TGI Friday ~ February 21, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 21, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Geese on the move

Happy Friday!

Last Sunday Jeanne and I were on our usual photo drive and we were coming down a country road when Jeanne said “OMG, look over there.”  I thought it must be significant because she is usually telling me to keep my eyes on the road.  🙂

So here were all of these white geese in a straight line (like lemmings) headed somewhere.  I just caught a glimpse of them and then we were by them.  After turning around twice, finding a place (the middle of the road) to park I got as close as I could.  Apparently I caused some real confusion in the ranks because some of the geese decided to turn around and go the other way and the other half didn’t get the message.  So there was chaos in geese-ville.  🙂

All ended well because the geese at the front of the pack seeing resistance from the group turned around and continued on their predetermined journey.

Old Shed

I have photographed this old structure (which is still in use) many times.  In fact it is on the Iowa Banker’s 2014 calendar for November.  Since I have taken so many images of it before and many of them I have posted here I decided to try a different processing style.  The more I look at it the more I really like it.  In fact if I may say so I really like it.

At around 11:00 p.m. last night I finally finished up the last of the portraits from the 2014 Maquoketa Chamber’s Gala.  If you have a little spare time and want to have a look just click on the “daveupdegraff.com ” link on the right of this blog and then click on the Gala link there.

Well that’s it for today.  I am so glad it is the weekend again even though the weather sounds crappy.  The weather will probably keep the Phantoms grounded again.

Enjoy your day.  Thanks for your support of this blog.  I will do my best to bring you interesting things to look at and think about.  Be careful.

Thursday ~ February 20, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 20, 2014
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Maquoketa State Bank From The Air

Happy Thursday! 

Yesterday at precisely 5:01 p.m. I and three of my friends from work walked over to the Northern most parking lot at our bank in Maquoketa and I launched the Phantom.  The goal was to take an aerial image of the bank’s footprint.  I’ve always been curious as to what the bank would look like from overhead.  So since the temperature was a balmy 37 degrees (it felt colder than that after 5 minutes) a light wind of around 7 mph and nice sunshine what better time to fly.

I sent the Phantom to an altitude of 387 feet and took this image.  Then trying to get a better composition I went a little higher and I thought a little further South.  Since I’ve never seen Maquoketa from the air I got disoriented and couldn’t figure out where I was from the tiny monitor on my iPhone.  Fortunately my friends never lost sight of the little speck with the green lights so they guided me back over the bank where I made a perfect two point landing.  🙂

I made another critical mistake as well.  I shot about 15 minutes of video including a couple of minutes of my friends smiling at the Phantom.  Unfortunately when I landed the copter I turned it off before stopping the video on the iPhone application, which corrupts the video and renders it useless.  😦

Other than that mistake it was a fun experience and my friends really enjoyed watching the Phantom fly.  We drew a few other spectators as well.  🙂

Like anything, I will get better and make fewer mistakes the more practice I get.  I wonder what it is like to operate the controller with unfrozen fingers?

Thanks for stopping by.  Some difficult weather over the next few days so be careful.

 

Wednesday ~ February 19, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 19, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

A horse searches for food

Happy Hump Day Wednesday! 

A rather abbreviated post today because as usual I am running way late.  I’ve been working on the portraits I took at the Maquoketa Chamber Gala – 2014 pretty solid for the last few days and I’m getting close to being done but still have some more work ahead of me.  Each portrait takes about 30 – 45 minutes of processing, enhancing, compressing, uploading and posting to the website so the subjects of the portrait can download them to their computer and either print them at home or send them to a print facility like Wal-Mart, Snap Fish or some other printer.

I have 28 completed and another 12 to do.  On the whole I am very pleased with the results.  Like so many things I do not shoot studio portraits often enough to develop a flow and style.  I love to shoot portraits but it is a lot of work for me because in many instances the lighting is not quite right or the subject has some article of clothing out-of-place or any number of a hundred other things that have to be fixed in post processing.

I tried a new lighting set up on this shoot that I had seen on one of the on-line courses I have taken.  It worked great as long as people stood exactly on the mark that I had taped to the floor.  I didn’t always get them to do that as there were people behind them impatiently waiting to get their portrait taken and so if one of the couple would move too close to the light I got really bad hotspots and those (for me anyway) are hard to correct.  Granted if I had taken my time and insisted on people standing in the right place and not take the shot until it is perfect that would solve a lot of problems.  But I like to accommodate people so it was more of a one, two your through and on to the next one. 😦

Wait a minute, didn’t I say this was going to be a short post?  The image above was shot last night on the way home.  I saw this guy kicking at the ground trying to find something to eat through all the snow.  The light was perfect from the setting sun so I pulled off the highway onto the shoulder and grabbed this image.  I’m going to get killed one of these days doing that.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your midweek hump day and as always be careful.

