I’ve honestly never seen a sky this color. Just after a big line of storms blew through on Sunday evening, the setting sun (already below the horizon) began to throw off the most interesting orange cast in the low clouds. I took advantage of the graduated neutral density filter I just bought for my trip to Aspen to handle the large dynamic range between sky and foreground. I like the result. Crazy.
Tags: graduated neutral density, orange, sky
So this post is going to be one of those geeky excursions into gadgetland - specifically, into the world of the new spiffy camera I bought for my birthday. I’ve been looking for a ‘run-around’ camera - when I don’t want to be bothered by the full Canon 5D and complement of lenses, but just want something close at hand to capture the kids, the world around me, that fits in my pocket, has enough pro features to keep me happy, etc. I selected the Ricoh GX100, a very pocketable, RAW-shooting, zoom-lens rangefinder.
There are a number of entries in the somewhat arcane ‘rangefinder-like’ prosumer point-and-shoot category. These are basically digicams trying to behave sort of like the Leica M-series film cameras of old, for those of us who don’t quite bring in the mon-ay to afford the $5k price tag for the Leica M8 - without a lens. The cameras I looked at all have street prices between $500 and $700 - so they are not toys by any means. Leica has their D-Lux 3, Sigma produces the impressive new DP-1 (with the unusual Foveon sensor), and Ricoh has a couple of entries - the multi-focal-length GX1000 and the fixed-lens GRs. None of these (until you hit the stratospheric M8 class) have truly interchangeable lenses - but the GX has a lovely 24-72 f/2.5-4.4. Wide enough to provide visuals rarely seen on a point-and-shoot - and an aperture range that allows (along with the hardware anti-shake feature) to grab images you might not be able to capture otherwise. The other key feature here was that the camera can capture in RAW format - in this case, the pretty-much universal DNG or digital negative. That makes post-processing a breeze in Lightroom. I’m very happy with this little gem so far. I’m not thrilled with the electronic viewfinder the kit came with - I’m going to be looking into some spiffy Voigtlander optical viewfinders a lot of enthusiasts say work well with the GX100.
Here is a gallery of some other images I’ve captured in these first few days.
Tags: camera, rangefinder, ricoh
So I was drafted this year to take the class and individual photos of the Grant Park Cooperative Preschool this year. Some 2000 images later, here are all the photos! For those parents coming here to Trotz.com to peruse the images for purchase (all funds benefit the Preschool), please follow the links below to review the galleries.
To order prints: please download the order form here (Microsoft Excel file, 24kb). Order forms should be turned into either GPCP office in the envelope marked with “Spring Pictures Orders” with check (made out to GPCP) or cash by Monday, May 5th. Order forms are also available at the offices.
The whole city feels like ‘hot coals’ - we hit 97 yesterday. Uggh.
Tags: atlanta, Photography, red
Sam and I spent the Sunday before last at one of our favorite spots - the Georgia Aquarium. We were there very early, and beat the crowds. On top of that, we managed to watch as the sea lions were fed - they were amazing. Sam nearly took a nap in the quiet of the main tank viewing room, but didn’t succumb in the end. Full gallery is here.
Tags: aquarium, atlanta, georgia_aquarium, Photography, sam, sea_lions
Looking for some edutainment on a recent Sunday, we headed to Fernbank. Sam loved the lizards exhibit (including the snake above). More photos here. The image above got quite popular on Flickr, rising to page fourteen on their ‘interestingness’ section.
Tags: Photography
Chaos, the elder feline statesman of the Trotz household, relaxes in one of his favorite spots recently as he recovers from his bout of pneumonia. He’s doing very well now, and is his usual self again.
Tags: cats, Photography
