Long Exposures In the Middle of Nowhere.

The farther north you go from MKE, the more amazing the sky looks. My Powershot s95 is hardly capable of doing this sky proper justice.

Caricature Study: Denny & Ryan

Sunrise, Sunset..

Sunrise, early morning, evening, sunset.. best times to shoot. Some more shots from the great north:

More U.P. Adventures: Horse Race Rapids

Down a remote dirt road in the U.P. is a winding nature trail that follows along Horse Race Rapids. Maybe when the rapids were discovered someone was exploring the woods and thought that they heard horses racing and followed the sound to these rapids. I prefer to imagine that at some point horses were actually raced down these rapids. Horse racing on a level enclosed track is just as dull as NASCAR. Racing horses down rapids with tons of slippery rocks seems far more thrilling... and while the riders throw sticks of dynamite at one another. 

I digress.

Shooting in nature is still where I'm learning that most about using my Cannon s95 in full manual mode. It's easy since my subject matter doesn't move or position itself in a way that I don't like. That being said, it's still not simple necessarily.. interesting shots are everywhere, but you have to find them first. In a heavily wooded area, there isn't always an obvious target, you have to dig a little bit more. 

While shooting outside with decent light, I'm preferring keeping the aperture as closed as possible to increase the depth of field as much as I can. Especially since these shots wind up being more about the scenery and of the landscape. I've also been playing with trying to keep the ISO setting as low as possible to reduce noise and keep the shot crisp, which works perfectly since my subject matter again isn't really moving. In some of the shots with the moving water, the motion is a little more obvious due to the lower ISO setting while the rocks and trees are crisp and well defined. All images had contrast and vibrance boosted in post.

Long weekend in the U.P.

I don't travel nearly enough, but I do get out from time to time. Setting for these shots: Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It's remote, everything smells like pine trees, and it's quiet. Spent a long weekend fishing and driving around. It was nothing short of intensely restful.

Some additional info about the shots.. I'm currently equipped with a Cannon PowerShot s95, which is an awesome point and shoot camera. It allows for full manual control and the ability to shoot in RAW while still fitting in my pocket. It preforms the best when lighting is ideal, the flash is adequate but is far from ideal. The sky and rain shots were taken using the camera's manual mode with the following settings:

Exposure 1/1000 | Aperture f/6.3 | ISO Speed 80

For most other shots I will shoot in the camera's "Auto" mode, which in my opinion does a great job. I'm not proficient enough or confident enough to shoot in full manual all the time. I would rather make sure I get the shot I want using "Auto" and clean up in post than miss it and have nothing but a soon to fade memory. [all shots had contrast and sharpness boosted in post using Photoshop]