Fall Workshop Washington DC

November 03, 2018 • Leave a Comment

_MSP2011_Luminar2018-edit Hey everyone! Its been a while since I've written a blog sorry for that but we had our yearly fall workshop with my photography club (Goldsboro Area Photography Club) a couple of weeks ago and I'm just getting caught up with Honey do's and work stuff. Let me start by saying that our trip to Washington DC was Fantastic and we had a blast. There is so much to see and do there and I think we just scratched what the photo possibilities could be there. For street photography this is truly a target rich area and you could have spent a whole week just shooting street scenes . There is a lot of touristy things to see and do and history stuff too. We were hoping for some more fall colors but we didn't get any and it seems like the fall colors have been a couple of weeks late this year. But the excitement and hustle and bustle of a large city more than made up for it. We had 10 people that went to the workshop we had 12 scheduled to go but some family crisis kept two home and they were sorely missed. Most of our days started before the sun came up and ended well into the evening . We rented an Air B&B house that was one block from the Metro and a couple of blocks from a Drug store and Grocery store. We made a couple of meals at the house but mostly ate out which could be fairly costly. I have been doing a lot of preparing for this trip for it was very different than most of the trips we take. Being lightweight and nimble as possible was the goal when packing clothes and Camera equipment. In all of our other workshops we drive to our destination so what to carry with us on a day to day basis was pretty easy, you bring everything and leave in the car what you don't need. But here we were traveling by Metro (subway) and were hauling everything on our backs, to include rain gear, coats, sweaters, and of course camera equipment. And going all day with what we took that morning so planning was a must. What I used on this trip and the packing of my gear will be another blog because I just have too much to say about the trip itself for this one. We were very lucky to have a couple of members that used to live in DC that gave us a great resourse of what to do and where to go and honestly it would have been way more difficult to just go on our own without our in house tour guides.

_MSP1594 Our trip began with a train ride. I like half of the members have never used the train (Amtrak) to travel before and was very curious on how the trip would be. We decided on this mode of transportation because of the traffic and no parking situation in DC. And I think we made a good decision. Except for a few hour delay at the beginning (because of state fair stops) the train was a wonderful way to travel. Plenty of room , you could get up and walk around and the dining car was really a great way to travel. The conductors were nice and courteous . There was no problems with luggage or carry on bags. It took us about 4 hours of travel and we arrived in Grand Central Station Washington DC. We collected our bags and made our way to the Metro side of the station bought weekly passes and got on a Metro for the first time. It was a chore with the luggage and making sure everyone was together but we made it to our station got off and found our way to the house we had rented. This was the most difficult time on the Metro it was easy and all down hill after this initial trip. We got settled in and went out to eat a couple of blocks from the house with a recommendation from a couple of DC's finest. And let me say we stopped many times to talk to the local police and they were very courteous and friendly and helpful. _MSP1839

We had all of our days planned out on what to do and where to go and we stuck to the itinerary for the most part making decisions on the fly if there were any changes to be made. Like where we were going to eat. The first day we spent at the east mall area to include the Eastern Market, National Arboretum, Capitol Hill, Supreme Court and then that night we went to Old Town for a Night shoot. It was a off and on rainy day but not too bad.

Monday we were in for a treat. One of our members used to work at the White House and had connections to get us a tour of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Grounds. We had to have a background check weeks before and there was a lot of coordination between our guy Robert and the people in the EEOB. Everyone had to dress up with guys in sports coats and gals in business wear and of course it was raining in the morning when we had to go but we didn't get too wet we had breakfast at a bagel shop and went through security of the White House to get in. And it was pretty Awesome. The guys that gave us the tours were very informative about the building and all of the stories behind the different rooms we went into. We got to see the White House from a view that most people don't and even got to see Marine one come and pick up the President. We presented a photo from a photo contest that we had to thank the guys at the White House. This part of our trip surprised me the most and I really enjoyed it. After that we had lunch visited some more sites and went to the house. We made Supper and had a former White House Photographer David Bohrer come and have dinner with us. Very nice guy and told us his story on how he became one of the White House Photographers and stories about the job.

