Today we moved the feeder closer to our blind. It didn't seem to bother our subject. I took this image today with my D3 and 70-200mm ED AF-S lens racked out at 200mm. I used f-4 and 1/1000th sec. because originally I planned on getting the bird in flight but today he was too fast for me. I shot EV -1 to make sure I didn't overexpose my highlights. I then post processed in Capture NX2 using Jason Odell's wildlife post processing technique.

Baltimore Orioles

Here is my first attempt to capture a Baltimore Oriole. Our feeder, in our backyard has finally attracted a male and female. I think they have a nest in a nearby woods. They have started coming to feed this week. I didn't want to get too close to this bird while it feeds until it gets comfortable coming around. I will be posting better images soon, but for now I am happy to see them. Image taken with Nikon D3, 70-200mm ED AF-S VR, from about 35 feet away.

50th Anniversary

Today the Gedeon Family celebrated their parents 50th anniversary at Antonio's Restaurant in Niagara Falls. We did some group portraits and had a great time with the Gedeon Families. The one above shows Mr and Mrs Gedeon with all their grandchildren. A wonderful and sentimental shot. The kids crack me up, each has their own individual personality, and everyone wanted to ham it up. Everyone had a great time and I am sure it was a most memorable occasion for all who attended.

IR Photography

This is an example of infrared photography with a digital camera. The image is of my backyard in June. It looks like it snowed last night but it didn't. This technique was achieved by using my camera in manual mode. I set the ISO to the highest setting 25,600 and the aperture at 2.8. I then set the shutter to 1/2 sec. I used the monochrome setting and added R-72 IR filter to the lens. Camera was steadied on a table and image was post processed in Photoshop CS3. Quite a cool effect for a summer time picture don't you think? Shot with Nikon D3, 24-70mm ED AF-S.

Another finished restoration

Update on the restoration we are doing. The completed project is finished and I think if came out well considering the lack of resolution we had to work with. We brought back a lot of detail with Photoshop CS3 and adjusted the contrasts in layers. We then cloned out most of the scratches and color tinted the photo to match the original tone. The edges had to be cropped slightly and the image was re sized to 3.75x3.25".

Nathan's Photo Shoot

Nathan had his first photo shoot this week. He is three months old and such a wonderful baby. We used several changes of clothing and shot many different poses. These are some of my favorites from the sitting. We hope to have Nathan back many times. These images will make a great start for baby's first years baby book.

New Restoration Project

Today's challenge is interesting. Our client would like these two pictures restored. The pictures have been seriously neglected. They are sun faded badly and do not have much resolution. Fortunately our client wishes to keep the images the same size as the originals 3.75 x 3.25".

The pictures have been coated with wax. I have no idea why. It may have been a way of preserving images back then, but I have never heard of this method. Also, someone has crossed scratches across both images like a tic tac toe game. They appear to have been matted and framed so the outside edges are a higher contrast than the center of the image. This could be a problem or could be a blessing. One, it will be hard to match the two contrasts so we may crop it out a bit. Two, it may help us because it gives more insight to how the original image looked. Either way this will be a project.