Marching Band Material

While my hobby is Nature and Wildlife photography, I have also been a high-school Marching Band's photographer for a few years. This past weekend was a lot of fun, getting group and sectional shots of the kids, while also looking for material for a glossy program that is being put together for a show we will be hosting in two weeks. Candid and group shots are provided to the band members and their parents using a semi-private site, so I usually don't display their shots elsewhere. I will include a few here that I like from the weekend, as they capture the mood and event, without focusing on the individuals. One of these will be on the cover of the program that we sent off to the printer today, the others are just shots that I like.

Golden Gate Bridge - in Fog

At the end of August, I spent a few days in San Francisco on business, and had a few hours to myself one late afternoon. The Bay-Area was fogged in as usual, and while I took a few shots of the sea lions and local birds, I had fun trying to capture the Golden Gate Bridge with fog, sun-down, pelicans, and without getting too much salt water near my camera. To help with this, I took a short 1 hour tour out from Fishermen's Wharf, around Alcatraz Island, and then back. Here's one of my favorites from the evening.

Canon EOS 7D DSLR - Wow!

I was not in the market for another camera, but news of the Canon 7D that was just announced caught my eye! As of today, Amazon is not yet showing it but others are listing it as "not available yet" and other sites suggest it will be on the street by the end of this September.

See more at: Canon's Site, or check out for one of my favorite review sites, dpreview.com

Canon's site says msrp will be $1,699, so it will be interesting to see what the internet sites offer it for, and if this new model causes any price movement on the Canon EOS 50D, or to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (I've been thinking that might be the next one for me, but the 7D could be interesting too).

ShiftN - Free Perspective Correction

I'm sure there are other ways to address Perspective Corrections, but I found ShiftN, a free (for personal or commercial) use tool. Pictures taken with a wide angle lens, sometimes get a bowed effect that can look funny, especially when objects in the shot make it obvious that your wide angle lens did a number on the perspective. A week or so ago, I took some shots for a work-related function at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The shots were for business reasons so I'm not showing those, but here's one of the "Hill-Climber" that is outside of the museum.



This was shot with a Canon 40D using a Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM, at at focal length of 23mm. The flag pole in the actual shot was pretty bowed. ShiftN helped me correct that. The background buildings aren't perfect, but this is better than the original.