Yes, It Really Can be that Easy and Painless!

So Shortly after I purchased my Apple MacBook Pro 17″ laptop Apple announced a new device which I thought was ultimately Cool. The Time Capsule, a network backup device which works well with their backup tool Time Machine, a sort or ‘Set-it and Forget-it’ backup.  It also provided for Secure Wireless Router capabilities.  By April I had saved up enough to purchase one of these… the 1TB version.

When this arrived, I plugged it in, setup the preferences for both Time Machine backup and for an extension of my home Gigabyte wired network with a new wireless connection point.  Now I would have my MacBook Pro backed up automatically when ever I was home and on the network.  My family would be able to use there computer just about anywhere about the house as well as their friends.

Time marches on…  We come to 2009 and Apple releases Snow Leopard, an awaited upgrade to the Mac OS.  My friend Diane and I stopped by the New Naperville Apple store (Main Place) and picked up two copies of Snow Leopard and then headed back to her place for Bears Football, NASCAR, and OS upgrading!  Upgrading Diane’s laptop went really well, leaving me promise that mine would too go well.  But I would wait ’til I had more time at home to do my upgrade… and After I backed up my laptop.  I had plenty of data, and such I wanted to ensure I had backed up before I started.

I returned home, did some J-O-B search effort’s on Monday and other work, letting the laptop get backed up.  By the time Monday Night Football Started, I was ready to begin my upgrade to Snow Leopard.  With 23-minutes left in the 1-hour+ install/upgrade process… my hard disk had other ideas.  It Died a Hard Death.  There was NO mechanical sounds coming from the laptop other than the fan.  It was after 11PM so I would have to reach Apple for an appointment with the Genius Bar first thing in the morning.

Reached Tech support in the morning.  We walked through a number of different tasks and tests to confirm/verify the situation.  About 20-30 minutes later he had confirmed my thoughts, the drive was dead.  Set up an appointment for later that afternoon at one of the local area stores.

After a few days (they also replaced my LED screen, since it had a Bug (YES, a real Bug) Squashed behind the screen!) I picked up my laptop and once again (oddly enough) found myself over at Diane’s for Dinner and a Packer Football game.

I had brought my Time Capsule device with in anticipation of starting the restore after dinner.  So plugging my MBP directly into one of the three TCP ports on the back of the Time Capsule, I would be able to communicate with it directly.

Booting from my Snow Leopard DVD, selecting  Utilities–>Restore System from Backup and then basically just following the prompts pointing to the backup device and selecting the backup to restore from.  Honestly, this really couldn’t be much easier.

After nearly 4-hours of spinning activity doing the restoration, it told me the restore was completed.  This restore time window is dependent upon the amount of data and size of files being restored.  It does provide an Hour:Minute count down during the process which is constantly adjusting (based on data activity I am sure), so you know just how much time left in the process.  At 01:05 I rebooted the laptop, and after a few extra minutes of start-up time… Things started to look familiar again.  My hopes were really raised when I saw my background appear on the screen.

The Sun Crystal Logo I got while I was still employed there. (Really, I hold no real grudge, since it was a business decision that cost me my job, and Not my performance!  If given the opportunity I would certainly welcome the chance to return to employment there… even though they will be know as Oracle very soon.) At any rate eventually it finished booting.  Even my numerous Finder windows I use daily all reappeared.  Checking the amount of free space left on the disk, this was approximately what was free at the time of the crash as well.  Two more test I wanted to run to really put me at ease;  Mail and Browsers.

I had read that Time Machine does not back up items which can easily be recreated such as caches and indexes.  So an application such as Apple Mail would rebuild local cache/index files when it was 1st started back up, but all the messages should remain intact, as well as configuration data.  So I fired up the mail app… after just a few short minutes everything was rebuilt and I was downloading the New Messages  I had received over the past few days.  Cool!

Browser tests… Opening Safari and selecting History –>Open All Windows from Last Session, a few short  seconds later all my previous Safari windows started to open and load.  Very Cool again!  Firefox was next, and it too also would restore my last session and open all my windows.  Great!

Over the course of the rest of the weekend (besides a visit to the Faire on Saturday!!!), I used other applications and even both version of Command and Conquer I have installed on my laptop (C&C3 and Red Alert 3) I have not found anything non-functional or missing from what was defined to be backed up. (you can define file systems to be skipped)

So Overall I am extremely happy and more than satisfied with both Time Machine and my Time Capsule.  I will gladly give up 4-hours of restoration time knowing that I have 100% of my desired data backed up and recoverable.  These two tools working together in harmony are a tremendous burden off my mind.  One Big thing less I have to worry about when I sleep… whenever that is.

