I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been keeping pretty busy.  So here’s a quick recap on what we’ve been doing in school.  We’ve basically covered the technical side of photography at this point and have started to move into the creative side of things now.   We’re learning to critique photographs and discussing what makes a good photograph.  We’ve also had our first print lab where I got to print out a couple of my photos.  It’s amazing how good they look when you have a good printer. 

We also had some more studio time, this time working with multiple light set-ups.  I’m not really getting into the studio work.  I’m finding I like shooting outdoors much better…big surprise, I know.  One of the last technical concepts we covered was the color zone system.  I’m finding that it makes my life much easier when shooting.  In the last week or two, I’ve found that I can get the exposure right the first time on the majority of my shots rather than having to take additional shots to make adjustments.  I think I’m finally making some improvements here.

Last weekend, much of our class went to Augusta, Montana to shoot the rodeo.  I ended up with a few good shots, but the majority were not as great as I hoped, primarily due to the lens I was using.  The 50-500mm lens I have just isn’t very good.  So the following Monday, I cracked open my wallet and bought the Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens and the 1.4x teleconverter.  It’s not as long as the 500mm obviously, but it’ll work in most cases and will give me much better results.  It’s a very nice piece of glass.  And just for fun, I bought a Lensbaby 2.0 as well.  If you’re unfamiliar with those, you’ll see some shots from it in a week or two.  It’s a lot of fun.

Speaking of photos, I’m way behind in my processing, which is why you haven’t seen many being posted lately.  I’ve started catching up so you’ll start to see new stuff being posted little by little in the next couple of days.   The moon shot above is from the middle of June when the moon was full.  We had to stay out until about 11:30pm before it was high enough to clear the mountains.  My 500mm worked well for this type of photography so I guess I’ll keep it around despite having the new lens.  There’s a few more shots of the moon on my Flickr stream.  The shot to the right is from a old growth cedar grove I visited during the second or third week here…I forget when.  Days and weeks are starting to run together now.

Tonight, I’m going to try my hand at photographing fireworks.  With any luck, you’ll get to see any good shots I get by the end of the month.

I arrived in Missoula, safe and sound, on Thursday night after two very long days of driving.  I left Chippewa Falls at around 11:30am CDT on Wednesday morning and arrived in Rapid City, SD at 9:30pm MDT for a total of 11 1/2 hours (with the time zone change) behind the wheel.  After spending the night, I left Rapid City Thursday morning at 7:30am and arrived in Missoula at 7pm, completing my second 11 1/2 hour day behind the wheel.  I believe that’s about my limit.  I was pretty exhausted.

The drive from Wisconsin to Western South Dakota is one of the most boring drives ever.  There really is nothing to see until you reach the Badlands (and it was dark by the time I got there).  I’ve done this drive several times when visiting my brother and his family in Rapid City, which makes it all the more boring.  What little there is to see, I’ve already seen before.

The drive from Rapid City to Missoula, on the other hand, is incredible.  It starts in the Black Hills, briefly degenerates to open grasslands, but then jumps into one mountain range after another.  It just keeps getting better.  Even though I was tired from the previous day, I still really enjoyed it.  I tried to take pictures while I drove (not that safe, I know, but there was very little traffic and I shot everything one-handed without looking through the viewfinder) and I ended up with a few really nice ones.  This is my favorite:

You can view the rest in my Flickr stream starting here.

…but, shortly after I took this picture, I wanted to slap myself upside the head. I had just switched lens and grabbed my bike to head to my next location. I lost my grip on the bike for a moment and in my haste to re-establish it, I must have forgotten the camera in my other hand. Instead of the bike falling, my 5D slipped from my hand, slid down my leg, and hit the asphalt from about 2 ft up. My heart stopped.

After I started breathing again, I picked it up and examined it. It looked like everything was fine. Everything seemed to be working. No major damage. Just a few small scratches on the corner. All the electronics appeared to be working correctly. I thought I had gotten lucky and rode off. When I got to my next destination however, I discovered I hadn’t been. When I took my first picture, the mirror flipped up and down three times in quick succession and an error appeared on the display. It did take the picture, however. I power cycled it and tried again. Same result. I turned it off, removed the battery, waited a bit, and then tried one more time. Same result. Crap.

Looks like I’ll be visiting the local camera repair shop on my first day in Missoula. There probably isn’t enough time to get if fixed here before I go. I guess it’s a good thing I bought the 40D. At least, I can keep shooting in the meantime…and the strap will be around my neck at all times from here on out.

On a lighter note, tomorrow is my last day of work. You may be excited for your three day weekend, but I’ve got a six month weekend coming up.

This is my birthday present to myself (a month early). I’m such a giver.

