We went to Gatlinburg, Tenn. and had a wonderful time. Timing is important, school wouldn't let out for two weeks so the number of munchkins was low, also Memorial day was the week after we were there. That kept the prices low. Thee Photobear is thrifty. This is the place we stayed, our friends got a suite with two bedrooms and a really nice creek view. The sound of rushing water is soothing and the weather was perfect. One thing about Gatlinburg is the quantity and quality of the water. We had just come out of a two year drought in the Atlanta area, and it is refreshing to experience the nice flows.

There is a sustantial creek running right beside the hotel, our balconey is second floor about halfway down the building. Straight down is the creek. Next to us across a small isle is a short dam, the sound is far superior to any city noises I'm use to.

Our first excursion was to Cades Cove, it is a flat area within the Great Smokey Mountains, about five miles long and approximately one mile wide. The original settlers were the Indians indigenous to the area. How they originally found the Cove is a mystery to me, it is one hard walk into that area. Somebody let slip to the white people what was there and suddenly they had to go, then the Federal Gov. stepped in and relocated the white folk. There is still a court squabble ongoing today.

As you can see, deer love this place. Every traffic jam usually involved them. They have no fear of man and one can get quite close to them. I couldn't, passengers don't get to call the photostops. That's ok, because there were more.

When you are shooting them remember they like cover and even though it is day time the shade reduces availible light. I had my short tele cranked out as far as it would go. Then cropped the pix a little. The Nikon D70s was able to compensate for the lighting, but my shutter speeds were a little slow. The Nikon SLRs have thousands of exposure scenarios built in and over the years I've come to trust that ability. My only want was to get a little closer, faster lens, more pixels, and everything the average photobear could want.

The settlers who lived here had excellent water suppies, quality and quantity. It is a beautiful place.

I love shooting water. The motion, the feel of its life makes it one of my favorite subjects. Plus its a lot of fun.

The water wheel below turned a grain,corn grinding wheel inside the building. There is actual grinding going on and we bought some corn meal there. It is very dark inside, so I didn't make any pix. [Yes, I know what a flash is, I hate them] [OK, hate is a strong word, dislike the way the picture looks with flash. Is that better?] The wheel isn't spinning madly, its just a long exposure to get the water's motion. I braced the camera on the rail and made three exposures. Love digital, a large memory card allows you to take many pictures without running out of film. Memory cards are very cheap now, it makes no sense to not carry several.

The lighting was just right for this piece of farming equipment, the horse drawn sickle is in the shade but the sun was bouncing up off the ground in front of it giving the item a 'quality of light' feel. Also there is plenty of light to use a small aperture and get plenty of depth-of-field.

Review: depth-of-field is the area of the photograph that is in focus. A large aperture gives small depth allowing the background to be out of focus and the primary subject jumps out of the picture catching all of your attention. Small apertures give large depth, sometimes so large everything in the photograph is in focus. that puts your primary subject in its enviroment.

There's more later. The Photobear. ....and there was a bear, too.

So, I've escaped my little doldrums. I've been researching and trying to shift my little photomind from film to digital. I found some advice that may [or not] interest you; photography should be fun. All the thinking about apertures, shutter speeds, film[digital] speeds, and composition, and the other things that go into a really good picture, fun should be one of the reasons we do it. To finally answer my phototeachers never to be answered question, "why did you take this picture?" Because I enjoyed taking it! Now I can get my 'A'.

This group of photographs are at Disney's free park called "Downtown Disney" [the east end]. Think of this place like a Disney park without the rides and the 'entry' fee. Not that you won't spend a few dollars, Disney would never condone that. However it is a nice place. there are (of course) Disney stores, restaurants, stores, McDonalds, shows, theaters, music store, gift and knic-knac stores, and a neat five story video arcade. at the west end there is Cirque du Soleil La Nouba with live shows. If Planet Hollywood rings a bell, there's one too. Scout out the whole line of stores. At night the 'Pleasure Island' section comes to life with live music, dancing, and late night entertainment. [We drove by the place on New Years Eve, and from the looks of the parking lot, getting there early would be an excellent idea.]