Despite a small intermittent and short performance slowdown (depending upon the amount of data turn over, especially if you are creating large files) I would easily and strongly recommend this solution to anyone desiring a carefree solution to providing backup for their laptop, or even any Apple desktops.  It’s quiet, once set up… it Runs, and simply put, it works well!

In the end, I have back my laptop in the same condition, just better, than it was a week ago.  And the New LED… just icing on the cake… Working on my photographs in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop is grand again since I don’t have to constantly move the image to ensure the ’spot’ isn’t the squashed bug!
Thank You Apple!

I am actually eying the 2TB version now… he he he he!

— Cheers!

_

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Click, Click, Click…

So here it is…

Working with the 4x5

So Proof positive that Film is Not Dead… totally… yet!
It was nice to see this camera in use, especially with Models.  A few shots with His 4×5 and then Leonard Peterson, the camera’s owner/photographer  from Milwaukee went to work with his Digital SLR, and ring flash.  This image of me above was shot with that ring-flash setup. Gotta love that minimal shadow effect too!

So When I wasn’t busy watching this camera in use, or having my portrait shot with it, I was working pretty hard to produce some wonderful select art myself.

Cambriea

Anticipation...

Faith in the middle of becoming a Human Twister Board!

Anrylka and her Bird of Paradise

And so it went on all day, I clicked away at a number of models, including a few male models that dropped by for a while…

"I Said... I would be Back!"

Needless to say, This Was indeed a fantastic shooting event and I am glad I decided to partake in this colorful affair.

I Want It All!

I am finding myself to be more selective of the shots I am actually taking, both the subject matter and the setting.  Now that I have comfortably gotten back into shooting models along these lines, I have resolved to shoot what I like and what works for me. Although, if you ask me nicely I may shoot something You like!

Lot’s more,but those I can not just put up here due to some more adult content rating.  Check out my other galleries for these lovely images.  I am still playing catch up working through recent shoots… and I am Still out there looking for a New Job!

Cheers!

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Three Weeks…

That’s all I have left before I depart on my road trip out to Yellowstone for Spring.  Our 1st ever visit during Spring.   I Loved our Adventures during February and the Winter Wonderland Workshop we attended with all that beautiful SNOW, and I especially always love being there during Rut Season in the fall.  So we are looking forward to the place coming back to life from it’s winter hiatus… and as Diane says, “All the Babies!”

Grand Tetons Panoramic in the Fall

Big Blow!

This should be an extra special trip as well, since we will be taking a Yellowstone Virgin with us this trip… Scott Gillis will be joining us for these adventures!  I’ll be driving out with all the hiking and camera gear and picking them up at the Idaho Falls Airport.  Grand Tetons in the morning, but since they are getting in somewhere around 22:30 or 23:30 on Thursday, I don’t think we will be making it out for Sunrise though.  Sunrise is scheduled for 05:46.  Somehow I just don’t see any of us getting up early enough to make it to the Tetons for that Sunrise…  Maybe I can sneak out alone & go back and get them for Lunch?  

Since I’m driving out there, we are going to be taking some extra lights and try our hand at something we 1st participated in during the Winter Wonderland Workshop we were part of back in February.  Light Painting was a cool endevour during that workshop, so we are going to give it another try on our own one night during this trip.  So I’ll have a couple of Bright lights in the SUV someplace too…

I know thee the of us are looking forward to seeing lots of wildlife as things come out of their winter rests throughout the park.  Baby Elk, Baby Bison, Bear Cubs, and so much more are on the wish list!  I know there is a large group of American White Pelicans that seem to migrate through in May/June at Yellowstone Lake.  I am hoping we can catch these as well.  

Bison in the Road as the Sun Sets in Yellowstone

We will certainly keep you up to date as to our adventures.  We are staying IN the park again this trip… so we will have No Internet connectivity again, but we will be logging better notes… time permitting.  I’ve gotten more time to become more familiar with my Canon EOS 5D MKII.  Anyone want to rent me the 800mm Prime Lens for this trip???

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Just a quick update to share what has been going on, and where I’ve been.

Shooting the Morning Mist and Frost around Mt. Moran

 
A lot has happened over the last week, which can be called Life Changing of sorts.  I still have a lot to write about here from recent photographic adventures.  Complete the Series on our Winter Workshop in Yellowstone, a Classic 40’s/50’s/60’s Pin-Up shoot, migrating American White Pelicans, more Bean Images at Sunrise, and the impending start of the 2009 CVO Autocross season less than 2-weeks away.  

