Ken, c'mon back and visit. Get in the parking lot about 0830 with some coffee and donuts. I was going to head there today, but the freezing rain in the forecast made me change my mind. Snow, no problem, ice, problem.
Ken Hill wrote:
Thanks for the likes and the comments. I appreciate it!
Laura super shots from the Museum we missed because it was packed and no parking. Like Yogi Berra said "Nobody goes there anymore its too crowded!"
Samy great shots too!
Raphael congrats on the vehicle ... looks nice! Farmers Okay, Why not USAA!
Peter simply breathtaking wilderness, especially with the 20mm which is a favorite of mine.
Ram terrific foray into long lenses - nice captures.
Here are some more shots from Daytona that I just processed. Taken with the D500 and the 35-200.
Golden pheasant seen on our 10 mile walk this morning. [My wife is in training to participate in a Marathon length Moon Walk in May]. I had taken the 180 ED and TC-201 in order to try to snap the bountiful Red Kites and Buzzards that populate the skies in North Hampshire. The raptors were plentiful but kept their distance. This beautiful pheasant was spotted in a wooded area.
rafaelcasd wrote:
...
Speaking of values, I am totally happy with my like new $2000 800mm 5.6 Nikkor. Nothing in the current line up comes close to this much for this much money, if only I knew what to do with it.
...
Very simple: sell it to me
Like John I have the same disease of buying two or more copies of favourite lenses
The fisheye is fantastic lens .. love it and it's fun lens to use
Had it not been for this tread, I would probably never have got it and defensively did not put it on a Sony camera
Sony A7 + Nikkor 16mm f3.5 AI fisheye by Ronny Olsson, on Flickr
Congrats Ronny.
Colin, that's a beautiful pheasant.
Peter, enjoying the Muir Trail pics. The mountains are beautiful, I'm jealous of the fact that to get to spend time in them, much less getting great photos and memories.
The fisheye is fantastic lens .. love it and it's fun lens to use
Had it not been for this tread, I would probably never have got it and defensively did not put it on a Sony camera
pbraymond wrote:
Congrats Ronny.
Colin, that's a beautiful pheasant.
Peter, enjoying the Muir Trail pics. The mountains are beautiful, I'm jealous of the fact that to get to spend time in them, much less getting great photos and memories.
It is the time of year when I have to make a decision - do I go back this year? If so when and where and what mode of travel? My son isn't coming this summer (something like "work for money" came across his mind... ) so I am free to perhaps do my late fall hike I've been thinking about for a few years now. Get out there after everyone else has left the mountains, get down the popular routes by myself and hopefully beat the first winter storm out the other end of the mountains.
Adding the aerospace shots of the past few threads, I got back a couple of days ago from a trip from Florida's Space Coast.
Drawbridge on Saturn Causeway. First time I've ever run into this being raised to and from work in several trips.
Vehicle Assembly Building at night. Also the first time I've been at Kennedy where the door has been fully open. You can see one of the Saturn/Shuttle/SLS crawler transporters with the Shuttle Launch Mount still in place:
I was visiting for work though, not tourism. Fortunately, my badge access allows for me to drive and set up to take pictures at times when the other photographers aren't around.
I toyed with the idea of buying a different manual lens to use for launch day and almost jumped on a 50-300 or 80-200 from KEH, but decided that either lens would probably show up late; my trusty D700 and 105/2.5 (the lens that started it all for me) would have to work.
I was fortunate enough to win a spot for viewing the launch from inside Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. There were a lot of nerves surrounding the launch of Falcon Heavy, and several hours of wind delays didn't help. Fortunately, everything was perfect from lift off:
Falcon Heavy isn't as loud off the pad as the Space Shuttle or even as loud as Merlin engine testing on cold, cloudy days, but that didn't make it any less impressive:
Seeing the rocket get high enough that the heat from the plume makes a vapor cloud is one of my favorite parts of every launch:
I nabbed shots all the way up to booster sep, but with a D700 and 105/2.5, a ~15 story side booster renders at only 2x10 pixels. The resolution isn't much better for entry burn or coast back towards landing burn. I have shots of those, but figured I'd skip forward to a final shot right before booster landing.
The side boosters come down almost staggered by just a few seconds (to prevent jamming of radar altimeters). It really staggers the mind to see something the size of a rocket falling faster than the speed of sound through the sky, and it's even crazier to see it happen with two simultaneously. From my vantage point, we were ~approximately 2 miles from the landing pads (which looks scary in person even though the rockets maintain a ballistic trajectory into the ocean until very shortly before landing). I got a sequence of shots of the landings, but figured I'll just post one as the landing videos from the Delta IV Heavy launch facility are much more impressive since the include sound:
I'm very glad the demo launch went successfully; it was truly a memorable experience to never forget after all of the hard work I've put in. Perhaps more excitingly, this launch captured the interest of people all over the world. As we watched Starman drift away from earth in a Tesla Roadster, our imaginations drifted back to the original space race, kindling the wonder and curiosity to keep exploring and expanding the envelope of the human frontier.
For any who haven't seen video of Starman, the link is below and it's highly recommended to scroll through and see some of the views:
kwoodard wrote:
Good seeing you again Alan! Hope you all are doing well. How's the baby (not so much a baby I suspect).
Kevin,
He's doing well and growing fast. He and Nikki actually flew out to celebrate my birthday while I was on my trip so they got to enjoy watching the launch too. It won't be memorable for him of course , but we'll always have the pictures to show him when he's older!
Need to follow the above colors cape with another. 20mm f/3.5 AIS again. It tends to have some moments when it works really well, other times I wonder why the distant focus seems softer than closer to the lens, even when shot at infinity and f/8.0 or even f/11.0. It is too random to be lens design, because here at f/5.6 it didn't do that.
Best camp site of 2017, and one of my top to night locations in the High Sierra, as long as the lightning stays away...
f/5.6 1/60s ISO 100 on D810. I think handheld, because the hiking poles I used with the tripod rig I had along are in the image
) so I am free to perhaps do my late fall hike I've been thinking about for a few years now. Get out there after everyone else has left the mountains, get down the popular routes by myself and hopefully beat the first winter storm out the other end of the mountains. 
