Tag Archives: Charlotte

For The Birds

March 24, 2013 Tom Dills 8 Comments

Luke, a Bald Eagle at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

This past Saturday, I met up with Paul and Earl at the Carolina Raptor Center for a session of their twice-yearly PhotoWild! Event, where, usually in four sessions over a weekend, the Raptor Center staff show some of their birds in several photography-oriented sessions, limited to a relatively small number of photographers. This was the first time I had attended such an event. And despite the fact that the Raptor Center is only about two miles from my house, it was only the second time I had ever been there. I travel to Latta Planation Park, where the Raptor Center is located, on a regular basis, but don’t generally think of stopping there.

Dudley, a Great Horned Owl at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

PhotoWild! is one of the Raptor Center’s major fundraising events for the year, and they do good work there, so I didn’t mind paying to attend.

I generally shy away from outings to places like zoos and gardens, as I don’t find such places conducive to the more contemplative type of photography I prefer. There are certainly many things to photograph at the Raptor Center, and this outing certainly provided plenty of material. I see shooting at a place like the Raptor Center more of an “objective” type of photography, where I’m presented with a subject not of my choosing and I generally shoot what I see, taking a bunch of pictures and hoping to end up with something I like at the end.

Skoshi, a Red-Tailed Hawk at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

In an environment where a subject is a wild animal, can be easily spooked and is being shared by as many as 20-30 other photographers, there aren’t a lot of choices in how to photograph. As a result it can be a little tough to be creative, and can prove difficult to get a shot that reflects something other than a simple documentary photograph. Sometimes I just sat and watched, admiring a creature that only a few people can see at such a close range. They are truly beautiful creatures and worthy of our respect.

Zlaty, a Golden Eagle at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

All that said, however, it was a lot of fun. I was astonished to realize that, over the course of about 4 hours, I created over 1200 files. I’d like to say that I took over 1200 photographs, but that would be overly generous. Between the blurry shots with moving wings or heads, or the many out-of-focus motion shots, I ended up with far fewer “photographs.” My initial pass through the frames – while admittedly very cursory and perhaps overly critical, resulted in only 38 “keepers.” I’ll probably end up with more once I go back through them, but that’s a pretty low success rate. I’m glad it wasn’t film!

Estrella, a Spectacled Owl, at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

Even though it wasn’t necessarily a “successful” outing photographically, there is always a lot to learn every time I pick up a camera. I found that I have a lot to learn about photographing birds in flight, and just having a camera with a purportedly excellent focusing ability doesn’t guarantee good shots! Exposing dark or light birds against a dark or light background is an opportunity to practice good exposure. And after identifying the birds in 1200+ frames, I know a lot more than I did before about owls, hawks and falcons!

Aletta, a Rough-Legged Hawk at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

All in all, I’d have to say that I enjoyed it and would do it again. I’ll have to think about my “opportunities” from this first session and try to figure out how to do it differently, and perhaps better, the next time.

Paul Lester at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina

Photography

Around Town

February 3, 2013 Tom Dills 7 Comments

Frozen fountain in front of the Charlotte Plaza Building

It’s a nice quiet Sunday night, perfect for working on some photos. I heard something about some kind of game, but whatever.

Reflections on the Charlotte Plaza parking garage

Kathy & I have developed this idea of being “tourists in our own town” and are starting to play around with that idea. Not Charlotte specifically, but all of the small towns around. Too often we head to the mountains or the beach looking for something to do, when there is a lot to do in our own back yard.

We had occasion to be in Charlotte yesterday, so we spent some time walking around downtown. It was a little chilly, but we managed to stay warm enough, we had lunch in a new (for me) restaurant, and got some fresh air. Not a bad way to spend Groundhog Day.

Tree shadow at the Charlotte Convention Center

Now, about that game. It’s probably on TV, right? Never mind. 🙂

Photography

Emotional Content or Technical Perfection?

November 2, 2012 Tom Dills 6 Comments

Not a mistake, exactly. But definitely an outtake. But how can you resist that smile?

Great minds think alike, I guess. On the same day that I was thinking about this subject, my friends Monte Stevens and Paul Lester were also posting similar thoughts on their own blogs. In fact my reply to Monte’s post became the basis for this post, and if I hadn’t read Monte’s post first I might have posted the same comment on Paul’s post!

Monte talks about how the most emotional images aren’t necessarily the ones that exhibit technical perfection. Paul related an experience with a co-worker who didn’t appreciate Paul’s photograph that his daughter appeared in because it was “blurry.”

