Photography and Outdoor Activities

It’s always wonderful when the first warm days arrive, along with some early splashes of color in the yard - usually the snow crocuses when they first pop up.  This year, there were some very early days with temperatures in the seventies up here in the north east.  My step daughter was home from college for an extended Easter weekend, and we had the opportunity to go for a hike in Ricketts Glen State Park (Pennsylvania).  The weather promised to be wonderfully warm, and the recent rains and the spring thaw promised to have more than average amounts of water rushing over the falls at the glen.  Ricketts Glen has quite a few hiking trails, one of which goes along a stream with many waterfalls and cascades along the hike.  The hike along the falls is around 5 miles in length, a hike I would consider moderate in length and difficulty.

With some hope I brought along my 105 AF-D Micro lens for some close up photography.  It was early enough (April 2), that I really wasn’t sure there would be any flowers yet, but to my surprise, I was able to capture the image below.  Image was taken with my Nikon D300 an the 105 mm micro lens.

Early Flowers

The falls did indeed have much more water than at my last visit.  I took a number of photographs, none of which I was overly pleased with, but, the images still look SORT OF nice at web size.  As I often do when photographing waterfalls, I bracketed most of my shots by taking three images at different exposures and made another attempt at a high dynamic range image.  The image below is not good enough quality to print, but is one more failed attempt at an HDR image - it would probably print o.k. at 8 in x 10 in size, but not much more.  Still, this gives the idea of what I saw.  The image was taken with the 18-200 VR lens and my Nikon D300.  The HDR processing was don in Photomatix.

Ricketts Glen

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I haven’t done too much shooting recently, but the weather has been amazingly warm over the last week and my wife and I were lured outside this afternoon.  We prepared our bicycles for their first ride, and headed up the road.  Lo and behold, we’d barely gotten off the property and we saw our bald eagle sitting closer to the shore of our pond than he has in a while.  I just had to go back and get the camera and take a shot before we continued on our ride.  The shot below is taken with my Nikon D300 and the 80-400 Nikkor lens at 400 mm.  Hopefully we’ll see more of this bird over the next few days and weeks.

Bald Eagle at The Pond

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Just posted!  Review of 18-200 AF-S G VR Nikkor, version I.  Note that this review does not necessarily hold for the newest version, although it appears that the optical formula has not changed.

Bottom line question?  Will this Jack of All Trades lens replace a bag full of lenses for you?

Read my review to find out!

Hint:  It works very well for everyday shooting….   (Shhhh….  some “pros” don’t like this one because it doesn’t weigh over two pounds.  Don’t tell them if you use this lens, they’ll think your an amateur!  Just show them your images and lie about what lens you used!)

Image below:  First real snow of 2009 at Nevin’s Pond taken with Nikon D300 and 18-200 AF-S VR

First Real Snow of 2009 at Nevins Pond

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No nature photography this time.   My friend Larry and I took a drive to Corning, New York to visit the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG), a museum that I have visited many times over the years.  The museum had been closed for an extended period of time to allow for complete remodeling of the exhibition space, the demonstration areas, and to create a new Hall of Innovation. I had not been there since the remodel, and we were in for a treat!  Larry and I had two reasons for taking this trip: for our own edification and to do some photography, and to get information about the possibilities of a visit for the students at our therapeutic school where Larry and I teach at risk teens.

Some of the changes to the museum include a complete remodel of all the exhibition space and a HUGE new gift shop area.  Of interest to Larry and myself, however, was the current display of modern art.  There were some very interesting pieces in the collection that were displayed in a very nice open space.  The first object that caught our interest is pictured below.

Refraction 1

As we looked at the object from all different angles, we saw, to our amazement that every angle of view provided an amazingly different look to the object with rainbows of colors due to the refraction of the illuminating spotlight.

