Ok .. so among the other events of this weekend I also made an attempt to recover from my photography slump.
I started out by driving out to Harrison County, Indiana, but I sadly just ended up looking at and pricing land. Any excuse to not be taking photos apparently. After that though I headed to a wild field that I had seen the day before, also in Indiana, and I ended up staying in this field for a good 30 - 45 minutes in the insane heat.
I completely justified, during that stop, why I wanted and why I bought the second DSLR. It was perfect because I leave my main lens fixed on the D50 and I used the macro lens on the D1X. I was switching back and forth so much that I had to keep stopping so I could untangle the straps from around my neck! So now I feel even better about buying it, but I still can't adjust the settings on it as easily as I can on the D50 and I'm guessing that is because of the lack of practice. However, I think that I'm going to start routinely packing and using both cameras in a manner as I did yesterday because that seemed to be perfect.
Anyway, before heading to my Dad's I went to those two places, and then some open areas near the new Hurstbourne connection. After leaving his house I made my way into downtown Louisville for an hour or so, primarily along Waterfront Park and Main Street.
In the process of going home I was reminded about the Perseid Meteor shower, which peaked late last night. Apparently I had gotten a real bug up my tail because I ended up calling a friend and at 1AM we headed to Cherokee Park to watch the 'show.'
Yes, we LEFT at 1AM knowing that I had to be at work by 8AM.
I was expecting it to be quiet and unoccupied, but we were completely amazed. Cars lined the entire area area around Dog Hill where people were also set up to watch the meteor shower. There were probably 30+ people there when we first got there but as the next hour progressed, getting closer to the peak of the shower, we ended up having to move to another area because the headlights coming up the hill were consistent and 5 or 6 a minute. It was amazing that so many people knew about / were interested in the event.
We were there until around 3AM before we decided to pack up and head home. We did play with our cameras while out there, but the amount of light pollution at Cherokee Park was so incredible that there was a small section of the sky that was clear and not as polluted. I'm going to guess that 85% of the sky suffered extreme light pollution, but because of the time restraint we chose to stay close. Even considering the pollution we were lucky enough to witness many amazing sights in the night sky. However because of the excessive light the long exposures were not as successful because it meant less time that we could leave the shutters open.
Needless to say I did not get to bed until about 4AM and I had to pull and pull to get myself out of bed this morning. I came home and took a nice nap and we're actually considering going back out again tonight, although a bit earlier and this time up into Indiana where the light pollution is to the South and opposite to the area that the meteors are more likely to appear.
Well, that is it for the moment, but I'll try and update more later :o)
I started out by driving out to Harrison County, Indiana, but I sadly just ended up looking at and pricing land. Any excuse to not be taking photos apparently. After that though I headed to a wild field that I had seen the day before, also in Indiana, and I ended up staying in this field for a good 30 - 45 minutes in the insane heat.
I completely justified, during that stop, why I wanted and why I bought the second DSLR. It was perfect because I leave my main lens fixed on the D50 and I used the macro lens on the D1X. I was switching back and forth so much that I had to keep stopping so I could untangle the straps from around my neck! So now I feel even better about buying it, but I still can't adjust the settings on it as easily as I can on the D50 and I'm guessing that is because of the lack of practice. However, I think that I'm going to start routinely packing and using both cameras in a manner as I did yesterday because that seemed to be perfect.
Anyway, before heading to my Dad's I went to those two places, and then some open areas near the new Hurstbourne connection. After leaving his house I made my way into downtown Louisville for an hour or so, primarily along Waterfront Park and Main Street.
In the process of going home I was reminded about the Perseid Meteor shower, which peaked late last night. Apparently I had gotten a real bug up my tail because I ended up calling a friend and at 1AM we headed to Cherokee Park to watch the 'show.'
Yes, we LEFT at 1AM knowing that I had to be at work by 8AM.
I was expecting it to be quiet and unoccupied, but we were completely amazed. Cars lined the entire area area around Dog Hill where people were also set up to watch the meteor shower. There were probably 30+ people there when we first got there but as the next hour progressed, getting closer to the peak of the shower, we ended up having to move to another area because the headlights coming up the hill were consistent and 5 or 6 a minute. It was amazing that so many people knew about / were interested in the event.
We were there until around 3AM before we decided to pack up and head home. We did play with our cameras while out there, but the amount of light pollution at Cherokee Park was so incredible that there was a small section of the sky that was clear and not as polluted. I'm going to guess that 85% of the sky suffered extreme light pollution, but because of the time restraint we chose to stay close. Even considering the pollution we were lucky enough to witness many amazing sights in the night sky. However because of the excessive light the long exposures were not as successful because it meant less time that we could leave the shutters open.
Needless to say I did not get to bed until about 4AM and I had to pull and pull to get myself out of bed this morning. I came home and took a nice nap and we're actually considering going back out again tonight, although a bit earlier and this time up into Indiana where the light pollution is to the South and opposite to the area that the meteors are more likely to appear.
Well, that is it for the moment, but I'll try and update more later :o)