A little off center? OK, but it's still a great expression! — A little off center? OK, but it’s still a great expression!

We sometimes lose track of the fact that “technical perfection” is that technique that adequately expresses our vision. That doesn’t always mean sharp or even “properly” exposed. This past weekend I took pictures of the children of some friends. They are mostly candid shots of the kids playing, swinging, hanging from monkey bars, etc. Some of them are horribly overexposed and many of them are blurry or misfocused. On my first pass through the photos I marked a lot of them as Rejects. But I went back later and decided that some of them had merit, so I processed some of them and think that a few of them – happy accidents they may be – really express the emotions and energy of these 2 1/2 year-olds. And at that point, exposure, focus and sharpness take a back seat to the feeling that the photo portrays.

While we always strive for technical excellence, sometimes the shots that show the emotion we are trying to capture are not the ones that are “perfect,” but they end up being the ones the express our intentions “perfectly.”

A great subject for a Friday – inspiration for the weekend!

Random Thoughts

Even More Random Thoughts

July 13, 2012 Tom Dills 8 Comments

Disco ball at Dressler's Metropolitan, Charlotte, NC — Disco ball at Dressler’s Metropolitan, Charlotte, NC

Why is it that the people who insist on walking on the wrong side of the hallway – and who you invariably almost run over while rounding a corner – are the ones carrying a bowl of soup or a hot cup of coffee? Wouldn’t that be a good reason to walk on the right side and to make sure you didn’t run into someone?

Why do the people who only visit a restaurant during Restaurant Week or when there’s a Groupon complain when they can’t also get their free birthday dessert or half-price appetizer?

Someone recently posted an article on Facebook about a new app of some kind that allows you to apply “creative effects” to your iPhone photos in “seconds” instead of the “many minutes” that it takes for some other app to do the same thing. So now we can see even more lousy iPhone photos. You’ll be spending less of your time processing them, so I guess that means you can post more. But I still get to ignore them.

Why do the people who creep through the neighborhood at 24.9MPH (speed limit is 25) feel that it is OK to not bother stopping for stop signs?

I went to a meeting the other night where they had a ‘Swap Table’ for people to sell their used camera gear. I took in a Ziplock bag with a bunch of stuff I was going to throw away, dumped it out on the table and put a big FREE sign on it. I didn’t keep track of specific items, but the bag was just as full when I packed it up as it was when I brought it in. I guess nobody else wanted my junky stuff either. Maybe they put stuff in? It’s in the trash now. I should have just put it there to start with.

Besides the fact that it looks ridiculous, do the people who parade around in their cars with their Poochies on their laps ever think about what would happen to “Poochie” if they got in an accident and their airbag went off? Do they realize that they’d have a Poochie Pancake?

Photography

Just Get Out and Shoot!

July 12, 2012 Tom Dills 3 Comments

I ran into a friend of mine the other night, and he walked up to me with an expectant look on his face and asked, “so how is it?” I looked at him with a puzzled look that I hoped read as “so how is what?” And he said, “the camera, the Mark III. How do you like it?” Ohboy.

This friend, we’ll call him ‘Bob,’ has frequently sought my advice on cameras and lenses in the past. I like ‘Bob’ and he’s a nice guy and good friend, and the fact that he asks my advice means he is also smart. 🙂 But ‘Bob’ has asked my opinion on cameras before, in fact, he has been the subject of my blog posts before (sorry, ‘Bob’). But I’m afraid that he may just not like my advice.

‘Bob’ shoots with a Canon 40D, which is a very good camera. I own one, still use it and some of my photos from it have made me money. It’s still in my bag, although it has been relegated to third position behind my 5Ds. Right now I am using it to hold my Holga lens, but at any time I could throw another lens on it and it would work fine. Either way it will make good photographs, at least as good as I am able to make.

When we spoke 8 or 9 months ago, ‘Bob’ was thinking about buying a new camera and was vacillating between a 5D Mark II and a 7D. He had seen photos taken by friends with newer cameras and was convinced that their photos were “better” than his. I told him at the time that if he wanted a new camera he should just pick one, then take it out and use it. Either camera would have been, and still would be, a great choice.

