DeansterZ

DeansterZ: For those of you who have greatly contributed to my growth as a photographer and artist, I am genuinely thankful. As of today, I will be relocating exclusively to Flikr. There are several reasons as to why I will no longer be using FAR but primarily it is due to the fact that I do not have the time to keep up with several sites. I have been experimenting several different ones recently including DeviantArt, PhotoCrowd, BetterPhotos, 500pix and Behance, from Adobe. As it stands right now, Flikr offers the best combination of ease of use, intuitive navigation, and portfolio organization. Also, unlike FAR, it does not have a very 1990's feel to the page layout. Not sure how long my profile, posts, and images will remain viewable here but for anyone who wishes to contact me, send me a note at dnsjrs75b@gmail.com or look up DeansterZ on Flikr.

DeansterZ: So, I missed the Merlin but as a consolation, another rarely seen in this area, bird of prey landed in a tree out in the front yard. The lighting was nearly impossible and he was approximately 35-40 yards away and at least 30 feet or more above the ground. Still, I managed one shot that came out well enough that I could "rescue" it in Photoshop. Will post soon. Sometimes it pay to be lucky rather than good!

DeansterZ: When you hear an unfamiliar bird outside, be sure to take your camera to investigate the source. Leave it and you can be sure that the beautiful and very skittish Merlin will be long gone before you can retrieve it! Oh POOP!

DeansterZ: Out at my backyard photo blind for a bit this evening. As I was considering relocating the set up, several different birds dropped in all at once, Cardinals, Rusty Blackbirds, a couple of birds I have yet to identify, and for the first time ever, an Indigo Bunting! Images to follow...

DeansterZ: Day 3 and what a bummer! I left my tripod head at home and there is no way to do a proper polar alignment without it. Spent over two hours in the middle of the night attempting to rig something but ended in failure... Oh well, I did get a bunch of great bird shots and was it ever nice to get away for a few days. Edmond Art Festival in the morning then perhaps a stop at the world famous Round Barn of Arcadia before heading home.

DeansterZ: Two days into my road trip and so far, the star photography has been a bust. Clouds and major wind gust at night made it impossible to capture any decent shots of the Milky Way. On the plus side, I have got some good bird shots and several images of old abandoned homesteads.

DeansterZ: Spent several hours browsing through the displays at the Oklahoma City Art Festival. Met some genuine, world-class photographers, most of whom live here in the Sooner State. Being in OKC meant I also HAD to stop by Bedford's Camera up on North May. Left there with a new Manfrotto 055 Tripod to use with my recently acquired Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro set. Also have a trip planned out to the Salt Plains Wildlife Refuge in the Northwest part of the state. If all goes well and the weather cooperates, I should return with some killer Milky Way shots. (And for those of you familiar with that location, I will definitely spend some time digging up Selenite Crystals!) -Photos to follow...

DeansterZ: My latest acquisition- Topaz Labs Denoise AI software, WAY too AWESOME! Super handy for low light, high ISO, shooting scenarios but also does a fantastic job on basic noise reduction where the lighting and ISO were in better conditions.

DeansterZ: The word "art" is in the website name so for those of you who might be within a reasonable traveling distance, here's the information on the upcoming art show in Oklahoma City. It runs all next week from April the 19th through the 24th.
https://www.artscouncilokc.com/festival-of-the-arts/

DeansterZ: Recently invested in a Tragopan photography blind. Set it up in my dinning room this evening for a test fitting with my tripod and gear and will relocate it to the wood line behind the house tomorrow before sunrise. Hopefully, it will allow me to get me really close to the swarm of wild birds that descend on my feeders every morning.

DeansterZ: Operation, "Blue Ribbons to Green Bills" is in full swing. Sold four, 13x19 prints for $30 bucks apiece, one framed print for $50, and two 8 1/2 x 11 for a whopping five dollars! Keep this up and I will have that thousand dollar printer paid for in a few years... :)

DeansterZ: Artist of the Arbuckles in Sulphur, Oklahoma is currently holding their annual photography contest/show. After some debate as to what or even if I should enter anything, I submitted 5 different images in four different categories. Four of them won first place- the fifth photo was beat out by my own image in the same category. Now, if I can just convert those blue ribbons into some green bills!

