Ok - as promised, here is a brighter version of the photos from the other night with the ORS-3 Rocket Launch. Mouseover each image in the sequence and you will get to see a bit of how it looked to have the rocket move across the sky (I was trying to figure out how to make it cycle automatically, but don't have the time to do so right now).

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF at 13mm, 15 sec at f/8. ISO 1250. Raw conversion Adobe Camera Raw.

And in case you are having a hard time finding it, here is a 66% crop to show the rocket a bit more magnified...

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

So thanks to my father-in-law, I got some last minute notice that there was a rocket launch scheduled to take place from Virginia and would be visible along the east coast. Since we had a clear night, I figured it was worth seeing what I could capture with the camera.

I think I might have to reprocess these photos as looking at them again, they look like I processed them a bit dark (I was in the middle of a migraine at the time, so you'll have to give me a pass).

Anyway, here's the first attempt at it - I'll see if I can get a better cleaned up version later.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF at 13mm, 15 sec at f/8. ISO 1250. Raw conversion Adobe Camera Raw.

I know it is hard to see, but the rocket is a tiny orangish streak to the left of the tree on the right hand side of the image.

- Bill

So Friday night, our one dog kept going to the back door and making a fuss. He was acting like he was seeing something outside, but we just couldn't see anything. Finally I grabbed my night vision binoculars and scanned the yard. I saw a shape on the ground and so I snuck outside without the dogs and discovered that there was a pheasant hanging out in the yard.

So I decided to see how the camera would perform with the flash at night. At first I thought I would need my Better Beamer to increase/direct the flash since I was working at a bit of a distance; however, that simply made a very strong vignette to the shots. So in the end, I went with just the flash itself (and even set to flash compensation of -1 stop).

I took a few shots from behind the fence and then finally decided I wanted to see if I could get a better angle of the bird. He was being fairly calm, so I went around the house and approached him slowly from the front. I was staying low and almost crawling on the ground - I managed to get fairly close until he popped up and I got this shot. I then tried to rotate the camera to get a vertical orientation and that must have been too much for him because he took off running....

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/60 sec at f/4. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode with -1 EC. Image Stabilization on. ISO 1250. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Fun stuff. I might have to take a nocturnal wander around the property some bright moonlit night and see what I run into...

- Bill

Well, it has been a while (a long while). For those of you who didn't know, Anya and I bought a new house and moved up north a month or so ago. We've bought a property with over ten acres and a nice 2.5 acre pond.

Normally, when you move into a new property, you're not thrilled when there are very large rodents living there, but in this case, we're cool with it...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM at 500mm, 1/640 sec at f/6.3. OS Mode 1. ISO 1250. RAW conversion and cropped (mouseover for original) in Adobe Camera Raw.

We have some work to do on the house (no - this will not be turning into a house restoration blog), so it might be longer between posts - and I'm usually slower in the winter anyway - but I definitely am looking forward to all the wildlife opportunities I'll be having here. Of the notable stuff we've seen already... tons of cool spiders and bugs, herons (green and blue), king fisher, wood ducks, deer, huge flocks (I'm talking in the thousands!) of red-winged blackbirds, the list goes on and on.

We took the kayaks out on the pond yesterday and I was getting somewhat close to the kingfisher, so I'm hoping I can get an opportunity to get some photos of him soon, and if I can get decent lighting to capture the blackbirds I am hoping to do that too. Stay tuned!

- Bill

Here's another I converted to black and white...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/20 sec at f/8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Silver FX (mouseover for color version).

- Bill

Well, I finally made it through the rest of the photos from Hocking Hills. Honestly, this last set is where all the gems are, so I'll get right to the one that I think turned out the best. I liked this one as a color image, but then decided to try it in B&W - I ran it through the Antique Plate preset in Nik Software's Silver FX, and the result is just stellar I think...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 49mm, 1/30 sec at f/5.6. ISO 100. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Silver FX (mouseover for color version).

There is still more to come, so stay tuned.

- Bill

Still (slowly) making my way through the photos from Hocking Hills. Here's a nice assortment of vertically oriented photos...

	Cedar Falls
	Conkle's Hollow
	Cedar Falls Trailhead Sunset
	Cedar Falls

Stay tuned, the best is yet to come...

- Bill

Ever been out taking photos and there are just so many people around that you just can't seem to get a photo without some random person in the shot?

Well, that was definitely the case most of the time we were in Hocking Hills; however, I employed a little technique that would give me a clean result after a little Photoshop work...

Image #1
Image #1
Final Image

All you have to do is have your camera mounted on a tripod, take multiple images (sometimes - like here - you can get away with as few as two) making sure that as the people move around, you get enough photos where eventually any given area is free of people. Then, in Photoshop, simply bring all of the images into a new combined image, use the eraser tool to remove the people, leaving the image beneath it with no people in that spot showing through. This way, you can easily create a final image that doesn't have any random people left.

The best part? Even someone with rather limited Photoshop "skills" can do this technique because it doesn't have to be the most detailed and precise work, plus since you're not creating any content - only removing distracting elements to show a different version of the same image - it looks very natural.

- Bill

Ok - I really haven't been motivated to process photos or post on my blog, but Anya and I took a trip to Hocking Hills in Ohio this past weekend, so perhaps that will provide the necessary push. Though I am sure it will still take me a while to get through them all.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 18mm, 5 sec at f/32. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Landscape photography is not my strongest skill, so it took me about a day or so to actually start putting together some nice photos. This one, obviously, is not one of them. I share it mainly because it is in the first set (processing chronologically) and as an example of the magnitude of the geology we were in (I'm not always good about putting a model into my scenes for scale).

Stay tuned, more (better) to come.

- Bill

Ok - as promised, we're going to take a break from the spiders today... though we are going to stick with something with eight legs (or are they arms?)

I use a version of this image as the wallpaper on my home computer. When I go to turn the computer off, it fades the image to B&W. Truthfully, I'd never noticed how good of a B&W image it made until just a few days ago. After seeing it, I decided it was time for another go at making underwater black and whites.

I first tried one edit of this image, and then decided I wanted to make a few more modifications to it. I'll share all of those edits, their B&W conversions, and the original (sorry, no B&W of it), and then you can vote on which is your favorite.

Original	Edit #1, Color	Edit #1, B&W	Edit #2, Color	Edit #2, B&W

Place your vote and let me know which version you like best...

- Bill