Several months ago a private investigator pulled into my driveway. He asked me if I knew Lewis (whose name has been changed to protect him). I indicated that I had met this person. In fact, Lewis once lived in a derelict motor home in the back lot of my neighbor. Lewis suffered from brain damage and struggled to live on his own. The damage occurred from years of industrial work in an environment that was unregulated.

The private investigator told Lewis’s story after he had moved from my neighbor’s backyard. It seems that Lewis was only given a few months to live. Steve heard Lewis’s story and lent him his new motor home, valued at $200,000, in which to live out the remainder of his life.

A year passed with no word from Lewis. Steve wanted his motor home back and the contact information from Lewis was no longer vaild. Steve called the private investigator.

Over the course of three months, the private investigator and I had several discussions. I was even able to supply numerous photos of the backyard where Lewis once lived. On two completely unrelated incidents, I had to take pictures of that area. During a backyard renovation, an excavator happened to hit several of my fence posts. I took pictures of the damage for insurance reasons, but because I was using a wide angle lens, the pictures included numerous shots of the neighbor’s backyard and Lewis’s motor home. A year or two later, my wife and I decided to sell one of our cars. I normally washed the car in our backyard and as I took pictures of the vehicle freshly washed, once again the neighbor’s motor home was in plain view. The private investigator thought Lewis might be hiding the expensive motor home in the backyard. I was able to prove, using my photos and testimony, that the expensive motor home was never in the backyard.

One day, the private investigator pulled into my driveway and exclaimed that he had found Lewis. Not surprisingly, Lewis was living in someone else’s backyard in another rundown motor home. It was this visit that the entire story was told. Mike had obtained all of Lewis’s credentials, including social security number and driver’s license number. He then fabricated a drivers license and some other documents with his own picture. It was this information plus a sob story of how he only had three months to live, that he used to convince Steve to loan him the motor home. As soon as Mike received the keys, he took off. Remember that I am in Washington state. The motor home, Mike, and an accomplice, were found in Florida. Fortunately, Lewis was off the hook and thanks to two insignificant events– damage to fence posts and the desire to sell a vehicle, pictures were taken and used to restore his good name.

Rob Pleas Photography

Rob Pleas Photography

Rob Pleas Photography

Rob Pleas Photography

Last weekend was the annual air show at McCord Air Force Base and it represented one of the few times I could proudly say, “I’m glad my tax dollars are supporting this!”

The activities started early but the actual air show began at 11 on Saturday morning. I knew where I wanted to be which was not on base, but nearby. The morning was overcast and I figured we were in for rain. Since jets flying high into the clouds were not likely to make the most interesting photographs, I was very slow to leave the house. After all of five minutes driving, traffic on the highway came to a dead stop. There was no way I was getting to the spot I had chosen for photographing the planes. Thinking quickly, I was able to divert off the highway onto a side street and drive into an industrial complex. I was surprised that I was one of barely a handful of cars in the lot because this particular parking lot was across the highway, right at the end of the runway! Thanks to a lot of traffic congestion trying to get on to the base, I now had the best seat in the house. Why? Because there is nothing like seeing a low-flying jet coming straight at you and then diverting straight up like a rocket just at the moment you think you’re going to get sucked up into its engines. Just about every plane took off, turned around, and landed by traveling right over our parking lot.

It was an F-18. It had been flying for a few minutes when it turned around at the far end of the runway. Instantly, the plane was low to the ground and coming straight at me, fast! So fast, that I had trouble keeping up with it in the viewfinder of my camera. Also, the plane was silent. The only sound I heard was the rumble of the car engines still stuck on the highway. The plane reached the end of the runway, crossed the highway, and right over our parking lot, went straight up. BABOOOM!!!! The explosion was so loud that he must have broken the sound barrier. A few runs more and it was time for him to return to base. With his gear down and the plane descending, I could see both pilots. The copilot appeared to be looking straight at me which I consider fair, since my lens was looking straight at him.

The air show lasted five hours and for five hours, very little traffic moved on the highway. The clouds did break and we had an amazingly hot and sunny day. From World War II vintage piston planes such as the P-51 and Corsair, to the modern-day jets, parachute drops, and smoke writing, Saturday was phenomenal. The event continued in similar fashion on Sunday with cloudy skies that eventually turned blue. Different planes flew on Sunday and with much more formation flying, Sunday proved to be just as fun as Saturday.

Happy Boy

After 20 minutes of chasing and shooting, we had blurry pictures, sharp pictures, weird lighting photos, green skin photos (thanks to the paint on the wall), and photos with clutter in the background. He loved every image. He could recognize the back end of the cat walking out the picture by name and recognize himself. He laughed at the way-too-close-up photos and stared awestruck by others.

Yeah. It was pretty cool.