Refraction 2

We also enjoyed our time in the Hall of Innovation - although I have no pictures from this area of the museum.  This is the area I would intend to spend the most time with when I bring my chemistry and Larry’s physics students from The Family Foundation School, our school for angry teens.  The school has college science classes (these are actual college classes - our science students are enrolled in these classes through two local colleges) which would really benefit from seeing some real world physics and chemistry applications.  Interesting exhibits here included the formation of glass-ceramic by introduction of microcrystals in the glass, and also the displays on optical fibers and glass tempering.  All of these applications of physics and chemistry would be very valuable for the teens at therapeutic boarding schools, such as ours.  Science experience outside the classroom is sometimes not so easy to come by when a school is located in a rural an area, and students do need some time off campus as well.

Part of the new display space is set up like a living area with fuzzy carpets and benches.  In this area there were some more interesting objects of glass.  The object in the image below intrigued me, not just because of the clarity of the glass from which it is constructed, but also it’s form.

3 D Arrow

The last thing we did on our trip to CMOG was to visit the Hot Glass show.  This show is a demonstration of how glass objects are made.  Here are two images taken at the show.  Both images were taken with my Nikon D300 and 18-200 mm VR lens.  The images at the hot glass show were taken at ISO 3200.

Hot Glass Show 1

The second image shows formation of the pour spout of the pitcher, and clipping off the excess glass.  Note the falling away of the excess glass.  The motion blur is due to a very slow shutter speed.

Hot Glass Show 2

The bottom line is that Larry and I definitely need to make this trip happen for our students.  CMOG is definitely worth the two hour plus trip from our high school for troubled teens!

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On our trip recent trip to Watkins Glen we wandered along the Gorge Path marveling at the beautiful water cascades, the dramatic scenery, and the interesting geological formations that have been carved by water over millenia.  At a point in the trail where the water flows were especially beautiful and the gorge especially deep, we peered over the trail wall down into the gorge.

We were in for a shock.

Deep in the gorge there was a pool of water that contained the bodies of two dead deer.  These two hapless animals had apparently fallen to their deaths from high above the bottom of the gorge.  We considered whether the deer had been washed downstream, or fallen from above, but did not come to a definite conclusion.  There was a sheer wall above the area were the carcasses had come to rest, an area with trees and probably grass from where the animals may have fallen from.  It is most probable that is what occurred - the animals would have probably come to rest in the gorge farther upstream if they had come to their demise by drowning in high water farther up the creek.

Casualties in The Glen

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My wife and I had been planning a trip to Watkins Glen for several weeks now, especially because I know that the Glen (as well as the Gorges in Ithaca which is also nearby) close in fall for the rest of the winter season.  This last Sunday we finally got a chance to go, on a beautiful fall day with 65 degree weather.  I was fairly certain that the park would still be open, and indeed we found that it was on arrival.  What I had not expected, however, was that we would get this lucky.  The park closed for the season this Monday, November 9th.  We got in on the last chance!  Entering the Glen is strictly forbidden in the winter time due to often dangerous conditions when snow and ice are present.

The specific reason for my interest in going to Watkins Glen was a photograph that I had taken several years ago.  The image was captured hand held with a 6 MP Nikon D100 DSLR camera.  While excellent for its time, my current equipment should yield a better large format print.  Also, since I had not used a tripod for the original image I had introduced some camera shake into my image.  The camera shake had proven to be the biggest problem with my previous picture, and the picture was only printable up to 8″x10″ withe reasonable quality.  Since I am rather picky about my print quality I figured it would be fun to reproduce a better version of the earlier image.  I took my Sigma 12-24 lens and my Nikon 18-200 VR into the Glen, along with my Nikon D300.

Here is an image from our hike up the Glen, one of many beautiful series of cascades in the park.

Watkins Glen Cascades

A bit further up the stream, we arrived at one of several waterfalls.

Watkins Glen Waterfall

And then, we finally arrived at the spot where I intended to re-make my previous image.  The shot below is a single exposure image of a bracketed exposure series.  The image was processed in Nikon Capture NX 1.4 and sized in Adobe Photoshop CS.  A fairly large amount of lightening has been done to the shadow areas of the image.  In it’s current form I suspect that the image would not print much larger than 12″x18″ due to graininess caused by shadow noise.   An HDR overlay of the bracketed images might improve the result.

