The draw of this particular weekend in November, which is making this an annual pilgrimage, is the Remembrance Day Parade.  Although reenactors can nearly always be found somewhere in Gettysburg, this is one of the two weeks each year when the town is full of them (the other time being the anniversary of the battle itself).

The parade itself would be best shot with a full DSLR and a long lens; in fact, I spied one gentleman at the end of the parade route setup with just that gear, tripod mounted for ease of use over the hour or so that the parade lasts.  From my own experience, 200mm is probably the shortest length you want on the long end.  Unfortunately, this year I opted for ease of movement over quality of equipment and came armed with just the G10.  Let me blunt; great little camera that it is, the G10 is not suitable for this kind of work.

First off, the focus speed is far too slow and it is nearly impossible to pick a focus point on-the-fly.  Second, the max zoom is too short.  And third, the burst speed is far too slow.  I was able to get a handful of images that were good enough to bother posting on here, and a couple I’m even pleased with.  But the simple fact is, a full SLR and telephoto lens would have worked much, much better.

The trick, as I finally figured it out, is to more or less forget about the masses of men marching down the street and instead use a long lens to focus in on an individual at a time.  In each group there is at least one character, a reenactor who stands out from the others for his expression, costume, or attitude.  For the best images, I think I’d need to isolate that character, which was nearly impossible with the setup I had with me, although these start to come close:

The other tip I have to remember for next year is to stand on the other side of the street.  For the last two years, the group I’ve gone down with have insisted on standing so that we face the side of the street facing the McDonald’s and Chinese buffet, which make terrible backgrounds that I am constantly fighting to keep out of my shots.  Which is stupid, since I could have crossed the street and shot back the other way, where my backdrop would have been an empty field with some trees – a much more natural setting altogether.

Therein lies the problem with taking a trip and trying to play tourist and photographer at the same time; divided attentions and purpose result in weaker images.  I was luck with a few, but it frustrates me to know that I could have done better if I had been able to focus just on the images.  That’s why there’s next year.

On a final note, I stuck with B&W for all the parade images; it helps hide the backgrounds, and it appeals to my historical aesthetics.

General Lee at the head of the Confederate troops.

In this change if seasons I find it important to take time where I can get it and to capture scenes where I find them.  We are without the leaves but before the snow, and while that may make for a stark landscape, it also opens up images that wouldn’t otherwise be captured.  So in that spirit I ambled around the pond at Abington Area Community Park for a little while before parking myself in an Adirondack chair on the dock to watch the moon rise.

I felt like working light tonight, so I grabbed the G10.  No lenses, no tripod – everything was shot hand-held with an emphasis on being as steady as possible.  Looking back at this first one, the pattern of light on the leaves made me think that the flash had been engaged.  But a check of the metadata tells me no, that’s just the ambient.  What was  I going for here?  Angles, lines, shapes of light against shadow.

As the moon began to rise, I was faced with two problems.  First, the lens on the G10 doesn’t have near the reach needed to make the moon big enough to stand alone in the frame.  And second, without some HDR manipulation, there’s no way I was going to capture the full dynamic range from the lit moon to the shadowed shore.  The trick then was to place the moon in the photo as an accent piece, in such a way that it wouldn’t matter that it was blown out.

How about a little B&W action?  Take the dark scene, lit mainly by the ugly artificial security light on a storage shed and make something more of it.  Does the cottage ambiance come across?  I hope so, but either way, I think this is a good example of how to take a somewhat bland, somewhat cluttered scene and turn it into something with a little extra punch.  B&W won’t always save the day like that, but sometimes it will help boost the feeling of an image to the next level.

Two thoughts to end with.  First, the classic moon-reflecting-on-water shot.  Still no hope of managing the dynamic range, so we boost the aperture to the max (f/8), drag the shutter to let the headlights on the road stream out, and pray like hell that combination of shooting from the solid chair and the built-in IS system will hold the scene steady for the 1/2 second needed.  Why the headlights?  They’re something different, and instead of a reflected moon, the image shows something else.  Here’s the lesson – instead of always subtracting stuff from a scene to “purify” it, try adding stuff.

And finally the walking-back-to-the-car shot.  This is what happens when I’m cold and hungry but don’t really want to be done yet.  And it’s a state of mind I’d encourage in others.  Most of the time this kind of motion-blur shot turns out looking awful.  But now and then you get lucky.  I won’t go so far as say this is some sort of artistic abstract image.  It’s probably not something I’d even put up as a desktop background.  But I do like the waves, the color and texture of the image.

All shot with a Canon G10, ISO 200, variable shutter speed and aperture.

Ithaca sits in the hills at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, the longest of NY’s Finger Lakes. It is most definitely a college town, filled with a mix of student-oriented businesses and tourist shops. Overall it is quaint, with a bit of a hippie feel.

