Category: Photography

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I’m cleaning out my closets and weeding out shoes and handbags. Thinking someone might want some vintage 80’s stuff I’m going to list these on Craigslist and thought I’d practice with off-camera flash. My first photo of these had a shadow I wanted to remove so I played with the positioning of my Speedlight and got rid of the shadow. Now I have a seam line to eliminate. Anyone have any tips on doing that without painting it in Photoshop? Curves isn’t doing it.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 24-70mm| SB 600 high camera left in ttl +1 EV.

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I noticed that Polaris almost lined up with my front door this evening so, bored and Jonesing for some night photography I set up to shoot star trails. A couple of cars passed by while I was exposing so I captured head and tail lights too.

My Ginko Tree I see needs some pruning, and some TLC from the Gedde’s: My favorite tree service.

Nikon D700| 24-70mm G @ 24mm| f3.2| 30 x 60s| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I took this impromptu photograph on the way home from a photography Meet-Up this past February. It’s been marinating in my archives forgotten. This was the first time I’d ever photographed this bridge. I hope to get up here again to do a little more exploring.

Looking at the photo brought back memories of shooting the bridge. My Remote Timer’s batteries died, and I didn’t have any spares so I was limited to 30second exposures. I increased the ISO to get a proper exposure. I remember being really thankful for the D700 at that moment.

For the History Buffs-
"The Carquinez Bridge refers to parallel bridges spanning the Carquinez Strait, forming part of Interstate 80 between Crockett and Vallejo, California. The name originally referred to a single cantilever bridge built in 1927, helping to form a direct route between San Francisco and Sacramento. A second parallel cantilever bridge was completed in 1958 to deal with the increased traffic. Later, seismic problems of the 1927 span led to the construction and 2003 opening of a replacement: a suspension bridge officially called the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge. Currently, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge carries westbound traffic from Vallejo to Crockett, and the 1958 cantilever span carries eastbound traffic. Toll is only charged to eastbound traffic."~ Wiki-Pedia

I’ve lived in the bay area for over 40 years and I never had heard this bridge was really named Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge…It’s always been the Carquinez Br. I wonder how many others in the Bay Area are unaware? You learn something new everyday.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 24-70@28mm| f16| 25 seconds| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

One of the Meet-Up groups I’m in has a Scavenger Hunt going on that sounded fun so I thought I’d try to capture as many of the items on the list that I can. It was a challenging trying to get the light just so, then developing it so the background would be blackest black. I ended up painting the background black to get it as black as this.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 24-70@f16| 1/250s| ISO 400| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod| SB600 camera right +.33 EV

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Since Rainey and I didn’t have any luck with the Super-Moon Sat. night we thought we might have better luck birding.
We struck out for the countryside. It was a fun morning. We came across Quarterhorse ponies, some Alpaca’s: one was a fairly new mom with a nursing calf, a bull frog, a few expected birds, a pair of Golden Eagles soaring high in the sky. but too far for my lens to get a good photo of, and we spotted this American Bluebird Female taking a break on top this fence post.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 300mm f/4| Hand-held- San Juan Bautisita, CA

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve not had any luck getting the Perigee Moon this year. Last night I went over to my friend Rainey’s and we hoped to shoot the Super-Moon together. We watched the fog get thicker and thicker all night. At 3:45AM we gave up.

Today the sky was overcast all day, but once in awhile there would be a pocket of blue. I hoped I would be able to see the Super-Moon tonight, but as it drew nearer the time to leave for my shooting location the sky was still pretty socked in so I set up my tripod in my backyard just hoping for a small break in the clouds at the right moment.
There was a thin spot in the clouds affording me this view of the Moon. It was faint, and veiled in clouds just above the top of the fence between the trees, and there was Moon glow in the bit of blue sky above the clouds. The sky was a vivid blue and the clouds picked up all the color of the city lights. That at least was pretty.

I hope those of you who tried to get the Super-Moon had better luck than me.

Nikon D700| Nikkor24-70| Singh_Ray Grad ND filter| Tripod