CVO Autocross Event (2008 Season) 001

So now my primary activities have been and will continue revolving around  gathering copies of records, etc. from on-line resources before I loose that access, getting all my experiences documented and of course obtaining another IT position as soon as possible.

CVO Autocross Event (2008 Season) 002

Renee's in the Army Now!

Until I have proper time to get all these additional posting up and shared, I have included a few images here to enjoy, and wet your whistles to come back and visit when I do get them up.  Feel free to share your comments below.

—Cheers!

"Please wait while I connect Your Call"

  

Playboy Records

   

The Bean with the Sun just above the Horizon at Dawn

Migrating American White Pelicans resting over at Nelson Lake Marsh

The Cute Samantha at MLP's Racine Studio

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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The Photo Adventure Continues!

About this Adventure

Part II

Day Three

Time to Pack the `children`...

[03 Feb. 2009]

We had pack 97.3% of our non-camera gear up last night and loaded it into the truck.
Up again before dawn with a much better looking Sky!!!
A quickie breakfast, plenty of water and other liquids… and we’re almost out the lot… Wait, Diane Brown asked if I had room for a bag in the Truck… No Problems.  Loaded up again, we are all off and leaving Jackson Hole for a week…  Tonight we rest our Head in Yellowstone!!!

Out we head from town, heading North along US 191/89 – ’til we got to the Glacier View Pull-out.  We pulled in just in time to get tripod’s set up and catch the Sun breaking across the top peak, and then spreading.  5-vehicles, 18 photographers mass exodus and spread out with gear quickly.  These peaks do look so different in the middle of Winter than in the Fall when we have always been past here in the past.  What a Beautiful Sunrise we had on this cold morning.  Fresh frost hanging on everything.  

Sunrise Breaking Across The Grand Teton's

This panoramic has been stitched together from  4-5 images shot with the 5D MKII.  The original PSD file is 1.4GB in size… and 12,399 x 5,555  might just make a sweet wall print!   Here’s a shot from last year in the fall: Teton’s Fall Panoramic  as a seasonal comparison.

Fog across the Frozen Hidden River

So after shooting here for a bit longer, we all loaded up and headed down the road to our next stop… Ox Bow Bend!  Until George told me, I could not have guessed that that was the pull-out we stopped at.   Again what a difference this place looks like with a fresh blanket of Snow, Frost, and Fog covering it all.  Plenty of that fog still low in the valley and wisps across the front of Mount Moran off in the distance.

Mount Moran and Morning Frost

We shot around here a bit more before loading back up and heading off for Flagg Ranch located about 2-miles outside the Yellowstone Southern gates.  We really were blessed with clear Blue sky’s today!   

Our Surprise rides for 45-miles to Old Faithful Snow Lodge

So we arrive at the Flagg Ranch site and pull around into the parking lot where we will be leaving our vehicles for the rest of this adventure.  We’re all thinking we are hear early as we don’t see the `really big snow coaches – ten passenger vans – not the little Bombardiers` to quote George back in mid January.  So folks wandered inside to use the facilities, grab a drink or other nourishment.  We get back outside and find out Tom and George are a little upset we are NOT getting the vans, but they have actually sent 2 of the Bombardier for 18 peoples.  So these smaller yellow snow transports which fit 6 -7 peoples comfortably are suppose to be our rides for the next 45-miles into the park to our lodging at Old Faithful  …at 25-35MPH!

Let’s review, this is a group of 18 Photographers…  we packed:  

a)  clothing to allow us to be outdoors all day – for a week;
b)  camera gear… lots of camera gear, including 18 tripods (or more);
c)  electronics like laptops and hard drives for storing all those pictures.

Moose Falls from the bottom of the `Slide`

All our regular luggage could be packed up onto the racks on top of these Bombardiers, and that was going to be pretty tight for 18 folks.  Laptops went on a shelf behind the heads of those in the back seat of the vehicle.  That space was tight as it was, and there were at least 1/2 dozen if not more laptops!  Tripods were forced in that space too.   Now all we had to do was cram 9 persons into each Bombardier AND all their camera gear.  We sure got to know each other quite well during this first ride out to Moose Falls, our next shooting stop.  And this was just a quick short ride since this falls is less than 1.5 miles into the park from the South Gate.  Xanterra, the operators of these vehicles was going to send down a third Bombardier to try and ease the load.  We might see this 3rd ride by the time we reached Lewis Falls, our destination after Moose Falls. 

Moose Falls turned out to be a good stop for us all to release some of the stress of the tight ride.  One of the best spots to shoot the falls was reached from sliding on ones butt down to a lower level shooting platform.  We needed to take turns as this spot was tight, and with the snow cover you could not be exactly sure where the real edge was… and landing in the water below with $5,000 worth of camera gear in your hands was not the way to find out.  I took this shot with a slower shutter speed to smooth out the water some.

