When I think of Big Bend….

This is what I think of:

my Big Bend

To me, this is Big Bend.  Multiple cactus (cacti???) in the foreground, you can see forever, rocky soil, mountains in the background and truly big sky county… This is another of those images that I saw in b&w and shot it as such in camera.  What’s different for me about this shot is that it is an HDR – done in camera in my new 5DMkIII.  The scene was pretty high contrasty – shooting back into some moody, backlit clouds I was either getting the foreground or the background, but not both in a traditional single shot.  I had been playing with the HDR a little bit and figured I’d give it a shot here as well and I’m obviously pleased with it, or I wouldn’t be sharing it with you.

I have to say that honestly I have not really been a big fan of the whole HDR thing.  I’d say 90% of what I’ve seen is neat, interesting and even pretty in some cases, but I don’t know that I’ve seen a lot of HDR that actually reflects what the scene was really like.  My goal here was to mimic what my eye was seeing – both the foreground and background elements and I think it’s been successful here and I’m willing to put HDR into the tool kit in the future in cases like this; I think it has potential to open up a range of shots for me that I’d otherwise miss out on.

Thoughts??

Caprock calf

The official Texas State Bison herd lives at Caprock Canyon State Park.   I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I was to be able to get close and see, hear and smell these fantastic creatures – quite literally a remnant of our not too distant path.

In the late 19th century, the great southern “buffalo” hunts came very close to exterminating the bison in Texas.  Rancher Charles Goodnight’s wife, so the story goes, felt badly that the bison were close to extermination and the Goodnights saved a small group of bison on their ranch.  Over time, those animals bred with cattle to create “beefalo”.  In the 1990s, 32 animals that had tested to be “pure” buffalo (DNA wise) were brought into Caprock Canyon State Park to establish the state herd.  Today, about 15 years later, there are approximately 90 head of Southern Plains bison; with 8 new calfs this year (as of when I was there!).

These remaining animals are a tangible glimpse of our state’s past and as I said before, it was really a treat to be able to hear them grunt as they went about their business!

proud momma

All that being said, it was very frustrating for me to get back home and discover that of the 400-ish images I took of the bison, only about 20 or so were actually in focus.  :(  It seems that my trusty 7D (which has taken tens of thousands of images over the last year and a half or so) went a bit haywire and was not focusing properly.  The images looked fine on the view screen, but when looked at on the computer, the vast majority were not just “soft” but nearly completely out of focus.  As it was repeatable at home, and my battery charge reading went haywire as well it was time to send the 7D back to Canon.  :(

Band of light

On the way down to Big Bend the last time, this thunderstorm off to the east and the resulting band of light made me come to an emergency stop, reach for the little G12 (the big boys were packed away nicely) and run across the road to capture the light.

light and dark

Again, goes to show ya that you don’t need a big camera to really capture a scene!

Camp at Caprock

For you folks that don’t bother getting out – doors and off the couch… here’s what you’re missin’ at bedtime:

under the stars

I have to say I’m very impressed with the low light ability of the new camera!!  I put a glow stick inside my tent, if I were to do this again I would use two… one on each end.  Technical details – 13 second exposure, 2.8/f, 4000 ISO.  I was really more or less experimenting with the high ISO ability of the camera – I hope your monitor is calibrated well enough to see all the stars!!!  Shot taken at Caprock Canyon State Park.

Betty Jane B/W

I love Betty Jane!!  I’ve been fortunate enough to catch her in full flight and hearing that engine roar overhead was priceless!!  Missed out on seeing her fly this time, but any opportunity to take a shot of this lovely P-51 is fun times, nonetheless.

Betty Jane

Supermoon

Coupla weeks ago we were all in the rage about the “super moon”… so I got all geared up, drove well out into the country, got set up in a decent spot, checked my Google sky maps on the phone and waited.

And then the clouds rolled in.  ;)

By the time the moon broke through the clouds it was quite high in the sky so I made the best out of what I was given.

supermoon

Caprock Canyon macro

Quick little jaunt up to Caprock Canyon over the weekend… here’s a little tease!

purple