Image taken with a Nikon D700 and Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens

As far as the remaining equipment I carry with me, I have a Photoflex 5N1 reflector, a few filters, and a battery charger. Nowadays I use my Nature Trekker bag to transport everything and then pick and choose what I take out on a hike. The gear for that day’s hike goes into the Lowepro Rover AW II.

I have two camera bags, both of which are manufactured by Lowepro. The first, is the Rover AW II. It is great for hiking. The upper compartment holds camping accessories and the lower compartment holds camera gear.

I typically pack these items in the upper compartment:

Expodisc
MSR MiniWorks EX Water Filter
Counter Assault bear spray
Spot GPS Messenger
Garmin GPS 60CSx
Food
Travel size umbrella
Optech plastic rain cover
Extra batteries
Surefire flashlights
Pocket knife

Of those items, what I take is dependent upon where I am going. A short hike to the park doesn’t usually require bear spray.

In the lower compartment, I carry my camera gear.
Sekonic L-508 light meter
Nikkor 1.7 Teleconverter
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens
Hahnel wireless remote
Nikon D700
Nikon MB-D10 vertical grip
Nikon lens brush
SanDisk Ultra 8Gb Compact Flash Card
Various filters, such as warming or graduated ND
Close-up magnifying rings

Again, of those items, usually only a few make into the bag during an outing. If I know I won’t be encountering difficult metering situations, I won’t pack the Sekonic meter.

More to come…

Enjoy!

Mountain View

Sunflowers

Blue Bells

Chipmunk

Apple Orchard Blossoms

The first day out I hiked for seven hours over a mountain known to have Moose, Bear, and Cougar. I hiked along trails, encountered snow at the higher elevations, and found some interesting wildflowers. Each day I hiked a minimum of five hours and drove to different mountains from which to start. I found deer, chipmunks, groundhogs, a Green-Winged Teal, Eagles, and even an Osprey!

I’ve begun posting pictures from the trip on my website, www.robpleasphotography.com and I’ll have more updates about the trip as the week unfolds.

Happy Shooting!

I’m finding bird photography one of the ultimate challenges my photography adventures. Specifically of patience, skill, speed. Tiny birds, such as hummingbirds and songbirds tend to be really fun to watch. They are very active so you often don’t have to wait long before they do something interesting and exciting. But, they move so fast that they often are very hard to catch in one shot. Certainly we’ve all had the experience where we walk into a location, take a winning picture and walk out. But more often, we have to stay a little longer and take a few more shots. Larger birds, such as a Heron, are very willing to stay in one place for a very long time. Earlier this year a Heron landed about 100 yards in front of me. He stared at me and I stared at him. 15 minutes later he stared at me and I stared at him. 45 minutes later he stared…Wait! He’s… Oh. Nope. He stared at me…. and I stared at him. At this point I was suggesting to him that he fly so I could take his picture. No response. One hour later the Heron flew low across the water and landed about 200 yards from where it began. Because I waited it out I got the shots.

Recently I purchased Nikon’s 300mm f/4 lens and 1.7 Teleconverter. When used together it gives me the equivalent of a 510 mm f/6.3 lens for much less than the actual Nikkor 500mm f/4 costs. For those of you who might be using a crop camera, the same 300mm lens and 1.7 Teleconverter combo would give you closer to 760mm. Quite an amazing reach! Nikon’s 300mm f/4 lens in one word is ‘amazing’. It’s focusing speed is really fast. It has no problem focusing on the smaller birds in flight. I have yet to try it with a hummingbird as at this time of year I have yet to see one. The image of the tree swallow was taken with the 300mm lens and 1.7 Teleconverter. My images are coming out of the camera tack sharp and vibrant.

I’ve had several requests that I offer more of my opinions on my blog, so here goes. After using Minolta gear all my life until 2003, Canon gear from 2003 two 2010, and now Nikon gear, I can tell you that Nikon is “hands down” the superior camera system. Whereas Canon offers practically a lens for every situation and many of its lenses are top-notch, Nikon’s lenses have the upper hand. Anything can be post processed to look the same. But straight out of the camera I need less post processing with Nikon than I did with Canon. The images are absolutely spectacular coming out of my Nikon setup.

As long as we are debating Nikon versus Canon I’ll bet we could start a fiery blog about Ford versus Chevy. At least three of the companies mentioned didn’t take bail-out money… As with many things the needs of one person are completely different from the needs of the next. And as I have mentioned in previous blogs my needs as a photographer took me in the direction of Nikon. You may not feel that one-button access to a mirror lockup function is important, so a different camera might work well for you.

In Bird photography, skill and speed tend to work together. The speed at which you track a bird in flight will also relate to your skill at keeping the bird in your viewfinder. If you lose track of the bird because your autofocus can’t keep up you can always switch to manual focusing. How fast can you make that switch? Do you focus in or out? All of these things come with practice and all are skill and speed.

My last opinion– stop what you are doing and head out to your local bird sanctuary. A Heron just flew over my house, so I know what I’m doing today!