Morning Light Breaking Through over Moose Falls

I did take some close-ups and more detailed shots here as well.  After some brief discussions with Tom, I also ended up shooting some higher ISO shots here including ISO 1600 and 3200 just to see how that would look, since we were still in some shade from the rising sun.  I’ll post those later in another blog entry I was working on about additional 5D MKII Observations.

By the time we were All done shooting around this falls, the light was getting brighter with little area still hidden in shadows.  The weather was getting nicer and warmer now, were were at least in double digits somewhere.  Warmer from the single digits we had before the sun rose over at the Tetons.   Back into our tiny cans and off to our next shooting spot…

Lewis Falls shot from the River under the Bridge

Lewis Falls, one of the spots Diane and I have shot several times before, just during the fall season.  Just about everyone else set up along the bridge someplace.  I took a look and made up my mind that I was going to try and get to the spot I love to shoot this falls from… Under the bridge!  I took a look over both sides of the road, and took the less dangerous looking side.  The Snow was deep, and getting deeper as I went down closer to the shore.  At it’s deepest, it was waist deep.  Now that may not sound too bad for untroddened Snow… but trying to light your leg/foot to make that next step can become pretty difficult.  You really get a good workout, and I was going down.  Once under the bridge though I was able to get right to the water and shoot directly over the water towards the falls.  Sun was getting higher now… close to noon while we were here, but some nice shadows and details were still visible making for interesting scenes.  

I took shots in both directions from under the bridge.  Standing in the water towards the falls, and down river in the other direction.  I was glad I brought the two cameras  down here with me.  I could have used the tripod, but that would have been even harder to carry given the climb down.  Even though I had two different lenses on these cameras, it was giving me good reference shots to compare and understand the 5D MKII even more.  With the sensor differences of a 1.6 crop factor on the 40D and the full frame of the 5D MKII.  I have clearly noticed the difference when using the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM, mostly in the reach range.  But I can also use this more in close range situations as well.  70mm isn’t too far from 50mm with a full frame sensor, and our eye sees at roughly 50mm… forgetting the peripheral vision factors though.  Even my 1D MKIIn has a 1.3 crop factor  by comparison.  It will be interesting to see how well this new camera performs on the 500mm lens later this week.

Steamy and colorful pool

By the time we all gathered to move onto our next destination, we had a 3rd Bombardier to utilize, so now we could put 6 peoples per vehicle, a lot easier to deal with for comfort and moving gear in and out at each shooting stop. 

West Thumb  Geyser Basin would be our next stop and shoot before we make that last leg trek to the lodge at Old Faithful.   Took the short route around this basin area, I think others went around  other paths to see even more or different stuff.  There were some really beautiful pools at this Geyser Basin, but with the colder weather, all that steam can play havoc on trying to get those nice colorful shots like this one where you can make out some good details, textures, depth, and color of the features.  Just have to pray for a quick breeze and be ready to rapidly adjust focus and fire off that shot!   This was a quiet and serene place during this visit too.  Diane and I both sat on one of the benches and just soaked in the beauty, and the silence of Mother Nature in this spot.  I had finally made it to Yellowstone during Winter, and we had made it back to one of our favorite places to photograph.  Enough of that… time to return to the Bombardier & head into the lodge at Old Faithful.  Passing a boat load of snowmobilers on the path, a ritual we would repeat all week long…

Heading out from West Thumb, we did spot a lone Eagle with his back to us off to the right.  I did manage to grab a few shots before he took off away from all the peering lenses.

We pulled up in front of the Old Faithful Snow Lodge where pretty quickly folks unpealed themselves from the interiors of the Bombardiers, and the Xanterra folks jumped all over unloading the tons of gear from the top of the vehicles.  George, Tom, and Marilu took care of all the paperwork, etc. at the front desk, which they quickly turned around and passed out the previously set up packets to us all.  We were all located up on the third floor.  Oddly enough, Diane and I had a room overlooking the front of the hotel, with an easy view of our daily rides, etc.  The room was Warm… we quickly opened up the window (after we figured out how to unlatch it!) to cool things down… a Window which was opened nearly the whole stay there. 

Diane Enjoying the Sunrise over the Grand Teton's

Nice rooms though.  No TV… but we have grown used to that when we come up here.  You are busy enough during the day, that by the time you are done with dinner and all anyhow… you are pretty much ready to crash.  We did have cell phone service here (as expected, and experienced in the past), but I Swore we were suppose to have Internet access…  How was I going to blog daily about our trip adventures without internet access?  So without TV, Radio, or internet… we were pretty much not exposed to events in the world outside of Yellowstone.  Unless someone said something to us during any brief calls back home we may have had.  Which really was OK, since we were here to have fun, photograph wonderful things, and share these experiences with other folks in this workshop with us.