Tuesday ~ February 18, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 18, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Phantom-2 B

Happy Tuesday!  If you’ve followed this blog for awhile you remember me telling you I was working on a project that required some assembly and wiring.   Well this is what I was working on.  It is my second Phantom.  I know what you’re saying.  No there was no need for a second one but I wanted a better video camera than the Vision 2 (which has a great still camera) so this is it.

It carries a GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition video camera attached to a Zenmuse gimbal, which provides for a really stable platform.  So no matter what attitude the Phantom is in the camera stays level.  I also had to install a transmitter (that’s the white thing sticking out of the back) so that I could communicate with the camera.  It took probably a full 8 hours of work to get the thing ready to fly.  It was actually cheaper than the Vision 2 but required a lot of set up.

I know, the wiring looks terrible but that is just until I get things configured the way I want them, then I’ll tidy up the wiring.

Flying Phantom 2 vision

This is the Vision 2 Phantom (so you can see the difference.)  The vision 2 has a dedicated camera and is pretty much ready to fly out of the box.  It uses a WiFi connection with an iPhone App to provide first person view (FPV) of the actual flight.  There is no gimbal on the Vision 2 so you get a lot of distortion when there is wind (and there is always wind) and when you change direction.  It has a 14 mp camera and shoots in RAW so it captures a lot of data.

FPV Monitor

This is the FPV for the new system.  I’m having a lot of problems with it right now and I’m trying to correspond with the manufacturer about the issues.  Hopefully once that is resolved I will be able to get some HD resolution video of the flights.  The flight below is a 7.5 minute clip of the first flight with this system.  It was 22 degrees and like I said I was having a lot of problems with the monitor, not to mention it was as cold as a witch’s heart.  I couldn’t feel my fingers.  I trimmed out a lot of sitting idle from the video.  There still is a bit more than I would like but I was trying to fiddle with the monitor so I just let the Phantom hover.

I still have less than a full hour of practice with the Phantom so I have a lot to learn about controlling it and making it go where I want it to.  Jeanne assures me that warmer weather is coming and I can get in more flying time.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Thanks for checking out the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ February 17, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 17, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

A lone tree in the field

Happy Monday.  One of the advantages of working in the banking industry is that we traditionally recognize 9 holidays.  Today is one that is recognized by the Federal Reserve (President’s Day) so we get the day off.  Yea!!

Yesterday I looked at the thermometer and it said 31 degrees.  The minimum flying temperature for the Phantom is 24 degrees so I reasoned that it would be a good day to fly.  Well by the time we got to the little park that I like to fly at the temperature was around 22 on my car thermometer.   Naw, that can’t be right so I decided to fly anyway.  It was cold, really cold and the flight lasted only about 8 minutes I was out in the cold for about 25 minutes and I was a Popsicle.

I would like to show you the video from that flight (there is a lot of white in it) but I’m still trying to figure out the best way to edit the video.  I need to take more lessons.  😦

After flying Jeanne and I drove through the country looking for interesting subjects to photograph.  We found a few and I will share those with you as the week progresses.  I like this lonely tree sitting in the middle of a harvested field.  I hope you do too.

That’s it for today.  I’m not even halfway through processing the portraits so that’s what I’m going to be doing today.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ February 15, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 15, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

Running the gauntlet

I’m sorry I just had to share one more duck image with you.  I was culling some of the 300 images I shot of the ducks and came across this one.  Talk about having to run a gauntlet.  Anyway I like all the action and color of this image.

Short post today.  Nothing worthy on my mind just looking forward to a three-day veg.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and please be careful.

Friday ~ February 14, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 14, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

February-09-2014-3A

Happy Friday and a very Happy Valentines’ Day to you.  I hope you get to share some part of this day with the one you love.

The last few visits to the 16th Street Basin have been for naught.  We usually stop there before going to the river because in years past there has been an abundance of wildlife throughout the Winter.  Not so this year.  Perhaps because of the severity of the weather or some other factor they have just not been stopping by the Basin.

