#WWPW Foto Fun!

A real barber pole in downtown Redding, Ca, one shot from my feet during the Scott Kelby #WWPW worldwide photo walk event on Saturday, 10-14-12. I went with members of Shasta Photo Club at 8 a.m. and we walked the downtown area for a couple of hours.

Birdbath Roses taken with Canon 50mm 1.8

Surprised to note I haven't blogged since August; have been very busy but still taking pictures. I recently bought a 50mm canon 1.8 lens from a young guy on Craigslist and have been shooting quite a lot with just that lens. It is small and light and easy to carry around; will be using it next weekend for the Scott Kelby Worldwide photo walk with the Shasta Photo Club in Redding.

Cattle Pond Smokey Atmosphere

Smokey day at the cattle pond in Lake California, soon after the Ponderosa fire roared to life. Another photo shot with the Tamron 70-300. I like to shoot landscapes in portrait orientation so I get a greater feeling of distance.

Red Sunflower with Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6

A red sunflower shot at the community garden here in Lake California. There are a lot of fires in northern California right now so the sky is actually hazy gray. This photo was taken with the Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 vc lens. I am enjoying the reach of this longer lens; the picture quality is "good enough" for me.  The lens seems well-built, Tamron offers a 6 year warranty and with rebate the cost was only $350.00.

Cutie with the Tamron 70-300 mm f4-5.6 DI VC lens

From the backyard this a.m., I love the pose of this dragonfly! Might have benefited from a deeper dof but always choices to make.  The Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 DI VC lens is "good enough"  better than I expected and I will get a $100 rebate which makes it inexpensive, too. I am not a pro photog nor can I afford the pro quality gear for the most part. But I do like background blur and dslr image quality and the ability to shoot RAW cuz that gives me more creative freedom as an artist.

Tamron SP 70-300mm F4-5.6 VC on Canon T3i

After much reading of reviews, I purchased the Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 VC lens and here are a couple of images I took this a.m. So far I am quite pleased with the quality of the pix and the lens as well. Many review sites are maintained by pro photogs with pro gear and it is a little hard to find recommendations for a "good enough" lens for an amateur with the entry level dslr.

Skyscape in Lake California

Smoke is good for adding some atmosphere to a sunrise landscape photo with clouds. I got up early ;^) and enjoyed the morning.

Log and Thistles in Red Bluff

Got a chance to photograph  some of my favorite things this morning, like an old log with dried up thistles. Slight cloudiness and smoke in the atmosphere made for a more delicate light than is usual in August in northern California.

Game Trail Distant Hills

I like it when the big things look little and the little things look big, as in this wide angle/portrait orientation shot in the pasture. Also I see an advantage to batch processing those raw files to keep the look consistant (which I did not do). Slowly working thru the mountain of info available re: photography today. Might keep me busy for the rest of my life...

Deer on the way to Water

Another from the Sunday walk; the river is to the right. I saw two does and their two fawns heading toward the water. One of the fawns was limping. Not many predators around, so hope it will be ok.

Old Log in the Pasture Photo

On Sunday I went for a walk in the pasture by the river. It so reminds me of being a kid when I loved playing in the woods and fields. But now I have a nice camera to go with ;>)

Winsome Web

Beautiful webbing on the porch makes a soothing high-key photo. This was taken with the Canon t3i and macro lens 100mm 2.8 L. Going out to take more pictures NOW!

Foto Filter Turkeys in the Yard

Had some fun in photoshop with an image I took with the p&s yesterday. Yep, those are turkeys in a neighbor's front yard. The graphic pen filter gives a nice texture to the b&w image.

I decided to take my lightweight nikon L110 on my morning walk so I could exercise and take photos too. This camera is ez to use and has a long zoom, but it does not have manual settings so ya point, ya shoot and ya fiddle in photoshop. I was very surprised to see that the Canon zoombrowser ex software readily imported the jpgs from the sd card. Cool!

Lake California Fireworks

Out here in the country we have our own fireworks and celebration day on a weekend near the fourth of July. ;-) I had some trepidation about taking photos cuz it is a bit difficult to get those bright bursts recorded against the black sky; but, yay! I managed to get some reasonable shots for my first time.

Elements+ add on

Oh what fun it is to play...la la la! An add-on for pse called elements+ from simplephotoshop.com available here which I found thru photokaboom.com makes available a channel mixer in any version of elements. and a bunch of other stuff I haven't played with yet.
In other news, I got 4 Ansel Adams books @ the library today, The Camera, The Negative, The Print and The Eloquent Light.
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Hay Bales and Trees Acrylic Landscape Painting

Hey look, I made a painting from one of my recent photographs taken near the Equestrian Center in Lake California. This is 8" x10" acrylic on multimedia artboard, which I used for the first time and quite like! Fast and fun work using Chroma Interactive Acrylics.

Shasta Daisies in Shingletown

I went to Shingletown with my Sis yesterday and the fields were full of Shasta daisies. Then I found a tutorial on using a displacement map to add a custom border in Photoshop that works in Elements 9. Double the foto fun!

Mama Osprey

Better light this a.m. for capturing flying birds; also a lot of wind made her hover rather than swoop right in. Seems she is bringing a twig for the nest, tho the kids are getting pretty big now. These are the best photos I have gotten so far of osprey.

Using the circular polarizer

I got some practice in with the Hoya circular polarizer on the 18-135 mm lens. With the lens turned 90 degrees from the sun, turn the filter a little bit at a time with your finger until you see a difference in the image in the viewfinder or lcd. yay! it works.