August, 2011 - David Mathre Photography

Tuesday (02-August-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Nature in New Jersey.

I was just reminded Monday by one of my VP’s at work that just got a Nikon D700 camera of a comment “The Best Camera is the Camera You Have With You”. I’ve seen similar comments elsewhere, and I think there is a book with this as the title where all of the images were taken with a iPhone.

I try to keep a camera with me at all times. Some times it is difficult with restrictions of having a camera at work (but then how many folks now have cell-phones with a camera). Not counting my phone, I like to have a Leica X1 or Leica D-Lux 5 for a small camera, and a Nikon D300 camera with a 18-200 mm telephoto lens or a Nikon D700 camera with a 28-300 mm telephoto lens (with or near me at all times). There are issues with keeping even a digital camera in a car during the summer when the interior temperatures can get very hot. I have considered using a cooler (but worry about condensation). There are also electronic coolers, but I need to figure out how they can process and send excess heat out side of the vehicle. Maybe during the summer I need to be driving my RoadTrek White Ram more often.

I am glad that I had the Nikon D700 camera with the 28-300 mm telephoto lens with me today. Just as I got home and started down my driveway I saw a Doe on one side of the car and a young Fawn with spots on the other side. I slowly got out and got the following images of the Inquisitive Fawn. I kept looking behind me to make sure that the Doe didn’t think I was getting too close and charge me. These may not be the highest resolution images that I could have made with a pro D3/D3s/D3x camera and 400/500/600 mm lens and tripod — but were what I got with the camera with me.

Inquisitive Fawn. Backyard Nature in my Backyard -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 800, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Inquisitive Fawn. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 800, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Inquisitive Fawn. Backyard Nature in my Backyard -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 280, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Inquisitive Fawn. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 280, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Inquisitive Fawn. Backyard Nature in my Backyard -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 720, 98 mm, f/5.3, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Inquisitive Fawn. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 720, 98 mm, f/5.3, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Inquisitive Fawn. Backyard Nature in my Backyard -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 560, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Inquisitive Fawn. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 560, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Inquisitive Fawn. Backyard Nature in my Backyard -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 640, 105 mm, f/5.3, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Inquisitive Fawn. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 640, 105 mm, f/5.3, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Inquisitive Fawn. Backyard Nature in my Backyard -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 1400, 150 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Inquisitive Fawn. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 1400, 150 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Tuesday (02-August-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Nature in New Jersey.

When I got home tonight after being away from the house for a day, I found that the tomato plants on my deck wilting. It continues to be very hot here in New Jersey. I did water the tomato plants Sunday before I left, and from where I was in Pennsylvania yesterday thought that there would have had been some rain on Monday. Apparently not. I added 3 gallons of water to each of the planters. Hopefully they recover.

While doing the watering a Dragonfly and a very large white moth (?) flew by. The moth was about twice as big as a Monarch butterfly, and I have not seen a white moth this big before — but I didn’t get out in time with a camera (what did I say in my previous post — the best camera is the camera with you). I did get a couple of images of the Dragonfly and you can see one below.

Earlier this year I was on a Semester at Sea (SAS) Enrichment Voyage “Central America and Panama Canal” and last spring a SAS Enrichment Voyage “Caribbean Islands. ” These were both done as part of “Ultimate Travel Photography Workshops” run by Michael Mariant. Several images from these trips are on previous blogs from this site. While on the voyage this spring I heard that there was going to be an Enrichment Voyage starting this December, going into next year that would start in Nassau Bahamas, stop in several Caribbean Island then go to Brazil and up the Amazon river, and then back through some more Caribbean islands before ending in Fort Lauderdale Florida. This trip was not part of the “Ultimate Travel Photography Workshops” but I was still very interested. I didn’t sign up while on the last trip, mainly because of issues at work and amount of remaining vacation time this year. SAS extended the early sign-up time until 31-July-2011. I sent a reservation application in by the deadline late Sunday. Unfortunately, I got a call today that the voyage is well subscribed, and that my request for a single supplement would not be 150% (as advertised), but now 200% because of bookings. I’m not going to pay 2x because I am traveling single. I did a little bit of research and it looks like the Road Scholar group may have taken up the rooms since they are charging the same amount per room for the voyage for either single or double occupancy. ARRG.

I may be disappointed, but now will have extra vacation time next year to do an extended road trip across America, and possibly an Alaska Marine Highway ferry trip to Alaska and Canada.

Dragonfly -- Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 200, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre) — Dragonfly — Summer in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D700 camera and 28-300 mm lens (ISO 200, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Monday (01-August-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Summer Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

Star Trails and Lens Distortion. One problem I had with the star trail image I just published was that the circles looking toward the north star were not exactly round. This is probably due to the non-linear distortions characteristics of wide-angle lenses, especially toward the edges. There is a program, DxO Optics Pro that corrects for distortion of various cameras and lenses. (Note that the current version of Adobe Camera Raw also does lens corrections for some camera/lens pairs, but not for the Nikon D3s camera and 24 mm f/1.4G lens used for this image). I used the DxO Optics program to process and correct the 328 images. It took over 12 hours for DxO to process all of these images.I then ran the reprocessed images with startrails.exe program. Let me know (comment, or send me an e-mail) if you think the resultant image looks better, no different, or worse.