Showers… change, and then dinner.  Wait!  Set up and plug in all those batteries so we are ready for tomorrow!  I brought my octopus extension just for this so we would have enough plugs for everything that needed charging.

Moose Tracks in the Snow at Ox Bow Bend

I don’t know if we took a photo of this or not, but I think it must have drove the maid nuts daily as we had the camera battery chargers plug in, the phone chargers plugs in and all laid out across the bed. OK… Now we can go to Dinner.  I guess we were late as somehow we missed understanding that we were all meeting together for dinner down in the restaurant. This became the nightly ritual.  Good selection of items for dinner on the menu, and this was included in our packages, we just paid for any alcohol we might consume with the meal.  We even got desert!   Shortly after dinner we would meet up on the second floor and have a quick discussion about some topics or events of the day, critique some of our photos, and review any pertinent information about the next days events, And have the daily prize drawing.

Back in the room, layout  cloths for tomorrow… charge all batteries that are still left, and complete downloading images to both the Mac, my external drive, and Diane’s external drive.  Three copies should ensure these images make it back home safely!  

Off to bed… tomorrow is another leg of this adventure… and another part of this story.  This is enough for now as we did quite a bit today just getting from Jackson into Yellowstone.  See You in Part III.

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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A quick break from my Yellowstone Adventure story and images…

Alternative Use of Adjustment Brush in Lightroom 2.x

After listening to the latest Episode of PhotoshopUser TV Podcast (Episode #174 — 23Feb09) I really had my curiosity peeked by a tutorial Matt Kloskowski and some comments he made during this tutorial.  Matt shows in his tutorial a way to use a New feature found in Adobe Camera RAW under Photoshop CS4.   Unfortunate for myself, I have yet to upgrade to CS4 from CS3 because all my resources went into saving for that New Canon EOS 5D MKII!   Then the transmission on the truck went out and cost me more than the retail price of entire Photoshop CS Suite!  The very bad side of this…  Camera RAW in CS3 does Not recognize the RAW images from the 5D MKII… I Need to get the CS4 upgrade for this.  Yet Lightroom 2.2 Has been updated to work with this camera’s RAW files!

OK, Back to Matt’s tutorial and his comments.  During his introduction into this new feature Matt says:

“..it’s kind of neat.  I almost wish that Lightroom worked this way because I use Lightroom more often than I use Camera RAW for this but[ton].  I wish Lightroom worked this way.  If I click the minus button it resets everything else to zero and brings my clarity down to minus 25.”

Original Unretouched Image (cropped)

So initially I was thinking Matt was talking about the way clarity and the adjustment brush worked from within Lightroom.  So earlier tonight I went into Lightroom and opened an image from a recent model I shot during a Valentine’s Day themed shoot.

Now these jpeg image examples shown here have been Cropped Only and have Not had any additional modifications or adjustments made other than this Clarity Brush simply for the sake of this blog entry.  This would not be my final version of this image.  (click on the images to view larger renditions of them)

In the first image you can see some blotchiness in the models skin. There are always some other imperfections or wrinkles creating less than optimal textures across skin.

In the Develop Module within Lightroom, selecting the Adjustment Brush from the panel on the right (default location) you can see the settings I used on this image. I had originally started with an mount setting of -96, but I thought that was a bit much for my liking so I brought it back down until I liked the results.  I am sure every models skin is going to require a different setting, as I’m sure lighting is going to play a factor here as well.

Lightroom Adjustment Brush settings

Using these settings above results in the image below. Sorry I did not provide a side-by-side comparison in this blog… believe me the thought had crossed my mind. But there is a fair amount of noticeable smoothing or softening of her skin. From the Mask Overlay image below you can see I have only made adjustments to her face at this time.

Image After Clarity adjustment applied

Visible Clarity Adjustment Mask

To view this mask you can mouse-over the pin associated with this adjustment action. You can see it in the image on the model’s right cheek.  When I move the mouse off this the mask becomes hidden again.  I am sure there is a way to bring this up to work finer areas, but I’m not aware of it, so feel free to leave me a comment below if you know how to do this.  Camera RAW does allow for this making it much easier to fine tune your make area.  I also don’t know if I can change the mask color to turn my model into an Umpa Loompa?  Obviously, I created this mask pretty quickly as can be seen from the over paint across the eyebrow and lips.  But I was looking to see if this effect feature was functional within Lightroom.  Obviously (one would hope anyhow right?) I would be more careful in preparing an image for final presentation.

