Night Photography

With my first post in June 2013 I am marking a new type of Image post that I am going to start, Night Photography. I am not going to spend a lot of time describing how to take pictures at night. You can read about that a dozen places or more on the internet. Instead I will just post a picture and hopefully that will inspire you to stick around after dark to take a few more pictures. As the map below informs you, the Skylon Tower is in Niagara Falls, Canada.

I shot the above picture on a Nikon D90 at ISO 1600 without Flash. The exposure was .6 seconds (6/10) at f / 4.8. It was a hand held shot.

A few things I will add is that; 1) the Moon can be your friend to provide the extra light you might need, but if you are trying to capture the stars the Moon can be your enemy. Pick your night for the subject matter you want to shoot, 2) buy a tripod if you want to get serious about night photography, 3) I have a very small LED flashlight in my camera bag and I need it to ready my camera settings or just look around where I am at!

Kaiser Manhattan

Beautifully restored 1953 Kaiser Manhattan 4 door sedan

The Badlands an Aerial View

I visited the Badlands National Monument in July 1973 and was struck by the stark beauty of the place. So much so that I decided I need to see the Badlands from the air. We paid for an aerial view via a helicopter ride with cameras in full force shooting Kodachrome slides and Super 8 film. What an amazing ride in the Bell 47G-2 helicopter, flying into the canyons and then darting up flying just over the tops of the formations.

The Badlands are located in southwestern South Dakota. The entire area had once been a great sea that receded, and then erosion began to take place. For thousands of years Native Americans called this area home. In more recent times the sad stories of how this awe-inspiring area was lost to a once great nation of people is truly something that is hard to comprehend. While I was there captivated by the scenery, it wasn't all that long ago that others had lived their entire lives here and saw much more than the rugged beauty of the peaks.

When we first arrived at the monument we took a picture of the sign. The concrete base of the sign remains today, but the sign has changed. Once a nation monument it is now a national park. Below is a picture of the sign that we took in July 1973.

Below is that same sign from the air taken from our Bell helicopter.

More aerial views of the Badlands.

[mapsmarker marker="47"]

Quote For The Day

       An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Benjamin Franklin

Photoshop Shake Reduction

In November of 2012 I posted about not deleting your pictures if they are not in perfect focus. Some bloggers/experts recommended that you delete them, while I suggested that you do not know what will be possible in the future. Well the future is here. Photoshop Shake Reduction will be available in June of this year. Checkout the video below. I have a few pictures that meet this criteria waiting on me to apply the fix. I am sure this feature will continue to get better and would work great on my type of photography which is run and gun. I have a lot of photos that I have taken from moving cars and auto rickswaws that this might really help. [color-button color=orange href="http://bhagavideo.com/2012/11/the-future-of-photography-technology/"]See my post "The Future of Photography Technology"[/color-button]

Want to learn more about Shake Reduction?

Adobe Shake Reduction Checkout the Adobe Blog

Checkout Terry White's Blog

First Car Show for 2013

I went to my first car show for 2013 this past Monday and I didn't take my camera. That is kind of unusual for me, but I had spent a day taking pictures on May 17th at Pegasus Farm. I was just short of 800 pictures that day and had spent a solid two days reviewing, editing and publishing them, so I was a bit burnt out on taking pictures for the car show. However, it was fun getting together with Rich and Tom for another season of car idolatry. We staked out our usual spot under the shade tree and then went for a walk to see what the show had to offer. Many of the cars and owners were in their favorite spots and we saw many of the same faces we see each year. We are always looking for that rare gem that we can checkout in more detail.

This year I have decided that I am going to concentrate on a few cars rather that capturing the entire show. It is a little more fun to do an in depth photo review of a single car, especially with cars from the 40's and 50's. There is just a lot of stuff hanging off cars from that time frame. It gives me more time to enjoy the show and talk with the guys. I also have a bunch of car pictures from last year that I haven't published yet, so I need to work on those before capturing another couple hundred pictures.

Since I like to have pictures in my posts I decided to add a picture of our earliest form of transportation that was only 1 horse power! A picture I took of a horse at Pegasus Farm on May 17th seems appropriate.