Thanks for the likes and the comments. Some good natured banter these last several pages.
The day before we went to Staunton we stopped at Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's design for a house on a small waterfall in south western Pennsylvania. The tour of the house seemed to prohibit photography so we opted for a tour of the grounds.
Disappointing is the words I'd use to describe the place. Shrubbery was way overgrown, giving no opportunity to catch decent views of the house.
Reagan wrote:
I am going to start here with off topic stuff
If anyone has a GoPro or knows much about them
PM me please
I am considering buying one for vacation
Reagan
Get the YI 4K+. Supposed to be better than Go pro.
Awesome series, Ben! That last one is a masterpiece of composition. Did you try a different black point? I think the resulting added contrast, and more neutral tone may add some drama to an already moody image.
bruni wrote:
Reagan - I won't say anything - but at least I get it now.....well, sort of.
the fountain pics are the 16mm f3.5 fisheye, but the lonely lunch pic is the 105mm f2.5 ais - all 'lens gendered' on the A7RII
I am going to have to keep an eye on the results from my D500 at very high ISO
Just look what it's done to that shot of the FLW house & river .... the colours are all over the place ...
Mmmmmmm - I'll keep it at low ISO I think ...
Nice post-processing .... I think !!
Steve
Steve,
I was thinking the same regarding the PP and the ISO. Fallingwater was shot on a cloudy/rainy day and I did the best I could in PP to brighten the shots. Also, the camera has 153 focus points with AF but using it on MF with MF glass I can only find one central point in the VF. I also cannot find a way to move that one point around as I can do with my Df or D810. What I have to do is focus "off-center" on what I want, then move the camera on center to get backgrounds or foregrounds I selected in focus.
I may be wrong but I think it wants to outsmart me or at least pick what it wants to be in focus rather than what I want. This seems very evident with the 50mm F1.2 where the focus is razor thin when using it wide open.
As to the ISO it is very good but have since limited it to 12800 on auto.
asiostygius wrote:
Rico, very nice Falcon "storyboard".
Thanks, Jose, I'm a longtime fan of your avian photography. Until you started posting those images, I thought shooting manual-focus 800mm was for the birds—now I know its pure insanity! How you can lug that 5.4kg f/8 monster around is beyond me.
The feral cat in my backyard decided to abandon her one kitten. I watched it go from relatively healthy to listless within two days. It hadn't learned to eat solid food yet, and was refusing to eat anything. I spent the weekend feeding it Goat's milk with an eye dropper, and brought it to the vet Monday to check for feline leukemia, and aids (both negative) and treat it for worms. He has started to put on weight, and is far more active now. He is about 10 weeks old, but weighs only 14.8 ounces (13.8 ounces when I first got him) He literally fits in the palm of my hand.
bruni wrote:
And the cyclists were "German without a doubt" ? - ha ha - how could you have known that? I was sure Steve was going to say American.
ben
What you have to watch out for is we Americans who ride American frame bikes but need to have components from Germany, Italy and UK. We are a confused bunch
I was messing with Picture Control settings in my Df last night. I really lean to black and white photography and thought I would see how well I could get out of the camera jpg with custom settings to my liking.
Below are three shots of components (alluded to above) on my old Cannondale Six13 road bike. These are jpgs straight out of the camera using a Neopan preset. I only resized them in Preview app on the Mac. Liking what I am seeing so far. May give my Fujis a challenge
More race cars. I gravitate to editing the car photos over all the mountain scapes. A lot of underexposed landscapes due to the snow, but I promise the next post will be from the Sierra Nevada.
But first more from Road America, last weekend at the big vintage race of the year. Rare visitors at the track, cars we usually don't see in spring or fall. This set is for the Ford/cosworth fans, I guess
first one with the 20mm f/3.5 AI-S, the other three are all 180mm f/2.8 ED AI-S, all on D810
gbohannon wrote:
What you have to watch out for is we Americans who ride American frame bikes but need to have components from Germany, Italy and UK. We are a confused bunch
I am very confused as well - Canadian frame with German, American and Italian stuff all around, rolling wheels from France that stop with brake pads from Switzerland. Doubt anyone recognized me as German when I rode that thing up the Sierra Nevada earlier this month
rico wrote:
Thanks, Jose, I'm a longtime fan of your avian photography. Until you started posting those images, I thought shooting manual-focus 800mm was for the birds—now I know its pure insanity! How you can lug that 5.4kg f/8 monster around is beyond me.
Thank you Rico! Coming from you it is a great eulogy. O yeah, when I use this monster in the field the transport is mostly by car. Or mounted on the tripod for short distances (<150-200m). If some interesting subjects appear I simply jump out of the car and as fast as possible I mount it on my tripod on a gimbal head.
This year I need to use it again, too much 200-500/5.6 lately
here's a big one - 5 frame pano on the D810 with 20mm f/3.5 AI
handheld early morning, following a 3am thunderstorm we spent in our tent right on TOP of a 10,500 ridge, just waiting to get turned into ashes by a huge lightning bolt aiming for all that metal camera gear in the tent. The tripod with metal "hit right here" ballhead set up next to the tent also wasn't a smart thing to do, but in the end, we lived, the storm stayed a few miles to our east, and then a strong west wind pushed all that monsoon moisture back to where it came from.
Miles of snow on the John Muir Trail below us - the trail crosses this range on the left side of the right orange glow gap. And this is one of the lowest passes on the route...
pburke wrote:
here's a big one - 5 frame pano on the D810 with 20mm f/3.5 AI
handheld early morning, following a 3am thunderstorm we spent in our tent right on TOP of a 10,500 ridge, just waiting to get turned into ashes by a huge lightning bolt aiming for all that metal camera gear in the tent. The tripod with metal "hit right here" ballhead set up next to the tent also wasn't a smart thing to do, but in the end, we lived, the storm stayed a few miles to our east, and then a strong west wind pushed all that monsoon moisture back to where it came from.
Miles of snow on the John Muir Trail below us - the trail crosses this range on the left side of the right orange glow gap. And this is one of the lowest passes on the route...