_MSP2056 Tuesday was Arlington Nation Cemetery and Sunrise and Sunset at the National Mall and as you can guess this was a long day. We started well before sunrise and went to the Vietnam Memorial and shot sunrise at the Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. We went and had breakfast and went to Arlington National Cemetery a very moving place to be with acres of tombstones and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Got lots of good shots at the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Later that day we Went back to the National Mall with the intention of shooting sunset and night time of the monuments. But there was something we weren't expecting and that was bus loads of Kids coming to the Mall with their schools. I shot a little at the Lincoln Memorial but then went to the the other end with the WWII Memorial and Washington Monument where there wasn't as many people. Did get some good shots though. _MSP2238

The Next day was the Georgetown area where we shot the downtown area had lunch and then went to the National Cathedral. This was my first experience with UBER and UBER drivers. And I must say all the UBERs that I took on this trip were pleasant rides no problems at all. The National Cathedral was huge! I have been to smaller Cathedrals like Duke Chapel in Durham NC. But compared to the National Cathedral is was tiny. Lots of great art and a good view from the top 7 stories high of the Washington DC area.

Thursday was Museum day Now I din't mention it before but Sunday with the _MSP2366 rain that we had we did go to one Museum and it was the Natural Science Museum which was awesome! The first stop this day was the Library of Congress. And let me say that this was one of the top places on my whole trip. Lots to see from architecture of the building to all of the exhibits that are on display th ere. A must see if you are in DC. Museums in DC are Fantastic and you could spend a couple of weeks just looking at Museums So we just picked out a couple for this trip because some of _MSP1970
our members aren't museum people. But I certainly am! This day we went to the Art Museum and the Portrait Museum and both were stunning with lots to see. But of course there were bus loads of other people there too. That night we went to China Town to shoot and to get us some good food and we got loads of both. It is a small China Town but it is very colorful and full of good restaurants ! We had a good night there and got some good photo's.

_MSP2390-HDR Friday was our last full day in DC and we decided to shoot the National Zoo and then we could split up and shoot whatever. Some of our group went back to Arlington National Cemetery and to the Marine Corp Monument. Others like myself went back to town to the Newseum. The Newseum was the only Museum that we had to pay to get in but it was well worth it . And it's a museum about News. It covers all types of news from Print, Radio and TV . Pulitzer Prize winning photographs and their story behind them are there also. This is a very powerful and moving place. They have an observation deck that you can get a real good photo of the Capitol Building.

The last day before we got on the train home a few of us took an UBER _MSP3067 to the City Center and photographed around that area then we came back just in time to go with the others to catch the Metro to Grand Central and an Amtrak home. We did a lot of walking and the average weekly mile/steps between everyone's fit bits was about 50miles walked and 140,000 steps taken. So when you go wear comfortable shoes. I had been to DC a couple of times before but it was always for work and I hadn't really seen the sights before and I really enjoyed this trip. If you haven't been to our Nations Capitol please do so you won't be sorry. I can't wait to go back! There is a link below to a Video of our trip by Robert O'Sullivan its Awesome please watch.

2018 Fall Trip Video

_MSP3096

My Mobile Computing "updated"

September 15, 2018 • Leave a Comment

_MSP1021 Hey Everyone! I'm sitting here while Hurricane Florence is outside. As of this point we've had over 11 inches of rain and it's still raining. So I figured I would give you an update to my Mobile Computing Blog that I posted earlier this year. As you may remember, I purchased a Lenovo Miix 320 for under $200. My three criteria for a mobile were inexpensive, small and lightweight, and able to run Lightroom. And this little laptop did just that. I have used it most of this year when I go camping or on a trip. But something happened with an update or something, and it really struggled to run Lightroom and download photographs. If you have been following me on Facebook or Instagram, you know I recently took a little trip to Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC. Of course I took my camera and took lots of photos, and every night when I went to import into Lightroom it really struggled. The first night it locked up a couple of times, and I had to restart my computer. When it finally did go to download, it took maybe half an hour to download 300 photos. So every night I would spend an hour or two just getting my photos imported, which is not acceptable. When I got home, I took off all of the extra stuff that computer companies put on a computer trying to free up some RAM so it would run Lightroom better. I went to a small festival in town and took 70 photos, and it took me two hours using the little Lenovo to get the photos downloaded. Now, I could use the little laptop to just transfer photographs from my SD card to an external hard drive without using Lightroom, but with windows you can't view RAW files without an external program to see the photo. If it did, that would work, but it doesn't. I still wish this little computer would work, but it just is too weak to use Lightroom so I can cull and process a few photographs while on the road. It does everything else I want it to do, but just not that. So I had to find something else for my mobile computing that hopefully would tick all the three criteria that I wanted.

