Something New

 Still here, alive and kicking. I know I haven't posted much, because not much has been going on photography-wise. It's winter and not enough snow to make things pretty, but still cold and dreary all the same, which restricts my hobbies to indoors. 

Regardless, here we are, on the cusp of spring. These images were done at a Bluegrass Festival. Certainly not my normal style of music, and it was done as a favour to a friend, so it allowed me a certain level of freedom to pick and choose what I wanted to capture.

All done with my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, typically at f/4.0 though the lighting was plain. Nikon d7000. Around 1/250th of a second.

As an aside, I've also been experimenting with shooting video, an altogether different set of skills required and I feel like I'm learning things all over again, which in a sense I am. Jury is out whether I will continue with it (it's very labour intensive to compile anything noteworthy) but it's something different. 

Playing in the Mud

I'm trying to get into more action photography, with the ultimate goal of shooting an NFL game, but that's some ways off. Currently I'm shooting cars, and had the opportunity to shoot a monster truck mud jam. 

The event was great fun and I met a ton of wonderful friendly people, both on and off the track. Here is a quick sample of some of the trucks there. 

I didn't use my best lens, as I figured the mud would come flying in my direction and as you can see, it did, in great heaping piles of it.

 I loved every second of being out there and yes, I arrived home to my wonderful family covered in must and dust. I look forward to doing it again.
I shot in shutter priority, ensuring the shutter speed never dropped below 1/1000 of a second, to catch the action. I used a second hand 55-200mm Nikon kit lens (not a bad lens for daylight, way waaay too slow for anything else) and my Nikon D7000

Rediscovery

Since moving into my new home, I've been rediscovering lenses I don't often use anymore. This one, for example, is my Sigma 50mm dedicated macro lens.

The subject of course is my Roughneck Monitor, Argo. He was basking in the sun and kind enough to smile for me.

I had the lens set for f/8, but could have used f/11 or probably even f/16, but I was handholding it and didn't want to bump the ISO higher than it already was.

Anyway, this is straight from the camera, no adjustments.