The rationale for these purchases:

The gorillapod: Because sometimes you just don’t want to carry a full tripod.

The 50mm: I’m always reading about how great these lenses are for portraits, especially in low light, so I had to have one.  This shot was taken with this new lens.  The DOF will take some getting used to.  My face is slightly out-of-focus and I’m only at f3.2!

The 12-24mm: I’m moving to Montana at the end of the month.  Is there a better reason to get an ultra-wide?  This lens should rock on my full-frame 5D!

The 40D: Why get a 40D when I already have a 5D? Three reasons. 1. I wanted to have a back-up body when I’m at photography school.  I don’t want to be in the situation I was in two winters ago at a photography workshop in Maui where my camera (my old Digital Rebel) broke and I had to tape it back together in order to keep shooting. 2. I also own the Sigma 50-500mm lens.  I was happy with this lens on my old Digital Rebel with the crop sensor, but was really disappointed with it on the full-frame 5D.  It shows significant vignetting on the full sensor.  The 40D has a 1.6X crop sensor so I should be happy with it again.  3. I like wildlife photography and wildlife tends to move, often very quickly.  The 40D can shoot at 6.5fps while the 5D can only shoot at 3fps.  I figure the 50-500mm will stay on the 40D most of the time.  I’ll use the 5D for everything else.

I also purchased a couple of polarizers and some camera bags to carry all my new gear.

I posted my latest self-portrait over on my photoblog.  It’s a picture of me drinking my new favorite beverage…V8 Fusion.   That stuff is liquid candy.  If it wasn’t 100% fruit and vegetable juice, I’d probably feel guilty about drinking an entire bottle in one day (which happens quite often). 

Unfortunately, I wasted close to an entire bottle trying to get the shot.  I got a few good gulps out of it though.  The picture I posted was one of the last shots I took before I ran out of juice.  It’s the only one I really liked.  I just couldn’t seem to get the timing right.  I’d either take the photo too early (before the juice left the bottle) or too late (after it was already in my mouth…or splashing on my chin).  I wish I could have kept my eyes open, but they instinctively closed every time as soon as the juice was coming at me.  I guess that’s a good thing.  Sort of takes away from the shot a little though.

In case you’re wondering, I was standing in my bathtub when I took the photo.  It was a lot easier to clean up that way.

After I posted the self-portrait last week, I realized I probably should have posted on my photoblog rather than here, so I moved it.  There’s also a new picture on the photoblog.  Go check it out.

I was looking through my photos tonight and realized I can count the number of pictures I’ve taken so far this year on one hand and still have fingers left over.  That’s pretty sad.  I’m not sure why I haven’t been shooting much this month.  I think it might be the cold weather.  I usually shoot a lot outdoors so with temperatures staying consistently in the single digits or below, I haven’t been spending much time outside.  And I don’t have a lot of interesting subjects in my apartment, so that hasn’t produced any images either.

I was thinking of doing a self-portrait tonight, but I discovered I couldn’t find my shutter remote.  It’s a wireless system.  I have the transmitter, but I can’t find the receiver that plugs into the camera.  I looked everywhere I could think of.  The last time I remember having it was when I was shooting the pictures of the deer last fall.  I’m thinking I must have dropped the receiver in the woods somewhere the last time I was out.  Since it’d be buried under snow now, there isn’t much point in heading out to look for it.  I doubt it would have survived this long anyway.  I wasn’t too terribly impressed with the build quality of the components.  I don’t think I’ll buy the same one again.

I’m still excited and looking forward to photography school this summer, so this isn’t a lack of interest in photography.  It’s just a little lull.  I’ll start shooting again soon.  In the meantime, I’ll start shopping for remotes.

Now this would be fun to play with: a Casio Exilim EX-F1.  It’s capable of shooting at bursts of 60 frames per second (fps) and movies at 1200 fps!!!  Just think of the cool action shots you could get with this camera.  For comparison, my Canon 5D is only capable of shooting in bursts of 3 fps and most camcorders record at around 30 fps.

My old blog at www.tonyrix.com has now been converted to a photoblog and has its first post.  Go check it out!

You may notice the watermark on the photo and wonder, “What the heck is wanderinglightphotography.com?”  Well, that’s the name I chose for my photography brand, or business, or whatever you want to call it.  It has its own domain and website where you can view my best work and even purchase prints if you like.  As to why I chose “Wandering Light”, I’ll cover that in a future post.  I’m not in the mood to type it tonight.

On my way to go hiking on the day after Christmas, I swung by Mount Rushmore and snapped a few pictures. I just pulled off on the side of the road in designated areas. I was too cheap to pay for visitor parking at the monument itself, which is why none of the photos are from the front of it.

Click on the image to view the entire set.