Tamron 180 mm Macro Lens

For a very long time, I have been wanting a longer focal length true macro lens.  I finally ordered a Tamron 180mm 1:1 macro.  I was somewhat concerned because a friend said he had a similar lens and rarely used it because the long focal length meant too much movement to handhold it.  I did some shots holding it by hand, and it worked fine.

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Although not super close, this one is certainly sharp for a hand held photo.  I noticed a ladybug on what was left of my dill plant and took some shots of it.  When looking at them, I could see the reason it was there – aphids.

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Felicia Teeter Wedding

A post in a Facebook group asked for a photographer for a wedding.  It was from another photographer who was in the wedding party and was going to do the miscellaneous shots before the ceremony and at the reception, but just needed someone to photograph the ceremony.  We settled on a price and met and discussed it. The bride was her sister.  The wedding was to be outside at Whitehall Park in Woodway.  Their family was mainly biker types, and the wedding was to have that atmosphere.  The night before, it rained fairly heavily.  I got to the location early to scout things out, and the ground wasn’t too bad.  Given the logistics, I decided on three lenses – 10 – 20 f/3.5, 24-70 f/2.8, and 70 – 200 f/2.8.

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Hico

I had a free afternoon, and I had been told that there were lots of really interesting places in Hico.  Hico is a small town on Hwy 6.  It is apparently the home of Billy the Kid because there is a statue of him in the middle of town, and apparently a museum as well.  I drove around the town and saw lots of interesting locations.

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There were alleys behind buildings that had back doors like this.  It was really cool.

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I can imagine these as great places for a bridal shoot.

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This shell of an old building had tons of character.

Highway 6 N

 

When I had a free afternoon, I wanted to take Highway 6 North.  I had heard that the town of Hico had some really interesting locations.  Along the way, I stopped a couple places for some pictures.

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This was an old tractor with two flags.  I tried to increase the exposure on the flags to brighten them up, but it started looking too manipulated.

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Blue Bonnets

Every Spring, there is a place on Highway 6 in Grimes Co. where there are always lots of cars parked because there are fields full of blue bonnets. This year,on the way home from Galveston, we pulled off the side of the road and got some good pictures.

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More of Galveston

We were In Galveston again last weekend, and I seriously worked on getting a lot of HDR shots.The stacks of rocks like I photographed last year were back, but not as many.  This one had pretty good light, so I worked on it.  This picture was well received on Flickr and ViewBug.

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The shrimp boats in docked by the harbor seemed to me to be a good subject.

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Ft. Crockett’s white canvas shades impressed me as a good subject as well.

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And I wanted to get one of the Bishop’s Palace.

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Across Broadway from Bishop’s Palace was an old house that had cement flower boxes that were crusted with moss.

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HDR Landscapes – Hwy 31

Clarke’s workshop was in Tyler.  On the way back, I stopped several times on Hwy 31 and got some road side images.  Mostly around Corsicana. There was a place on the East side of Corsicana that had lots of old railroad wheel sets stacked up, making for interesting patterns.

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West of Corsicana there was this abandoned house with an old car in the front yard, and cattle grazing all around it.

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Railroad Bridge

There is a railroad bridge on I-35W north of Itasca that I have always thought would be a great picture.  I have tried several times over the years, and never gotten anything good.  I finally got a 10 – 20 mm lens and thought maybe that lens would be what I needed.

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Although I still was no able to get the image I really wanted this one was pretty good.  Right there, I found an old, rusted machine used for planting, and got some pictures of that as well.

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HDR Landscapes – Hwy 36

The TMCA Spring Workshop was in Abilene.  So, we took Hwy 36 up through Hamilton.  Along the way, we stopped a couple places and got some nice images.

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I am getting a little more comfortable with doing these HDR images, but I would really like a better understanding of the various adjustments in Photomatix. These had very mild HDR effects applied to them.

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