If you look closely Stitch is spraying a stream of water, you may not know it if you're just standing there but you will.

That's the Rainforest cafe rising above the east end of the park, we eat there almost everytime we go. Try the 'Volcano' for dessert, you must leave room for it!

That is a Lego sculpture. Somebody had a little too much time on their hands. There are others.

This a nice restaurant on the lake, in the lake. 'Puff' thinks so, too.

This is another view, taken for 'fun'.

So, remember, that camera is more than just an incredibly advanced piece of electronic equipment, it's a FUN adventure in your hand.

I'm Back

Now, I am looking for an excuse to be gone so long; let's see, alien attack? no, too believable, lost in the jungles of Brazil. No, I've been at work. Just flat out lazy? Can't be, everybody that knows me calls me other things [something to do with my mother and father not being hithched] but that's another story. Maybe its just I've been checking out some others web sites and, jeez this little place isn't but a snif. So to work out the meaning of life I'll just have to make more pictures.

Photonote of the day: When showing your pictures to others, it isn't what you show them, it's what you don't.

The Photobear loves trains. As promised, these are the other pictures at Epcot. They change the trains around periodically, and I like the steam engine. If you notice the big round things on top are pennies. That should give you scale of the engine size. That would be the 'O' scale, which is twice the size of the popular HO.

There is a second train passing the steam engine. Yes its cool.This one is an Amtrak replica, see, its says Amtrak on the front. Good thing the Photobear is so observant.

I made sure to have plenty of depth of field, so the entire train is in focus. This makes the picture appear sharp which it is. Just a little phototip.

The Photobear likes trains. That simple statement can go a very long way to messing up your hobby like photography. So the best thing is to combine the two things. Here is the train at Heritage Park, located in McDonough, Ga. ( I-75 exit 218, go east about 4 or so miles, hwy 81). This train is a type similar to the one that ran over a washed away tressle back in 1903 or was it '06? 36 people died in the wreck, their bodies were laid out at the square, now they say the square is haunted. I don't really understand why a ghost would haunt the wrong place. Maybe they are as smart as we are. This train is a 2-4-0, very similar to the type that opened America when the railroad began crossing our country.

Here are the driving wheels, they're not very large. That limits speed but increases pulling power.

Photonote: the overcast day made the shadows dark so I set the camera to fill flash. The new automatics do this so easily, not like older cameras which required much calculation to fill, or you had to quess.

If you look carefully both driving wheels are linked together by a bar and that arrangement is rotated by the forward steam piston. How simple an idea.

This view is the last thing a cow sees if its on the tracks.

Naturally I have to slip a picture of the model train display at Disneys' Epcot. The red and yellow trolleys are crossing near the tiny village. This is in 'G' scale. Sometimes they put out a steam replica engine, and somewhere I have a picture of it. I promise to put it out later.

The Disney shot was taken with my Nikon D70s 18^70mm, and the others I used my Nikon 4300. One day I'm going to run across a running steam engine. Click Click.

Eeeww!! Giant bug!

I discovered this fellow hanging from my carport wall. At first, I thought what you did, eek! Then, I looked again and realized it was a skin of bug. (Bug: a creepy crawly thing with more legs than a dog.) These guys live underground for years and suddenly they all surface, shed their skins, spread their wings, which are under the skin, fly off, meet girls or a guy, have bug marriage, lay some eggs, and die. What has that to do with photography?
Why? that would be macro-photography. The technique of taking a picture of something small and making it fit the view screen. For this, I have a macro lens. Being the thrifty type, I spotted the lens in a pawnshop attached to a Nikon N2000. I really didn't want the body, but did want the lens. And it wasn't that expensive. I'll sell the body separately on ebay. I still have the body, it's a good unit, oh well.
I set the lens at 1:1.5. umm.....did everybody get that? No?
That is the ratio of image to object. The object (bug) is one and a half times the size as the image. Translation: picture of bug is real big on the film ( or digital medium) which allows us to see details we normally would not see. Look carefully, there are white net like fibers across the face of the bug, those are mold filaments.

