Two day adventure day 2

Getting up in the morning was easy with the light that was showing. We drove just a mile down to the main hoodoo area, and stooged around a little. For some reason my littlest was not as fascinated as I would have thought with Goblin Valley, what I get for showing her the Wedge Overlook first.....

We left and headed out for Capitol Reef, did a quick drop in at the visitors center and headed up the Hartnet Road to Cathedral Valley. I always stop to see my old friend here. What a character!

Driving with a 7 year old does make it harder to take off from the road and explore, but as long as a DVD player is available for the more "Boring" parts you can stop and shoot from right next to the car. Love that this area is amenable to that!

After lunching at Cathedral Valley CG, it was time to drive a road I have not fully explored before, the Thousand Lakes Mountain Road to UT 72. Turns out this is a great road in the fall, quakies turning color amid juniper and sagebrush is a neat combination.

It is a pretty great road once you get past the rougher parts in Capitol Reef. They really need to grade that thing!

We also made a point to drive through Huntington Canyon to Fairview to visit my Brother and Sister in Law's store there. Glad I did, the views from up on the top are magnificent!

Some More Rockin Temple Photos!

These were all shot fairly rapidly in a short period of time, bracketing like crazy... Why? Well I had about 10-15 minutes of sunlight poking through the clouds right before sunset. Sometimes you are in the right place and ready and the light doesn't come. Sometimes you are in the wrong place with no or wrong equipment and the light comes unexpectedly. Yeah that drives a photographer CRAZY!!!!! Then there are the times you are in the right place at the right time and are prepared... and you get it right. Or at least as right as your skill level allows. This was that kind of moment. My friend I was shooting with did better I think, but hey... he is a pro!

HDR with a better camera.....

With my previous camera HDR was an absolute necessity in tough lighting situations like backlit temples. I have less need with my new camera due to the incredible dynamic range of the files. However in this situation I needed to shoot bracketed shots no matter what the camera. One really nice thing about my K5 is that it will shoot 5 bracketed shots rather than 3. I think this gives me a more nuanced result with better color and DR. I think. anyway, the lighting was tough, but the scene had possibilities, difficulties ensued, were overcome, etc... etc...(Thanks Capn. Jack)

This one is the better of the two I think. Wish the light had been directly behind the temple but in a way having the offset light and clouds on the other side kinda works too. 

Off to the northeast this was brewing. I love sunset light on clouds. I have mentioned that right? That I am a total sucker? 

Ahhhh...... Thank you Father In Heaven!

Night OUT & Late Night Trip to the Store.

I took this shot for a friend who was sending her son off to basic training. They had a  farewell get together and seeing as I had my camera I decided to take a few shots, always good to try to stretch your skills and learn your camera. The lighting was horrible and I was shooting with the onboard flash, usually not a good way to get super quality. While the lighting is of the deer in the headlights variety the sharpness was excellent at 200 ISO. 

I made up the saying on the side, don't know what she will say about it but I liked it.

Afterward my lovely lady and I did what most married couples do when they have the time together. Go shopping. The secret life of a parent is not as scintillating as I imagined when I was a kid......

Again having camera in tow, and not being a super excited shopper I decided to try some shots wide open with my old Sigma 17-70 DC f2.8-4.5 and see how it performed on my new camera. considering the lighting and slow shutter speeds I was happy with what I got.

I have a symmetry thing. Always have always will, I try to fight it and make it less obvious.

Not sure how I feel about the intrusion of the black box on the right but it is inline with or perpendicular to the other lines and I feel that it works. What would you have done?

The array of candy caught my eye, don't know how well I captured the singular among the chaotic mass, but it makes me hungry no matter what...

I like to capture the details of life, the texture as it were, it is how  I remember things.

Free Food!

Lovely wife got me a free Gelato coupon at a local shop, ain't she just AWESOME? Playing with my liveview I got a nice shot of the premises. Sent it to the owners on FB, they liked it too!

This looks like a fun date for this couple don't it?

Really like how they got the paddles in sync in this one!

Local Car Show, Pushing the Limits with my K 50mm f1.4

I love cars too. Not as much as a good sunset, but definitely love them old, old and well restored especially. I shot these with the intent of showcasing the shopping area of my master planned community maybe with the intent to sell them... to the community association if they were interested. No buying but they liked them.

f2.8 is where this lens starts to really shine. Really tempted to pick up the new Pentax DA 50mm f1.8 at some point, the rounded aperture blades will keep me from having the octagonal specular highlights in the background.

Grab Shots!

I seem to do better shooting when I plan to not plan. Meaning that I try to be prepared for an eventuality a but not plan for a certain specific outcome, simply shooting what presents itself when I have put myself in an advantageous place. May be a character defect but at least I know where my strengths lie.

This is a nothing shot, yet it evokes happy things for me. I love baking and these are the first cookies I learned to make. Chocolate Chip Applesauce cookies. I simply grabbed a shot of them as I was baking, and got something that will forever remind me of something good. What could be better?

Truly AMAZED at the shadow detail I pulled out from these shots. K5 be praised! 

New Camera Time!!!!

Yes.... as I sorta mentioned the other day, I got a new camera, a Pentax K-5. I am just starting to learn the layout of the buttons and how the functions relate to my old camera, which was much simpler, though still a great camera. Just with a lot of mileage and a few dings and dents.

I will post more about the camera once I have really gotten used to it and learned what it can do, but so far I LOVE IT!!!!

Here are a few early shots.

Jordan River Temple, Hand Held, underexposed at 80 ISO to preserve the highlights and then recovered in ACR. The noise of this sensor is so much better than my K200d, and the depth of the files is stunning, I never could have recovered this file on my older camera.

I am also blessed with some wonderful friends in the online photography community who occasionally lend me lenses to play with. These next shots were taken with the DA 15mm f4 Limited. Which is just a FUN lens and incredibly small to boot.

This sunset was simply divine, and I never wanted it to end.

The ducks didn't care, they just wanted food!