Mark Roberts wrote:
I've spent the last couple of days scanning the slides from my trip to California a couple of weeks ago and I have those that made the third 'cut' online at http://www.robertstech.com/temp/index.htm
The first cut took place on the light table before scanning even began. Then the less obvious rejects were culled after viewing the rough scans. After basic adjustments in Photoshop I narrowed the field down further, to what I have online now. The opinion(s) of the PDML is humbly requested in helping me make the fourth and final cut to select what goes up on the main part of my web site ;-)
We went out there so my SO could do some volunteer work for the Audubon Society at their Audubon Canyon Ranch, which is a nature preserve and heron sanctuary just north of San Francisco, between the towns of Stinson Beach and Bolinas. Beautiful country and, for a week at least, beautiful weather. Perhaps the weather was a little *too* beautiful - I found myself wishing for at least a *few* clouds in the totally clear blue skies we had most of the time! MY SO (that's her in the first photo) was wonderfully tolerant of my photographic habits, mainly my insisting on getting up at 5:00 a.m. every day to catch the sunrise. She slept in. Go figure. Some familiarity with the area would have been very helpful in getting more good shots, but there's only so much you can do in a week. I'm sure there are vastly better locations nearby that I simply never found.
Shots 7d400403, 7d400404, 7d400837 and 7d401033 were all cropped slightly. They were shot using the Sigma EX300/2.8 APO and matched 2x teleconverter, but I *still* didn't have quite enough reach for as tight a composition as I would have liked. Using an ist-D instead of the MZ-S would have done the trick :) In fact, it probably would have resulted in tighter crops than what I have shown. Everything was shot with an MZ-S using Kodak E100SW or E100VS. I think the Sigma EX300/2.8 (with and without the 2x TC) got the most usage. The FA*80-200/2.8 came next, followed by the F100/2.8 macro. I used the FA*24/2.0 and the K15/3.5 a few times.
I still have a half-finished roll of E100SW from this trip that I'll be getting developed shortly. This will likely end up being the last totally-film-based shoot I do: I expect to be digital by weekend :)
