I’ve been wanting to use the tele lens a little more lately. I really like my standard zoom for capturing the whole scene, but I need more practice on picking out the details that catch my eye.
It was a cloudy morning, but the ceiling cleared the skyscrapers considerably. The City Hall building was lit in blue, and we could see the lights on the clouds above the city.
After taking some shots of the city, I stopped by a transit station, and the bust station structure with the deep blue clouds caught my eye.
Sony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 100-400mm GM | 158mm | ISO 100 | f/5 | 5.0 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 100-400mm GM | 215mm | ISO 100 | f/5.6 | 5.0 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 100-400mm GM | 400mm | ISO 100 | f/5.6 | 5.0 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 100-400mm GM | 400mm | ISO 100 | f/5.6 | 5.0 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 100-400mm GM | 100mm | ISO 100 | f/4.5 | 2.0 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GM II | 43mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 2.0 sec
I recently traveled to North Carolina. This was a voluntold type trip in that I was only there because my SO said it was highly encouraged, which is to say more than mandatory. Despite having to be there for another reason, I still searched to see if there were any lighthouses nearby. There was one in the general vicinity. It was not the coolest lighthouse I’ve seen, but it would be a fine subject.
Fast forward to the weekend of, and things were not working for me. I had a hellish day of travel due to flight delays, rental car place being out of cars, having to change hotels last minute. That put me behind schedule, and I only had one opportunity to escape and go do my thing. It’s the night before, I’m exhausted, I’m checking out the weather, and there’s a storm blowing in. Weather report indicates it’ll get in too early, but I was excited to have a chance to get a good sky.
I live in the Central time zone, I had my alarm set for 5:00 AM Eastern, after a night in which I only got a few hours sleep. Despite being very tired, I didn’t want to waste a golden opportunity.
Sony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GM II | 24mm | ISO 100 | f/5.6 | 10 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GM II | 24mm | ISO 100 | f/8 | 30 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GM II | 24mm | ISO 100 | f/8 | 1/6 secSony Alpha 7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GM II | 24mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 1/4 sec
The morning was brilliant. The colors, the clouds, the subject. I was very pleased with the results. The storm that was rolling in wasn’t but 20 minutes behind me. Definitely glad I made the trip.
These photos were taken over a decade ago on my old Olympus 4/3rd Digital SLR. This was taken in December of 2009. The wind speed had gone down with the sun, but some fog was appearing over the land where it was cooler than over the water.
I was woken on this morning by a thunderstorm, and thought, well I’m not going to get any pictures today. I pulled up the radar, and it was a smaller storm moving through pretty quickly. Then I thought, this might actually work out for me.
In typical Houston fashion, I tried running to one of my favorite spots only to find the streets had been closed. What made that more excruciating was that on the way, I loved the view, but I lost another 10 minutes trying to work around the road closures. When the light is changing quickly, that 10 minutes feels like a lifetime.
I didn’t park where I really should have, and was rushing to avoid any problems with the place I did park. It ended up working out because the light I wanted had passed anyways, but below are three shots from this morning.
Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 GMII | 35mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 3.2 secSony A7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GMII | 70mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 1 secSony A7R IV | Sony 24-70mm GM II | ISO 100 | f/11 | 15 sec
As a weekend warrior, I typically don’t let the weather dissuade me from going out. This cool January morning had scattered showers rolling through all morning. Fortunately, I was prepared, and had a great time shooting. This was my first time at this particular location, and the blue hour light and clouds with the wet streets did make for a cool, moody scene.
Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 GM | 25mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 8.0 sec
Houston has a beautiful skyline, in my opinion. I really enjoyed this view with the tall skyscrapers surrounding the city hall, which was fortunately lit in blue to match the whole scene. Below is taken from the same perspective but I zoomed in to focus on the town hall with the skyscrapers providing a backdrop.
Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 GM | 43mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 3.2 sec
The previous photos are a bit more typical view of downtown, but I moved to get a view of the northern skyscrapers. This was not as photogenic with this perspective.
Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 GM | 24mm | ISO 100 | f/11 | 3.2 sec