I am heavily invested in Mac products and the Apple ecosystem. And if I had to re-invest in another laptop I wanted it to be a Mac. Windows 10 isn't my cup of tea. So I went on a search for a machine that would work. Good luck! I looked at refurbished machines, new machines, used ones, and I still would be spending a lot of money. So I took my advice and bought the best machine that I could afford to do the job that I wanted. And that was the machine that I mentioned in the other blog, the 13-inch MacBook Air. This machine did not tick all of the boxes. The box that it didn't tick was price. All of the 2563e370f98e53afa59b4ddfed93f621 MacBooks that I looked at, even the refurbished ones, were well over $500. So I decided if I had to pay that kind of money, I would get something that I liked and that would easily do the job, so I bought a new one (well, a 2017 one). It has 8gb of RAM, which is well enough to do what I want to do with this machine. Remember, I don't want to do heavy computing or editing on this computer, just backup cull and maybe quick processing for posting to Facebook or Instagram. This 8gb RAM and 256 SSD drive works perfectly for what I want it to do. It ticks the second box, run Lightroom and backup photos. The MacBook Air 13-inch is considerably larger than the Lenovo, but the weight isn't much more. The battery life is great, also a plus in mobile computing. So it also ticked the third box of being lightweight. So I am happy with my purchase but do wish the little Lenovo worked just for the cost. So now all of my personal computers are Mac. The 27-inch Mac is my main computer, the 15-inch MacBook Pro is my backup and home laptop, and the new addition of the 13-inch MacBook Air is for my mobile computing.

So I should be all set for my Fall workshop to DC with my camera club (Goldsboro Area Photography Club). I'm also doing this blog on the new laptop. What will happen to the Lenovo? I'm sure my grandchildren will end up with it before too long. So get out and shoot!

Luminar Photo Editing Software "First Impressions"

August 27, 2018 • 1 Comment

luminar_sq_logo_500 Hey Everyone! Today I want to talk about a new (new to me) photo editing software called Luminar from Skylum. I have been hearing about this software for a while, but being an avid Lightroom and Photoshop guy, I wasn't looking for anything new. So I just ignored it. I was browsing YouTube and saw a tutorial on Luminar and gave it a look. I was intrigued with some of its features but still skeptical. So I started researching and found out a lot about the software. Now don't get me wrong, I am no expert on Luminar. I have used it for just a few days on a few photos, but here is some of what I have learned.

Luminar can be a stand-alone program or can be used in conjunction with Lightroom or Photoshop like a plugin. As of right now, it is not a Digital Asset Manager (DAM) like Lightroom is, but it is supposed to have a DAM in the near future. It does all of the editing things that Lightroom can do and more. It can also do "Layers" like Photoshop can, but it's a lot easier to do than in Photoshop. This is not a replacement for Photoshop. It cannot type in text or do a lot of the things that Photoshop can do, but it is another tool in my photo editing tool belt.

_MSP0258

Luminar uses presets and filters to edit photos. Presets are much like Lightroom. Presets are on the left hand side of the Develop module, but they are more adjustable than the ones in Lightroom. You can individually tweak the adjustments and overall opacity of the preset to get the look you want. Like Lightroom, you can import presets that others have made or make your own. There are some free ones on the Skylum website and of course ones you can buy also. If you don't want to use presets, you don't have to. You can go straight to editing the photo with filters, or you can add filters to the preset if you like.

_MSP7905

Filters are on the right hand column of the Develop module of Lightroom, where you have the Histogram, Basic ,Tone Curve, HSL panel etc... There are a lot of filters to choose from, 50 I believe, and there are some really cool ones. With filters you can use them globally, or you can brush the effect to a certain part of the photo. You can layer the filters like you can do layers in Photoshop. There are some unique filters that are worth the price of the software. Filters like "Orton Effect" or "Sunrays" are awesome. I'll show some before and after pictures of some of the photos I have done so you can see what you can do.

This software is a one-time purchase of about $60 depending on what kind of discount you can come up with. This will let you put the program on five different computers. It is not a subscription-based program like Lightroom and Photoshop. It is much like other HDR programs or Googles Nik Efex programs.

My overall first impression is that I really like it. Will it replace Lightroom for me? I don't think so. I've used those programs for so long it would be hard to change. But I do think that for someone starting out in photography that this would be a great photo editing program, especially when they get the DAM (Digital Asset Management) working. So if you're looking for something to get your creative juices flowing, this is a great tool to put in your digital processing tool belt. Keep shooting!

