Mourning victims and there families in earthquake stricken Kathmandu.

Lynn and I visited Earthquake stricken Kathmandu in 2012. Today we are sadly mourning those who lost their lives in this new, horrible tragedy. I posted a few photos from Kathmandu here: http://www.crazyabouttravel.com/12-04-India-0007.html

Night Photograph Opportunities

Recently my wife and I attended the special limited engagement event, Zoominations at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo.  This was a great opportunity to test the nighttime capabilities of my recently purchased Nikon D750 camera.

These photographs were taken using the Nikon 24-120mm f4.0 lens.  My aperture varied from 2500-4000.  All were taken with the camera on a Gitzo monopod after the sun went down and the sky became an inky black.

Once again, I am thrilled with the results from my new full frame camera. I am finding that nighttime and event photography makes my best use of this camera. I also really like the Nikon D750's wifi capabilities.  It is fun to be able to take a photo and immediately be able to send it to my iPhone or iPod for quick posting on social media sites. Your thoughts?

Challenges photographing cityscapes.

One of my photography passions is photographing cityscapes and skylines. Recently a couple of friends and I decided to photograph the Tampa skyline at dusk. We all were shooting smaller cameras. I took my Olympus Micro 4/3 OMD-EM10. One of my friends took his Mirrorless Sony A7 and the third brought his tiny Sony A6000. We all just brought one wide angle lens. All of our photos were taken on a tripod. 

There are several challenges to getting good cityscapes:  

1) Finding the best location for the ideal photo, in this case, we found a spot across the Hillsborough River, behind Tampa General Hospital. 

2) Selecting the right time to photograph the skyline. We decided to be setup and shooting about an hour before sunset. We were at the location until about an hour after sunset until the sky became an inky black. We spent about 2 1/2 hours on this shoot. 

3) Getting the right settings to be able to get most of the scene in focus. It is more of a challenge than it might seem to get the signage and the buildings in focus. I think that all three of us felt most comfortable with an f8.0 aperture though we experimented with numerous ISOs and shutter speeds in Aperture and Manual priorities. 

We loved the contrasts that we got as the sun was setting and the city lights of Tampa were coming on.

If you want to invigorate your photography look for challenges and opportunities in your area to photograph skylines and cityscapes.