Hi Ya'll! Hope you've had a great week. Me? Not too bad I've been out and about taking photo's the last week or so. So I can't complain. Thanks for asking. LOL This week I want to talk about something that all photographers go through. Being on the Struggle Bus. What I mean really struggling with a shot or your camera or both. That happened to me a few days ago and I thought that I would share. It's not always Rainbows and Unicorns when we do photography and I want to share the bad and good of being a photographer. My Photography wingman Robert had an idea of a shoot. Now this could be good or bad but usually pretty good. The Weather Lady in our area was talking up the Perseids Meteor Shower that was getting ready to happen. Along with no moon this was an opportunity to take. So he planned a trip to Bodie Island Lighthouse that is a good drive from our little town to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But that was Okay. Any excuse to go and take photo's is a good one as far as I'm concerned. Along the way is Alligator River Wildlife Refuge and we decided to take a quick drive through to see if we could see some wildlife and photograph. Neither one of us is a wildlife photographer so if we
saw anything that would be a plus. I was all in. Robert took the day off and we decided to get a hotel because it would be so late when we finished and being tired and driving at night especially through this part of rural North Carolina can be dangerous with small roads and deer crossings. We have had club members that have hit deer and we even had a deer encounter when we did our New Years shoot this year when a deer ran into the side of our car. But luckily the deer or the car didn't sustain much damage. So we were all set. I got my gear together and I had a plan. I was going to test my new travel kit against my full frame setup and see how they compared. 

We took off early afternoon and headed to the coast. We always have interesting conversations when we travel that can range from photography to music to movies almost anything and a lot of Dad Jokes. It was a very hot day as most of the days have been lately. We arrived at Alligator River Wildlife Refuge after a couple of hours drive and got out our cameras and started driving the gravel roads. We came to our first intersection and there was a truck parked there. We pulled up beside and in the distance on the road I could see a momma bear and her cubs playing. They were out of reach for my 100 to 400 full frame equivalent lens. We talked to the guy beside us and he said that about 30 yards in front of us just off the road there was another bear. We couldn't see him at first but after a few minutes he meandered out onto the road. Looked at us and started down the road away from us stopping to look around poop and do bear things. I was snapping away. I was still sitting in the car and was shooting through the windshield . Robert was out of the car shooting. We shot until he slipped into the brush again. Well that was easy we were thinking. I had my camera set on one of my custom settings on my new Sony A6700 set for wildlife .  Hard to tell by the back of the camera how good the images really were but we were happy. We came saw a bear within 15 minutes took the photos and were on our way. Job well done ! Well that's what I thought. When we finally got home I downloaded the photo's to the computer imported the images and started looking at them. They were soft. And they were shot in JPEG not RAW so I couldn't put them through image sharping software to try to recover them. So I had a lot of out of focus images of a bear. When using a new camera . Even if you've got things set up double check. I didn't. I would have got better shots if I had got out of the car also. I was shooting through the windshield over the hood of a very hot car and I'm sure the heat waves were coming off of the hood giving me soft photo's. My camera was tracking the bear using AI focusing but I think shooting over that hood and through a tented windshield got the best of me. Lesson Learned.

After that shoot we went the rest of the way and made it to our hotel where we checked in. It was still to early to go to the Lighthouse so we decided to go eat then go to the lighthouse. While on the way we forgot to pick up some waters or Gatorade or something and after we were there we were and it was too far to just go for a drink. We pulled out our phones and figured where the best place would be to see the meteors and we set up. There were lots of people there and it wasn't dark yet. We wanted to get some blue hour shots and then wait for the meteors to shoot them and then do a composite photo with the lighthouse from blue hour and all the meteors from later in the night. Well we wert the only ones that saw the new about the meteor shower and lots of people showed up and kept showing up through the night. That meant car lights that shown across the lighthouse. And people everywhere with flashlights walking right in front of you. It was very frustrating trying to get a shot without noise pollution from some car or person. To make things even worse the mosquitoes were very hungry and swarming. I put on a long sleeve shirt and a head net and they were relentless and hungry. They feasted on us. Today is about a day and a half after the shoot and I am very itchy and have lots of bites on my legs. Robert is the same. So that added to the frustration of the people and all of the light pollution. About 1030 or so we decided to pack it up and go to another location. We went to a beach which is really just across from the lighthouse can't remember the name but it was much nicer there. The mosquitoes were almost non existent compared to the lighthouse. We took some shots toward the ocean and you could see when the waves crashed the florescent things in the water that made the waves glow. Very cool. I was having problems focusing. I was watching Robert dial in his focus but I couldn't get mine going. I know it was a setting . So I just focus on a light at the shower house and used that to do a hyper focus shots. I tried to look for stuff in the menus but they are so big I couldn't find stuff and I was really on the struggle bus. My camera seemed to be working good but I couldn't see what I was doing on the screen. What I had forgot to do was go over all of the things I would need to do for astro photography. And I forgot some steps and settings that would have made it super easy. Luckily I did get a couple of shots of the milky way that are decently sharp. So after the shots from the Wildlife Refuge and the lighthouse and the beach I had a handful of good shots and a lot of mosquito bites.

