Arizona Desert

The great thing about knowing other photographers is they can take you to area's that are perfect for you to do some wonderful work in order for you to  round out your portfolio. My wife's brother lives in Arizona and these shots were taken in various state parks he took us to. I mostly shot aperature priorty at F-16 very low ISO and polarizing filter, with a Nikon D-300 and Tamron 18-270mm lens...Gary

Butterflies at Brookside Gardens

Well I finally got to Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring, Maryland where during the sping and summer you can enter the Flight of Fancy butterfly exibit (cost 6 dollars). Shooting butterflies presents some unique problems. They are constantly moving and in order to get high depth of field you need a large f-stop but that might cause a slow shutter speed which will create blur if the butterfly is flapping it's wings. I have found that the answer is to constantly adjust iso (very low to 500) manual or apperature priorty try to stay above f-9. Sometime I have used a flash but the butterflies react to it sometimes. The use of a tripod would be great except it's not allowed in some live butterfly exibits, and in the field sneeking up on a butterfly is hard enough with just your camera in your hand and much harded with a tripod. A monopod never helped me. These pictures were taken with a Nikon D-300 I switched between the tameron 18-270mm lens and a 50mm G nikor lens with close-up filter...Gary

Preakness Hot Air Ballon Festival

Valerie loves to see hot air balloons, she is going for a ride in one this summer.We attended the Hot Air Balloon Festival held at Turf Valley (Maryland) on May 10-12, 2012. It was a beautiful day and as the sun went down the balloons were filled and provided excellent chances for photography.I shot in the manual mode all day with a Nikon D-300/Tameron 18-270mm lens. The shots at dusk were done at a shutterspeed of 1/25 sec.