I brought out my Nikon D-700 with my 70-300 lens mounted. This lens offers VR capabilities, but that still didn’t change the fact that I needed a light source. I was going to use flash for the photograph, but I could not see the moth to focus! I thought my camera had a focus-assist light, but at the time it was not coming on and I did not have time to figure out what was wrong, or even if my memory was incorrect. As a quick solution, I simply asked my wife to hold a flashlight on the moth so I could focus, and then the flash would illuminate the moth for the photograph.

I was quite pleased with the results. I ended up using manual focus. The combination of camera flash and flashlight illumination came out better than I expected. Here’s a picture cropped to show the moth hanging from the tree branch.

Here is a version that I have cropped all the way into the moth detail. The amount of texture and color is amazing. The focus point was on the head of the moth, so the eye shows up quite clearly. The antenna are great too, but what really amused me was how clearly the moth’s “toes” show up.

One of the tips to share here is I had two different angles to consider shooting from. One angle put the moth in front of a bunch of lights from the skyline. The other angle had me shooting towards my neighbor’s back yard, which had no lights. That was obviously the better choice because I don’t have any light pollution showing up behind the image. So in this case, I guess I was shooting a “moment of darkness” instead of light.

That is all.

I’m planning a trip to Alaska at the moment. It’s not a true photography trip (more of a family vacation) so I’m not sure if I will be able to justify taking it or not. I may end up with the 70-200VR 2.8 and a converter or something instead.

I will post back when I get the replacement case in, and let everyone know how long it takes.

So I spent the week in Utah taking only digital pictures with the D700.

It felt weird.

I’m posting it here for myself as much as anyone else. Enjoy.

Texas Department of Transportation Flower and Foliage Resource

I hope to rectify this shortly.

There is an animation showing the predominant currents in the Pacific ocean that is put out by Green Peace (link at end of this post) as well as an article with some sobering statistics. Basically when you toss that empty plastic water bottle in the trash instead of recycling it, it could end up in a variety of places… including a floating island of trash in the Pacific that is bigger than the state of Texas.

At our house we throw very few things away. We even bring trash home from other places in order to recycle it. We compost our vegetable matter. We could probably have trash picked up about once a quarter and not have any issues, but our recycle bin is often overflowing before our every-other-week pickup schedule comes back around.

We’re not perfect. We still get plastic shopping bags from Walmart, but we do keep them here at the house and take them back into recycle. For smaller purchases we eschew bags altogether. My sister recycled some of her old blue jeans into denim shopping bags, and she uses those.

Going back to the article, I realize that some folks might find that Green Peace is not the most likely source for an unbiased opinion. So I have also included a link to the Wiki page on this subject, which includes a number of additional sources and links. I don’t think this is an imaginary problem, it’s real.

Related Links

• Animation
• Full Article from Green Peace
• Wiki on this subject

I just received my latest order from B&H and it included a monopod… specifically the Gitzo GM3551 Carbon Fiber. It uses the new 6x technology to make it lighter and stronger, but what’s really special is the new “twist lock” feature. No more Gitzo twist! Now you can twist to lock or unlock with one hand. I opened and closed it twice and was already making plans to replace my older Gitzo tripod with the newer 6x “twist lock” model. I think it would become my only tripod at that point.

I got the monopod to use with my Nikon 200-400 f4 VR lens. With VR you would think I would not need a tripod or monopod, and truthfully I don’t. I have managed to get some very good pictures without a support. Then why the monopod? Then lens is simply heavy. The monopod is more for supporting the weight while I’m using the lens rather than for providing stability. I have a soccer game this weekend and might try it out.

I also picked up a new VR lens, the Nikon 70-300 VR. This is not a fast lens or a fix aperture. But I have always liked the reach of the 70-300 lenses, and with VR it’s certainly going to be fast enough. I am going to take this to the soccer game this weekend too. If it works, it’s certainly going to be a lot easier to cart around, even if it is a bit slower I’m betting it will be more than adequate for soccer pics.

Stay tuned for more details as I get to start using my new toys.

How to Take Better Pictures at the Game
5 Tips for Catching That Perfect Play on Film

Yes, they said “film” in their headline. And the best part is that the article talked about using a couple of new digital cameras at the US Open to capture shots of the tennis players.

I bet the person who wrote the headline is over 30 years old.