Nikon – Page 51 – Circadianreflections Blog

Eastern Sierras Day 2- 21 minutes in Nirvana

October 17, 2014October 17, 2014Posted in Autumn, Eastern Sierras, Fall Color, Intake 2 Lake, LensBaby Composer Pro II, Moonset, Morning, Nikon DF, San Jose California Nature PhotographerTagged Autumn, Eastern Sierras, Fall Color, Intake 2, LensBaby Composer Pro II, Nikon, Nikon Df, Photography5 Comments

We scouted a few areas for Moon-set/Sunrise and we all fell in love with Intake Lake 2. We were planning to camp on Night 2 and instead of camping a little further north we change plans and camped at Intake Lake 2, and we all agreed it would be a great location for the morning’s shoot. We could sleep a few minutes longer, and be in our chosen spots well before the fishermen arrived. We set up our camp, made dinner, and shortly after dark I crawled into my tent and bag and fell into a deep sleep. My alarm was set to 4:30AM again. I didn’t even take pictures of the campground!

I slept pretty well. I only stirred when my hip started to ache. My pad wasn’t as full as it should have been. When my alarm went off I turned it off and dozed in my warm bag, dreading getting out of it, and facing the cold morning, and dressing, before making the trek up the bathroom. I should have dug out my slip-on pair of shoes the night before, but forgot to do that. Jonathan was out of his tent first and came by mine and rattled it, asking if we were up. Rainey had bunked with me since I have a two person tent. We both murmured, “yes, I’m up.” Next, I heard Rene unzip his tent, and then Jonathan’s car alarm went off, no doubt waking the whole campground! Nik was sleeping in the car and when he got up to exit he set off the alarm.

Someone set the alarm after Nik got in to go to bed. 🙂 As if the alarm going off once wasn’t bad enough somehow it got triggered a second time! I got up and out of my bag and tent after that. I’m sure the whole campground was ready to stone us to death! Hopefully they all were able to get back to sleep.

We dressed, grabbed our bags and headed for the lake for the Moon-set/ Sunrise as quietly as we could.

I found the spot I had chosen the day before, but I was so far from everyone else so I moved to the beach with Rene, and Rainey.

I was very glad to have the company. Daylight was coming fast, and for 21 minutes I was in Nirvana!

Moon-glow on the Eastern Sierra Peaks

Pink clouds and Moon-glow on the Eastern Sierra Peaks

Alpine Glow on the Eastern Sierra Peaks

It’s not often one gets Moon-glow, Color, and Alpine Glow all in one morning! I couldn’t have ordered a more perfect morning shoot. There were even Trout jumping high out of the water to catch breakfast. I wish I timed my images better to have caught just one, alas…I didn’t.

Shortly after the color faded we were packing up when a group of fishermen came to fish where we were. We welcomed them with open arms, and wished them well with their endeavors, and went on our way to find other photographic jewels around the lake.

Rainey, Rene, and I hung out together while Nik,and Jonathan went their own way. Rainey, Rene, and I went around the lake to try and find a Grebe that was swimming around the lake. We weren’t able to get the second inlet to find it, but we did find a lovely little cascade of water we stopped to photograph, and along the way we found a memorial.

I used my Lensbaby Composer Pro II with Soft Focus Optic to try some landscapes. I like the dreamy, painterly

feel the images have.

Fallen tree on Intake 2

Fishing

The color of the morning was gold

Intake 2 was my favorite location this trip. It’s a great place to camp, and there is plenty to photograph

here.

Cameras: Nikon Df, Nikon D700

Lenses: Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8, Nikkor 180mm f/2.8d, LensBaby Composer Pro II w/Soft Focus Optic

More to come…

6/52 Raspberry and Cream

February 3, 2014January 23, 2017Posted in Close Up Photography, Creative Tabletop Photography, Drops, Nikon, Off Camera Flash, Photography, Splashes, StrobistTagged Creative Photography, high speed photography, Macro, Milk, Nikon, Raspberry, Splashes and Waterdrop2 Comments

6/52 Raspberry and Cream, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

Via Flickr:

This was a challenging exercise in timing, but fun! I am planning to try this again with two speedlights soon.

Strobist- SB910 @ 1/25th pwr, camera right low front 75º angle

Golden Crowned Sparrow-Winter

November 24, 2013November 24, 2013Posted in Birds, California, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birds, Birds in the Wild, Nikon, San Jose Nature PhotographerLeave a comment

Golden Crowned Sparrow-Winter, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

Via Flickr:
Copyright Â© 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I have to double-check, but I think this is my first Golden Crowned Sparrow!
So, far this has been a fantastic birding year for me, and it’s still early in the season.
If I see Eagles this winter it will be icing on the cake. 🙂

Photographing birds in Manual Focusing mode is tough. My finger is always on the focusing ring and I’m adjusting all the time since the birds are so fast and moving all the time. It’s a miracle I got this in focus at all. My friend Dali shoots with a Legacy Nikon lens the 400mm f/3.5 which is a manual focus lens and he gets the most beautiful bird and wildlife photographs. I want to be as good as that if I have to manual focus.

See his work here.

Add a little Sparkle to your day…

July 17, 2013July 17, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Gear, Nikon, Photography, Still LifeTagged Jewelry Photography, Nikon, Nikon D700, Off camera flash, Photography, Product photography, StrobistLeave a comment

I had the whole day free so I played with my continuous lights and SB600 Speedlight. I bought a couple of pieces of jewelry recently which started me thinking about Jewelry Photography and lighting. I am still trying to get more accomplished with external lights and photography and I hope this exercise will help me grow in that area.

