On my way to an evening concert up in the Washington DC area, I made it more of a day trip by stopping by a few parks between here and there. Two (Neabsco Creek Boardwalk and Huntley Meadows Park) I’d visited before and really enjoyed, and the third (Scott’s Run Preserve) was a new one …
At the end of each year, I really enjoy going through the year’s photos and whittling down my keepers to an even 100 that I think represent my best for that year. It’s a great exercise in seeing what worked and what didn’t, how my shooting and editing style changed, and mentally revisiting some of the most magical places and moments of the year. Come along and see!
Dutch Gap Conservation Area is my favorite place in the Richmond area for a nice wildlife hike–always lots to see and hear out there! This time, I headed out with my Canon EOS R7, which I picked up about a month ago. I love my R5, of course, but I found that for wildlife and macro especially, I often missed the 1.6x APS-C crop factor that I was used to from my previous dSLR cameras. So I did some shooting and made a video with my thoughts on the R7 after a month or so. Come along!
With fall color still near peak, I headed back over to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a wander. The destination: The Peaks of Otter area, with an eye towards finding the site where a B-25 bomber crashed into Sharp Top Mountain in 1943. Come along and check it out!
I wandered to a new-to-me location, the Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery in Charles City, Virginia. I thought it might make a good place to see what I could do with the combination of my 800mm f/11 IS STM and the Canon 1.4x RF teleconverter–would 1120mm and f/16 produce decent results? Come along and see!
I took a day off to make a long birthday weekend for myself, and headed for my happy place: the mountains! My main goal was to hike the Hawksbill Summit Trail, to reach the highest point of Shenandoah National Park. It was a beautiful and crisp day, the first full day of fall, so I also added a couple shorter trails: Lewis Mountain Trail and Stony Man Trail. As a bonus, I made a sunrise stop on the way to check out the Barboursville Ruins. Come along!
I enjoyed kayaking when we lived in Florida, but I haven’t done much of that since moving to Virginia. So recently I got myself a new kayak (more on that in a bit), and hope to use it a lot more in the near future! Today I loaded it up for a wander to Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield VA, about 20 minutes from home. I hit the waters of Swift Creek Lake for a lovely morning paddle. Come along!
A few months ago, I decided to sell my DJI Air 2S drone and pick up a new Mini 3 Pro when it came out. I loved how solid the Air 2S was, and I loved its features and image quality–but it was a bit too large and noisy for my taste, so I found …
Read more “Wander: Pump House Park, ACL Railroad Bridge, and My New Mini 3 Pro!”
I’m the lucky owner of both Canon’s RF 800mm f/11 and RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L lenses, so I thought it might be interesting to compare them out in the field, using the Canon RF 1.4x teleconverter to make the 100-500mm a 700mm f/10 lens at the long end. So I packed them up with my R5 …
Read more “Gear Up: Canon RF Long Lens Shootout at Dutch Gap”
If you live in a place where they can be found, photographing summer fireflies is an interesting challenge. Like astrophotography, it takes a little more work and patience–but the results can be pretty awesome! Living in the Virginia piedmont region, we’ve got lots of fireflies this time of year. I’ve been practicing in my backyard …