Upde Designs

I was so pumped yesterday.  By 10:00 am we had bright sunshine in Dubuque and so my intent was to go to Le Claire LD #14 and shoot with Burt G.    I called him and he said that LD #14 was socked in with fog and rain.  Plus there were no eagles around.

The good news was that we talked on the phone for about 25 minutes and I picked up some excellent tips from Burt on post processing.  So after getting the equipment ready and having a little lunch I decided that I needed to get some practice in with the new lens.  I headed for Green Island.

First stop Bellevue.  Two minutes after I left Dubuque city limits the sun went behind the clouds and I never saw it again for the rest of the day.  It progressively got darker and colder as the day wore on.

Nothing doing at the lock and dam at Bellevue.  Undaunted I pressed on to Green Island.  By the time I drove all the roads of Green Island my metallic bronze colored car looked like a mud ball.  No eagles, no birds, nothing at Green Island.  On the way back to the highway I did come across some geese in a pond but they were at the far end and were on the wrong side of the road for me.

Okay now I’m getting disappointed.  So I headed for Sabula.   I was concerned when I pulled across the bridge because the entire waterway was iced over and there were no birds of any kind on the water.

I thought I might as well go over to the marina and the park and shoot some gulls.  The gulls were out in the middle of the water on the ice.  Too far for a 500 mm lens.  I finally did see 4 eagles.  The one eagle on the ice is the first image on this blog and then the second image is of that eagle after I took one step too many trying to get a better angle.

Finally after spending a couple of hours at Sabula trying to wait out a pair of eagles in a tree a guy comes roaring up in his truck and jumps out with a point and shoot camera and bang the eagles are gone.

I stopped at the lock and dam in Bellevue again.  There were three eagles flying around the water by the dam.  It was pretty dark by this time and it was getting much colder.  There isn’t a good place to shoot from at Bellevue.  There is one place where a picnic table is pushed up against the fence and you can at least shoot over the fence but you are so far away from the action it is hard to capture a good image.

On the last image I had my 1.4x teleconverter attached.  I shot with it a couple of times yesterday and this is the only shot that was half way in focus.  It will stay in my bag, correction it will stay in my shelf at home from now on. 😦

Considering the shooting conditions and the lack of eagles I was not unhappy with the results of the day.  Far, far from the kind of shots that Burt and Andreas have been getting but at least I can tell there is a vast improvement with the new lens.  Now I have to continue working on my skills.

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

The new lens came in unexpected yesterday and I was pretty excited about getting it.  I didn’t expect it until today  The shot above is right after unpacking the lens and attaching it to my D3.  I went to the parking lot and took this image at f8.0.  I am encouraged to say the least.  Yes I have to take a lot more shots with it and see how it performs out in the field but this is certainly hopeful.

Compare the first shot with the one above taken with the Sigma 150 – 500 right out of the box when I first got it.    See the difference? 🙂

Short post this morning as I have an early meeting  so I have to get going.  Enjoy your Friday.  Thank you for stopping by and be careful.

Happy Birthday Mark!  Just in case you happen to read the blog this morning.  Our baby is 21 today 🙂

Today is a good day!  I say goodby to the Sigma 150 – 500mm lens.  It is on its way back to New York and may end up on some other camera one of these days but it won’t be on mine.  🙂   I have never been happy with that lens and I think I’ve made mention of that a couple of times on this blog.

I received no satisfaction from the Sigma Corporation.  In fact they were rude to me.  I sent the lens to them and after a couple of weeks they informed me the lens was perfect.  Duh!

Still frustrated, yesterday I called Adorama Camera (where I purchased the lens) and talked to a customer service representative.  His comment “Mr. Updegraff, we don’t want you unhappy, send the lens back and we’ll give you a pro rata refund, or a new lens (same model), or an upgrade.”

Wellllllll, “upgrade” huh?   I like the sound of that.  So my new lens is on its way and I should have it tomorrow in time to take it out this weekend.    Now I’m fully ready to admit that some of the problem was probably me.  However having said that I was happy with the results of my Tamron lens right out of the box.  (Then why did you replace it?)

