Opening Day, Deer Season

I dropped my daughter off at an event that was far from our home, so I took my cameras with me, and ventured out into the nearby country side and woods.  I knew it was opening day for our state's gun (deer) hunting season, but I had no idea so many cars and trucks would be out in the wooded area where I had hoped to find wildlife; it was crawling with orange vested people, so I stayed in my car and just looked from the road.  I did see one buck running fast across a field, I saw a few red-tailed hawks, but other than that, I came up empty. 

I saw this one man positioned on top of a ridge, sun rising on him, with his buddies trying to drive deer his way.  The composition and lighting yielded me this:

Canvas on Demand, Really Nice!

I recently tried Canvas on Demand, and printed one of my favorite deer shots on canvas, mounted on 1.5 inch stretcher bars.  The results really look nice.  I selected the 16 x 20 inch format (finished size).  Since I wanted the canvas wrapped - and I wanted to see the print on the edges, I cropped the shot to a size of 19.25 x 23.25 inches (per their instructions) and I used a 300dpi resolution.  The original shot is a bit soft, it was snowing, so I though the canvas media would really make this come to life, and wow, it did.  (I'm not sure that a really super sharp focused photo would end us as sharp on canvas, so you might want to experiment before doing a large expensive piece)  This is the shot that I used (it's not a photo of the final canvas product):

A Different Kind of Sunset

While I was shooting pictures of our daughters' high school marching band at their football stadium, the local NBC affiliate's chopper stopped by, sat down on a soccer field, and later took off.  Here they go, into the sunset!

San Diego Sunset

From my room on the 29th floor of the Bayfront Hilton hotel, San Diego, California (while attending an IT conference), looking west through a thermopane window - I saw the sun setting, and grabbed my longest lens (Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM) and aimed dead center on the sun (to set the lighting), then focused on the palm trees on the hill, and shot away.  This is cropped about 50% and post processed a bit in Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 to deal with some of the flare/reflection that either the window created, or the fact that I was looking dead center into the sun - the original shot had a small reflection of the sun on top of the sun - floating in the sky, that needed to be removed.  Final product:

Where have I been?

It's been awhile since I've posted to my blog, and it's not because things have not been happening.  Early in May, I was in Las Vegas for a technology convention, but for a day and a half, I spent time at Bryce Canyon National Park, and then also a little time at Zion National Park.  In June, our oldest daughter was married, and the last week of July I spent in San Diego.  So I've been keeping busy with my cameras, but just have not found time to post updates to my web site (www.JHillmer.com) or here.  In August, I'm helping a high school band group with their "band camp" and that includes shooting them too. 

I just got back a nice shot from my Bryce Canyon collection, one that I had printed and mounted at Nations Photo Lab as a 20x30 inch, and then double matted and framed at a local framing store in town.  It really looks nice.  Here's a small version of the shot:

Spring in Wisconsin

It's been a warm spring in South Eastern Wisconsin.  For the past two weekends, I've had a chance to get out and hike some of your State and County areas in search of wildlife.  Take a look at the recent updates to http://www.jhillmer.com/!  Here's a sample that includes a Sandhill Crane taking to flight right over a pair of Bufflehead Ducks.

Redtail Hawk, outside of Lena, Illinois

Taken while driving my family back from a wedding shower for my daughter.  Taken just before it took to flight.

Cedar Waxwings in Texas

I live in SE Wisconsin, and each fall we see the Cedar Waxwings for a few weeks as they migrate through feeding on the ripe cedar berries (and others).  While we see them from time to time in the summer too, fall is when they are easy to spot.  Then, they disappear as the fall turns to winter here, and they look for food in other southern states.  I had a business meeting in Dallas Texas last week, and I found many of them there, feeding on berry trees that were near the hotel I was staying at.  It was nice to see them again!

Marsh Madness in Horicon

I took the day off in recognition of my 52nd birthday and with cameras in hand, I spent a few hours in and near the Horicon Marsh State Wildlife area (Wisconsin). 

While the marsh was still frozen and covered with snow, geese where already stopping over, and a number of sandhill cranes were seen (and heard) well overhead on their way north.  In a small wooded area, I found this cardinal signing back and forth with another one.  I also spotted a few redtail hawks and a red-bellied woodpecker, and heard my first robin this year.

Canon Service Center - Great Results!

Unfortunately, a year or so back, I dropped my Canon 100-400mm IS lens, and while it didn't hit the ground hard, the filter shattered which in the end resulted in a very small nick in the external glass of the lens. The rest of the lens appeared to still function fine, but after months of use, I noticed that when IS (image stabilization) was engaged, the auto-focus was way too soft. In time, I stopped using the IS. After hearing that Canon's Service center did a nice repair job for a friend of mine, I decided to try them too. Sure enough, I'm very happy with the results.

Go to Canon's web site, surf to the support page for the EOS cameras and ask for a quote. Since my lens was out of warranty, they were not able to quote a repair price, but they said if I mailed it to them (at my cost) they would email me with the cost of the repair, and on my approval they would perform the repair in 7 days, and return it to me at their cost. If I didn't like the repair cost, they would also return it to me at their cost. The repair cost was reasonable, given what they probably had to do to fix the IS and auto-focus, and they also replaced the front glass, and shipped it back, and it works great! I recommend this same approach if you are not happy with the performance of your lenses too!