light rains that just make the windshield look streaked and dirty, rather than wet. The shot I chose to enter at least had discernible rain, which is mostly why I chose it.

I like my B&W treatments here, and I added in some grain/noise to give it more of a gritty feel because of the weather.

My entry first:

BLUR 3-.jpg


BLUR 1-.jpg


BLUR B&W-.jpg


BLUR 2-.jpg


BLUR 2 B&W-.jpg
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
Well if suuuuumone wouldn't have chosen such a challenging subject this week...:rolleyes: I can just hear it, "You must have already taken 50 pictures, do you have it yet?" "Almost, just another one or two!" LOL!
I like the ones with the headlights, but ya, I see what you mean. Schmutzy windshield.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Well if suuuuumone wouldn't have chosen such a challenging subject this week...:rolleyes: I can just hear it, "You must have already taken 50 pictures, do you have it yet?" "Almost, just another one or two!" LOL!
I like the ones with the headlights, but ya, I see what you mean. Schmutzy windshield.

Haha! Oh ye of little faith in D500's. 140 shots are taken quicker than it just took you to read this sentence. Even she was able to drive without bitching for that long, which makes the camera worth whatever I paid for it right there :encouragement:

I agree, but yeah...schmutz. Waddaya gonna do.

:)
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
When I got home from shopping yesterday I saw a really pretty butterfly in our (appropriately named) butterfly bush by the front door. I had my D500 with the 70-300 sitting right inside the door, so I grabbed it and fired off a few shots before it flew away. But in my haste I completely forgot that I was still in full manual mode with settings that were completely inappropriate. I ended up with an about 15 shot burst, all of which looked like this, OOC:

Black Butterfly on Butterfly Plant OOC -2029.jpg


But god bless the dynamic range on that D500. The histogram showed the whites weren't blown out, so this was in effect I suppose a, "expose to the right" shot. In Lightroom then I just adjusted the exposure, shadows, etc., and was able to produce this:

Black Butterfly on Butterfly Plant slight crop-2029.jpg


It's not the greatest of pics. I front focused a bit, just missing focus on the head. But I'm really impressed with how much I was able to recover, especially compared to my D5500.
 
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Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Went down to the local park today hoping to catch some kids games in action. I'm trying to learn how to capture moving subjects, something I've had little experience with. Unfortunately, there were no games going on at all. On a beautiful Sunday! But that apparently was the problem. All the baseball, soccer, lacrosse, etc., games are played on Saturdays, according to my wife...who conveniently told me after I got home.

But there was one young lady there practicing her footy skills all by herself. She was very nice, and I even got her to laugh at some stupid jokes. I had a nice time, but I didn't really get to practice what I wanted. Oh well, next time. On a Saturday.

Kaitlin Ball on Back-1.jpg


Kaitlin Ball on Foot-1.jpg


Kaitlin Ball and Net-1.jpg


Kaitlin Laugh-1.jpg
 
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