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 …
When I got my first dSLR, I started collecting vintage manual lenses to expand my lens collection. How do they hold up on today’s high-res mirrorless cameras?
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!
Last year I only made it to the Halloween Haunt at Kings Dominion once, very late in the run. This year I hit it on opening night, and will definitely be going back again. It was a busy night, of course, but I had a ball checking things out. Come along!
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”