What's up Ya'll? Hope you've had a good week! My week has been going good this week until today. Today when I turned on my computer I saw I o
nly had 30 gig of storage left on my hard drive. So I decided to clean it up. I had just edited a video in iMovie and that uses lots of storage so I wanted to delete the library of iMovie. So I did and that cleared up over 100 gig of storage. I went to my Lightroom catalogs and deleted all of the old ones and that saved a lot of storage. Then I messed up. I started deleting files out of my working drive forgetting that I haven't moved them in Lightroom to another drive. Not thinking I went to the trash can and click, click emptied it and then I released that I still needed those files! It was a few months worth of photography that I didn't want to loose. So now what to I do? Well I started Googling and I remembered I have BackBlaze Cloud service. Which means they are always backing up my main computer and everything that is hooked to it. So that's where my files were. But how do I retrieve them. I know it can be done but I've never done it before. 

My first step was to go online log in and see if the files are there. It took a little bit and I had to find user name and password. (Don't sign in that much) . Then it was to navigate the site and I found where I could look at my backup and pick what files I wanted to retrieve. Whew! They were there ! What a relief that was. So how it works they can create a .Zip file that has all of your stuff you want to retrieve and send it to you. The amount of data that I had to retrieve was 75 gigabytes . Whew!  So you press a button on the website and it starts to create the zip file. It can take a while. They email you when it's done. So I went about my business and a little while later I checked my email and it said that the .zip file was ready to be downloaded. 

Downloading the .zip file isn't as easy as you may think. It's a big file. So they have a program you can download to your computer that downloads the file quicker than it would be if you just use your browser and down load it into your download folder. So I downloaded the program and it was pretty easy to use. You sign in and it finds the file for you. You can then pick the place on your computer that the files came from and down load straight to that place. Which I did. Depending on the size of your file and the speed of your internet will determine how fast it downloads. My file took about 30 minutes to download. Once I had it downloaded I just right clicked the file and unzipped it. And it put all of the files I had accidentally deleted where they needed to go. I did move things around a little to make sure they were as Lightroom had placed them in the beginning . After that I opened up Lightroom and all of the folders populated like nothing had happened. Whew! Then I relocated the files using Lightroom to a disc away from my hard drive of the computer.  Whew! Mission accomplished!

I have had Backblaze for quite a few years now and this is the first time I really had to us it to recover lost files. It runs in the background and it automatically renews itself every year so I barely know it's there. I actually forgot about it until now when I needed it. And it worked like a champ! If you are looking for a cloud backup solution I highly recommend Backblaze! 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! Hope You're having a great day! It's been a rainy week here so I'm getting caught up on my blogs. I recently went on a Fall Colors workshop with my camera club I took three lenses my holy trinity for landscapes. I recently wrote a blog on the holy trinity of lenses you can click here and read it. Holy Trinity Lens Blog So lets go over the gear I took...

Main Camera Body. My main camera body is an older Sony A7III. It worked flawlessly. I'm really pleased with how it handles and worked. The only problem I ever had with it was when shooting wildlife and it would buffer if I was shooting Raw. I fixed that problem by getting a UHS-II card. That fixed my buffering problem. I have been using USH-I cards which are fine for regular photography but for faster stuff I'll be using the USH-II cards. To tell the difference on the back of the cards a USH-1 card has one row of contacts and a USH-II has 2 rows. Your camera must be compatible to use the USH-II but most are now a days. 

Lenses. I must say my camera set up and lens selection did well. I added the 16-35 in the mix and tried to use it as much as I could with some success. But most of the photo's were taken with my 20-70mm and a 70-300mm lens. I also brought a 100-400mm just for shooting the elk and it did great but honestly I could have shot what I shot with the 70-300 with no problem. The 70-300 is the newest lens in my landscape kit and it worked great! Very pleased with it. I used it when we went to the Atlanta Zoo.

Point and Shoot. I took the Canon G7XII camera mainly as a backup camera. When we went to Rock City Gardens in Chattanooga TN/GA I used it exclusively and It was fantastic! Small lightweight easy to handle and maneuver and it was fun to shoot with. I also used it when we went into towns to do photowalks. It was a lot more convenient than carrying a full sized camera and lens set up just for some snap shots of the town. Its small enough to fit in my fanny pack if I need to.

Cell Phone. Of course I always had my cell phone with me and for really wide shots or just tough lighting shots I always took at least one photo at each location . With the computational photography in modern phones they do great for this. Of course for selfies also. I even used my cellphone to use bluetooth and GPS to send to my camera and mark where all of my photo's were taken and this worked flawlessly with my Sony camera.

GoPro. I was tasked to document the trip since our regular video guy didn't come. The task of videoing stuff plus the photography was quite a handful. But my GoPro 11 worked pretty well. It glitched up a time or two but that could have been user error. I don't do video much except to document a bike ride or something like that. I did create a movie and here is the link. Fall Colors Trip

Accessories. This is mainly my camera bag a Shimoda 30 liter Action X bag and my Tripod a Sirui carbon fiber tripod. They both worked great although one of the tripod legs got stuck and wouldn't close all of the way and I just had to take it apart and put back together and it worked fine. Must of had some sand left from a shoot I did at the beach earlier in the year.

