Rick’s Rants and Raves

Yesterday, the 70-300mm lens that I ordered arrived. Fortunately, my wife and I had been planning a trip to scenic Hocking Hills today, so we had plenty of opportunities to try it out. The first thing I realized is that 70mm is pretty narrow. I’ve been using the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my camera, and I spend most of the time at 55mm end. Therefore I figured the 70mm would be pretty close. Well it isn’t, especially for anything scenic.

We first went to Rockbridge State Nature Preserve. The primary attraction for most visitors is the natural rock bridge.

(18-55mm lens)

Fortunately, I packed in my tripod on this trip, so the picture above had a 13 second exposure time because it was so dark under the bridge. I also played with long exposure of the waterfall on top of the bridge.

We continued to hike nearly all the trails in the park, probably 3 miles total, looking for opportunities to exercise our cameras and creative abilities. At one point, Anne commented that she wished it were easier to capture the play of light and shadow that makes walking through a woods such fun. We were near a ravine that afforded a decent amount of visibility, with sunlight dappling all around. I decided to make my first attempt at creating an HDR image–it didn’t go well because of the leaves moving in the breeze. But I’m pleased with one of the shots from that stop–I think it captures the light and the dark in the forest pretty well.

This ferny-mossy stuff was nearly everywhere. I don’t know what its called, but its very soft, and looks like it would be a great place for a nap. For this shot, I used the macro mode of the new lens to get uber close up.

And this stuff was just plain wicked looking with the red stems sticking up everywhere.

On our way back to the car, I took this shot of a tree, a cloud, and a hill. It made me think of the windows desktop background called ‘Bliss’.

We also stopped to take pictures of elderberry blossoms using the macro on the new lens. Wow, is that a narrow depth of field.

Just before we got back to the car, I caught a glimpse of blue on my left side. It turned out to be an indigo bunting, which Anne immediately recognized, but that I don’t remember having seen before. I shot frantically, not paying enough attention to camera settings. I happened to be in program mode, over-exposed by one f-stop, and at ISO 200. Full auto would have been better. Since I was zoomed at 250mm, my 1/60th exposure led to a good bit of camera shake in most of the pictures. This is the best one of the bunch, and its still not great.

We left Rockbridge (after getting my car jump started, and having the battery replaced at Walmart–DOH!) and headed to Clear Creek Metro Park. This macro-shot of a mushroom on a moss covered log is my favorite of the day, and was the first inside Clear Creek.

We saw a pair of Eastern Bluebirds perched on handicap parking signs. I was just fast enough to catch the female.

When we drove by Written Rock, we couldn’t help but stop and take a look. It is a magnificent rock face that used to have petroglyphs on it. Unfortunately the ancient marks are long gone, and there are more than enough new ones. Yes Katie, we’re very proud that you “heart” Jeremy. Anyway, from the opposite side of the road at 18mm, it took 6 shots to cover the whole face. To give you an idea of scale, there is a small black hole in the lower left of the image that is about 5 feet off the ground. And here’s Anne in front of it.

We made one last stop at Lake Ramona. By the end of our exploring, we were pretty wiped out. But Anne is so wonderful that she always has a smile and a wave for me.