Product Review "Rokinon 24mm f2.8 AF Lens"

August 12, 2018 • Leave a Comment

_MSP028014mm, 12mm, 24mm Hey everyone! I just added a new lens to my kit, the Rokinon 24mm f2.8 AF (Yes, Auto Focus!) lens. If you don't know the name Rokinon in lenses, you're in for a treat. Made in Korea by Samyang Optics, the Rokinon name is for lenses sold in the US. Everywhere else its name is Samyang. I don't really know the reason for this, but it's the same lens. I have used Rokinon in the past, and they are known for their inexpensiveness, sharpness, and build quality. They are built like a tank. The other thing that they are known for is that they are mostly manual focus lenses and just in the last year have started putting _MSP0283 out AF lenses. I have been pleased with the quality of the lenses that I have had in the past, and when I saw this one I had to give it a try. I own a 14mm f2.8 that I used when I had my full frame Nikon D800, and it was awesome! I used it for wide-focus situations and night photography. It is a very sharp lens! When I changed my camera setup to crop sensor Sony A6300, I got the 12mm f2.0 lens with the Sony mount, another very sharp lens, and I use it mainly for astrophotography. Both of these lenses are manual focus. But with this wide of a focal range, the depth of field is very large and easy to focus with a manual focus lens.

Waiting If you have been following me on Instagram or Flickr, you know that recently I have been shooting a lot of street-type photography. I have been doing a lot of photo walks of different towns and cities. Now I'm going to start talking about effective focal length of some lenses. Let me explain. On a full frame camera, the effective focal length of a 50mm lens is 50mm. But on a crop sensor camera like mine, the sensor size is 1-1/2 times smaller than a full frame sensor camera, so you must multiply the focal length of the lens by 1.5 to give you the full frame equivalent size. Sorry for the photography geekiness. For my street photography or photo walks, my kit is very small, and my main lens has been a Sony 35mm f1.8 lens (52mm effective focal length). This is a great lens but tends to get a little tight in certain situations. The other lens that I carry with me is a Sony 10-18mm f4 lens (15-25mm effective focal length), which is great for architecture-type photography but too wide for everything else. So I started looking for something in the middle and couldn't find anything in the Sony line up that would give me approximately 35mm effective focal length, which comes to about 23mm. Then I came across the Rokinon 24mm f2.8 AF lens that has just came out a month or so ago. I got on B&H photo website and found that they haven't even shipped yet in the States, so I went and ordered one. And by luck it shipped the next day. This lens gives me the focal length that I was looking for in between my 10-18mm and the 35mm that I have, and so far it's the perfect focal length for street photowalk-type photography.

It's a small lens, which is great for my kit! It keeps the weight down. It's just a little bit smaller than my 35mm and it's lightweight. The autofocus is very snappy with little or no distortion that I can tell. I took it to the Raleigh Union Station yesterday to try it out, and it worked great, just wide enough to capture the scene but not too wide. I have some sample photos here so you can see the sharpness of the lens and the difference between my 35mm (effective focal length 52) and the 24mm (effective focal length 36mm). So if you're looking for an affordable alternative to the more expensive lenses, I recommend the Rokinon line of lenses. So get out and keep shooting!

_MSP0212 _MSP0213

Pentax MX 35mm Film Camera

July 30, 2018 • Leave a Comment

_MSP9732 I started taking photographs with my mom's Kodak Brownie camera when I was a little boy, and that really sparked something in me with photography. I think we had a few other cameras in the house. I remember a Polaroid camera, but my first real camera was a Pentax K1000 that I bought from Sears picking it out of the catalog. They actually had a photography catalog. I saved my money, and for $99 I got it. And like any other teenager I took photos of family and friends. I kept that camera that I bought in the mid '70s until 1981 when I sold it. I replaced it with the Pentax MX, an upgrade from the K1000. It was produced from 1976 until 1985 and was Pentax's Flagship _MSP9733 Professional SLR until the introduction of the Pentax LX. This is a fully mechanical camera and manual camera. It has a button battery that operates the light meter only. This is a great student camera. And it is built like a small tank, much smaller camera than Canon and Nikon cameras in 1976. I have a Canon Canonet 19 Rangefinder camera, and the Pentax SLR is much smaller that it is and about the same size of my Sony A6300 mirrorless camera.

Because I have started my film project this year, I have started using it again and it works as well as it did when I first got it in 1982. I did replace the light seals, but mechanically it is very sound and the best of my film cameras to date. I have an assortment of lenses ranging from 28mm to 500mm, but my favorite is the 50mm f1.7 and a 35-70mm push pull zoom I have for it. This camera just makes shooting fun. You can find them on Ebay now, but they are not the most popular cameras around. But you can find them fairly cheap. Don't think I will ever part with mine.

_DSC0012-Edit-2 Old Eyes

Home»Blog

Fall Workshop Washington DC

My Mobile Computing "updated"

Luminar Photo Editing Software "First Impressions"

Product Review "Rokinon 24mm f2.8 AF Lens"

Pentax MX 35mm Film Camera