Upde Designs

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/250 sec @ f5.6

Happy Monday.   I’ve been having some Cable issues again.  Yesterday our speed dropped from a constant 12.0 Mbps (since the new equipment was installed) to 1.01 Mbps.   As you may know, at 1.01 Mbps the speed is as slow as the old dial up.  After calling the Cable Company it will be the weekend before they can get anyone here. 😦

Late yesterday afternoon we stopped by Angie and Ben’s for a quick visit with them and Josh.  The flower above is in the front yard of their house.  I didn’t have the proper macro lens to take a good close up but I was pleased with the shot.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | Nikon SB 800 |ISO 200 1/60sec @ f5.6

When we arrived at their home Ben was at the Hospital and Josh has just got up from a nap so he was still a little disoriented.  It took him a little while to warm up to us again but he did and I had the pleasure of giving him his afternoon bottle.

We only stayed about 45 minutes as we just wanted to say hi and grab a couple of images of the young man and then let them enjoy their personal time.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | Nikon SB 800 |ISO 200 1/60sec @ f5.6

As we made it halfway up their street we met Ben returning from the Hospital.  We were sorry that we missed him.  I said to Jeanne (which she did not appreciate by the way) “Now that’s a sight you want to see as you’re coming home from work, your in-laws leaving.”   I thought it was funny, she did not.

I hope you have a great and productive week.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/1600 sec @ f4.5

Not so much thoughts as just some images of the week that didn’t make the first cut.  Not that I didn’t like them.  It was just that there were other images I wanted to work with and present first.

I saw this pond on the South side of the road on the way back to the office from Cedar Rapids.  Just the way the pond fit into the lay of the land really intrigued me so I did my usual U-turn and headed back.  What also made this scene special was there were some horses just to the right of the pond as you see it here.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/1600 sec @ f4.5

As I change perspective and shot the pond from different angles so I could incorporate the horses it really made a nice farm scene.   I didn’t seen anything unusual in my view finder so I took about 8 – 10 images of the pond in the fore ground with the horses (which were actually pretty close by the pond.)

The problem was when I was processing the images and did a close inspection of the horses that I noticed they have really been neglected.  One of them had what looked like sever sores on his face, their coats were mangled and tangled.  They just looked like they hadn’t been taken care of for months.  So I deleted all the horse pictures so I would have to look at them.  Very sad.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/2500 sec @ f4.5

Finally this little shed, which is located on the same property as the barn.  I was walking back to the car after making 70 images of the barn and saw this little guy with this tree behind it against the brilliant blue sky and snapped this one image.  I really liked it so it made the post. 🙂

Enjoy your weekend.  Stay warm and dry and be careful.  Oh and thanks for stopping by.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/400 sec @f4.5

Good Day and Happy Friday.  Today I continue with the images I made of the old barn on highway 64 West of Wyoming, Iowa.  I decided, because of the age of the structure and the deterioration of the wood, that these images would lend themselves to a black and white rendering.

Concerning the above image, I wonder when that hinge decided to give up and let go, letting the bottom part of the door fall to the ground.  One day it was holding its own and the next day not.  Was it a strong wind that blew it open and shut repeatedly, which weakened the nails holding the hinge until it could no longer maintain its grip?

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/400 sec @f4.5

This old guy (not withstanding a major wind storm) will probably keep on standing for years to come.  As I was walking around the barn (which is totally abandoned now) I thought about  how similar this structure is to our own lives.

It must have been a prideful day when the owner of this barn saw the last swipe of paint go on the side of the barn.  How useful and beneficial this barn must have been at one time.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/400 sec @f4.5

Now it has reached the end of its useful period.  It does not fall, not yet anyway.  It still musters some pride and stands tall although with a slight list to the port side.

Its main door lies in pieces on the ground and many of its lesser doors are broken and unhinged.  There are volunteer trees growing around and through the old building.  Its useful period has passed.  I didn’t see anything inside the structure not even some old machinery.    Tear it down?  I’ve heard people say that there are too many memories involved with a particular building to just destroy an old building they own, perhaps that is why this old guy is still standing.

I’m feeling old. Anyway that’s it for today.  Hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

Angie and Ben took a trip so that Ben could attend a conference.  We were blessed to be allowed to take care of Joshua for the three days they were gone.

I took a vacation day on Monday and stayed with Josh.   It was one of my most memorable and enjoyable days that I can remember.  It was long, intense, hard work, and tiring, but I loved every minute of it.  We really connected.  I also understand why God’s plan is for younger people to have babies. 🙂

I had my camera set up and at arm’s reach the entire time he was here.  I shot a total of 7 images.   I think you understand.  The greatest thrill for me was that whenever I would look at him and our eyes would meet he would give me the biggest smile.  Grandpa still has some skills 🙂

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/1000 sec @ f4.3

Yesterday I had some work to do at our banks in Cedar Rapids.  It was about 5:00 pm on my way back I caught a glimpse of this old abandoned barn on the North side of the road.

