Track

So I am finding out that I need some faster glass to shoot track with, but I am doing what I can. :)

Anyway, these are some pics from the middle school track meet, and a few from the high school meet. I wish I could have done more at the high school meet but it's hard when you are also running.

These first 2 are from the high school meet.

Now the middle school meet.

These last three I had to raise my ISO way up. All the way up to 5000 and I still couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed. I was really wishing I had a 70-200mm f2.8 lens.... :/  Someday I shall.

It was my first time to photograph a track meet so I didn't know what to expect, but now that I have gotten my feet wet I know what to do. :) 

Hopefully the pictures will get better as the season progresses.

Stars

This is my first attempt at trying to get the movement of the stars. I am no sure how long this exposure is but long enough to get quite a bit of movement. 

You will have to excuse the fake color of the sky and the lack of stars. Being in the city is not the greatest for these types of shot. (from what I have read anyway)

Dickens on the Strand

Every year in December Galveston, Texas put's on an event called Dickens on the Strand.

The event is a reenactment of the Victorian era. So you have a lot of people in costume and there are some comedians and magicians, there's even a bed race.  

Unfortunately we went on the second day of the even and only for the last few hours. So there wasn't as much going on.  

Although I did catch the end of the parade they did. 

This is one of the shows they had. She did juggling, magic and a a few other things.

This is actually a choir from the Christian school down the street from our house.

There were also these really cool lamp posts that use really fire instead of light bulbs.

I know my post are few and far between but that is partly because I have been really busy. 

I am actually falling behind on things to post about. 

So be expecting quite a few post soon.

Inks Lake

Alright!!! I know this post has been a long time coming. Anyway these pics are from our trip to Inks Lake up near Austin, Texas. It is a beautiful place. 

So this was our first night at the state park and the view from out camping spot. These first 3 photos are long exposures, 20 to 30 seconds. 

So the second day we woke up and did our morning devotions and then I tried to get a reflection photo of a camp site across the water from us. I wish the water was more calm but it is what it is. :)

Mom doing her devotions.

Then later that day we went over to the Devil's Waterhole and jumped of the cliff! It was a ton of fun!!!

This is the cliff that we jumped off of. 

Then we went to one of the fishing piers so I could take some pictures.

Day 3 consisted of staying around camp for awhile then we went into Austin to se the Capitol! 

This was just 2 guys walking up the stairs and the light was crazy cool with the old looking stair rail. I really like this one.

The view from the front steps of the capitol.

Then the next day we went back to the Devil's Waterhole and I did some hiking.

The our las day came and after we got all packed up and hit the road we stopped at a scenic spot near the top of a hill and I snapped even more pictures. :) 

Now for some fun random pictures of our trip.
I know the quality of this video is not the greatest but that happened through the upload process and I can't fix it.... :(((

Also check back soon because I have a new post coming. We went to the Houston Fire Fest at the Firefighter Academy in Houston and I got some really cool picture. I will be posting them sometime Thursday. :)

Some Texas Landscape

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These were taken near Concan Texas on a friends deer lease.

Since we were turkey hunting I didn't get to take pictures when the light was good, so these are all pretty much from the tim frame of noon to like 4 pm. ( UGH the WORST time of day!!!!

At the Drag Strip

So yesterday a friend invited me to go to the drag strip with him on a public race night, he and some of his buddies where going to race their cars. So I most definitely took him up on that offer, 'twas great practice to do some panning shots (which are extremely hard). I took 347 pictures and these are some of the best, but I haven't gone through them all. So you will probably see some more pictures later.

A little bit about panning for those who don't know what it is. Panning is a picture where you are capturing motion. You use a fairly slow shutter speed focus on the subject and the spin around with the subject keeping it in focus as you trip the shutter. If done correctly you get a nice streaked back and foreground but the subject stays in focus. It is very hard because you have to move with the subject, if you move to slow or to fast you blur the subject. Like I said I took around 347 pictures, I will probably delete a whole lot of them because they are blurred out.

Now they are kind of "grainy" because I had to bump the ISO up to 1600 since it was so dark.

Most of them the shutter is around 1/25th of a second a few might be 1/60th of a second.

Hope y'all enjoyed these photos. I would love your feedback. :)