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Re-listening to Matt’s Words…

I have since gone back, and re-listened a few times to that portion of that podcast episode, especially to transcribe Matt’s quote above exactly.  I think he may actually have been referring to the way clicking on the button functions and resets the other settings, vs. the way the adjustment brush with clarity works within Lightroom.  But I still found this to be quite an interesting test and comparison that I still completed this blog entry and published it anyhow.

Alternative Tool Options

Are there other means of softening skin within Photoshop?  Sure there are, and most of them have some sort of price tag associated with them.  From less than a hundred dollars to several hundreds.  In searching for something that works well for my taste and style of work I have trialed a few of these.

– Nik Software Dfine 2.0 – I briefly tested the demo version of this plug-in the 1st-half of 2008.  I was pretty pleased with it’s results and flexibility at the time.   $99.95 directly, but I found this available at Adorama for $79.

– Imagenomic Portraiture 2 – I also checked out the trial version of this plug-in during early 2008 and was more pleased with this tool.  Although I did have a few issues with this on the Mac at the time, and I did receive a quick response via E-mail… I don’t recall the issue being resolved completely to my liking at that time.  This plug-in was quite costly at $199.95.  But I guess if you are doing this type of work full time and being paid for or making money at it, that would be an easier amount to justify then.

Preliminary Analysis…

So Overall I like the Camera RAW Feature that Matt demonstrated in this tutorial.
Obviously now I am going to want to revisit this with Photoshop CS4 and that version of Camera RAW…

For those of us unable to afford or justify spending funds on plug-ins, especially in these economic conditions, this functionality works great.  The visible masking alone is sweet.  My initial test here was only from Lightroom.  Results compared to what Matt shows in the podcast are not as nice as when done from Camera RAW.  Maybe I just need to use a few more sample images and compare results that way.  Another advantage of the Camera RAW method is you can edit with the mask being visible.  As mentioned above, I don’t think this is possible from Lightroom.  Of course this just adds another reason why I need to save more lunch monies and purchase my upgrade to Photoshop CS 4.0!

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Ah… The Trip has Arrived!

E-mail Announcement about this Adventure

Road Trip Departure

Friday Morning… The truck was loaded, all the gear in the bed, except for those camera’s which were nestled safely in the back seat with pillows for their comfort.  (ok, so this sounds too much like a holiday story… let’s get back  to reality)
Off we left early Friday morning and even though we were heading south on I-88 we really didn’t have a whole lot of traffic.  For most of the drive it was pretty moderate traffic.  I think the longest slow moving period was when we got caught up behind some very wide equipment being transported, and No One wanted to move around it down the side.  Honestly, I think the fact that the police were escorting this with their light on intimidated a lot of folks… finally one brave soul in another pick-up moved past, and then things began to trickle through.

Getting From Here to there... even with a change in the middle!

So the Original plan for the day way to drive from home to Lincoln, Nebraska and spend the night there.  Somewhere along the route with Diane my Trusty Navigator monitoring things… we changed our over-night destination from Lincoln to… Ogallala, NE.  Still right on I-80, but about another 278 miles.  Which in reality turned out OK, since there was some slight miscalculations about the midpoint of travel and we ended up passing through Lincoln at about 3:30 in the afternoon as it was.  None the less, we were in Ogallala shortly after dinner, but with the Timezone change, we still had plenty of time to find something to eat.  A good nights rest and off again in the morning.  Dinner Saturday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming!

Saturday evening we pull into Jackson Hole from the South.  The 49′er Inn on Pearl Street is right off the main drag and was easy to find.  Nice place, friendly folks behind the desk.  We had requested an upgrade from the `normal` room, after Diane see-sawed over a gas burning fire place… Interestingly enough, this put us over in their 2nd building, and that is where as a group, we would be holding our meetings the next few evenings.  So we ended up just two doors down from this conference room.  After we turned OFF the Heat and Opened the Window, we relaxed from the journey and checked out stuff to do before the Big Meet-up on Sunday.  The Gas Fireplace was really nice too.

Sunday Morning Window shopping, Diane trying things over at the Fur shop, T-shits and vests… Quick stop at the grocery store for some supplies.  Back to the room in time for the start of the Super Bowl Game… Go Steelers!  The game started such that Halftime started just as the GAPW meeting was kicking off.  So I got to watch that much.  By Halftime folks were starting to gather down the hall for our first meeting.   I thought this little get together Before we all headed out was good, not only because we would get some good info… but we would begin to recognize the other folks in our group before we were all busy out in the field.