For nature photographers, it’s a sort of Mecca. “Ithaca is Gorges,” say the T-shirts, and that’s the truth. Within an easy 15 minute drive from downtown, there are at least 5 waterfall sites open to the public, covering everything from informal city access to lovely state parks. Over several years of visits I’ve seen most of them, as well as a few located farther from the city. On this trip, however, we only went to one – Lucifer Falls in the lovely Robert Treman State Park.

Lucifer Falls

Robert Treman State Park (not to be confused with Treman Marine Park on the lake) is set back into the hills a short drive west out of Ithaca. It is essentially comprised of a hiking trail that follows along the creek as it descends through a series of waterfalls before finally leaving the park at the lower entrance, which is a popular swimming hole. We hiked in from the top, since the most impressive falls are within the first 1/2 mile or so, culminating with Lucifer Falls itself.

I’ve done the hike before with a DSLR and backpack full of gear; even with the carved stone steps and excellent trail, it can be challenging with the extra weight. Since I was more interested in enjoying the hike, I took the little G10, although I unfortunately neglected to bring my table-top tripod. A combination of ISO 80, f/8, and the built-in ND filter let me reach shutter speeds as low as .3″, which was enough to let the water stream out, at the same time being just about too slow to hand hold, even with the IS. Where possible I braced the camera or myself against the stone; otherwise I went up a third-stop to 1/4 sec and shot multiple frames, hoping for a sharp one. This “spray & pray” philosophy wasn’t very advanced, but it did pay off with a few good shots.

Without the built-in ND filter, I’d have had no chance of slowing the water down, which goes to show just how bright the light really is, even on overcast days.

Overall, it was the perfect afternoon to be working around the falls. The foliage is still decent in the area, and the warm mineral tones in the rock mirrored it. Definitely better than a day in the office!

While we were there, the Fall Festival was taking place. The primary attraction? Giant pumpkins; huge, oversized, mutant pumpkins, pumpkins that are small if they only weight 800 lbs. Pumpkins so large that it takes a front-end loader to lift them onto the scale. Pumpkins that, after being weighed in and admired, are the next day hollowed out and floated across the lake in a regatta (I didn’t get to see that part, sadly). It is a quintessentially American celebration in the most quintessential of American towns – a celebration of home-grown excess coupled with bizarrity. And it was wonderful.

The weather was lovely, a blue autumn sky and puffy clouds in the morning, the sort of day where you don’t need the “vivid” setting on the camera – lift itself is vivid enough. I was using the G10 all day, carried along for convenience. This was a trip to make photos, but primarily it was a trip to get away and spend some time with Mandy, so juggling the DSLR and lenses was out. But that didn’t matter, the little Powershot was plenty: at ISO 80 and f/8, I was still getting good shutter speeds, and everything from here to Canada was in sharp focus.

In a place like this, where everything looks scenic, I tried to take shots that would show something true about it. The Fall Festival was remarkable for the pumpkins; the main street for its lovely, olden-time charm; the lake for the reflection of the sky and foliage on the water.

I ended by the lake, in a small park at the very headwaters of the Susquehanna River. It is hard to believe that such a large river, a river I grew up around, has such modest beginnings, but then I suppose that’s the way of most things. I spent some time photographing the headwaters, trying to capture the green tint. And I spent some more time photographing sailboats at their moorings, with the whole lake and autumn hills behind.

This was the most challenging set of the day; the scene was beautiful, but the light was starting to fall flat as the clouds built up. Without a tripod, true HDR was out of the question (the G10′s continuous shutter speed is far too slow to try and handhold three exposures). I settled for shooting a single RAW file at the best exposure I could get, and then processing it into a psuedo-HDR image at home. It was just enough to kick an edge back into the scene, without looking too fake.

This is the time of year when photographers should be out and about. It is a time filled with festivals, filled with celebrations of the harvest and of life, when small towns really shine and the hills are filled with color. Pretty soon we’ll all be griping about winter, dragging on in its third month of gloom. Find the time to enjoy autumn while we have it.

First off is the new Canon G11. I had a G9 a while back, and as I’ve mentioned in a lot of posts, I now use a G10 as my pocket, grab & go, feeling-too-lazy-to-carry the DSLR camera. These are amazing little cameras, darn close to being a mini-DSLR in terms of features. The fact that they have a hotshoe and shoot RAW make them great, and set them worlds apart from other P&S cameras.

But their downfall has always been their lousy ISO performance. The G9 was pushing its luck at ISO 200; the G10 can manage ISO 400, if you don’t mind the noise too much. Now enter the G11, which has reduced the megapixel count back to 10and is claiming a two-stop improvement in noise performance. That’s huge – two stops means that shooting ISO 400 should look like ISO 100 does now. If Canon’s claim is true – and from their published test photos it looks like it might be – then this is the G-series camera we’ve all been hoping for.