After studying lighting techniques, and jewelry styling for a couple of days I got my props together and by late this morning I was ready to start taking some photos.

I still don’t have the lights quite right for the sparkle I want. I’m looking into getting a Dazzle Bulb for the future. I also need another high wattage bulb. I’d also like to add some plexiglass sheets to my kit as well; I see a trip to the hardware store in my near future.

This is my tabletop set up. I set up on the kitchen table with a white sheet, white foam core board, and my lights. I had to hunt for something to tie dental floss on to be able to hang the jewelry and this is what I came up with. My daughters old high-school locker shelf. It came in handy after all these years of non-use.
I took the photo of the set up with a Nikon D300s and 24mm f2.8 AF-D and on-camera flash.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D, and Nikkor 28-105mm AF-D| Continuous lights 1 full Daylight camera right, 1 soft light bulb camera left, SB 600 camera front

I did all the photo development/processing in Photoshop CS6. All my processing starts in Adobe Camera RAW then I moved to Photoshop for levels adjustments, output sharpening, cloning out the thread that held the ear-rings and necklace, cleaning up dust spots, and adding my watermark then resizing for the web.

P.S. Several times today I wished I had a macro lens!

The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range

June 20, 2013June 20, 2013Posted in PhotographyTagged Death Valley, Nikon, Photography, San Jose California Nature Photography, Travel and TourismLeave a comment

The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

This is from my May trip to Death Valley. It was windy most the time I was there the first two days, but on this evening the winds subsided a little, and the sky was blue so He-Man and I struck out across the flat toward the Dunes. I stopped a few times along the way to capture vistas of the dunes and mountains behind them.
There was sand in the air and blowing off the dunes. You can kind of see that on the dune in the sunlight on the bottom left if you look around the edges around it. It gave the image a softness I like. I also liked the shadows and light on the dunes and mountains.

I rented the new Nikkor 80-400mm G for this trip and I used it to take this photo.
Someday I’d like to upgrade my 70-300mm VR with this lens.

I’m also trying out On One Perfect Suite 7 Premium. I’m a week into the 30 day trial. I’ve used Perfect Portrait quite a bit, and Perfect effects, and focal point.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to access Perfect Layers from LR yet so I sent OnOne customer service an email asking them how to do that. I’ve heard from them this afternoon, so I’ll try it tomorrow.
I’m not really skilled in Lightroom either, but with Adobe’s new Creative Cloud scheme that requires a monthly fee I’m looking into different software to do the layering development work I need.
So far I like Perfect Portrait, and Effects a lot. The presets are really nice and you can fine tune them. On this photo I used Tonal Contrast, and in the Landscape Preset Folder I used Fall Enhancer. In Lightroom I tweaked the highlights, shadows, exposure, clarity, and did a little dodging and burning. Then to finish up I went into CS6 to add my watermark, and resize the photo for the web. I know…I need to figure out how to do this Lightroom. I think it’s possible.
For help with the techniques and “how to’s” in Lightroom I’m using the book by Scott Kelby called the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 book for Digital Photographers, and John Davenport’s Youtube.com Let’s Edit series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfmccqzrt18

I’ll let you know how I like Perfect Layers in the coming days.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-400mm at 112m| Circular Polarizer| Tripod

Photographing the Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley, CA (pamphotography.wordpress.com)
Sand Dunes in Death Valley (tctravelers.wordpress.com)
Sand Dunes (ecdcphotography.com)
Zabriskie Point Sunset (circadianreflections.wordpress.com)

Bearded Iris Morning

May 5, 2013May 5, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., PhotographyTagged Bearded Iris, Camera Lenses, Flowers, Nikon, Photography, San Jose California Nature PhotographyLeave a comment

I went to Nola’s Iris Garden yesterday with a Meet-Up group. It’s in the Eastern Foothills of San Jose, CA.
This should have peak season for them, but we’ve had several days of really warm temperatures lately and that has taken its toll on the Iris. I found most of them wilted and tired looking, but walking through the rows of Iris I did find several that were in good condition.
Nola’s specialize in Bearded Iris and are open to the public in April and May. I’d like to revisit this nursery next year and hopefully see it in all its splendor.

I used my Nikon D700 with my Nikkor 28-105mm AF-D micro lens for this outing. It’s an older lens which can only be found on the used market today. I purchased it to have a “walk around”, light mid-range zoom for hiking. The macro function wasn’t something I was really interested in at the time I purchased the lens, but I’ve used the macro function quite a bit since purchasing it, and I’m really happy with the results. The macro is a 1:2 ratio not a true 1:1, but I can get even closer using my Canon 500D Close-Up Lens with it.

Orange Beard

Colorful Housing

Farm tools

Woody met John Deer

A view of the Eastern Foothills from the garden

Volcano

April 25, 2013April 25, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Photography, Poetry, WritingTagged Haiku, Nikon, Poetry, San Jose California Nature Photography, Writing2 Comments

Inspired by Bruce’s haiku and link to Haiku Heights daily challenge my daughter, and I collaborated on today’s Haiku challenge.

Deeply seething dormant

belch gas fire ash

stagnant active unsure

Limited to 3 lines and 17 syllables is quite challenging, but we had fun. Neither one of us has written a haiku in some time.

This photo of Mt Shasta and Shastina in northern California’s Shasta Trinity National Forest is one I took back in 2010 while accompanying my husband who was riding a 139 mile cycling event; The Mt Shasta Summit Super Century . We both had a very successful week-end. He finished the ride in excellent time (10 hours), and I had a lovely time hiking in Castle Crags, and photographing pretty scenes like this sunset.

Thank you Bruce for the inspiration, and Baby Girl for working on it with me. 🙂

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