Day One

Get together time… we all gathered into this conference room, in pairs… two to a table. George Theodore and Tom Bol were just finishing getting stuff set up, and began with introductions.  We had 18 folks total, including both instructors.  Based on folks professions, we would be pretty covered for just about any medical emergency.   Two classmates were missing as we had just learned of a near tragic accident they had with a semi truck in town.  Both would be OK, and join us later.  Then we all threw our names into a bucket which would be used for nightly drawing of prizes leading up to a Big Finally on the last night in Yellowstone.  As Tom and George were covering logistics and a little about what to expect for the next week, Tom stopped to introduce a Guest spot… hum?   Diane got up, walked up to the front… picking something up on her way, only to discover while she was out picking up a few food supplies… She had picked up a Cake.  (brat!) See this whole going on a trip came about as part of my 50th Birthday celebration.  I was originally going to Antarctica this year, but due to some unexpected expenses and important Implant surgery we had to put off that trip for a few years… and Found this Great adventure into Snowy Yellowstone.  So now everyone here knows…  Thanks Diane!  (I mean that too!)

We eventually took a break form slides and discussions. Upon returning… there was about 3-1/2 minutes left in the Super Bowl game on the TV in the conference room…  Majority rule, we left the game on until the end… Watching the Steelers Crush the failed hopes and dreams of Arizona!!!!!   Some more discussions, and planning for breakfast and morning meet to head out shooting.  Then just before we broke for the evening, the first Drawing for the week….    Ta Da… Diane Won!  How lucky is that?  She got a 2 or 4GB Flash Drive.  Very Cool!  We also had a chance to meet with Margaret, a very nice lady from Houston, originally from Scotland.  Comments had been circulated about car pooling for travels around until we got to Flagg Ranch, and then returning as well.  I had offered space and Margaret had E-mailed asking to ride with Diane and myself.  So we had a nice cosy group for the week.

Day Two

Well up and ready before sunrise… little light breakfast and we are all on the road towards the pull-outs around the front of the Teton’s for a shoot… Only one thing, No one bothered to tell Mother Nature of our plans and it was such an overcast cloudy morning that we really could not see much of the upper halves of those beautify peaks, not to mention the Sun didn’t peek it’s head out.  

Moose on the loose in the Teton area

I think it forgot to get it’s Jimmy Deans Breakfast! (picture the TV commercials)

So while we didn’t bother to stop and shoot the mountains here, we went looking for Moose.  Found one, but she was alone, slightly off for great detailed shots, and there was a lot of ground clutter between her and all us photographers.  But we all got out and got off a number of shots… Heck by the time we left there must have been 4-5 other vehicles that had stopped for some photo’s too.

I had accidentally (like I would do it on purpose) dropped on the icy asphalt the lens hood for the 500mm, Didn’t notice then, but the spring clip to hold this hood in the channel on the front of the lens had popped out… Good thing I saw it before we left our vehicles to head into Yellowstone… I keep a roll of Duct tape under the drivers seat in the Truck… Always comes in handy.  

Solitair Bull Elk keeping vigil...

A few thin slices wedged between the hood & the lens, a slight twist… and we’re locked in place for the rest of the week!

We were off for Breakfast back in town at The Bunnery.  Oh, we all ate well, as the food was good and plentiful.

Happy Sleigh Rides through the Elk Refuge.

"Just look at those fools in those red boxes being paraded past us..."

After Breakfast we started to head out to the National Elk Refuge but seems 3/4-1/2 the team ended up in the Mountaineering store just a few doors down from the Bunnery.  Eventually we got to the Visitor Center for the Refuge where we are loaded onto a coach bud to take us out to meet the sleighs which will take us out into the refuge and closer to the huge herds of Elk.  This is pretty Cool, as the Elk seem less spooked by the folks in the Sleighs, but it’s not like when you are on the ground in the park where you can move around to get the composition you want, or a better one.  We ended up in a sleigh pulled by Trixie and Dixie, 2 Belgium draft horses.  These Ladies were Huge and quite powerful too.  There were few Elk off on their own, and so many of the images are clustered groups or have busy animal backgrounds.  But we got in  close…  And I think just about everyone came away with a Decent Christmas Card shot for next year! 

I think we shoot out there for around 2 hours before we packed it in and headed back towards the visitor center.  From there it was back to the hotels to clean up, change, etc. and then meet later for dinner together.  Dinner was at The Gun Barrel Steak & Game House. Quite a nice place out here in Jackson Hole.  They sat us upstairs practically in a room to ourselves.   The food was Excellent here, and we were pretty stuffed by the time we were ready to leave.  Margaret really wanted to buy Diane and myself dinner for driving this leg of the trip.  She really was sweet.

