Snowy Weekend

Well, we finally had a decent snow. Not as wet as I would like, but you take what you can get. I went on a hike Sunday up at Mammoth Cave. The roads in the park were very clear, considering the amount of snow on the ground. I hiked a decent sized loop on the south side of the river - The Green River Bluffs Trail, the Echo River Spring Trail and the Mammoth Dome Sink Trail. I had my gps going but did not zero it at the start, so I am not sure of the distance. I was comfortably dressed for the weather and it was a swell hike.

You can tell I like, or fall back on, leading lines.







I saw quite a few Deer out on the trail. The longest lens I had with me was around 100mm. Fortunately they will let you get quite close before they spook, and I had room to crop.






Trails Illustrated
Mammoth Cave NP Trail Map
(Amazon Link)

This is a nice plastic map. I have been using versions of this map for years. It survives canoe trips and rain showers. You could come to the conclusion that I have been dunked a time or two when I mention that it survives canoe trips; I have no comment on that.

On the Way to Work

I was driving to Cave City for a service call and there were some nice low-hanging clouds. The damage from the ice storm last year sometimes distracts from the photos.

I am Wet!

Shanty Hollow; and I'm getting wet!

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BELOW:
Nolin River, right below Nolin dam. There is a bird in the first four shots. I fired up the zoom for shots two, three, and four.

Later as it was getting darker (and foggier) you can start to see the influence of the street lamps from the parking area.

Again there is some tree damage from the ice storm of last January.

30 second exposure






30 second exposure


30 second exposure

Southern Flying Squirrel, Maybe

This little fella was eating out of the bird feeder when I got home - he has been around before. One night, I thought he must be a bat as he was spread out on one of the big feeders (it was very dark at that feeder). Anyway, tonight I happened to be carrying my equipment into the house and had the camera and tripod in my arms.

This shot is at ISO12800, exposure time 1 second. It was much darker than it looks. I was using f8 to give some depth of field as focusing was tough. I took several shots, but he kept moving during the exposure. He was surprisingly unafraid and hung around until the heat pump kicked on. Apparently he does not mind people or dogs, but does not care for heat pumps.

This shot was processed with the Lightroom 3 beta. Lightroom 3 is doing a much better job of high iso noise reduction than Lightroom 2.

I did some goggling on nocturnal squirrels, and came up with the southern flying squirrel - no guarantees though.

Oh Crap....

Location, barren river lake spillway.
Well, it is tough to focus on fast moving birds. I had an 'Oh Crap' moment while I was there. Maybe more details later.

It was pretty dreary out. These shots are ISO 1600 and still the shutter speeds were pretty low. I should have bumped the ISO up a bit for a few shots. Noisy shots are better than blurry shots.

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Saturday night, I was waiting to go dinner with some friends, so I kicked around downtown BG again. Not much worth talking about, however I am including one shot from the Railpark. Just about the time I walked to the Railpark, my friends called, so I had to cut it short. I plan to go back sometime with a nice sky. I darkened this shot to blacken out the sky (and a lot of the train), also converted to greysacle. This is a 30 second shot - the original was about one stop below a normal exposure.

Muddy Moving Water

Stopped by Rochester Ky (Green River) on the way home from Owensboro. These are long exposure shots, some with the nd1000 filter. The water was up, muddy, and running fast. The golden color of the river is from the muddy look of the water.

I am getting cloud streaking on the 2 minute exposures. It just happened that the clouds were moving away from the camera very slowly. The cloud patterns were intersting with alternating blue and whitish horizontal bands. I now realize I don't have to catch fast moving clouds to get streaking, just leave the shutter open long enough. Duh.


2 Minute Exposure, ND1000 Filter


2 Minute Exposure, ND1000 Filter


2 Minute Exposure, ND1000 Filter


4 Second Exposure, No Filter

'Fast Moving Clouds' or 'Cloudy Cemeteries'

I went out this morning to feed the dogs, and the clouds were really low and whipping by. I grabbed the camera, tripod, and the 10x ND filter and walked over to the nearby cemetery. I think for the speed of the clouds, 30 seconds was a little long, but with the nd filter and it being morning, I needed the 30 seconds. I should have tried just stopping down to f22 to see what I could get.

Nothing spectacular, but it was fun. These are 30 second shots with the 10 stop neutral density filter. I was too lazy to compose with the filter off, then put it on, so it was pretty much work in the dark (I could see a little), fire, look at the results. (The 10x ND filter is similar to looking through a welding mask.)

The cross shots are in the St Anthony Cemetery in Grayson County Ky that evening. The clouds were still moving fairly fast, but it was getting dark and I did not use the nd filter. These exposure times were from 6 to 10 seconds. These could have used more time.

Note that the evening shots are before the morning shots.

St Anthony Cemetary Peonia Ky

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Bowling Green Ky

Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

I was not far from White Mills Ky thanksgiving day. That night, I buzzed on over to White Mills for some night shots.

The rock shot is from a creek not far from the house (warren co).

I went back to White Mills Saturday night, since the Thursday shots turned out fairly well. It was clear and I went for a star trail shot this time. Some day, I'm going to fire off a several hour shot.


180 Second, f/4, ISO400

The white curved pvc pipes provide the structure for christmas lights that haven't been lit yet. I'll probably go back one night with the christmas lights on. Maybe some of the light will reflect off the falls.

60 Second, f/4, ISO400

A creek bottom in Warren Co.


White Mills again, not cloudy this time.

15 Minute, f/8 ISO100

Foggy River, Again.

Still trying to get a good sunrise over the bridge. Not this time, lots of fog from the river. The sunrise shots were not great, and didn't make the cut.

The woods are along the greenways trail just past the bridge.





Along the Greenways trail, just past the bridge.

Leonid Meteor Shower 2009 - Or Not!

Nothing here. It was rainy and overcast. I had hoped to go out to Shanty Hollow and setup the camera for a long exposure shot over the lake (which should be roughly the right direction for the best view). It is supposed to be pretty good this year. On the bright side, I didn't have to get up at 1am this morning. Maybe next year.

My Day Shots Suck!

Did not get much during the day Saturday, but I managed to salvage a few morning shots by converting them to black and white. I have both the black and white and color versions of one of the shots. These are all on Barren river in Bowling Green. Grabbed some decent night shots Saturday night. Got there a little later than I had planned, wanted more with blue sky. The morning shots are hand held, the evening shots are tripod mounted. (The first two are the morning shots.)

Went back Sunday around 4pm, walked over to the rapids. Two of those are at the bottom of the post.

This location is only 10 minutes from the house, and relatively easy to shoot. I am figuring out what works and what doesn't. Yep, I will probably shoot this area until everyone is sick of it, much like I have with the pond in Mammoth Cave.

The weather was nice all weekend. Sunday night, I had to pull off a sweat shirt and go around in a tee shirt - in November. There was little or no wind.






















The look of the water in the bottom two was by accident. The camera was mounted on a tripod, as low as I could get it. I had the camera strap looped on a tree limb just in case. I was using live view to frame the shots, but I really could not see what was going on. I guess I hear 'angle finder' in the future. The exposure time was 1/4 second on both of these water shots. I was surprised that you can see individual streaks and drops whizzing by. I had one that was 1/3 second and I like the water even better, but the framing was not good. I will be playing around down there, so we'll see. (I'll probably fall in as this is on the rock pile). There is a gob of gunk on the limb from where the water was high, but what are you going to do.

I will be scoping out more moving water to play around with, and or, fall in the creek with. I have played around a bit with moving water, just never hit that 'sweet spot' of 1/4 second before, and did not know you could get those results.