Frankly, their other improvements to the G11 are minor in comparison. There’s been a bit of button reworking, they moved the “G11″ sticker to a new location, and most obviously, they’ve worked in a swivel screen. I know this is something that a lot of people like, but I really don’t see the point. It makes the camera a bit bulkier and seems like one more expensive piece to accidentally break. I guess I’m just used to DSLRs, where you just have to contort yourself to see through the viewfinder at weird angles.

Next – and even more exciting – the Canon EOS 7D. This is the camera that should blow the 50D out of the water. It seems to be a closer relation to the 5D Mk II than to the 50D line (although I suspect there will still be a 60D down the road). Feature wise, it’s very, very cool. And it kept the APS-C sized sensor, which I prefer over full-frame for the magnification factor – and for the fact that it kept the price manageable.

For starters, there’s supposed to be improved noise performance, although the ISO range is the same as the 50D – not that it really needed to be expanded. Instead of the 9 focus points we were used to, the 7D incorporates 19 points, which can be used independently or grouped. This means that focus accuracy and tracking should rock – but also that we’ll have to learn to use it on the fly.

A major improvement, the viewfinder now covers the whole view – all 100%. And the data displayed in the viewfinder is expanded to cover pretty much everything you’d need to know. And no top of that, it’s fast – 8 frames/sec processed through dual Digic 4 processors. As an added bonus – and major geak feature – they’ve installed a gyroscopic level that displays on either the LCD or in the viewfinder. No more crooked horizons, you’ve now got a pitch/roll indicator that looks like it came out of an aircraft.

On the other side of things, Canon made a few choices that I don’t agree with. Most importantly, they increased the megapixel count to 18 (from the 50D’s 15mp). Frankly, this was stupid – we don’t need 18mp, we need 12 or 15mp with superior noise performance. Next, they added a Full HD movie capacity. Personally, I think this is a waste of space. If I want a movie camera, I’ll buy a movie camera. I’m certainly not going to take movies on my DSLR – that’s not what it’s made for. But then again, I’m the guy who doesn’t like LiveView on his DSLR, either.

All in all, the 7D looks to be an amazing camera, and I’m gonna’ drop my 50D like a moldy sock. Canon claims to have taken input from 5000 photographers into account as they were designing it, which seems like it should only be a benefit to us all. Perhaps this is finally a real photographer’s camera. (The only other camera I feel merits this title is the old Canon A-1, which I always thought was the apex of what a film camera should be.)

Now the bad news: there is no confirmed ship dates for either camera. But from what I can piece together from different websites offering pre-orders, both should start shipping in early October.

*sigh* two more weeks of waiting…

But you have to try and look for the interesting perspective.  This is the fair without the people, which means that it’s best to concentrate on the things that people usually get in the way of.  Fortunately, these are things fairs have to offer – animals, giant vegetables, and bright colored lights.  So, doing my best to shield the little G10 with my hand, I took what I could.

They lack the fun, dynamic quality of my Harford Fair shots.  But I still found them worth keeping and working with.  As a chronicle of American life.  As a rite of passage at the end of summer.  As way of seeing what happens on a rainy evening when everyone is inside.

Now is a good time to slow it all down and get back to the roots of why we got into photography in the first place – for a love of making photos.

Friday night was rodeo night at the 152nd Harford Fair.  I was there, camera in hand, and a goal in mind.  The goal was not to make amazing photos, to capture scenes that nobody had ever captured before, or to get the next hottest selling batch of stock images.  The goal was to have fun.  Yep, that simple.  Just enjoy the fair, and as I went along, to capture some photos that show it as I see it.

That’s the real thing – when nobody else is paying you to make photos, when nobody else has a say in the creative process, that’s when it’s time for your own vision to show.  I love the Harford Fair.  It’s my favorite fair, and rodeo night is my favorite night to go.  I love it because it is still a small county fair, with a small midway tucked back in one corner, easily avoided.  I love it for the animals on display, all of them obviously well cared for and attended to.  I love it for the exhibits, the prize winning cakes and cookies and vegetables and paintings and photographs.  I love the Honey Hut and bee display, the Montrose Band funnel cakes, the antique tractor tent, and the locally-run dunking booth.

There is no shortage of things to love about the Harford Fair, at least not through my eyes.  So it’s not a difficult task to make photos that show that.  I made photos that were fun, that showed the elements of the fair that I want to celebrate.  I took them all with the little G10, so I wasn’t messing with lenses and filters and a big DSLR all night.  And when I got them home on the computer, I didn’t bother trying to edit them for best marketability, or strick editorial presentation.  I ran my “Lomography” action on all of them and tweaked them so that they looked fun.  Remember, I’m not trying to report on what the fair looks like, I’m trying to show you what it looks like to me.  So rich colors and hard vignettes and a ’60s film look is all okay.

