Dewey sunrise silhouette #3

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom at 18mm; program mode; camera chose 1/640 second at f/13 at ISO 200; auto white balance; matrix-metered; normal JPG.)

Dewey sunrise silhouette #2

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom at 26mm; program mode; camera chose 1/160th second at f/6.3 at ISO 400; matrix-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Dewey sunrise silhouette #1

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom; program mode; camera chose shutter speed of 1/125 second at f/5.6 at ISO 400; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Keiki and Marley

What kind of photo can you get in 10 minutes?

You can get this:

...which makes for a great stink-eye picture, but was not what I was asked to get.

Or, you can get this:

Wow...they sort of arranged themselves with their faces about equidistant from me, and I had a split-second to get it, or the moment would be lost. As it so happened, this was the very last frame I took.

I hope to get more time with them in the future and really do a better job for the two of them.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8, and the 70-200mm VR zoom lens and the SB-800 flash; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/5.6; camera chose shutter speed of 1/320 second (top, at ISO 800)  and 1/125 second (bottom, at ISO 400); center-weighted metered; exposure compensation set to -0.7; auto white balance; shot in RAW.)

Soon...

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom at f/5 and the SB-800 flash; slow-sync; aperture-priority; camera chose shutter speed of 1/50 second at ISO 200; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Hailey

At the GreySave picnic that I had posted some photos about earlier, I had a session to do with Hailey (aka "Bubba"). What a great girl she is. She was so easy to work with. Hilary (her owner), Hailey, and I walked a little ways away from the vendor area and stood under the numerous shade trees in the park. I had only 30 minutes or so to get something decent.

I  liked her appearance here:

...and particularly liked how she looked here:

But sometimes I can't leave well-enough alone, so in Lightroom I made a virtual copy of the original picture's virtual copy and added a faded photo preset:

I think I like how this came out better.

She has the biggest "heart" marking ever:

At the very end of the session she decided she wanted to go rolling in the grass and leaves on the ground. She enjoyed herself so much that she lost her head:

I had fun with her, and I hope to book a longer session with her soon.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; shutter speed varied from 1/400 second to 1/1600 second at ISO 400; center-weighted metered; -0.7 exposure compensation; auto white balance; shot in RAW.)

Muzzles

Yesterday I went to another retirement day at Fastfriends. This time they were expecting 14 greyhounds to arrive. While we waited for the hauler to arrive I walked around the back of the residence to see what I could photograph.

Adjacent to the chain-link fence that defines the back of the property there is a "barn". Above the door sill that leads into the barn there hangs a couple of rows of plastic kennel muzzles. (Kennel muzzles are placed over greyhound noses to protect their thin skin while they're out playing.) I have always liked the many colors that are used for the muzzles, and also how they appear in different kinds of light. I've photographed them before. The main problem is that even when I stood on the topmost step on the stairs that lead into the barn they were way over my head; in order to photograph them at their height I had to hold the camera above my head at arm's-length, aim in the muzzles' direction, and shoot blindly (using Live View on my camera won't help much here). And as I was using my 50mm it was kind of a crapshoot because at least with my wide-angle I know I could definitely get everything in. But I wasn't interested in "getting it all in."

I took a few pictures; this one came out the best:

It reminds me of a picture that a photographer friend of mine (hi, Rachel!) took of racing muzzles.

I haven't post-processed this picture at all.

I wanted to show perspective, and use a large aperture to show a shallow depth-of-field while focused on a particular muzzle. I set the focusing mode to closest-subject, hoping that most of the blue muzzle filled the frame. And while I used center-weighted metering here, I know that matrix-metering would've given me the same results (I tried).

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2; camera set shutter speed at 1/320 second at ISO 400; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; norrmal JPG.)

Sleeping buddies

My parents came to visit us last weekend. After we greeted each other at the door, my dad walked over and sat down on our sleeper sofa. Sadie, who was not feeling well at the time, walked over to him and lowered her head so my dad could give her head, neck, and ears a good rubbing. (She'd stay there for hours if we could keep it up.)

Then, as she had done during my parents' last visit, she climbed onto the sofa and laid down next to Dad, resting her head on his side. Eventually, the two of them fell asleep. I had to capture the moment:

I had a decision to make before I took the picture: who do I focus on? I decided that I wanted Sadie to be the subject, so I put her in focus and had my dad be just out of focus. I guessed that using an aperture of f/4 would give me what I wanted. Using center-weighted metering I set my exposure compensation to -0.7 because there was a lot of glare behind them. I must have been an amusing sight to see as I stood, knelt, and changed my viewing perspectives attempting to convey what I was trying to say.

Eventually, Indy the cat came over and sat in front of them for awhile. He stared that cat-stare that they all have, and then left. I have no idea what Indy was thinking.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/4; camera chose shutter speed of 1/15 second at ISO 1000; -0.7 exposure compensation; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Teh cat is in teh bag

I grew up with cats. My mom loves cats; we had cats long before we got our first dog. I'm sure they did all sorts of cat-things. Despite that, I don't recall any of those childhood cats doing this:

This is Indy, by the way. He is, um, special.

If he's not sitting in a plastic bag, you can be sure that some time in the future he will be gnawing on it. (I think he favors certain numbered recyclable bags -- #1 and #2, if I remember correctly. I don't think he likes #3 or #7; I'm not sure about #4 through 6.)

My mom is always amazed by the things that Indy does. This can be a good thing...if you're a cat.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/4; camera chose shutter speed of 1/10 second at ISO 1000; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; converted to black-and-white using Lightroom; normal JPG.)

Allen's hummingbirds

At least I think that's what these are. There is a pair that we noticed yesterday calling and flitting in our backyard. Gayle got out her camera and got some shots of the two (one of them in flight) on our hummingbird feeder. In between their darting in and out of our magnolia one of the them repeatedly perched on our clothes line. So Gayle told me to get out my camera and try to get some shots in, too.

It was in early evening and I wasn't quite sure how clear any picture would turn out -- even after raising my camera's ISO setting as high as I dared (ISO 1000) without beginning to see noise artifacts. I walked out into the backyard, then slowly approached a sago palm that grows next to the clothes line. I got to within a few feet of the hummer on the clothes line and took a lot of shots. Most of them were no good, but I liked the look of the following pictures:

These are all close crops of the original images, so it looks like I'm much closer than I really was.

The mating behavior continued on all day today. I suspect we may find a nest in the near future, which would be too cool.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/4; camera chose shutter speed of 1/100 second at ISO 1000; center-weighted metered; -0.7 exposure compensation; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Faces from the Fastfriends picnic

There were some stunning greyhound faces at the Fastfriends Greyhound Adoption annual picnic this past weekend. As I had done at the GreySave picnic two weeks prior, I used center-weighted metering to bring out the eye color. I just want to know what will give me the look I want, and when to use it. And it has to be fun, too.

Anyway, enough of the tech-talk -- let me share some pictures I took during the picnic:

All but the fourth and fifth pictures in this series were taken with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens set at f/2.8 (the other lens used was the Nikon 70-200mm VR). The 50mm lens is crazy-good.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm and 70-200mm VR zoom, and the SB-800 flash; auto white balance; flash compensation set to -0.7 or -1.0; normal JPG.)