What ‘Bob’ told me the other was that he never bought a camera in November. But now he was getting ready for a trip to Europe and felt like he needed to make a decision. He had recently rented a 5D Mark III and really liked it, but he decided he didn’t want to spend that much money. Which is quite understandable, it’s an expensive beast. So ‘Bob’ decided to buy an “interim” camera and picked up a refurbished 7D. That’s a very good camera, and one he might have purchased back in November. But he’s thinking of sending it back. The problem, he said, is that when he compared the photos from the 7D with those from the 40D, he didn’t feel like he was seeing the improvement that he thought he should be seeing. But he felt like the files from the 5D Mark III were a lot better than those from the 7D. Uh, huh.

He then started talking about Nikons and something about 36 megapixels and whether Canon was going to match Nikon and maybe he should just buy another lens and what kind of lenses he should consider. I kind of zoned out. Yes, there are cameras with lots of megapixels and big sensors, and huge dynamic range, and there will be more tomorrow. And there will be more the next day and next month and next year. But what are we going to do today? What can I shoot now?

I bought a 5D Mark III in April, which it turns out was a little ironic since the June issue of a newsletter I write for contained an article I wrote about how gear didn’t matter. I even stated that I didn’t think I was going to buy a new camera. And then I bought a new camera (I wrote the article in January – things change). But I didn’t buy it because I thought it would improve my photography (honest!). I bought it because it was time to upgrade my tools and I wanted to have the latest technology, so that the photos I took with it would give me the best results possible. The best raw materials, if you will. But it is still up to me to take the photographs, and I only hope I can do it justice.

But that makes it hard for me to tell ‘Bob’ not to buy one.

One of the things I’ve found about the 5D Mark III is that the camera is so good that it amplifies my mistakes. That’s good in that it forces me to work harder, but bad because it’s easy to screw up. One thing I’ve learned with this camera is to stop looking at the files at 100%, since that magnification is way too high. My new default is 50% for that camera, going to 100% when I really need to get fussy. Otherwise, at 100% you are imagining flaws that aren’t really there. Yeah, it makes nice files, but if the photo is crap it’s just a nice file of crap.

Long afterward – too late for me to say anything to ‘Bob’ (I always get my best thoughts hours later!) – I thought that what he did was a lot like test driving the Mustang and buying the Focus. If what you really want is the Mustang, you’ll never be happy with the Focus. But if you know you’ll never cough up the money for the Mustang, don’t drive the Mustang. I think ‘Bob’ wants the 5D Mark III, and until he buys it he won’t be happy.

In many ways, ‘Bob’ represents a lot of us. We are our own worst critic. Often I look at my own photos, whether on my computer screen or on a print I have made, and I feel disappointed because I don’t think they measure up to what I see others show. Other people’s photos often look better than mine. It’s an example of “the grass is always greener” principal. Our photos always look worse to us than they really are. But then I see one of mine hanging on a wall or online next to others’ photos and I think, “hey, that looks pretty darned good.”

We all have the desire for that Magic Button, whether it’s a camera, a lens, a tripod or a computer, we often feel that there’s that “one more thing” that will make us the photographer we know we can be. But you know what? That’s just not the case. The problem is that, except to the extent that a new camera motivates us to get out and use it, it doesn’t really improve our photography. Sure, a new camera might produce nicer files, but nicer files don’t necessarily mean better photographs.

My advice to ‘Bob’ was to pick a camera and get out and use it.

Photography

4th of July Fireworks

July 8, 2012 Tom Dills 10 Comments

I finally got a chance to spend some time at the computer today and decided to work with some of my fireworks photos from July 4th. I knew when I took the photos that I would be making some composites in Photoshop. These were all taken handheld with the 5D Mark III and the 40MM 2.8 pancake lens, f4 at ISO 3200. My shutter speeds ranged from 1/5 to 1/50 of a second.

All the photos had some initial processing in Lightroom, including a little sharpening and noise reduction, then were composited in Photoshop. Once I brought the composited file back into Lightroom I added a little more punch in contrast, vibrance and saturation.

There’s no question that these are more than a bit over-the-top from the standpoint of reality, but that’s what artistic license is all about. This is what I saw and this is what I felt, so here it is!

This was the first time I had used Photoshop on any 5D Mark III files, and I must say that I seriously challenged the capabilities of my 5 year old iMac. Each file is around 1 GB, and I had some serious beachball action (it’s a Mac thing) going from time to time. If I do much more of that I’m going to need to look at upgrading the computer hardware a little sooner than I planned.

Photography

More 5D Mark III Fun!