I did use my 16-35mm at the beginning of the trip and got some good shots but later on I reverted to my 20-70 lens and got good shots also. So I'm still up in the air with the 16-35mm I'll keep it around for now. I really enjoyed my kit . Well all except the GoPro at times. Not that it didn't work well just seemed to be something else I had to do and always in the way. You know just something else. But really didn't miss any shots due to camera gear. So that's a good thing. Well 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! Hope everyone is doing great this week. I had a great week last week as I was on our annual Fall Colors trip that my photography club GAPC (Goldsboro Area Photography Club) takes each year. We try to go to a different location each year but most of the trips have been to the Appalachian mountains whether in North Carolina, Virginia or West Virginia. This year it was in Georgia! This was a new location for us and we didn't know what to expect. You can make all the itineraries that you want and research but until you actually get there you don't really know.  The leaves are the main attraction of most of these trips and you really can't predict what they are going to be like when you get there. There are so many variables that control when and how much the leaves change colors. We have to plan this trip months in advance and hopefully we get the timing right for the peak foliage color the week that we are there, but its a gamble at best and all you can do it try to pick the best week for the trip with the info that you can get from the internet. We were very lucky this year , depending where we were we had good color most of the time of our trip, Some spots at higher elevations were great and lower and further south not as much. But we did get to see lots of color. Now about our trip...

Our trip was planned by our Club President Caitlin. She made the house reservations and built out the itinerary .  She did a great job. The house we stayed in or should I say cabin was in a great place. It was probably the best house we have stayed in on our fall trips. We had plenty of rooms and bathrooms even pool table.  We were located in McCaysville Georgia on the Georgia and Tennessee border. I do mean on the boarder a line goes right through the town with one side in Georgia and the other Tennessee. From this base location we could travel to all of our places we wanted to go within a two hour drive max. to our destinations .

Day 1 & 2. The first day was mainly a travel day. From eastern North Carolina to our Cabin was about 7 hours drive not counting bathroom and lunch breaks, so even longer. We had also planned a trip to the Oconaluftee visitor center in the Great Smokey Mountains National park. There are Elk that hang out around the center and we thought maybe we could get lucky and catch one. But we were too late and they had gone somewhere to bed down. The park was packed with people
going to see the fall colors and the Blue Ridge Parkway was packed also. So we headed to the house. The next day rain was scheduled for half of the day so we reworked our itinerary to hang out at the house until the rain stopped and then go to some local waterfalls we visited Fall Branch Falls and Long Creek Fall and got rained on a little bit. But got some good shots of the falls.

Day 3. Called for more waterfalls and scenic lake. We started at Hole in the Wall Restaurant in Blairsville and it was by far the best meal for me on the trip. Highly Recommend.
We drove to Lake Winfield Scott and got some really colorful shots. We
then went to Vogel state park with Trahlyta Falls and then went to Helton Creek Falls. We then went to Dahlonega Ga and had lunch at Bourbon Street Grill. We spent the rest of the day walking around the town checking out small shops and decorated streets. 

Day 4. Chattanooga Day! Chattanooga is one of those border towns with half in Tennessee and half in Georgia. The plan for the day was Rock City Gardens. This was the surprise of the trip! I had not heard of it before but it was a great destination to spend hours looking at all of
the stuff they have there. Here are some of the highlights. Needle's eye, Swing-a-long bridge, High Falls Waterfall, Lovers leap, Seven States, Rainbow hall, Fairyland Caverns, Fat Man Squeeze, Balanced Rock, Elder Frame Art installation. It's a lot to see I can tell you.  It started to cloud up so we went to lunch in Chattanooga at the Tap house bar and gill and waited the rain out. We then headed to Cloudland Canyon State park went to a waterfall Hemlock Falls was only a trickle of a fall and then the overlook trail to see the canyon. Colors were Poping! We then Returned to the Rock City Gardens for night shooting!  The park was decorated for Halloween and lots of kids were there. It was very nice.

Day 5. Zoo Atlanta. We drove to Atlanta to visit the Zoo. This was also decorated for Halloween and lots of school kids were taking field trips there this day. Had fun at the zoo although I had gone to the NC zoo just a few weeks before and liked it more but it was still nice and got some good shots of some animals there. We had lunch in Atlanta and then headed to Amicalola Falls State Park. This is the park where the Appalachian Trail begins . A 2200 mile path from Georgia to Maine. We went and checked out the falls and they were very nice. We missed the Visitor Center by 5 minutes which I would have liked to see and get souvenirs. But a great day was had.

Day 6. NE Georgia waterfalls. This day started early with a sunrise at Dodd Creek Vista. Although not the greatest of sunrise it still was nice. Next shoot was Anna Ruby Falls my favorite falls of the trip. Has about a half mile uphill hike to the falls along a creek that has lots of photo opportunity's along the way. Next was Unicoi state park and Minnehaha Falls. After lunch we went to Mercier Orchard with lots of apple products to purchase from just apples to pies, doughnuts, breads and all kind of spreads. A must stop in Blueridge Ga. 

Day 7 and 8. Friday is our last full day and we went to the Ocoee River overlooks and then to McCaysville for lunch at Burra Burra on the river. Then we walked the town and finally back to the cabin for a well deserved early day where we could relax edit photo's and I washed clothes. The last day we left the house early to get to Oconaluftee visitor center again to catch the elk. By the time we got there there was one big bull there and he crossed the river for us which was cool.  We then headed home . 

Overall it was a great workshop but we didn't have the participation that we had had in past. But those that did attend had a good time of fellowship and photo taking. I was pleasantly surprised by the Georgia trip and found the towns and people were very friendly and the towns charming. A definitely go to if you  have the chance. I love these annual fall trips and can't wait until the next one! 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