DeansterZ: We finally got that snow, the one I wanted for a background with all the cardinals as the subject... However. who on Earth wants to go outside and take pictures when it's 18 degrees with a howling wind??? Ain't no bird worth that kind of suffering!

DeansterZ: Currently dabbling in super hi-resolution image printing. What I have learned is what looks good on the screen or on a web site does not cut it for large format prints. Taking my Dual Pixel RAW files and converting them to a printable format created some whopper file sizes! The 13x19 file of my post, "Morning Has Broken" set to 300 dpi, is over 256MB! Yikes! Gonna need some serious external storage real soon!

DeansterZ: Any ten year old with a smartphone can generate hundreds of snapshots with minimal effort. A few minutes of minor editing with that same smartphone can also produce a semi-decent image in some cases. However, I hope that is not the goal for anyone serious about photography. If an image looks like it was taken by a tourist as they whizzed by the scene in a hurry to move on to the next location, then it is nothing more than a trinket to be added to their boring album of memories that no one else really cares to see. Lighting, mood, angle, content, etc. all combine to tell a story, or at least they should. That is my goal this new year, to think about these things with every shot I take and even more so before posting my work online. Quality ALWAYS trumps quantity, even if the formula on FAR suggest otherwise.

DeansterZ: Have you ever been somewhere (outside at night) where it was so dark it made almost no difference if your eyes were open or closed? I just returned from such a place. Without exaggeration, it was the darkest location I have ever visited in my entire life. For those of you who live in or near urban areas let me tell you, light pollution sucks! What a difference it makes to get so far away from any city or even a small town when attempting to photograph the stars! That being said, I was a little disappointed when I realized there were several bands of high clouds partially blocking the night sky. Still, I managed to capture some really nice images and not just of the stars. I will be posting at least one of them soon. My just completed road trip out to Black Mesa left me with dozens of photos to sort and process.

DeansterZ: For those of you who happen to live near one of their stores, I found myself in Bedford's Camera a few days ago. That place is my kryptonite! Went in looking for good quality ND filter then dropped just over a grand for a new Canon ProGraf 300 printer and a few extra ink cartridges. Good thing Bedford's is over an hour's drive or I would be bankrupt!

FanArtReview wrote to DeansterZ: King of the Apple Tree finished second in the contest "The Color Red - Photography"

DeansterZ: Astrophotography is still my toughest challenge. A few nights ago, I stumbled upon Orion's Nebula when I maxed out the zoom on a photo of Orion's Belt. The nebula is the bottom "star" near the tip of his sword. It was really cool but unfortunately, I would need NASA level software to make it presentable... Oh well. As that intellectual giant, Buzz Lightyear, once said, "To infinity, and beyond!"

DeansterZ: Said goodbye to an old friend today with no chance of us ever meeting again. The many miles we have traveled together, the places we have been, the memories we have made are too many to recall. She was there when I scaled Black Mesa in the far corner of the Oklahoma panhandle. She witnessed my distress when I very nearly got lost in the Ouachita National Forest during a torrential downpour. It was with this same faithful companion that I captured an unbelievable shot of five lightening bolts descending right in front of me within a matter of seconds. That near-death experience alone made us feel much closer but it was not enough to keep us together forever. I did not have the courage to tell her that I had replaced her with a newer, sleeker, faster model. In the end, I convinced myself it was best she did not know. The 2006 model Canon EF 2.8 70-200 L IS USM 2.8 L could not compete with the newly acquired Canon RF 100-500 4.5-7.1 L IS USM upgrade. Comparing the two is hardly fair for the stately matriarch of my camera gear. It would be akin to comparing a favorite bicycle to a brand new Harley. I am comforted by the fact that she ended up in good hands- Bedford Camera in Oklahoma City and that they will see she finds a good home. What to do with that $200 EF-RF control ring adapter? Perhaps a keepsake of days gone by...

DeansterZ: Still stuck in night shift mode, don't see much daylight and have very little time for photography :(
I did get some killer shots of the lunar eclipse this past Thursday night. Also just upgraded my equipment in a big way.

DeansterZ: Nighttime photography is not my favorite so I pulled another Travertine Creek photo out of my archives- "Ever Flowing."

