fossil hunting

I thought I might share a bit more about my photographs, just for fun:

A few weeks ago I got a new lens for my camera. For the longest time I have been shooting with this lens: (Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras), and I wanted to upgrade to a 50mm f/1.4. I read a lot of reviews and ended up buying the Sigma 50mm lens (Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras) rather than Nikon’s. So far, I haven’t decided what I think. I am often shooting in far from optimal light, and that seems to be the case for me especially these past few weeks, making it hard to love the photos I have been taking. I definitely like the lower light capabilities of my new lens, but I still have a lot to learn in order to make it worth the investment. So, that is just what I am doing; taking a lot of pictures (my best way to learn) and trying to fit in some book learning as well. A couple of days ago we took an extended evening field trip: first stop was Westmoreland Berry Farm for strawberry sundaes and shortcake, next we stopped at the lake for some swimming and a picnic supper, and finally we headed to the beach to hunt shark’s teeth and other fossils. It was seven p.m. when we walked down to the water (low tide was at seven which is why we went so late in the day) and it was 9 p.m. when we got back to the van. That just gives you an idea of what kind of late day light I was taking these pictures under. The sun was setting as we walked the beach, and the moon was high when we arrived back at our van. For each of the following photos I will include the ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed. The setting don’t always make sense, since I often set things up for a particular shot, and then quickly have to snap an entirely different photo without time to change everything. Of course, I am not a trained photographer, so there may not appear to be any real clear rhyme or reason as to why I set things up the way I do in lots of my photos. I don’t ever use a flash, and that is true for these photos as well. Lastly, I go back in forth between manual and aperature priority mode, and set my white balance to auto. While I have played with the contrast on the following photos in Lightroom, I did not adjust the exposure or the white balance, and they are here in the order in which they were taken.

ISO 1000 f/6.3 1/200 sec

ISO 400 f/11 1/125 sec

ISO 400 f/8 1/250 sec

ISO 400 f/6.3 1/500 sec

ISO 400 f/6.3 1/400 sec

ISO 400 f/6.3 1/500 sec

ISO 400 f/6.3 1/640 sec

ISO 400 f/6.3 1/500 sec

ISO 400 f/4.5 1/1000 sec

ISO 400 f/4.5 1/1600 sec

ISO 1000 f/1.6 1/1000 sec

ISO 1000 f/1.6 1/800 sec

ISO 1000 f/4.5 1/4000 sec

ISO 1000 f/3.2 1/320 sec

ISO 1600 f/8.0 1/320 sec

ISO 1600 f/8.0 1/250 sec

ISO 1600 f/8.0 1/640 sec

Increasing my shutter speed technically underexposed this photo, but it made the color more intense (than the previous photo taken a second or two beforehand), and more like what I saw with my eyes. In general, I tend to prefer my photos to be on the underexposed side rather than overexposed.

ISO 2000 f/3.2 1/100 sec

(Jonny took these next three, as I was on a nursing break. I put the camera in aperature priority mode for him.)

ISO 2000 f/3.2 1/80 sec

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/80 sec

The rest of these photos were shot with the lens “wide open” at an f-stop of 1.4. It is tricky to get the focus right on at this setting in low light. I think I set the focus point on the corner of the crab trap in this picture.

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/80 sec

In this photo I set my focus point on Gabe’s face, and I think it turned out nicely. At 1.4 the depth of field is so shallow that Larkspur, standing a couple of inches in front of Gabe, is not in focus.

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/40 sec

At this point things were just too dark and nothing is in focus in any of the rest of the photos. I should have at least bumped the ISO up to 3200 to see what would happen, but I was carrying a crying baby on my back and didn’t think about it.

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/40 sec

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/50 sec

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/25 sec

ISO 2000 f/1.4 1/20 sec

(that’s the moon)

ISO 2000 f/1.4 0.6 sec

Time to put the camera away!

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Saturday we did something we don’t do often enough: we spent the day with friends! My friend Laura, and her husband and their seven children drove up for a visit, so we took them, yes of course, fossil hunting. So that makes three days last week that we hit the shores of the Potomac to hunt for fossilized shark’s teeth, bones, crocodile teeth, whale vertebrae, etc. I will have to take pictures of some of our finds later, including the almost three inch long Megalodon tooth I found (much to Seth’s dismay I now posses our largest complete tooth.) Anyway, the trip Saturday was more about having fun, and I think we accomplished that.

I wasn’t very focused on taking photographs, but did manage to get a few to document the day. Well, more than a few, but not as many as usual.

During the summer months, our children usually wear bathing suits when we fossil hunt, but given how chilly it was days earlier, we didn’t bring any, not thinking it would be warm enough to get in the water.

Everyone was careful at first to keep their clothes dry.

But they gradually got more daring.

Pretty soon dress hems were wet, as were shorts.

And eventually all caution was thrown to the wind.

They had the great idea to float around on pieces of driftwood.

Laura’s daughter Anna, along with my Keats got very brave, heading way out into the water.

I think that they had the most fun though, floating on their “boats.”

We brought both of our dogs, Trudy and Maggie, along with us.

Trudy is a digger. I am going to have to keep her away from my garden!

She also likes water which is a good thing!

When we got back to our house, we fit ten of our children around our farm table for dinner.

I remarked at how well socialized all of our weird homeschooled children are despite the fact that they are those weird homeschooled children. Honestly, they are all pretty darn normal and lots of fun to hang out with.

Everything went smoothly and it was a lot of fun to share a laid back meal with our friends.

Laura and I discussed the fact that we needed a picture together. Of course we waited until the last minute when it was almost dark, and we were worn out from our day. Therefore, this photo is smaller and black and white

I chose this one to share because it is best of Laura and her youngest, Semaiah, and none of them were good of me! I am not photogenic at all.