I'm still here

Not dead yet.  Trying to get things nailed down in preparation for the total solar eclipse next month.

Settling in with a new Canon 7D mark II

After almost six years of loving my Canon 7D camera body, I finally upgraded to a new 7D mark II.  The 7D mk 2 is a great camera--many people refer to it as the little brother of Canon's flagship 1DX body--so I knew I'd enjoy it once I got settled in.  What I didn't know is just how long it would take me to get settled in.  24 hours and about 700 photos after I unboxed it, I wanted to share my first impressions of Canon's premier APS-C camera.

I'm not dead yet

I've had to take a little time off from photography this summer to devote some much needed attention to our vehicles and living quarters.  Don't worry: I'm not dead yet.  Things will pick back up again as soon as time permits.  Until then, I'll be taking some family portraits tonight and trying not to drool over the recently announced Canon 7D mark II body.  [Updated: A year later, I finally bought one]

Shooting sports with a remote camera

I've been shooting with off-camera flashes for several years now.  I generally trigger them wirelessly using my Cactus V4 radio triggers.  Toward the end of my son's last soccer season, it occurred to me that I could probably use the same technology to fire a remote camera instead of a strobe.  Since that epiphany, my theory has been confirmed by several blog posts by Scott Kelby, who used Pocket Wizards to trigger remote cameras at the NFL football games he photographs.  I was finally able to try this technique for the first time while shooting the neighborhood boys jumping their bikes and while shooting my son's YMCA soccer game.  The theory worked well, but doing it efficiently was more difficult than I expected.

Enjoying a total lunar eclipse

This past Monday night--actually the morning of Tuesday, 15 April--the Western Hemisphere got to enjoy the first of four full lunar eclipses in the next 18 months. Although it was cold and the event occurred in the wee hours of the morning, local time, the skies were clear and dead calm, making for excellent photography conditions. I couldn't resist dragging out my big lenses and heading outside at 2am for a little moon-gazing.

Sandhill Cranes along Nebraska's Platte River

For the fifth straight year, my daughter (now 12) and I spent two days wandering county roads south of the Platte River between Grand Island and Kearney, Nebraska, in search of Sandhill Cranes.  It's an easy search.  Half a million of these handsome birds stop in central Nebraska for six weeks each spring to rest and bulk up for their migration to their summer breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia.  This year, we found more large gatherings of cranes than ever before.  That, combined with the better lenses we took with us, made for a very productive photo outing.

Bald eagles on the Mississippi River

Every winter, as the weather gets colder in the northern USA, the Mississippi River freezes over, and thousands of bald eagles lose access to their primary food source.  They then fly south in search of open water in which to fish.  The Army Corps of Engineers operates two dozen or so locks and dams along the Mississippi to facilitate shipping access.  As the water passes through each dam, the resulting turbulence prevents the water just below the dam from freezing and also stuns the fish as they pass through.  That's a double bonus for the eagles, so they congregate by the hundreds at the base of each dam during the cold, winter months.  This creates a target-rich environment for bird watchers and photographers.  My daughter and I recently drove six hours each way to take in this spectacle for ourselves.

Friday night lights, 100 and counting

As you read last month, I've started photographing high school football for the first time this season.  The Lincoln Christian Crusaders are having perhaps their best season ever, and that happily coincided with my own piqued interest in shooting sports.  My inaugural outing went OK.  I learned a lot, and wanted to correct some mistakes at my next outing.  The next home game was the final regular season game, which is traditionally when the team's seniors are honored.  This also happened to be head coach Matt Farup's 100th game coaching the Crusaders.  LCS won the game, finishing the regular season at 7-1 and earning a #2 seed in the playoffs.  In short, it was a special occasion for several reasons.

Friday Night Lights

I've enjoyed photographing active people for a while now. Usually, it's just my kids at play or in their youth sports leagues.  This year, I wanted to step it up a notch and shoot some athletes that are a little faster, more organized, and more predictable, so I approached the football coach of our kids' high school (also my alma mater) about roaming the sidelines during a game.  I'd get some fun experience, and the school would get free photos that were hopefully good enough to use for something.  He loved the idea.  This past weekend, my availability finally coincided with one of the home games, so I got my first taste of shooting Friday night lights.

Thoughts on my new Canon SX280 HS camera

Nearly four months after dropping my old Canon SD870IS camera onto a hard gym floor and breaking the lens mechanism, I finally ordered a new point & shoot camera in the form of a Canon SX280 HS.  The SX280 is slightly larger than the SD870, but is still very pocketable.  The big win comes with quite a number of feature improvements that have worked their way into pocket cameras during the five years since the SD870 was made.  Below, you'll find my initial thoughts after playing with the new toy for a little while.

How big should my home studio be?