April 22, 2012 Tom Dills 6 Comments

Views of uptown Charlotte from the Seventh Street Station parking garage, Charlotte, North Carolina — Stripes

I’ve gotten a little more time to shoot with the 5D Mark III over the last few days. Saturday I was teaching a digital point & shoot class for The Light Factory, and part of the class time is spent out actually taking photos. What a concept – a photography class that actually goes out and takes photos…amazing if I do say so myself! I cheated a little and took the 5D, with full disclosure to the class, of course. And after using my G12 in the previous session.

I’ve still a little vexed by what I feel is most likely a learning curve in Lightroom…my files seem to be coming in flat and dark, and only after applying a pretty aggressive tone curve adjustment can I get them where I want them. I thought maybe I had some kind of Auto Tone turned on, but nothing I see indicates that I do, and even if I did I think the images, if anything, would look lighter instead of darker. I also saw on a video tutorial something about some automatic highlight suppression that Lightroom is doing, but I haven’t found anything definitive about that. So for now I’ve got something that works and I’m using it.

I’ve posted this photos a little larger than usual in case anyone wants to do some peeping. Click on each photo to make them bigger (dare I say “embiggen?”). They look pretty good, I think.

Photography

Silliness…and 5D Mark III Impressions

April 17, 2012 Tom Dills 4 Comments

I’ve been amused by some of the press reports surrounding the so-called “light leak” issue with the Canon 5D Mark III. I won’t even link to it here but you can easily Google it if you feel you need the details, but suffice it to say that, while it is admittedly an “issue” it is not exactly a “problem” unless you normally take pictures in the dark with your lens cap on and rely on the LCD backlight while you are metering. Not something that concerns me, but people have made enough of a ruckus that Canon was forced to issue a press release to state that they were working on a “fix.” It amazes me that people must actually spend time trying to find these so-called flaws.

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I’ve had the 5D Mark III for about 2 weeks now, and while a lot of people would have turned over 10,000 images in that amount of time, my schedule has given me barely enough time to become familiar with the camera. I have managed to come up with some initial impressions and conclusions that I thought might be interesting to share.

My first real experience with the new camera was a little time spent walking around Charlotte on a rainy day, shooting some dreary outside scenes and some dark interiors, stretching the ISO limits a bit. I was and remain quite impressed with the relatively low noise at the higher ISOs, although in reality I was shooting much higher than I would seriously consider for serious use, mostly just because I could.

Random photo along College Street in Charlotte, North Carolina

My first actual job with the new camera involved shooting a small event at a local restaurant. I used ISO 3200 because, even though I was using a flash, I wanted the extra shutter speed that the higher ISO gave me. The photos from that event are very nice and I can confidently say that if I was a wedding or event shooter I wouldn’t hesitate to bump the ISO when I needed the speed.

I took the camera with me over Easter weekend when we visited Shenandoah National Park. Most of the photos I took on that trip were taken without benefit of a tripod (because I was too lazy to carry it) and those where I used the tripod were taken in very windy conditions or in harsh lighting, which makes it difficult to really evaluate the files. Add to that a major update to Lightroom, and I have been flummoxed trying to get files to come out to my liking. I’ve finally turned the corner on that, however, and am much happier now.

Along the trail to Stony Man Mountain summit in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Handling

My first impression of the camera when getting it out of the box was that it has a nice feel. The surface has almost a “stickiness” to it that makes it comfortable to hold, and the grip areas are shaped just right for my hands. It feels well balanced with all of my lenses, most especially the 17-40 and the 24-105. Sticking a 70-200 2.8 or a 100-400 on the front of any body makes it a beast, so there’s not much to say about that. I have yet to put the 70-200 on it, which is weird since it is my favorite lens. Soon! I promise!

The controls are pretty well laid out, although it does have a couple of useless buttons, the “Rate” button and something called the “Creative Photo/Comparative Playback/Direct Print button that can’t be programmed for anything else. After a little fiddling with some of the custom controls I have managed to get things pretty much where I want it. I’ve purposely stayed away from the custom controls on the mode dial, figuring that I wanted to get a better feel for the choices before I started trying to come up with “canned” settings. As I did with some of my other cameras, I’ll probably create a setting for general nature stuff when shooting from a tripod, one for shooting hand-held, and another for shooting action.

I really like the addition of the “My Menu” (remember I’m coming from an original 5D) for commonly used functions like mirror lockup. I’m still playing around with what I put on there. It seems pretty useful though, and while navigating the main menu isn’t that hard, it’s nice to be able to recall the frequently used functions easily.