Watkins Glen Veil of Water on the Trail

On the way back we returned most of the way on the Indian Trail, then crossed over to the South Rim Trail and then back into the Gorge.  All in all, a great outing on a perfect fall day!  This was exact same outing that one of our Houses at The Family Foundation School did with some young people just a few weeks ago.

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My recent post from Chimney Bluffs State Park showed the shore of Lake Ontario with the Chimney Bluffs in the distance.  This image was taken from the western access to the Chimney Bluffs trail system.  Approaching the bluffs from the west affords a better view than approaching from the east, as I had on my last visit many years ago.  Here are two more images from the bluffs showing the features from much closer up.  The first image is looking down a fin toward the ocean.  Image was captured with my Nikon D300 and my ever present walk around lens, the Nikon 18-200 VR.

Down a fin

The second image is a black and white conversion of the profile of the bluffs against Lake Ontario.  Again, the image was captured with the Nikon D300 the 18-200 VR.  Enjoy!

Chimney Bluffs Profile

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Sunday November 1st, I found myself taking a bit of a drive with my wife.  Since we had no obligations at work (The Family Foundation School, a school for at risk teens), and we had already enjoyed our Halloween Dance with the school on Friday night, we allowed ourselves a day of driving with a little bit our hiking.  Our trip on this day took us to Chimney Bluffs State Park on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Chimney Bluffs are a series of sandy bluffs that have eroded away over time making interesting “fins” and chimney like formations.  Here is a view of Lake Ontario and a view of the Bluffs from the shore of the lake.

The Bluffs are near Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario and are less than an hour from Rochester New York and Oswego New York (about half way in between).  This image was taken with my Nikon D300 and 18-200 VR walk around lens.

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To get a long weekend away from our full time work at The Family Foundation School, a school for at risk teens, we took a quick trip to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park to do a bit of hiking and site seeing.  My wife and I like a number  of outdoor activities, including hiking, bicycling and kayaking. As it turns out, Shenandoah National Park, the Adirondacks of New York, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire are all about 5 to 6 hours from where we live.  Our area is GREAT for kayaking and cycling, but for hiking we need to travel a bit.  For day trips we sometimes go to the Catskill Park (about 2 hours driving to most locations), but for weekends we usually go North.  This was our first try at a long weekend going South.  It was well worth it!  Lots of mostly easy hiking is available in Shenandoah, and as it turns out, most trails allowed us to bring our dogs.

Here is a view from Chimney Rock on the Rip Rap trail in Shenandoah.  This trail is accessed from the Rip Rap parking lot at mile post 90 in the park.  The total round trip hike is 3.4 miles.  This image was taken with the Nikon D300 and 18-200 mm AF-S VR lens.

View From Chimney Rock, Shenandoah National Park

The other interesting thing about Shenandoah is that the wildlife is very abundant.  Although my wife and I are used to having deer running around like squirrels in a park, we are not so accustomed to seeing as many black bear.  We DO have black bear in the Delaware Valley (and have photographed on in our own back yard), but they are a bit more scarce than in Shenandoah.  We saw three black bears in two days while in the park.  The image below was photographed at twilight, Nikon D300, 18-200 mm AF-S VR lens and ISO 3200.  Not that the exposure of the fur of the black bear in twilight is exceptionally difficult, the reason the image quality here is not very good.

The weather during our two days in the Park was quite good with beautiful evening skies on both days.  The second day we were there, we were still on Skyline Drive at sunset.  The sky looked as if it were on fire.  Although I find sunsets to be for the most part pretty much a cliche’, it’s still fun to capture them.   Again, this image was captured with my usual camera / lens combination (Nikon D300 / 18-200 VR).

Sky on Fire, Shenandoah Skyline Drive

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