I frequently see people who are remodeling their house and want to create a proper photo studio as part of that space.  Since space is almost always at a premium during a home remodel, these folks want to know how small a space they can get away with allocating to their studio without making it so small that it's not really usable.  Of course, the answer depends on what type of subjects you're photographing:  automobiles require more space than jewelry.  However, by breaking it down and adding up the space required for each individual component, it's not hard to come up with a number that serves your needs.

Shooting Sandhill Cranes with my daughter

My 11-year-old daughter loves animals.  She also loves art work, including photography.  Consequently, every year, she and I make a 24-hour pilgrimage to Nebraska's Central Flyway to photography Sandhill Cranes together.  It's a fun trip, and one that we've made for four years now.  My previous blog post explained the basics of the great Sandhill Crane migration and gave tips on how best to enjoy their annual, spring stop-over in central Nebraska.  This time, I wanted to share a play by play of our most recent trip.

Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska's Central Flyway

I'm blessed to live just a couple hours away from one of the great spectacles of nature:  the migration of half a million Sandhill Cranes from their winter homes in Texas to their summer homes in Canada & Siberia.  En route, these 4-foot-tall birds stop over along central Nebraska's Platte River for 5-6 weeks each spring to bulk up for the journey ahead.  It's quite a sight, and one that people travel from all over the world to see.  My family has been driving out to see it every year for a while now.  Enjoying a profitable trip can be pretty hit & miss if you don't know what you're doing, so I wanted to give some pointers on getting the most from the experience.

Kenko 1.4x PRO 300 teleconverter DGX

Ever since I upgraded my Canon 70-300/4-5.6IS lens to the shorter, but faster, 70-200/2.8IS, I've missed the extra reach that the 300mm lens had.  A teleconverter has been on my wish list ever since.  With the Sandhill Crane and Bald Eagle photographing season approaching, I decided it was time to bite the bullet.  Despite the impending birding outings, a 1.4x teleconverter seemed to be a more useful multiplier than 2x, so I bought a Kenko 1.4x PRO 300 from Amazon.  I took a few test shots immediately after unboxing it, and wanted to share what I found.

Documenting 3D wall art

My dad is a pretty good artist.  His current medium of choice is acrylic-painted 3D wall art, and he's been amassing a healthy portfolio of work in preparation for a gallery show.  He had been taking photos of the pieces to display on his web site, HollingsworthArt.com, but his point & shoot camera was giving him lackluster results, so I volunteered to come photograph all of his recent work before he hauled it to the gallery for the show.  Photographing--or more specifically, lighting--large, semi-gloss objects of varying sizes can present some challenges, so I figured I'd share the process I used.

Disassembling a Canon point-and-shoot camera

I've had several Canon point & shoot cameras since we first made the digital leap in late 2001.  Because these tiny cameras were made to be carried around everywhere in your pocket, then tend to have a hard life in our family.  They inevitably end up with some physical defect that prompts me to completely tear them apart in an attempt to fix the problem.  Sometimes I'm successful, other times not.  The process has been very similar every time for 11 years, and I expect that it won't change a whole lot going forward, so I wanted to document it here for you.

A day in the life of an LBC concert

8:54pm - Performance

Several times each year, our church hosts concerts for A-list contemporary Christian musicians.  My wife heads up hospitality (food & green room) for these events, and I usually help her.  It takes scores of volunteers an entire day of work to put on a show that provides the attendees with 2-3 hours of entertainment, but most people have no clue what really happens behind the scenes to make a show like this happen.  After several years of watching this, I proposed to our head concert organizer that I shoot a personal project documenting a day in the life of one of our concerts.  He loved the idea, and thus began one of the busiest single days of photography that I'd done to date.

Organic patterns in window frost

Living in a 100+ year old house has some drawbacks.  One of them is that the original, single-pane windows leak heat like a sieve.  The silver lining is that when the warm, moist, indoor air leaks through the window and freezes on the outer storm window during really cold weather, the resulting frost forms the most amazing patterns.  Sometimes they resemble miniature forest scenes.  Other times, they look like vines, leaves, or feathers.  Combined with the right back light, this simple window frost can provide some beautiful images.

Most popular posts of 2012

Well, it's that time of year again--the time when most of the media outlets on the planet recap what they've done over the last twelve months.  Not wanting to be left behind, I present to you now the ten most popular posts from the Prairie Rim Images blog, based on page views accrued during 2012.  As expected, "Old Glass" and DIY fix-it articles make up the entire list.  If you're a recent reader, this is your chance to see what all the hype is about.

DIY variable size light tent

Because I've got bad GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), I've got a number of items that I really need to sell so as to free up more room on the shelf (and pocketbook) for new gear.  The only thing really holding me up from selling things is that I haven't taken the time to get some decent photos of the items to accompany the ads.  While driving home one night past a craft store, it occurred to me how I could make a simple light box that could break down for easy storage and still not cost a ton of money.