Those who know me will understand.  Those who don’t would never understand.  🙂  It’s one of my many flaws.  Anyway come Saturday I’ll either have a smile on my face or my head hung low.  As my good friend Bob P. used to say “More to Come…”

The image above?  It was shot with my old Tamron a few weeks ago.  Not nearly up to the quality of what my friends Burt and Andreas have been capturing, but certainly head and shoulders above what the Sigma was letting me do.  My friend Burt doesn’t publish his shots to a blog right now but he has some of the most incredible eagle shots I’ve seen.  I’ve updated this post because the link I had posted indicated that this web site has been hacked.  It’s a shame because there were some wonderful images there.

They do great work.  Well that’s my rant for today.  I am cautiously optimistic about the new lens.  We’ll see.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Thursday and this fantastic weather we’re having.  Oh, I almost forgot.  Jeanne and I went to the Texas Road House last night for dinner (our first time) and what an amazing experience.   It Was Great!!!!

Be careful.

A few more images from Sunday at the 14th street pond.  This image is really busy and hard to see what is going on.  If you have to explain an image you probably should show it but I was lucky to catch the goose at the moment he jumped into the water.  You can see that there are other geese making their way down to the water.  I shot a half-dozen of these before getting one just hitting the water.  Hard to see what is happening in this small image so you can click on it and it will show a larger image.

I love the metallic green head of Mallard Ducks.  Contrast that with their soft earth tone body and they just make a nice looking image in my view.   I received several e-mails from my friend Burt G. about the eagles at LD #14.  He has some beautiful images of an eagle eating a fish in a tree just above him.  It filled the entire frame of the image and he said it didn’t require any cropping or Photoshop work.

My friend Andreas also went to LD #14 this weekend and he made some great eagle images.  Above two Canvasback Ducks swim with a Mallard.  I really enjoy this pond on 14th street.  Yes I know you can get tired of ducks and geese pretty quickly but it is fun to watch and shoot them plus it is good practice.

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

I had three goals to accomplish this weekend and I was able to complete two of them.  The one goal I wasn’t able to carry out was to go to LD #14 in Le Claire and shoot eagles. Burt said that the eagles were not fishing Saturday and he wasn’t sure they would be on Sunday.  By the time I completed my projects it was simply too late to head to Le Claire.

I checked out a couple of places and finally ended up at LD #11.  No fishing today just 4 eagles sitting high in the trees.  So based on the advice of my friend Burt G.  I set up the D3 to shoot with the following parameters: ISO 1200, aperture f8.0, shutter speed 1/1500 sec single focus / continuous focus, noise reduction turned on,  and high burst mode.  I had the camera on a tripod and the eagles were not moving.  Still could not get a sharp image!  😦  I hate this lens.

Frustrated I went over to 14th and Sycamore Streets to check on the Geese and Ducks.  Lots of them around and I captured this sequence of a pair of geese coming in for a landing.

I was sitting on one of the big stones that allows you to view the entire area and I was shooting some of the mallard ducks when I noticed a pair of geese preparing to land.  I thought this was a good opportunity to practice my panning skills.

Burt sent  me some of his eagle shots.  They are beautiful.  Tack sharp and wonderfully composed.  So those are the images I’m trying to emulate and I’m not even coming close.

Maybe I need to stick to barns.  They don’t move and I can sneak up on them pretty good.  Enjoy your Monday.  Thank you for stopping by.  Be careful.

Yesterday Jeanne stayed with Joshua all day while Mom and Dad did some other things.  To me this would have been a hard day of work but for Jeanne it is nothing short of a delight.

So I went over to their house around 7:00 pm to spend a little Grandpa time with Joshua.  He made strange with me and wouldn’t even look at me for about 10 minutes.  No matter what I tried he would have nothing to do with me and would cling to Jeanne.

I decided since he would play with me I would at least take his picture.  After the first shot his eyes lit up and it was like he said, “oh yeah I know this guy it’s Grandpa Flash.”

From then on we played, talked,  looked at books and just had a lot of fun.  He is walking now although his preferred mode of travel (if he’s in a hurry) is still crawling.  Additionally  when you ask him a question that can have a yes or no answer he bounces up and down with his whole body to signify yes.  If it’s no he just looks at the ground 🙂

So we had some fun and Josh even took a picture with the D3, although neither one of us knew it was happening until it happened.  No harm but it’s not a very good picture.

I’m going to drive down to Lock & Dam 14 tomorrow.  My friend Burt keeps sending me all these great Eagle pictures and telling me what a great place it is to shoot.  I’m not very happy with my long lens right now and spent a lot of time today trying new things with it.  Burt has been very helpful but it is a learning process.