It is a marvelous building and while I do think it would lend itself to a black and white rendering I wanted to keep this first image in color to give you a flavor for the way it looked when I first saw it.

I shot a total of 70 images around this old barn.  I wished I would have taken an hour or two more.  It was just that interesting.  I would love to have access to the wood from this old structure.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/1000 sec @ f4.3

This name plate caught my eye.  The lightning rods were in a sorry state but I can just imagine the crew coming out and installing them on the barn and the last thing they would have done would have been to nail this plate on the side of the barn.

Tomorrow I’ll show you some black and white images I made of different parts of this wonderful old structure.

As always, thank you for stopping by.  I hope you have a great day.  Be careful

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/320 sec @ f8

Today I finish up the Green Island shoot with some wildlife shots.  I continue to struggle with getting tack sharp images of wildlife.  Partly because of the lighting conditions, equipment shortcomings, but mainly lack of skill in shooting wildlife.

The good news is I can wait for the lighting conditions to improve.  Not much (for the foreseeable future) I can do about the lack of lens quality, but for the lack of skill issue I can keep practicing and eventually I will get better.

The image above is of a Lesser Scaup in flight.  He was taking off and I was zooming and panning at the same time so I didn’t get a great image of him.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 - 500 mm lens | ISO 200 1/100 sec @ f8

This Blue Heron was fairly static the entire time I was taking his image.  Unlike the Sandhill Crane who was moving all the time.  On this shot what I would have done differently is use a higher ISO maybe 400 / 800 and used a lower f -stop maybe 5.6.  That would have helped get  my shutter up around 1/350 / 1/500 sec and would have given me a sharper image.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 - 500 mm lens | ISO 200 1/320 sec @ f8

Last shot of the day is the Sandhill Crane again.  I shot about 150 images of this particular Crane and for the most part he was moving.  He would stop, stand up straight, look around and then he would be off again.  There were three Canadian Geese in the area and they didn’t seem to mind each others presence.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to have some new stuff for you tomorrow.  Remember be careful.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/250 sec @ f8

I have some more images to show you from our Saturday trip to Green Island.  The image above is a representation of the Coot conference that was in town.  They were everywhere.  Like I said yesterday once you got out of the car they started swimming away from me so mostly what I got was the South end of North bound Coots.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/250 sec @ f8

These ducks are Lesser Scaups.  I’m pretty sure the black and white one are and from what I can determine I think the two brownish ducks must be the female of the species.   Yes I did enhance the water a bit.  Okay a fair amount to be honest.  It was a nondescript yuk so I made it a little more colorful.

Finally this image of a Sandhill Crane.  I’m not thrilled with this image because of all the environmental conditions I spoke of in earlier posts and my lack of skill.  Andreas Exner has a much better image of  a Sandhill Crane on his blog and you can see it by clicking here.

Well that’s it for today.  I hope you have a great day and as always thanks for stopping by.  Be careful.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/320 sec @ f8

Happy Monday! I want to continue with images from Saturday’s Green Island shoot.  The image above, for those who have never been there, will give you an idea of what the Green Island Wetlands are like.

There was way more water at the Wildlife Reserve than the two previous times I’ve been there.  There was water everywhere.   We were all amazed at the river level in Bellevue and all the way down to Green Island.  Water was in places it normally isn’t.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 mm lens | ISO 200 1/250 sec @f8

There are gravel roads (4 I believe) that run through the Reserve.  Usually with water streams on either side.  In the image above Jeanne and Becki explore the wetlands.  I remind you that it was 49 degrees and some wind with no sun so it was not a very comfortable day.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 -500 mm lens | ISO 200 1/160 sec @f8

Okay enough about the layout of Green Island Wetlands.  The image above is of a Great Egret.  (I found that out by myself thank you.)  There were three of them together and when I got out of the car to take some images they all took off.  I hoped I had some great flying Egrets images, but all I got was 3 flying white blurs.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 -500 mm lens | ISO 200 1/160 sec @f8

Even with their white bodies it was hard to pick them out from the background.  They were pretty far away and with the overcast skies and featureless grass behind them they tended to blend right in.

So that’s it for today.  Thanks as always for stopping by.  Tomorrow more images of the wildlife at Green Island.  Be careful.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 - 500 mm lens | ISO 200 1/160 sec @ f8

Sunny and 70 was the forecast for Saturday and we were excited by the possibilities of shooting at Green Island.  We were suppose to meet Becki and Steve in Bellevue for coffee and then head out to Green Island.  Above Jeanne is looking at what she hopes is an immature Eagle.   Turns out it was.

