Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Lookout Mountain view in Golden Colorado


Day, originally uploaded by greeneyedggirl.

Two years ago in a bit of a funk, wanting to upgrade my own gear, and make one of my sister's fondest dreams come true I ordered a brand new Canon EOS 20D to replace my workhorse the EOS D30 that was now six some odd years old. Because I baby my cameras, the D30 was still in mint condition, not a scratch on it at all. It had served me extremely well, and I'd flipped the internal counter over four times during it's life. Mind you the counter counts up to 9,999 images and the flips back to 0001. So that's around 40 thousand frames on one body. Anyway, I babied it, so it still has a whole bunch of life left in it. My Sister's birthday was the end of the month, so I picked out a decent starter lens for her, the portrait/extra battery grip and a handful of other accessoires and gave her a birthday present she'll never forget.

Like me, my sister has a great interest in photography, and was even at the time majoring in it in school. Her old film based SLR was, is still great, but not having a DSLR was giving her fits. She'd been drooling over my camera for a while, so as a birthday present it was a smash hit.

Of course for me it was an extra excuse to buy a new body. My choice was the Canon EOS 20D because I have an extensive collection of canon gear and glass that I wanted to be able to keep using. Obviously, I needed to break it in and see what it could do. So this picture was a "How do you do" kind of picture. I loved the quality of the light, and obviously we'd had some snow. This gave the whole shot an old silvertone feel to it, and I shot it anticipating the real test, a night shot of this location. I'm not even kidding. I had every intension of taking this shot again with nothing more than the full moon for light. That however is a post for another day.

For now, this is the first picture I've put into my flickr account. I promise, the first of many.

2 comments:

alan said...

Absolutely gorgeous!

I love playing with moonlight as well...

I bought a rain cover for mine in hopes I could get out and catch some lightning shots without drowning it or getting struck, but haven't tried yet. I don't really want to go alone and the timing wasn't right this last season for most of the storms.

Looking forward to much much more of your work!

alan

Samantha Shanti said...

While I have not yet put together my favorite moonlight shot yet, I will get that up here sometime soon.

Me I have a nose for weather, quite literally. Clear blue sky, sun shining, perfect day and I'll get a whiff of a supercell heading our way and say Thunder, Lightening, Heavy rain coming up on our six. Time to head back to the Jumper.

First time I did this with friends while out hiking everyone looked at me like I was crazy. I insisted and by the time we got pack to the Jumper and buttoned her up I opened the window a touch took a quick sniff, pointed and said "Five, Four, Three, Two, and Boom!" at which point a tree about two hundred feet from the jumper took a hit. Of Course the flash, being so close was blinding. Everyone gasped, since that was a tree we'd just walked by.

No one ever questions me and weather anymore. Then again, for a number of years I was a Skywarn Storm chaser with NOAA. Ever see the movie "Twister" with Helen Hunt? The whole chasing Tornadoes over hill & dale? Yup, used to do that in Colorado, now I look back and ask myself "What were you thinking?"

One day I very much want to be out shooting lightening, that will so thrill me.

No worries, I'm looking forward to sharing my work.

Thanks Alan,

Sam