Last Sunday when Jeanne and I returned from our fruitless trip to Guttenberg, we decided to do our usual drive by of the Basin.  This time we were delighted to see that one small corner of the Basin had some open water and it was crammed full of ducks and geese.  So we pulled over for a better look.

February-09-2014-3B

We spent close to a half hour watching this scene play out.  This little duck jabbed into the water and came up with this fish.  He promptly went to the solid ice to grab some bites of it.  One of the females had other ideas and she was relentless in her pursuit of him.  It was kind of like watching the old Keystone Cops.  He would try every serpentine movement imaginable but to no avail as she was on him like glue. 🙂

February-09-2014-3C

It wasn’t long before others including a larger goose got in on the chase.  Sort of the way life is.  This little duck was innovative and hard-working.  He found a way to get some food. Then others who were not interested in working for it tried to take it away from him.  Sound familiar?   There are those who walk among us that see life as a zero sum game.  If you have something or enjoy success that some how diminishes their chances.

February-09-2014-3D

Well eventually the big goose got the fish away from the hapless duck and took it back to the water.  Problem is there were others who were as larcenous as he was and they pursued him with great intensity.  Jeanne and I watched this play out for almost a half an hour.  It was funny at times but as I reflected on it kind of sad as well.

The big goose finally lost the fish to a smaller quicker duck and then we decided to move on.  I had the D4 set to burst mode so I shot about 200 images of this struggle.  No, don’t worry, I won’t show you more of the great fish caper.  I just thought you might enjoy it today.

Again I wish you Happy Valentines’ Day.  I realize that I am the luckiest man alive.  At least once a week from friends and acquaintances, I will hear, “Your poor wife.”  She is a treasure to be sure.  When she smiles the world is brighter.  She is truly a wonder.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ February 13, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 13, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Fabulous Flying Fowl

Déjà vu?  No not really.   I know I posted a similar image just a couple of days ago and this is from that series of shots.  A group of geese took off from the 16th Street Basin.  I was actually sitting on a higher elevation then they were so I was able to shoot down on them as they took of and gained altitude.  I love the pattern and the shadows of this group of geese.  When they took to the air I had the D4 set to burst mode (11 fps) and so I just pressed the shutter and let it rip.  I took about 70 images before they got mixed in with the rest of the scenery.  I won’t show any more of them but I really like this black and white rendition of the shot.

I decided to attend Rotary yesterday.  I haven’t been a very good Rotarian for the last couple of years.  I was so focused on my responsibilities as the Chamber President that I just didn’t have anything left for Rotary.  Now that my term has expired and I’m no longer active on the board I am trying to get refocused on Rotary.  I only bring this up because at the meeting yesterday the main topic of discussion at our tables and greetings before and after the meeting centered on how sick everyone is of the weather.

I know that we can choose our own attitude but with this constant bombardment of harsh winter conditions it is hard to stay upbeat and positive.  I think it is safe to say we are all looking forward to some warmer, calmer weather.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  No more flying geese for awhile.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Wednesday ~ February 12, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 12, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Beautiful Sunset

Happy Hump Day!  This is what I saw on the way home from work yesterday.  The only thing in my mind that would have made this sunset more spectacular was if there was a large body of water and palm trees instead of the darken fields of Eastern Iowa.

The light was so soft and orange on the way home last night but I could never get in a position to photograph anything interesting in that wonderful light.  When I turned onto Airline Road I saw this and I had to pull over (almost getting buried in snow) and grab some images of the sunset.  Two cars behind me were not pleased with my sudden slow down and stop maneuver.

Interesting day at work yesterday.  I can say that my days are rarely the same and never boring.  I always seem to learn new things every day as well, which is a good thing in my view.

That’s it for today.  Hope you enjoy your day.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Be careful.

Tuesday ~ February 11, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 11, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Flying Geese

Happy Tuesday!  Back at it today.  I enjoyed my four-day weekend.  I could get very use to this life style . 🙂

I know this is a butt shot of a couple of geese but I really like this image for a number of reasons.  I hope you enjoy it as well.  Remember you can click on the image to make it larger.

Not a lot to pontificate about this morning.  I spent most of yesterday putting some final touches on the project I’ve been working on and processed some more images from a shoot I did last month.  I did take the camera out for an hour and a half looking for “things” to shoot but didn’t find anything that caught my attention.  Sometimes the well is dry and sometimes it isn’t.

Thanks for stopping by.   Enjoy your day and be careful.