Little Used

So the entire state is under "widely scattered showers" advisory for the whole week, and while that makes for great sky shots, it does make for tricky shooting, as most electronic devices don't work well when soaked.

Yesterday I wanted to photograph boats and when I woke up, it was sunny. Well the trip to the nearest marina is nearly two hours away, and by the time I got there, the sky was threatening to unleash fury.

Fortunately it held off while I shot the following series. In fact, as I'd taken my last shot, put my lens cap back on my camera and was walking back to my car, done shooting for the day, it started the torrential downpour.

So special thanks to mother nature for playing nice with me.

Side note: I have a Nikon 10-20mm ultra-wide lens that I got for a good deal some years ago, but haven't used it much. I put it up for sale but so far have had no takers (it's an expensive lens.) Undecided as to what I was going to do with the lens, I brought it along with me for the day's pictures. What you see here in Black and White, are all shots done with this lens. I have found a purpose for it, it's really good at shooting boats, and bridges.

I may keep it after all. All the Black and White shots are from my Nikon D1x, it has a B/W shooting mode option, and I wanted to explore it further. I'm really like the effect.

Improvement

Every year I try to take good fireworks pictures. It's been hard as I don't really get to practice but once a year, and I tended to forget what I did right, and what I did wrong.

This year I nailed them. Maual focus was the key. Pre-set the camera, set the ISO as low as it will go, run a remote shutter and a wide angle lens, and start shooting.

I took about 223 shots in Nikon's RAW format, and to be honest, virtually all of them were keepers. But I narrowed it down to 30 or so that really stood out, and I'm posted the best ones here.