Being in photography there is no free lunch, note the items that must be thought about before taking the picture. When shooting really close the depth of field (the area that is in focus) is very narrow. You must take care that the little sharply focused area is on something important, normally the eyes. Flowers don't have eyes, so good luck.
The greater the magnification the greater the camera shake. I found that around 1/4 sec exposure the picture had some blurring. To get sharp pictures at this magification you need longer shutter speeds, at least 1/2 sec, longer is better, which is what I did. 1.3 seconds, this allows the camera to stop vibrating and get a sharp image. Almost all SLRs act this way, with few exceptions, ( I said this to placate those who believe Their Wonder Type will not vibrate this way.) Lastly, you must have a steady tripod. Period. I recommend this as your second piece of equipment to buy. Period. A steady camera will maximize the lens' taking ability, an unsteady mount reduces the worlds sharpest lens to at best, soft.
Hunt for that macro lens, and if the photojourney takes too long, get a set of close-up filters and mount them on your lens. I used a Nikon 135 with a +1 filter as my butterfly outfit for years. And it never let me down. Review the last blog with the cell phone and close-up lens.

Quik photonote: Name brand macro lenses are rather pricey (Nikon calls theirs Micro) and come in different focal lengths which cost more as the lenses get longer. There are some third party brands which are substantially less. Mine is an Elicar, and on the web it has a good reputation. The next route is to buy a zoom lens with a "macro" feature. This is usually 1:4, at best a close-up lens, but it will make a nice picture, my 'macro' zoom lens works fine, it just weighs a metric ton. But that weight steadies the shot. My cake, eat it too.

Cell phone camera

I've updated my cell phone and it, of course, comes with many features, games mp3 player, calculator, and alarm clock to name but a few. It also has a 1.3 mg camera. As you know, the photobear has to try out all his cameras. To be specific, my idea of a camera is that, it should operate in as many ways as possible. Being a 'you press, we do the rest' there are no controls on the camera. Dang. It is fully automated. That's not a bad thing, just a limiting thing. To our advantage, the aperture is very tiny. That equals great depth of field. (The distance, that is in focus, is about a foot in front of the camera to infinity. That's a long way.) There is an optical illusion, that if everything is in focus, the picture appears sharp. We can discuss the large aperture later. Using the small aperture, we can get, apparently sharp pictures. Also, the small aperture requires a great deal of light, such as the sun. These were taken in overcast conditions. The little camera phone performs quite well. Above is a pine branch, to experiment with the lens' close up ability. It's pretty good. If you notice the fence in the background, it's sharp for this type of lens. The brown end of the branch is no more than 5" from the camera. That's a down right good close up. There are lots of things in the close up world to take pictures of. Like this light blue flower. I don't know what it is, a 'violet'? Inspect the picture for a moment, is something wrong?

Of course, the flower is out of focus.

Why?

because the massive depth of field starts a little further away from the camera. Hmmm...this would be a nice shot but the flower is not sharp. It's too close to the camera, about 2.5". A part of the photoworld, we can't shoot. But wait, I have accessories, among them is a magnifying lens. I held the magnifier in front of the taking lens and guessed at the distance. It's quite good, don't you think? The color shift is caused by the magnifier being coated sort of a golden hue. I do have a clear one, somewhere.

That is the fun of photography, experimenting. Let me know what you think of this little trick. I've got more things to shoot.

Photonote: The camera has a digital zoom, but when I boosted the resolution to maximum, the zoom function went away. Because there is nothing to crop out when zooming at max. But,... you can crop in the computer, later.