DeansterZ: The new night shift at work is putting a serious dent in my time available for photography or much anything else lately. Hence the reason for a 2:35 AM posting of a new photograph...

DeansterZ: Bummer schedule for me over the next 60-90 days. Working Midnight to 8 a.m. or possible as late as noon. Makes it very difficult to get out and take photos. Also, hardly any time to post or review. Will drop in when I can.

DeansterZ: Ten lessons learned by painful experience-

That old saying about "learning things the hard way," can be found in many of the following examples. Not that I chose to ignore instruction or common sense; I just stumbled into most of my mistakes by being too anxious in my pursuit of the elusive "perfect" shot. That leads me to lesson number one.

#1 - There is no such thing as the "Perfect" Shot! At least not in the amateur photography world where the vast majority of us live. I doubt that it exists among the professionals either. Let's just be honest up front- every single photograph ever captured could use some level of tweaking, altering, editing, adjusting or whatever we call it. Some definitely more than others but none of them ever have been or ever will be absolutely perfect as recorded.

#2 - Lesson number two is just as important. Keep your gear ready at all times! DO NOT put off cleaning, organizing, switching back from a special use lens, charging spent batteries, and all the things that should be done as soon as you return from the field. This has cost me far more opportunities than I care to admit. Case in point- Just a few day ago, a Barred Owl landed not 50 yards from my back door just after sunrise. I had been out almost until dark the previous evening taking wide-angle photos of a stormy skyline. Not only did I not have the correct lens mounted that was needed to photograph the unexpected visitor, I also had gone through all four of my batteries without charging any of them. I discovered my lack of a charged battery only after I hurriedly swapped to a telephoto lens. Needless to say, I did not get a picture of the owl or anything else that morning. It's a bit humorous now but at the time, I could not have been any more frustrated.

#3 - Drilling down further into the practical issues, I cannot stress how important it us that you PAY ATTENTION when applying insect repellent. One, it is no fun when you spray it in your nose, mouth or eyes. Also, it can also permanently mar the surface of various plastics. There is a spot on my brand-new EOS R where I touched it with a fresh, wet layer of DEET on my fingers. It left a permanent scar on the camera body and on my soul.

#4 - Speaking of scars, DEET, as good as is it, does not protect you from Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, Poison Sumac, briers, cactus needles, or rusty barbed wire. There are other post trauma remedies for the results of coming into contact with any of those vile barriers to our craft.

#5 - When pursuing a critter, an insect, or any object that tends to move faster than you, NEVER set down your gear bag in order to keep up with the subject. This is especially important when the subject is a dragonfly skimming through chest high weeds. Trust me, you will spend as much or more time searching for your stuff than you did chasing that stupid dragonfly! Also, there is some sort of supernatural force at work on this one. It can be assured that the further you are from your gear, the worse your photos will turn out and if you are far enough away, you won't get any photos at all! Try it some time if you doubt this is true.

#6 - If you should find yourself standing thigh-deep in icy water in order to get the perfect angle, always remember to place you camera on a sturdy tripod and move it well out of the way BEFORE you attempt to manually move a huge limb out of the shot. Today's better cameras are weather resistant but NOT waterproof when fully submerged. (Do the camera repair guys love me or what? I am their best customer!)

#7 - When you spend a couple of hours, say from midnight to 2 a.m. in the morning, practicing and perfecting your star-studded sky photography techniques, make sure you remove the polarizer filter from the lens. When set at it's brightest setting, the display screen on you camera is a LIAR! It will tell you everything is just fine when in fact, you just recorded dozens of useless images. Not to mention, missed most of a good night's sleep.

#8 - "No Trespassing" includes you. It is NOT just for would-be thieves, poachers, and folks looking for an illegal dump site. The same principal applies to other signage such as "Warning! Blast Area, Stay Out!" or "High Voltage" It doubly applies to, "Electric Fence in Use." They work on people just as well or better than they do on livestock.

#9 - If the urge strikes for you to photograph people in a public area, be VERY careful. Ugly people get REALLY upset when you take their picture without asking first. However, when you do ask, they seem to think they are somehow transformed into world-class models. Can't figure out why.

#10 - Set aside at least half or more of everything you read or watched online about outdoor photography. GO outside and learn by doing!