Dust and Rust

Paley Park Bricks and Moss
Canon G9 f/5.6 1/3sec ISO 80

I took this photo at Paley Park on 53rd Street. The moisture from the waterfall, combined with the shade from the surrounding buildings, creates a moss friendly environment. The symmetry of the bricks, and the bright green color caught my eye. I confess to using the Picasa “soft focus” filter, to create the illusion of a limited depth of field. I use Picasa for “quick and dirty” edits on a good portion of my blog photos. Unfortunately, the G9 raw files don’t play nicely with Picasa, so I use the jpgs instead.

The cherry blossom trees were in full bloom at Branch Brook Park on Saturday. It was a perfect morning, with a very nice blue sky to contrast the trees. All of the shots were made with my D200, except this one, which I snapped on my way out of the park with the Canon G9. It turned out to be one of my favorites from the morning. The really soft shots (too soft???) were taken with a lens baby. I’m looking forward to making some prints of the better shots, and I am going to give Adorama a try for some larger prints.

Enjoy…

Channel Garden Fountain Flowers

Another slow photo day… If the weather is nice on Saturday, I’m going to head over to Branch Brook Park in Newark to catch the Cherry Blossoms.

I wanted to put together a collection of some of my favorite shots from the RhineBeck Aerodrome. These WWI Biplanes have been taking to the skies for 49 years at the NY94 Airstrip. The Aerodrome opens on Fathers Day weekend this year, and if you are planning a trip to the Hudson Valley NY area, make sure you stop in and see these classic flying machines, and the people who keep them flying.

All of the images below will open a larger version when clicked… enjoy!

Wall of Flowers, Rockefeller Center

They were in the process of replacing the flowers at the Channel Garden Fountain in Rockefeller Center. I guess the cold weather did in the earlier batch. I’m really enjoying the “pocketability” of the Canon G9. This shot was taken at F/5.6, 1/25th of a second @ iso 200. The image stabilization allowed me to get a sharp picture at a 93mm focal length, without killing the image with noise.

I’ve been tempted to order a Sigma DP1, but I’m going to resist, and stick with the G9 for now. While the DP1 has a great lens, and a big Foveon sensor, the G9 has a good zoom range, decent image quality below iso 400, IS, and support for it’s raw files in Adobe Lightroom. I’m also hoping Nikon and Canon will see the light, and drum up some worthy competition for the DP1. Nikon especially should seize the opportunity to boost their cookie cutter lineup of point & shoots with some compact cameras with a little bit of “soul”.