A lazy day at the horse race track

So people from work had decided to go to the horse race track to spend some time just to watch race horses go at it. I have honestly never been to one and I was pretty excited as race horses has always been a very good subject for photography.

I packed my stuff early that day for the event. I packed my Canon 6D along with my favorite go to lenses, my Canon 70-200 IS USM f/2.8. My Canon 70-200 IS USM lens has been my lens of choice for events like this. As a lot of photographers have said before...it is probably the best lens ever in the Canon lineup. I agree, I have brought this beast to almost every event I've ever been and it has not let me down. 

So we were at the second level of the race track and my maximum 200mm focal length wasn't enough. I was wondering if I should've brought in my 400mm instead. A friend advised me to go down one level and shoot by the railings, which was the perfect idea.

So I stood and waited for the horses to go around the track and I waited near the finish line. I set my camera to aperture priority to isolate my subject from the background, I knew that in this scenario shutter priority would've been the best setting so I can set a fast speed for my shutter to capture the running horses, but it was really bright out and I had enough light to set my aperture open and still maintain a perfect shutter speed, so I set it up that way. With burst mode on I kept my finger on the shutter when the horses were a couple of feet away from me.

The 70-200's excellent focusing speed captured the frames perfectly. And this was my best shot of the day: 

Not too shabby for a lazy day at the race track.

Sunrise time-lapse with my Go Pro camera

One morning while near a lake in Tomahawk Wisconsin, I waited for sunrise. I looked at my phone and the weather app said that sunrise will be around 5:25ish. This was the perfect time to set up my Go Pro for that awesome sunrise to come.

I set it up on a tripod by the dock, turned off the lcd screen and set up time lapse mode. This camera is way easier to setup for time lapse than a dslr with a timer. I know because up to this time I still haven't used the time lapse module that I bought for my dslr...it's still in the packaging, brand new and unused.

So I pressed the button and the camera just shot frame by frame...once every 5 seconds. I managed to take 837 images, and processed everything using Adobe Premiere. All in all it gave me about 27 seconds of video.

Taking sunset shots with my Canon G15.

I love my Canon G15. It has seen more use than my dslr during a couple of our vacations. It's compact, it's always ready to go and it gives me the almost the quality of a starter dslr. I usually just have it on a case attached to my belt and I can go wherever I want with it. Beats lugging around a dslr all the time. We went back to Door County Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago and I was able to take a sunset photo with it. I waited till the sun was about to set and sat at the shore near the beach to capture it. Here's what I got:

Shot handheld, with a simple flick of the mode switch, and the exposure compensation dial, I was ready to go shoot.

I'm back...been busy

It has been 5 months since I had my last post. It has been busy the past few months with work, hobbies, and it's summer. Everybody's busy doing stuff outdoors. I was too. The past few months I have been experimenting with other photography equipment. I have been using My Canon Poweshot G15 more when we go out. I am planning to get a macro flash adapter for it and bring it with when we go to our favorite botanic garden. I also have been using my Go Pro camera more...both for stills and video. Another thing I am kinda busy with is video. I have been doing more video the past months.

Also I have been slowly getting into aerial photography and videography using quads, for now I'm just starting out with a smaller one. I can't wait to get a bigger one and use my Go Pro with it.

I'll be posting more stuff soon. For now here's one of the shots I did when I was on vacation in Wisconsin the past couple of weeks. It was taken with a Go Pro.

A relaxing day at the lake.