We were 20 minutes late meeting Becki and Steve.  It was 49, damp, and there was a  gray haze overcast.  Not a very good environment for shooting.  Little or no contrast for the auto focus to do its job.  Washed out colors and the wetlands were inundated with black Coots.  It’s like they decided to hold a conference at Green Island and Saturday was check in time.  Now I don’t have anything against Black Coots, but they were every where.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 - 700 mm lens | ISO 200 1/200 sec @ f8

Just as we got to the place where we decided we would walk Steve got a call from a client.  So we walked on and left him to do business (talk about being dedicated.)  So when he finished up his call he joined us on the walk.  Steve really enjoyed Green Island.  Even though he is not a photographer he enjoys wildlife and he kept saying how enjoyable the experience was.  We quickly learned that you can’t walk around and get any good images.  The wildlife were very skittish and as soon as we got anywhere close to them they would simply fly off. (I have lots of images of birds behinds.)

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 - 700 mm lens | ISO 200 1/320 sec @ f8

We did see some other interesting wild life.  There were some Herons, Geese,  and we saw 4 Sandhill Cranes .  They were pretty far off and their coloration blended into the background so much that the auto focus really had a tough time.  I may (may) have gotten one decent image of one of them.  I haven’t processed them yet.  I shot 500 images and culled that down to 70 on the first pass so that gives you an idea of the difficult shooting conditions.

Above Becki is shooting with a Nikon D90 DLSR and a Nikon 70 -300 mm lens.  She has a very creative eye and I’m anxious to see what she captured this day.

Nikon D700 | Tamron 200 - 700 mm lens | ISO 200 1/200 sec @ f8

We ran into my friend Adreas Exner today.  Andreas had said he planned to go to Green Island on Saturday and I was happy to see him there.  We didn’t get to spend much time together but he did get a chance to photograph the Sandhill Cranes, which I know is one of his favorite birds.  I am hopeful that I get to do a fair amount of shooting with Andreas over the coming months.

So we spent about two chilly hours looking at the wildlife.  If you’ve never been to the Green Island wetlands and you enjoy nature at all it is a wonderful place to visit.  I know that I will spend a lot of time there from now on and enjoy the change of the seasons and making images there.  If I keep this up I may have to buy a wildlife field guide. 🙂

We finished the morning off at the Off Shore Restaurant.  We invited Andreas to join us but he was having a lot of enjoyment with his photography so perhaps another time.  We had a great lunch and said goodby to Steve and Becki.

On the way home I saw a Blue Heron in a stream along the side of the road.  I quickly pulled off the side of the road.  But by the time I got my camera set back up and got to the stream the Heron had decided to relocate.  So I got 12 images of this amazing blue blur.  😦

That’s it for today.  Hopefully (depending on the day’s events) I will have some of the images of wildlife captured from the shoot to show you tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by.  Be careful.

Looking forward to our photo shoot at Green Island tomorrow.  Today I wanted to post a couple of images that I normally wouldn’t post  but since I haven’t made any images this week I will show you these.

A couple of things that are interesting about this image.  It is actually two images “stitched” together in Photoshop to make one image.  I shot this with a 70 -200 mm lens and couldn’t get the whole dam in with one image.  I didn’t really expect to make this a stitched image but I’m glad I panned a little to the right and took the rest of the dam.  The amazing thing about this image is even enlarged to 100%  I could not find the seam.  I know where it should be but I couldn’t find it.

The second thing that drew my attention is that you rarely see all the gates running full-bore like they are in this image.  There was lots of water going through the dam on this day.  This dam actually produces electricity for the city.

Mighty Mississippi River

This is  a simple landscape image to show how high the mighty Mississippi is right now.   I wanted to capture an image portraying the vastness of the river.  When you are on the River Walk, several steps closest to the river are under water.    In a couple of images earlier in the week I showed you how much debris in also in the river.

Well that’s it for today.  Hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend.  Thanks as always for stopping by.  I know you have lots of demands on your time so I am grateful for the time you take to look at my images and read my ramblings.  Be careful.

5 image HDR

Thank you for stopping by today.  Just a couple of images to finish up the River Walk shoot.  Above is the Star Brewery again but this time I did an HDR image.  The thing I like about HDR is that it lets you capture all the rich colors of the subject.  Yes I did enhance the dynamic range of the colors a bit, but by shooting HDR it allows you to capture more levels of luminance, which translates to richer color choices.   I really like this version of the Brewery compared to what it looked like in just a single image.

Nikon D300S | Nikon 18 - 200 lens | ISO 200 1/500 sec @ f8

I have made images of many birds of late (many of which I couldn’t name.)  But one of my favorite birds is Mr. Robin.  Every Spring when I see my first Robin it renews my spirits and energizes me because once again the nice weather is not to far off.

This little guy didn’t seem to mind that I kept getting closer.  He had his limits but he allowed me to get much closer than any of the Eagles did. 🙂

Have a great day and be careful.