I had fun.  I hope my photos show that.

Planning on needing umbrellas, we headed to Quechee – a town best described as “touristy” which I remember visiting as a child, although I doubt I ever approached it with as much excitement as I did today.  It’s funny how that happens – places you found boring and dreaded as a kid become interesting as you grow older.  At any rate, our first stop was VINS – the Vermont Institute of Natural Science.

VINS is an exceptional organization, dedicated to education and protection of the natural wonders of Vermont, but most especially in regards to avian species, from song birds to raptors.  Their facility serves as a rehabilitation center for injured birds from across the state, and each year they manage to release hundreds of birds back into the wild.  When birds are found injured, hit by cars, attached by cats, this is the place to call – you’d be hard pressed to find a more dedicated group than this.

Of course, not all the rescued birds are fit for release back to the wild, sometimes due to the severity of their injuries, and sometimes because the birds no longer have a fear of humans, or worse, have come to depend on humans for survival.  This mainly occurs with raptors, and when it does, some of them become permanent residents at VINS, either as display examples of the species, or as educational birds who undergo specialized falconry training so that they can perform during educational presentations.

When I say “perform,” don’t think the circus; the birds respond to falconry commands, moving to and from their handler.  If you’re not familiar with falconry, it is the ancient art of training birds-of-prey for hunting, and is still widely practiced today.

The show we watched was fascinating, and at the end I photographed the display birds in their enclosures.  I left the 50D home for the day and shot with the G10; today was a day where I wanted the ability to stuff it in my jacket pocket.  Add to which, the birds are in enclosures – it’s not like I needed 400mm to reach them, the G10′s zoom was plenty.  All were shot at f/4.5 (full zoom), ISO 200, and between 1/10 & 1/60 sec.

Notice that I’m not trying to hide the enclosures – no drastic out-of-focus backgrounds, no fancy compositions that hide the fencing.  These are captive birds and it’s only right to show them as such – taking captive critters and portraying them as wild shows a severe lack of photographic integrity, and furthermore, is rather silly.  Captive animals may well be easier to shoot, but that doesn’t make them any less valid as subjects.

————————————————–

After lunch – amid the promised downpour that forced us to cancel our hike down into Quechee Gorge – we stopped at Simon Pierce Pottery & Glass.  Glass blowing is a fascinating art, and after you look through the sale floor and feel your wallet wheeze just thinking about buying anything ($50 for a single wine glass!), you can head downstairs to see how it’s all done.  All the workers are craftsmen and watching them at work is captivating.  The conditions are tough for image making; subdued lighting vs. the intense glow of the furnaces.  Instead of trying to fight the motion blur, I chose to work with it.

Again, all shot with the Canon G10 at the lowest possible aperture, 1/8 – 1/30 sec., ISO 400.

Since this wasn’t a dedicated photo trip, the photos are somewhat fewer than usual.  But I still managed to get some keepers, even with just the G10, which performed quite well.  I was able to keep it at ISO 80 during the daylight hours, which is definitely it’s preferred setting for quality.  Once twilight hit I was up to ISO 200, but even then the performance is pretty darn good.

For all the good, this trip also helped me remember my mantra regarding the little P&S: it’s not a DLSR, don’t use it like one!  It is what it is, and does a good job at that, but I simply can’t push it the way I do my 50D (which I will be bringing with me when I return to Gettysburg in October).

So where did I go?  The battlefield was the first stop; we drove the tour road up to Little Round Top, where the Union forces repeatedly repulsed the Confederates.  From the summit of Little Round Top, you command the view of the battlefield, which makes it an excellent location for panoramas – especially if you climb to the top of the memorial and shoot over the parapet.

From there we drove 5 minutes more down onto the fields and stopped at Devil’s Den.  The huge boulders make for interesting photos, but I find that scale is always an issue – without something to show the relative size, the immensity of the boulders is lost.  One of the neater points, however, is that the location of a famous photo taken after the battle is atop Devil’s Den.  You’ve probably seen it; the Confederate soldier dead behind a crumbling stone wall thrown up between two boulders, his rifle still leaning against it.  Of course the photo was faked – the photographer actually dragged the body over there to get his shot!  Morbid, yes.  But I find it fascinating to be able to visit the same shot the original was taken.

We stopped at the Pennslyvania Memorial and then, at sunset, returned to the fields near Plum Run and shot some more, then back to the PA Memorial for twilight, at which point the light became too faint to work with.  This is only a small portion of the battlefield, which was just starting to show the green of spring.  There’s a lot more miles I wasn’t able to visit this time!

So the verdict?  I’m happy with what I got.  None are the “best photo ever,” but they’re good, solid shots.  For a non-photographic trip, I’m happy to have gotten anything good.  But I’ll definitely be returning to really work the field with the big gear.