The next morning we headed to a restaurant that we have been to before and had a good breakfast. We then went to Plymouth NC and walked around the town taking photo's . I was finally in my wheel house and got more keepers than the last two places we went. What's the moral to this story? Prepare and check settings before going out on a shoot. It's not just the gear list you need to check its the "how to do" stuff that you need to check on. Thats where I failed. I didn't double check my settings I didn't go over procedures to focus when doing astro photography. I've only got a few shots to show for a full 24 hours of shooting. It happens to the best of us and I'm no exception. It was a good lesson learned but I still had a great time being out and shooting. Even though I don't have anything to show for it. So until next week! Get out and Shoot! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Ya'll! Happy Friday! Hope you've had a great week. This week I want to talk about the things I take with me every day. The things that I don't leave the house without. Whether I'm going to the store or to a camera meeting or just to go downtown.  I have seen many of these types of videos on the inner webs and I may have done one or two myself. But things recently have changed so I thought that I would make this blog to update the things that I carry everyday. I'm wondering if you carry sort of the same thing. Things that you can't leave the house without. So here I go with my list. Let's start with the most obvious.

My Phone. Since the invention of smart phones I seem to always have one with me most of the time. It's like I can't go into the back yard without having my phone with me. Thats crazy right? But that's how it is. Our email is on them, its a phone, its a music player, you can watch how to videos on things your working on and of course its a camera . It holds documents, photo's, credit cards, plane tickets , schedules, grocery list almost everything that used to be paper or plastic is on these devices. You can check the weather and even the radar for up coming storms that are approaching. They do almost everything for us. The phone that I carry is the iPhone 16 pro.  I'm not one to update my phone every year I tend to keep until they are way out of the newest. I did have a iPhone 14 but changed cell phone companies and got the newest one when I changed a year ago which was the iPhone 16 pro. I like everyone else have to keep this important item protected I've just changed mine to an Orange colored case (my favorite color) . One just off of Amazon nothing special but it is orange!

The next item isn't  a necessity in this time and age is my wallet. In years past I was like the typical guy with every card, receipt, business card and money that I could jam into it. It was so thick that when I sat down I leaned to one side. LOL They were either bifold or trifold and were very big and bulky made of leather. The one I have now is slim and sleek and doesn't fold. It has slots for credit cards, place for ID's and a tiny slot for some cash.  I carry one debit and one credit card with me. All of my other cards are at home locked up. I have an America the Beautiful card to get me into all of the National Parks. I keep my drivers license and my Military Retiree card in the ID slots. I carry one or two business cards incase someone wants to check out my photography site. Built into this little wallet is a place for an Apple AirTag .  I think this is great so if I ever misplace it I can easily find it. Love that it has this attached to the wallet. I have AirTags connected to lots of stuff like camera bags, travel luggage, and even my car keys so I can find things if they go missing. Next item on the list is a watch.

If I don't have a watch on I feel naked! I'm old school and grew up in a time that didn't have cell or smart phones or even digital anything and if you wanted to be home on time you needed a watch. So I've worn a watch since I was a wee little boy. The longest I've gone without is during basic training where jewelry wasn't allowed. But of course we were told when and where to do everything so really didn't need one. I have gone through many watches in the past and really only changed if I wore one out. Never really expensive ones until lately when they started to do more than just tell time. Now watches can do a lot of stuff from count your steps, monitor your heart rate, weather, altitudes, monitor email and text messages, GPS even answer your phone. The last watch I had was a Garmin and what I really liked about it is that it could monitor my heart rate, steps and of course time. It had GPS built in but I didn't use too much. I liked that I could charge it up and it lasted a week and a half . Recently I have switched to an Apple Watch which syncs up perfectly to your iPhone and does all kinds of stuff. I have the newest one a series 11. I have many watch faces saved and can changed between them depending on what I need. It monitors health , steps and my activity well. I have an orange band on it. (of course) I have a couple of orange bands which are easy to change out so I can switch between them. I always have it on and only take it off in the early morning just to charge it and its back on again.

