A visual exploration of wildlife, people, and places, through digital photography.
About the images on this page.
Select a gallery from the list to load it into this page.
We each use a Canon 20D camera and share several Canon lenses: 17-85mm f/4-5.6, 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, 24mm f/2.8, 100mm f/2.8 Macro, 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L, and 400mm f/5.6L. We also use a Tamron 1.4X teleconverter and sometimes use a Canon 2.0X teleconverter. During football season, Randy normally uses our 100-400mm lens but sometimes rents either a 70-200mm f/2.8L or a 300mm f/2.8L for better light-gathering power during night games.
Our electronic flash inventory includes a Canon 420EX, a Canon 580EX, and an old Nikon SB-15. We frequently use a Better Beamer to light up distant birds and animals. We sometimes use a Kenko extension tube set and occassionally use a Canon TC-80N3 Timer Remote Control.
We try to use a tripod as much as possible to minimize camera shake so as to produce the sharpest possible images. We each use a light-weight Manfrotto tripod with ball head. Randy uses a monopod at football games.
Briefly, here are the steps we follow to get our photos from the camera into a presentable format, such as a print or a website album:
We plug the camera's compact flash (CF) card into a CF card reader that is attached to one of the computer's USB ports; we start up a software program called Downloader Pro that transfers all of the photos onto the computer and automatically puts each photo file into the appropriate directory on the computer while simultaneously renaming each photo; after closing Downloader Pro, we start a program called BreezeBrowser Pro, which we use to sort through all of the photos, deleting any that are obviously not worth keeping, usually half or more of the total.
Finally, we use one of three software programs to convert the photo files from the camera's "raw" photo format into a format such as jpeg that computers and web browsers can quickly and easily display on the computer monitor. Those programs are BreezeBrowser Pro (preferred by Randy because of its thumbnail-generation speed), Capture One Pro, and Adobe Photoshop CS2.
We only shoot digital now because with a film camera, not only do you not get the immediate feedback that a digital camera gives you, but you also must pay to have your film developed.
Yes, we use an Epson R800 for our photo prints. It prints up to 8-1/2" x 11." We print photos from one of the software packages mentioned above or from a more specialized program called Qimage.
The design is based on " Like the Sea," one of the sites featured at css Zen Garden. Adobe Photoshop CS2 was used to create the images from our own photos and Macromedia's Dreamweaver is used to edit the website files. The photo galleries are made with the free program JAlbum, which Randy customized to fit our new design theme.