We dropped Margaret back at the hotel and headed to the square downtown.  I wanted to take some night shots, especially of the lights in the square with my new Canon EOS 5D MKII.  While there was an initial issue with this camera reported with Black Dots, when photographing lights like these… When I picked up my camera, it already had the latest firmware installed, which was reportedly suppose to mitigate this issue.  I still wanted to test this out thoroughly for myself, as well as play with some night shots.  So we shot in the square for about 30-minutes before heading back to the 49′er.  Well it was straight off to bed after downloading all the images from the day.  We were meeting for a quick breakfast at 6:30am before we tried catching sunrise across the Tetons on the way up to Flagg Ranch in the morning. 

That’s enough for Part I…   We’ll pick up Day Three in the next Part.

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map source: Mapquest.com

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All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Just a quick bit of humor and jab at those Nikonians!

So here we are, Day-5 of the Winter Wonderland III, 2009 Photography Workshop out in Yellowstone National Park.  We stopped near mid-day at Gibbon Falls for some shooting there.   Diane took this shot of me working to get the composition, focus and exposure just right for this shot.  That’s  George Theodore one of the leaders of this workshop on the far left of the image… I love this shot!  George being a N*K*n User is looking at his camera confused…   

OK, In George’s defense we were all trying out a Special Filter Tom Bol (the other trip leader) had brought with.  So Tom was sharing out a number of Singh-Ray Vari-ND Variable Neutral Density Filters.  These things are weird looking, but can produce some sweet looking images with silky smooth flowing waters dependent upon all your settings.  So like here, in this noon-ish bright sun we were setting up for ISO 100, f/22, for about 10-30 second exposures.  I’d show you one of my images, but as you can see in the image above, I did not put my lens hood back on after setting up the filter… right now, I am less than happy with the images from this location.  But I have some others from later in the week that I think turned out wonderfully.  Since I shot this with my new Canon EOS 5D MKII in Raw… I might do some cropping and see what turns out from there.  Still lots of Details with that long of an exposure.

I have not seen what others ended up with shot yet from this location… so I can’t be too harsh on myself yet.  Plus this was the first time I’ve tried this filter.  It does take some work to get everything set up just right for the shot… But from what I saw preliminary in some of my other shots.  I can say I’d like to try my hand at this filter again!   More images and stories from this trip coming soon… Very Soon!

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All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Just a quickie post here for those that drop by or follow my blogging to look at my images.  So, yes some might look small within the pages and blog entries I write… But that is just because the templates, and blog page sizes are limited without spending more $$$ annually for fancy CSS coding options, and custom templates.  

But, Did you know that you can click on these Images?

Roaming around Yellowstone National Park During RUT Season

 If You click on any of My Included images within my blog entries, they will open up larger in your browser window so you can enjoy the images more.  You think I’m just carrying this 500mm lens around because I look good wearing it?

Go ahead, click on the image to the right and see what I mean…

Don’t worry, you’ll soon have plenty more opportunity to try out this capability as I work on and release the entires about out recent awesome trip out to Yellowstone National Park and the Teton’s in the Snow and Cold and Snow!   Captured some great moments and wildlife… even a tree or two!   (That’s for You Tom!)

See You soon!

 
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All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Oh… I have had such bad pains!
We have been in the Heart of Yellowstone National Park for the past week…   No Pains in that.  What has had me in withdrawals is the fact that at the Snow Lodge within the park… There IS NO Internet!

Bison along the Madison River in a Snow Storm -- Yellowstone National Park

Arg!  I wanted to be able to blog about our trip, share some images, etc.  So now we are back here at the 49′er Inn in Jackson Hole, Wyoming – even if just for the night… and I am able to get back on-line again.  I am going to have to look into seeing if WordPress has an off-line editing too for creating blog entires (images and all) for times like this.

This trip has been  The Great American Photography Workshops presenting their Winter Wonderland III, 2009 workshop.  We started in Jackson Hole, then ended up leaving our personal vehicles at the Flagg Ranch just outside the South entrance for Yellowstone National Park.  Such good and interesting things to write about, I think I am going to have to write several blog entries in parts about this trip and events.

The Bison image above was taken on our second to last day in the park… It Snowed nearly all day on us, and the wildlife.

Stay Tuned…
I’ll be dropping more images and stories over the next week about not only this trip, but the friendly Canon / N*k*n battering that went back and forth, and information on how my New Canon EOS 5D Mark II worked out.  I tried to test out more and more features and functions with this camera throughout the adventure.
Oh, and the Big surprise on the final night in the park! 

Cheers!

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All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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