The next item on the list of things is my Keys. We have lots of keys in our lives. House keys , car keys, car key fobs, keys for this and that . Lots of keys. Now if I carried every key I have I would look like the school janitor with a big ring of keys on my belt. So I don't. I usually only carry the key/fob of what car I'm driving. All my other important keys stay on a keyring that is placed in one of my cars that I can get into without a key by either using a phone and a remote app or as in my last car a key pad on the side of the car that I could use to get into.  That way when I get home I can just open the car with the big ring of keys and open my door. I could probably get a door key with a key pad but I haven't yet. I use a key chain that has an Apple AirTag attached to it so I can find my keys if I misplace them. 

The next item is because I'm a photographer and I wear glasses. It's a microfiber cloth. That may sound a little strange but I don't know how many times I've had to lend it to someone who either needed to clean a lens or their glasses. I started doing this many years ago and have preached carrying one with you so I make sure I have one with me when I leave the house. I always say that every good photographer should have one in their pocket.

The last item that I have with me is the newest member of my camera family is my Leica D-Lux 8 point and shoot camera.  Back when I worked I carried a little Nikon camera  with me and I switched to a Canon G7XII in 2018 and have just changed to the Leica. It goes with me when I leave the house. It has a 24-75mm full frame equivalent lens and a Micro 4/3 size sensor. To me this is the perfect focal length and I really love this little camera. It not only looks good but is simple and the images I get with it are fantastic.  I won't go into all of the specs that will be in another blog. I also carry a CPL (Circular Polarizer Filter) with me to cut out reflections and make colors punch a little.

So those are the 6 things that I take with me whenever I leave the house. What are yours?  What about ear pods, chap stick, or Pen and Pad what's your EDC? Until next week get out and shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Happy Friday Ya'll! I hope you're having a great week. This summer it has been hot! Many days with the heat index well into the 100's degrees Fahrenheit! So hot! As Matthew Broderick would say " Africa Hot"!  A Biloxi Blues reference. I guess I just aged myself. LOL So I have been spending a lot of time inside. Getting cabin fever. Today I just had to get out of the house. So I went for what I call Photography Therapy . Sometimes you just have to spend a hour or so away to clear your head. For me that's a hike in the woods in a state park near me. After a hour or so hiking in the woods doing a little photography on the way clears my head. There is something to be said about just concentrating on a photograph that takes
my mind off of everything else. Now I know I'm retired and don't have the pressures of the workers in the world with deadlines , expectations, traffic, and emails to answer but still can use some relief. Just concentrating on composure, exposure, shape, form all the concepts that go into a photo gets your creative juices flowing and all of your other troubles just go out the door. And really all you have to do is grab your camera and walk out the door. It's that simple. We get so connected to technology we forget what it's like not to be so connected. 

Today Forrest the Wonder Dog and I went for a little hike. We went to Cliffs of the Neuse State Park which is only about 10 miles from the house. Forrest has been stuck in the house too and he loves to go for a hike for all of the smells. So when I go for a hike he's usually with me which can make the photography tough. When I stop to take a photo he is sometimes pulling me wanting to get to the next place to sniff.  We left early to beat the really hot weather but I was soaking wet after a half an hour. It didn't matter I was out taking photos. Now do you need to walk in the woods like I did? Absolutely not. A photo walk in town would work just as well instead of photographing
trees and vistas you can shoot in town buildings , shops , people. You could even take a break at a coffee shop and enjoy the AC while sipping coffee and looking at your photo's.  Which I like to do also. But Forrest needed a walk today. The point is taking a walk and taking your camera with you. What do you need to bring?

Today on my Therapy walk I brought my travel camera my Sony A 6700. This is a crop sensor camera that I use when I'm traveling. I had a Sigma 18-50mm lens which is a 26-75mm full frame equivalent. On that lens I have a polarizer attached. I almost always have one attached to my lens to help eliminate or control reflections and to saturate colors. But sometimes I take my EDC (Every Day Carry) Camera. It's a Leica D-Lux 8 a Point and shoot with almost the same lens configuration but a 24 to 75mm full frame equivalent. With a polarizer on it. If I was doing a in town photowalk this is what I would use but wouldn't hesitate to take it on landscape type of stuff either. The point is have a dedicated camera with you that you really like to shoot. Something that you're comfortable with. Like an old friend. Not something that you're not used to and that you will struggle with settings and things. This will stress you out not relax you. Sometimes when I'm doing a in town photo walk I'll take a film camera like my 1968 Canon Canonet QL17 with no electronics on it at all. Just a light meter. Keeping it simple. It also keeps me from looking at the back of my camera to see what I got. So it's all about the process of taking the photo not the result. The act of taking the photo is Therapeutic. 

So where will you go for your next therapy session. A walk in the woods? Or maybe a walk to your favorite coffee shop. Either way photography is therapeutic! Until next week Get Out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link