David Mathre Photography - David's Images of the Day Photoblog

Saturday (14-September-2013) — New Jersey

Backyard Late Summer Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

Last night the sky was clear, and the waxing gibbous moon (61%) bright, so I set up a couple of cameras with big lenses out on the deck. One of the systems (Nikon D4 camera TC-E III 20 teleconverter and 600 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 400, 1200 mm, f/8, 1/60 sec)) was set to record video (1080p, 30 fps). While reviewing the videos I noticed one with something (a bird?) passing in front of the moon. Played back at 10 fps shows the transit to occur over 25 frames.

Friday (13-September-2013) — New Jersey

Backyard Late Summertime Nature in New Jersey.

Harvey my backyard Rabbit feeding on some late summer grass. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera, FT1 adapter and 180 mm f/2.8 D lens (ISO 200, 180 mm, f/2.8, 1/1000 sec). Sepia conversion using Capture One Pro 7.

This is an older prime lens that does not have VR and needed to be manually focused with this camera, but with the lens wide open I was able to shoot at 1/1000 sec. The camera was set to use the electronic shutter so no noise to scare the rabbit. The FOV for this camera lens combination is equivalent to 486 mm with a full frame sensor DSLR.

Harvey near my garden. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and 180 mm f/2.8 lens with a FT1 adapter (ISO 200, 180 mm, f/2.8, 1/1000 sec). (David J Mathre)

One-Year Ago (13-September-2012) — Belgium

Gone to see Europe. Semester at Sea. Fall 2012 Semester Voyage on the MV Explorer. Day 21: Antwerp Zoo, Belgium.

Female Snowy Owl at the Antwerp Zoo. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 400, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec). Additional Processing with Capture One Pro 6 and Photoshop CS6.

Female Snowy Owl at the Antwerp Zoo. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 400, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec). Additional Processing with Capture One Pro 6 and Photoshop CS6. (David J Mathre)

Thursday (12-September-2013) — Colorado

Boulder Canyon Falls.

I saw a report on the news that 6+ inches of rain fell in 12 hours in the mountains above Boulder with flash flooding coming down several of the canyons. A lot more water than when I took this image of Boulder Canyon Falls (Spring 2007). HDR composite of 5 images taken with a Nikon D200 and 12-24 mm f/4 lens (ISO 200, 12 mm, f/4). Google/NIK HDR Efex Pro 2.

One-Year Ago (08-September-2012)

Gone to see Europe. Semester at Sea. Fall 2012 Semester Voyage on the MV Explorer. Day 16: Stonehenge.

While traveling, I have been testing different camera gear. In part to see if I can get high quality images with new lighter weight travel kits. The Nikon 1 V1 camera with the 30-110 mm VR lens (10 MP) is much lighter than the Nikon D800 and 50 mm f/1.4G lens. I took ten vertical images of Stonehenge with the N1V1 at 110 mm and combined them using the Photoshop CS6 panorama feature. The ultimate image ended up being 16850 x 5400 pixels. I spent some time using “content aware” to remove the people in the image. The other image is cropped from a single image taken with the D800 and 50 mm f/1.4 lens. In this case, I didn’t take the time to remove the tourists from image. Let me know which you think is best, but I am afraid that I will continue to carry a heavier kit.

Summer Morning at Stonehenge. Composite Image taken with a Nikon 1 V1 and 30-110 mm VR lens (ISO 100, 110 mm, f/11, 1/200 sec). Composite of 10 vertical images processed using Photoshop CS6 (David J. Mathre)

Summer Morning at Stonehenge. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 50 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 100, 50 mm, f/5.6, 1/1600 sec). (David J. Mathre)