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

Friday around noon the temperature was mild and there was a hint of sunshine.  So I grabbed my camera and drove out to the local Subway to have a quick sandwich and then off to hunt for images.

I was just about done and ready to leave when a friend of mine came up to me and asked if he could join me.  I said sure (thinking you can always take images, but you cannot always find a friend to talk with.)

So we visited and ate our food and finally with about 12 minutes left of my lunch time we left the Subway.  I thought I had just enough time to take a quick run down to the Maquoketa dam and see what was going on there.  If I was lucky I might find some ducks or geese.

What I found instead was a lone man sitting in a boat fishing in the open water.  I knew instantly that I had my image, so I shot about 20 times, with the first one winning out.

Then I grabbed one of the river with the shore line and it was time to get back to work.  I am accustom to taking several quick shots in a short about of time but I was a lot more rushed than I like to be.  Lesson learned, next time get the food to go. 🙂

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

I went to Cedar Rapids yesterday.  The sun was pretty much non-existent for most of the day but the lighting conditions were not too bad.  On the way back to the office it seemed like there was an abundance of barns that caught my attention.

I like barns anyway but for some reason I saw barns yesterday that I’ve never really noticed before.  Perhaps it was the snow that enhanced their appearance or I was just in the mood for barns.  🙂

I made several “U” turns on the trip back yesterday.  On a couple of occasions the barn didn’t look all that interesting but then I’d catch a glimpse of it in the rear view mirror and have to turn around and go back. I’m going to have such a wreck one of these days if I don’t stop looking for things to shoot.

This is my favorite of all the barns I shot yesterday.  I captured an image of this barn about 18 months ago.  It sets just off the highway and I walked down a short lane to make some images.  It is in bad shape but I just love the way this image looks almost like a painting.  Remember if you click on the image you can see a larger size.

I just downloaded the Beta version of LightRoom 4.  It is in the testing phase until mid March when it is scheduled to be released.  It is a fully working product that may or may not be what the final product resembles.

They have added a couple of major functions such as a book making module and a location function.  Also on the development module there have been some major changes in the adjustment tools.

Worth your time if you own LightRoom 3 or you think you would like to get started with LightRoom.  You can play around with it for a couple of months before it stops working.

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

Nice to see the sun shine for a change.  I had to visit one of our banks today for a meeting so I took my camera with me in hopes of finding something worth shooting.  I didn’t see a thing on the way over that caught my eye.  On the way back I could tell the light was better as it was about 4:15 pm.  The lighting did get more favorable with every mile I drove.

I came across this pile of trees and they caught my eye.  Sitting all alone in the middle of a field with no hint of where they came from.  I thought they looked interesting so I made this image of them.  Now that I see them I’m not sure if my rational was sound.  🙂

A little further down the road was this wonderful old barn.  It was in a pretty run down state of repair but appeared to still be in use.  I saw several barns this day in the same condition but something about this one caught my eye.  Maybe it was because it was sitting away from any other buildings out in the snow and I just liked the way it looked.

Finally I turned on to another road heading back to Maquoketa and went over a small bridge.  I noticed the water was not frozen so I did a turn around.   I like the way the water picks up the color of the sky as contrasted with the snow on the ground.

I have several images of streams over the years but I really like the way the snow accentuates the outline of the stream.  After several days of gray featureless skies it was just wonderful to see the sun and blue sky.  It does wonders for a person’s mood.

Anyway I took a total of about 10 minutes out of my day for these images but they did a lot more than that for my outlook on the day.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  enjoy your hump day and be careful.

I’ll call this lame Tuesday as today’s post has less to do about photography then it does weather conditions.   The image above is reflective of what the conditions were like on Sunday when I attempted to capture some eagle images.

My friend Burt from Le Claire wrote me saying that he actually thought about going out Sunday to shoot as well.  He thought about it for 3 seconds and decided  to not go. 🙂

We were driving around looking for a better place to shoot and came across these guys.  They said they were not having much luck catching anything but it was obvious they were enjoying themselves.  Considering the football play offs were on TV you would think they would have more fun in a warm house watching the games.  I guess we all have our passions to pursue. 🙂

I’ll leave you with an image of the lock and dam that I have never seen before.  It is from the Wisconsin side of the river.  I have only seen the lock from the Iowa side.  From a purely photographic standpoint I like this image.  I tried it in black and white but I like the color of the locking mechanisms contrasted with  the gray structure of the dam and the weather elements.

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