Here is one of my five cats, Lily. She is looking up and inspecting a flash adapter that I’ve installed on my Nikon SB-900 Speedlight which is pointed straight up. The Lumiquest Promax System (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/gp/product/B00009XW5J?ie=UTF8&tag=suncat-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00009XW5J) is a device that allows 80% of the light to pass through it and bounce off the ceiling, but reflects 20% of the light forward giving her the twinkle in her eye. The bounced light off the white ceiling creates a wash of soft light around her, and the 20% projected forward fills in her shadows and brightens her face.

In Hawaii, early one summer’s morning, I encountered this row of banyon trees while jogging. I was taken by their size and the way the golden early morning light filtered through the canopy of leaves above. I took three shots – bracketed by exposure and then blended the exposures in the computer for a high dynamic range image.

In the summer, I get lots of hummingbirds outside my window. Unfortunately, these little guys don’t linger long, so getting a decent shot takes the right equipment, the right settings, patience, and luck. I can’t always control the latter two, but can easily control the first two. For these images, I elected to employ my D300 with the 70-200mm VR. This lens is excellent as the VR reduces the natural shake in my hands – I’m not a tripod – and it’s a fast lens with a max aperture of f/2.8. For the first image, I wanted the beak in focus and allowed the wings to blur. ISO of 200 to maximize image quality, and a shutter speed of only 1/200. Since the relative motion of the beak was not much, it’s nice and sharp and the wings blur into the background. Note her little feet dangling in the background.

For the next shot, I wanted the wings frozen. In this case, I used an ISO of 800, again an aperture of f/2.8, and given the sun, was allowed an exposure of 1/4000 of a second. This was quick enough to freeze the wings, and on the D300, ISO 800 looks pretty good – not too much degradation in image quality. The depth of field (DOF) is deeper in the second image since the subject was a little bit farther away. For more info on DOF, I recommend this calculator (http://www NULL.dofmaster NULL.com/dofjs NULL.html). This bird is the male as he has green feathers:

I frequently photograph what some people might consider boring; things that engineers get really excited about. I can’t say that any of my engineering photography adorns my home, but maybe it should. These are things that we, people who use buildings, take for granted. Large buildings need large pieces of equipment to run. Consider these:

Above we have a very large air conditioner. I would hate to have the electric bill on this thing!

and a large transformer.
These two items were photographed at the new White Bluffs Elementary in Richland, Washington.

When shooting out the back of a KC-135, assuming you are not the boom operator, you will want to lie to the right of the boom operator for best viewing of the receiver aircraft. The position to the left has reduced visibility and is therefore less desirable. Since you are actually pretty close to a large aircraft, you will want a pretty wide lens. In this case, I used a 16-85mm zoom at the 16mm setting with a Nikon D-300. You may want the boom in the photo to demonstrate aerial refueling:

Should you tire of this and prefer a more clear shot of the other aircraft, your boom might kindly fly his/her boom out of the way:

Finally, if you don’t want the viewer to even think about your aircraft, don’t include any part of it in the photo:

The golden hour occurs twice a day during the first and last hour of sunshine. During this time, the lighting is generally softer and warmer in hue, frequently leading to beautiful photos. This photo was taken right after the golden hour, as the sun had just set, but a combination of artificial and natural lighting resulted in a dramatic photo.

Green is in.  Light Emitting Diodes are green – they produce lots of light but consume very little electricity.  Spokane’s convention center recently built a parking lot lit with only LEDs.  One might find it hard to believe that a parking lot can be lit with LEDs but the proof is in the photos:

Every Blog has to start sometime, and for this Blog,
that time is the afternoon of December 27th, 2009!