Katelyn At Crossville

Katelyn At Crossville(Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/2.8L lens - 1/500 second, f/4, ISO 200)

In Crossville for the 4th of July holiday, we had a very relaxing time around the house. Not a lot to do and a whole lot of time to get it done. We ended up speding a lot of time watching the kids (or should I say kid) out by the pool. She was in and out of the water a lot, but sure did like to play with cups and bottles throwing the water everywhere.

Katelyn decided to try on Honey's flip-flops at one point and was excited that she could navigate the deck with them. I think they slid off more than they stayed on, but she was cute trying to walk in them that we just couldn' help but chuckle.

Fireworks from Next Door

Fireworks From Next Door (Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4.0L lens - 2 second, f/11, ISO 200)

The family went to Crossville, TN for the weekend of the 4th of July. That included Gram, Pappy, Honey, me (Pops), our daughter Stephanie and her daughters Katelyn and Jennifer. We had a great trip with a lot of activities.

About dark on Friday night, we started to hear firecrackers next door. After a little while, the pops were getting deeper and louder indicating bigger and better fireworks. We decided to move out on the back porch to check out the show. I grabbed the camera and tripod and headed out as well. I learned a valuable lesson. Always make sure to focus the camera and zoom in to make sure the detail looks OK. On the small viewer, the pictures looked fine, but later I found that the lens was not in focus the fireworks were blurred.

I also realized, again, that a tripod is an absolute must when taking pictures of fireworks. I was using the 24-105 Canon L-series lens with IS, but even with the IS, the exposure was long enough to be very shakey.

Katelyn At The Pool

Katelyn At The Pool (Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/2.8L lens - 1/125 second, f/8, ISO 200)

Fireworks at Crossville

We made plans to see the fireworks at the Lake Tansai resort in Crossville. We left in plenty of time to stake out a great seat. We made our way into the park, and right off, there seemed to be something amiss. We didn't see the normal traffic and thought maybe it was our good fortune. Since there was no obvious congregation of people, we asked a ranger about the location of the fireworks display. His answer, while disappointing, explained the lack of people. They were not having a fireworks show this year, but were suggesting everyone go to the main fireworks display in Crossville at the Industrial Park.

So, it was off to town we went. Since we packed a picnic, we could eat there just as easily as Lake Tansai so everything was working out fine. We staked out a good place to park, spread out the eats and settled in for the show. about 20 mintues before the start of show, it started to rain. The local radio station said the fireworks show was still a "go" and said the rain would move out of the area by the start. Sure enough, when the time came for the show to start, I had to rush to get the camera setup and

The Williamson Reunion

The Williamson Reunion (Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/2.8L lens - 1/125 second, f/4, ISO 400) 

On Saturday, we joined the Williamson Family for the annual family reunion at Wind Creek State Park, Alexander City, AL. It was hot, but very good to see everybody there. With about 60 people there, food to feed twice that many, it was good time visiting with family and friends.

We had some fun in the lake too. Julie and Katelyn decided they wanted to wade in the lake. So Julie took Katelyn in while Kaitlyn (a cousin) waded in also. Katelyn (the granddaughter) was having fun playing with Julie. We managed to lose the dress, but prudence demanded that the diaper had to stay. The more we played, the more the diaper absorbed so that by the end of the journey, it was about 10X the original size. And Katelyn was just enjoying it more.

Taking pictures under the pavilion was pretty easy. Once I determined the correct setting for the pictures, I just set the camera to manual and snapping away. Of course, when I moved to take pictures outside the pavilion, it turned out a little bright until I remembered to reset my settings. Then, of course, when I came back to the pavilion, I had to remember to set them back. But I managed to get a few good ones.

Sleep Over Weekend

Sleep-Over Weekend (Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/2.8L lens - 1/100 second, f/4, ISO 100)

Another eventful weekend! I got home Friday night and found that the power was off. Julie's mom suggested a "sleep-over" at her house. We decided that it would be a good idea to stay over there Friday night and come back home Saturday after the power was back on. So I packed up a few things and the camera and went over to the Tates for the night. When I arrived, Julie, Katelyn and Harriett were busy making cookies. We stayed up late Friday night playing around.

On Saturday, we got up and it was raining hard. It rained for several hours and I took the opportunity to snap some weather shots showing the rain. Just after lunch, the sun came out and the skies cleared. Katelyn decided that it was time to go swimming, so we took the camera outside and got some action shots of Katelyn playing in the pool. After watering the plants, cars, trees, some people, and well, just about everything, we decided to move back inside to eat dinner.

Harriett had just finished smocking Katelyn's dress and wanted a picture or two of her in the dress. So we put Katelyn in the dress and took some pictures of her around the living room. I chose f/4 to get the depth of field that would get a blurred background while getting her whole face in focus. I chose ISO 100 to get the detail. I chose the 1/100th shutter speed to allow the background to show up and not look dark. With the Canon EX 580 II flash on ETTL, I just starting flashing away. Katelyn was tired (as were we all) and I wasn't able to get a great amount of good shots, but I got enough to feel successful.

Lilies

Lilies (Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/4 second, f/16, ISO 50)

Well, these last few days have been very eventful. We helped our oldest son move back into the house this last weekend. We went to the hospital also this weekend to begin the process of becoming Grandparents 2.0. So I didn't get pictures of kids this weekend. However, Julie's mom said that she had some lilies that had bloomed and wanted pictures of them. As it turned out, they were almost perfect specimen - beautiful, full and open. I was able to get some with existing light, some with flash, using bounce and not. It was very exciting to get so many great pictures. Believe me, it was hard to pick the finalist for the album.

I like this picture because I don't see 2 lilies in a picture too often - especially two such beautiful specimen. I had the Canon 5d setup on a tripod with remote trigger with the EX 580 II on top. On this one, I bounced the flash into a white reflector to soften the light from the flash. Except for a little extra saturation, a little unsharpen mask and little levels adjustment, there wasn't anything done to this photo.

I used the f/16 to keep the depth of field up. I used the ISO 50 because I had the tripod and 1/4 sec shutter wasn't bad with the remote trigger. Since the flowers were located outside the garage, I got some brick wall, door and a chair in the background, but because I was using the flash, I could adjust so the background was dark. I used the levels adjustment to darken the background even more. I put in just a little unsharpen mask to try to bring out the details. It seems that it was harder to do than I first thought. I was hard to strike a balance between getting the details sharp and creating halos around some of the objects. Anyway, I hope it's good enough.

Well, I guess it's time to get back to be being a granddad again. Until next week...