View from Stony Man Mountain summit in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Focusing

I haven’t had a chance to use the capabilities of this camera shooting action, but for what I’ve done so far the focusing ability of this camera is impressive. It took a little effort to figure out how to change modes and move the focusing point around, but once I did it’s a piece of cake. Focusing is fast and accurate, although I’ve found that I have to be very careful with depth of field. After spending a lot of time using point & shoot or crop-sensor cameras I’m gaining a new appreciation for being careful with depth of field. It’s easy to get lazy with a tiny sensor camera, and moving to a large sensor makes you pay attention. On the other hand, getting shallow depth of field when you want it couldn’t be easier. I’d love to put a fast prime on this baby!

Unnamed cascade along the Rose River in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia

Image Quality

This is the one area where I want to spend some more time, but the impression I have so far is that quality is very good. The photos I’ve taken that I’m happy with show an amazing amount of detail. The downside is that the ones that I’m not happy with tend to exaggerate my mistakes!

One area that I feel like I see the most improvement seems to be dynamic range. I seem to be able to pull a lot of detail out of the shadows and control of highlights seems pretty good. Some of that may be the improvements in Lightroom, too. But the results look like the combination will be a good one for what I do.

The thing I haven’t done yet is to make prints from these files, and I am very much looking forward to a chance to do that. Hopefully I’ll have some time this weekend to waste a little ink and paper.

Conclusion

So far my only complaint about the camera is that I haven’t had enough time to enjoy it! In just a few short weeks though I’ll have a nice two-week vacation to Alaska and California, giving me plenty of time and lots of subject matter to finally put this camera to the test, and I’m really looking forward to that. Hopefully between now and then I’ll be able to make some more photos, work with all of my lenses and settle on the equipment that is going to make the trip. I change my mind every day (Kathy rolls her eyes) but eventually I’m going to test-pack the bag and see just how much stuff it will hold.

Photography

Noise

March 31, 2012 Tom Dills 9 Comments

Uptown Charlotte in Fog - Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 3200

The world is a noisy place, sometimes. Our workplaces are full of overheard telephone conversations, unattended cell phones, conference calls in “speaker phone voice” from an open cubicle with multiple participants, casual chatter between cube-neighbors. People leave televisions blaring in an empty room that is so loud it hurts my ears, and there’s no one there watching it. We go out for a meal to a restaurant filled with televisions AND loud music in a room with concrete floors and high ceilings that creates “atmosphere.” Actually it creates a headache. Heck, spend a couple of hours on the Blue Ridge Parkway and count the number of loud, noisy cars and motorcycles that roar by in a given period of time. “OUT ENJOYING THE PEACE AND QUIET ON YOUR HARLEY, HUH? WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER MY RADIO.” Why does a motorcycle even NEED a radio? HUH? Nevermind.

Morning Coffee - Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 6400

Kathy & I seek quiet. We avoid noise whenever possible. We sometimes sit at home in the evenings and the only sound is the clicking of one OF our clocks. Lovely. No television, no music, and hopefully no neighbor’s barking dogs. When I sit at my computer I listen to an acoustic guitar channel on Pandora. Softly. When we think about traveling we think in terms of places we can go to get away from noise, at least man-made noise. Ocean sounds, waterfalls, wind? Those are no problem. We’ve even learned how to find the quiet places on a cruise ship, which is no small feat when sailing with 3 or 4 thousand of our closest friends.

Charlotte Plaza Building Lobby - Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600 - "Because I Can"

The thing I love about photography is that it takes me to quiet places. Even in the middle of a city, it gets my mind and attention away from the sounds and they become nothing more than background. I shut all that noise out and just think about enjoying my time with my camera. That’s the reason I don’t generally photograph with groups. I have a lot of good friends that are photographers, and while hanging out with a few of them at a time is great fun, much more than that and it’s hard to find the quiet place I look for when I’m with my camera.

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Like these photos? Maiden voyage of the new machine. I made them a little larger than usual – click on them to make them bigger.

Photography

11/11/11

November 12, 2011 Tom Dills 6 Comments

Steps in front of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina

I thought I would try something a little different for this post. I don’t usually post a bunch of photos on my blog, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. These were taken Friday morning while wandering around downtown Charlotte with my Canon G12. I sure have a lot of fun with that little camera.