Sunday, September 29, 2013

Announcing the arrival....

of my new camera:  a Nikon D3100.  I've been trying to avoid the DSLR route but just couldn't take it any more.  So now I've got a new toy on which I can spend yet more money equiping it with lenses, filters, all kinds of crap! 

A new camera calls for something to photograph, happily we had an event happening in our small town, our annual rodeo!  I don't believe I've ever actually attended a rodeo so it was a new and interesting experience.  First of all, this is small town stuff so there weren't 20 guys in each event.  One event had three entrants and only two showed up.  I mean these guys are risking life and limb for probably a couple hundred dollars.  But it was fun.  The announcer couldn't run the sound system very well, there were equipment glitches, some of the entrants were downright lousy but, did I say, it was fun. 

Here are a few of the photos I took.  What impressed me first about the camera was that I could get three photos of an eight second bull ride.  Of course these are all hand-held and I'm far from steady as a rock on a good day.  The distance to the bull riding was probably 100 yards (or meters, I'm guessing here folks!).  The distance to the calf roping was probably half that.  The camera has a 'sport' setting that I used.  I'm going to have to work with that a bit because I had trouble getting the autofocus on the right spot.  Still, for photos from a camera where I've taken a total of four photos before last night, I'm a happy camper. 

Here's an airborne bull and rider!

Here I got that horse doing it's thing. 

One of the bucking horses was a fairly new mother.  After she had shown the rider who was boss they let her colt out into the arena for a little intro to mom's work area.  I love the way they look so much alike.

Local girls make good with some precision riding.  One of these kids was still a pre-teen!

This bronc rider made it all the way dispite the best efforts of the horse.

I love the look on this guy's face.  He knows his ride is ending really soon.
There are plenty of hats in the way, heads and questionable composition but having never photographed a sporting event in my life (and sitting in the very crowded stands, I'm good.  For sure I'm going to keep the Canon SX210IS around as a pocket camera, it is so small, handy and good at that point and shoot thing, but the Nikon will be my new photography 'hobby horse'.

Gotta go.  Have a good one!

Photos - bah!

I've been trying to organize the photos we took on our trip and it is still baffling me after being at home for a month.  Grrr!  Anyway, let me start with a traditional one:  Old Faithful. 

I must say I have many more photos of Old Faithful just spurting a bit here and there.  We were hanging around looking at the displays the park service has put up but finally were afraid we'd miss the eruption so went outside.  It took it's own sweet time but it was pretty spectacular; in fact I was too much in telephoto mode so didn't get the top of the geyser but I like this photo anyway.  I like the way the spray, the residue and the wisps of cloud in the sky are all pretty much the same color. 

After the big news we went wandering around in the park for a couple days just looking at 'named' places.  I don't remember where we took this photo but it really was amazing to see steam just rising out of the ground!  It's a simple thing but really weird.
Of course being in Yellowstone in August; there were crowds.  We completely missed seeing the Tower Roosevelt area because they were ripping up the parking lot.  If you can't stop you can't stop; get over it!  I guess we could have gone back at 07:00 or something but that's not us.  The park rangers keep telling people not to stop on the road if they see something but to pull off.  Do people listen?  Hell, no!  We actually saw very little wildlife.  We have several excellent photos of buffalo butts but I won't inflict them on you.  The elk were loving the Fort Yellowstone area wandering around like so many sheep loving the grass and leaving presents. 

Still, that's not very 'wild' wildlife.  (Did you know that Yellowstone was created before there was a park service?  The army ran it and the buildings are still there and in use:  General's row, enlisted barracks, etc.; anyone who has spent time on a post in the U.S. will recognize the layout.) 

The geysers aren't all dramatic.  Some just spurt out something all day but in the end have quite a display.
The park service came up with a name for this thing which I don't remember but it looks pretty phallic to me.  It is near this cascade; which is still steaming, still growing, still proving our earth is alive.
These are both from the Mammoth Hot Springs area.  Very impressive stuff, especially if you can get a parking place so you can walk around and see it.


We did see some wild wildlife when exiting the park one day.  This herd of elk decided to bed down in this big field next to the road.  We thought it was hilarious. 

That is the end of the photos I currently have from our trip.  There is more, mostly Salt Lake City, but I haven't pried them out of my wife's little grub hooks.  I'll get them though and share them as I can. 

Have a good one.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

It takes me a while....

I finally got up the guts to go into the registry and fix my id.  I can't tell you how much I dithered back and forth about doing it but finally made it.  One of the things I read about fixing the problem was that you ought to have more than one id with administrative priveliges on your machine.  Gee, that would have been nice to have known several years ago when I bought the darned thing!  Anyway, I'm back.  I'll be fooling around with photos from our travels now that I can access them again.  We did have a great trip but felt a little rushed.  Don't know how we managed that but we were.  Drove a bit over 3,300 miles (5,300 km) in about three weeks.  Tow miles were probably 2,400 (3,800 km) but I'm guessing there. 

The Ford dealer has been calling asking if we would like to trade in the truck.  It's an '08 but has only about 35,000 miles (56,000 km) and pretty much does what we ask of it.  We talked about it a while because we like bells and whistles and this truck doesn't have them but in the end decided we'd rather not have a truck payment.  As a trade-in it is probably worth about $25K but we'd end up owing at least $15K and who needs that?  Especially as our travels may be more about flying overseas than in the past. 

Here is a shot from Yellowstone showing the Gibbon River just  downstream from Gibbon Falls.  Note the haze from the fires farther west. 
I'll manage more photos later.  Have a good one!