Trip Report-New Jersey-Bird Gallery

Bear with me there are only 2 galleries after this one before its back to normal, Its taken a couple of days to finally get my PC working properly again after various infections but now fingers crossed we are back up and running, So here are the last of the sea birds, Most are Full Frame with a couple cropped, All taken with the usual Nikon gear, Some of the sandpipers are shot using fill flash from the SB90 and better beamer combo

Black bellied Plover-winter plummage

Common Loon with crab

Gull feeding on barnacles

 

Red Throated Diver-winter plummage

Turnstone

Turnstones and Sandpipers in flight

Purple Sandpiper

Dunlin?

Dave

Getting lost in technology

It never pays to make plans as there is always something that will get in the way-In New York for me it was Technology, I drove up and used the sat nav as guidance, As soon as we hit the city it stopped working probably due to the high rise buildings stopping the signal getting through, Navigation around Manhattan is fairly easy as its numbered blocks but as soon as you leave the island you are on your own, The first time i went to Jamaica bay the sat nav worked on and off even though i was off of the island but Monday it made my life a misery, I left at 6am and had about 20 miles to travel, I made it off of the island without any signal but even then it would not pick any signal up so i did my best to get as lost as possible and after an hour i still has the Manhattan skyline in sight i decided that the best light was gone and i then had to try to get back which took an age but i somehow managed it-what a waste of time, So i get back to the hotel in times square and after an hour my PC crashed, What a day, So i had the day to fill so grabbed the D3 and 14-24 along with a flash gun and spent a few hours walking around and doing some stock shots, As the night drew in i set the flash to rear sync-push the flash button on the top left of the body and move the thumb dial around-then using AV i set the camera so it had a slowish shutter speed and went to town shooting anything that moved, Mainly taxi's,tuk tuk's and police on horseback and motorcycle, Very experimental stuff and lots of panning, I wasnt that bothered to get every shot in focus as some blurry stuff looked quite good as well, Not the type of photography i would normally do but enjoyable all the same, One thing i did notice in NY was that a lot of people carry their cameras around tourist fashion i.e around the neck in full view, The other thing was that as well as Canon and Nikon cameras there was also lots of Sony and some Pentax showing that they especially Sony are making inroads into the low-mid camera market








Dave

New York New York 1

We drove up to New Jersey and stayed with family last night, Had a few too many and didn't get to sleep until 2 am-a very long day, Today we moved into the city and i am at present in Times Square, We dropped our bags and out our tourists heads on and headed to the Empire State building, I haven't been here for about 20 years so it was nice to be back, First impressions of NY for any body who hasn't been is that its a very busy and dirty city-i am not a city person-and its roads are worse than India's, but photographic opportunities abound so i soon filled a 4 gb card and will be doing some night scenes again as we are right in the heart of it, I did manage to get some wildlife in as we had the company of some pigeons at the top of the empire state, Tomorrow i am heading to long island for some shore birds, I damaged my arm a few weeks ago and its still painful just shooting handheld with a wide angle so a 600 could be a problem-we will see tomorrow
For those of you thinking of coming to NY a couple of tips, Go to the 86th floor of the Empire state building and don't bother with the 102nd as its extra money and you have to shoot through glass and get your tickets at the desk and not the guys in the street who will tell you its an hours wait etc etc, there wasn't much of a queue and it was cheaper to buy from the desk, i shot with my D3 and 14-24 and you really do need a wide lens as everything is soo tall





Dave

The D3 goes back (again)

As i mentioned in my last post the D3 had given me the CD error again when i was away, Nikon sent me the postage labels after discussing the problems so today it will be posted back, So having the D3 for 1 year its the second trip back for repair-sounds bad but doesnt bother me, Firstly i have the D300 as a backup and secondly the D3 problem is only with using the second slot so i could continue to use it, i tested this out yesterday by shooting with the first slot only-no problem, i then put a full card in the first slot and shot for a while with images being written onto the second card and then it showed the cd error again, Once again Nikon have been very proffessional on the phone asking the right questions and acting in a calm manner, Picking up the tab for shipping (canon never did) and telling me that any repairs will not cost me a penny, I guess it will be away 7-10 days like before and in that time i will get them to clean the sensor, When i first moved to Nikon i feel in love with the D300 but as time has gone on the D3 is the one i use first and only use the D300 when i need some extra reach, In the last couple of weeks i have shot landscapes, wildlife,portraits in the studio and some stock images and all with the D3 which just shows what a versatile camera it is

Dave