Julie Clark on approach to Cameron Park Airport.Full frame too.

• Top Banana sunset
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/5.6
• Shutter: 1/8000 sec
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 200 mm

If you’re a fan of the old warbirds, living near an airport has it’s perks. I shot this of Julie Clark as she passed overhead. I deliberately panned on her hoping she’d pass directly across the sun, but she didn’t quite. Lots of flare in in the 80-200, but not so much as to ruin the shot.

• Exhaust vents
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/4.0
• Shutter: 1/3200 sec
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 12 mm

Like my foray’s to the old bunkers at what used to be Mather AFB, I finally got access to the old Titan 1 missile base outside of Lincoln, Ca.

I got to accompany a reporter from The Sacramento Bee on a tour of the abandoned base for a story and while the base is completely flooded due to ground water, wandering around in the weeds has become something of a norm on trips like these and to me is still kinda fun.

The doors of launcher #2, top view.The metal plate in the near view covers the huge hinge mechanism, which is basically a giant metal pipe or rod. Simple and effective. And did I mention huge?

• Silo doors, launcher #2
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/8.0
• Shutter: 0.002 sec (1/640)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 12 mm

We met two representatives from Placer County — the property the base is on is owned by the county — and it became quickly evident that among the four of us I was the subject matter expert, brandishing my own printout of a base layout I’d printed from a 21M-HGM25A manual off Silo World.

We wandered around and I pointed out what I thought things were while reciting the specs of the Titan 1 missile. The idea of thermonuclear ICBMs streaking across the Sacramento skyline on their way to, oh I don’t know, Cuba maybe? was a weird thought.

Looking down the LOX vent shaft next to launcher #2.You can see how much water is in there. Unfortunatly the entire complex is under water.

• LOX vent shaft, launcher #2
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/8.0
• Shutter: 0.1 sec (1/10)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 12 mm

As I mentioned, the base is flooded and impossible to enter so we were limited to tromping around on top of it. I chuckled to myself as I was the only one wearing boots and blue jeans. Growing up in the foothills and this not being the first Cold War site I’ve visited, I was prepared. My Dockers sporting friends probably got enough star thistles to last them a while.

Other than being flooded, the base is in decent condition. There was some physical damage in places — I’m guessing someone tried to pry open the cargo hatch with something like a fork-lift or loader, they failed — but generally speaking it’s hard to mess up concrete blast doors.

The metal lip on the launcher doors. The little balls are shot, apparently this was a popular placve to shoot trap at one point.

• Silo door "molding"
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/8.0
• Shutter: 0.002 sec (1/500)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 24 mm

I could have spent more time there, tromping through the weeds and wondering what this railing was or where that concrete hatch went, but stickers bushes and history don’t quite have the appeal to everyone that they do for me so we packed it up and split.

There’s some question as to the need to pump the water out of the complex as there is some ground water contamination in the area. I have no idea what the situation is around that (hint: read the Bee) but if they do pump the complex out, I’ll definitely be back.

• Ducks and snow
• Camera: LS-50
• Aperture: n/a
• Shutter: n/a
• ISO: n/a
• Focal Length: n/a

Winter has always been my favorite season and even though this summer has been a relatively cool one, I like to think we’ll have some relief soon…

• Empty swing
• Camera: LS-50
• Aperture: n/a
• Shutter: n/a
• ISO: n/a
• Focal Length: n/a

Well, this is the longest dry-spell ever on this blog. Don’t feel bad, I rarely update Twitter these days either.

Fear not, I’m not dead.

I do get out an shoot on occasion, often throwing back to actual film with my trusty Leica M3, so I’ll try to post more photos and their stories here.

Oh and maybe a few rants on the state of the newspaper industry….

• St. Francis at night
• Camera: LS-50
• Aperture: n/a
• Shutter: n/a
• ISO: n/a
• Focal Length: n/a

The wife and I hit San Francisco earlier this week and, you know it, I brought along a few cameras.

Forgetting the lessons learned from a few vacations ago I figured my D300 and a few lenses would be a good thing to shlep around and photograph with but I soon remembered that, oh yeah, it’s heavy.

Sure, my new love, the Nikon AF Zoom-NIKKOR
80-200mm f/2.8D ED (one of Nikon’s best kept secrets by the way) is unbeatable and didn’t fail to impress, but after a few miles on foot, nothing says “superfluous” like a 120-300mm equivalent lens taking up room in a sholder bag.

Ultimately I fell back on, and had the most fun with, just my trusty Panasonic LX-3 and of course the Leica M3.

This guy was like a block away but was belting out the opera tunes while we ate in a little outdoor bistro. It lent a perfect ambiance.

• Opera guy
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/2.8
• Shutter: 0.001 sec (1/2000)
• ISO: 200
• Focal Length: 200 mm

I also found that the iPhone was a great fallback when you just wanted to record something silly — and San Francisco has its fair share of silly — and tweet it.

I’ve never been much of a street photography shooter, but the Leica kind of lends itself to it and the touristy nature of a lot of SF makes cameras just part of the landscape so it’s very easy to just blend in. After a while I got pretty good at gauging focus and guessing exposure (f/8 and be there) and really had a lot of fun with it.

• Waiting on the steps
• Camera: LS-50
• Aperture: n/a
• Shutter: n/a
• ISO: n/a
• Focal Length: n/a

So we wandered all over SF by foot, strolling through Chinatown and riding the cable cars and whatnot — in short doing all the touristy things. We toured the USS Pampanito and the old Presidio and finally hopped on one of those open-top busses, because frankly we weren’t cold enough walking around on foot.

All in all a good time.

• Rock wall and barbed wire
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/5.6
• Shutter: 0.002 sec (1/500)
• ISO: 200
• Focal Length: 24 mm

As a history buff living in the cradle of the California Gold Rush, I was ecstatic to find out about Clarksville Day, the one day a year old Clarksville is to the public.

Clarksville was formed during the Gold Rush and later was a transfer stop (at least for a few weeks, folks were vague about that) on the Pony Express route. It’s located just outside of what today is El Dorado Hills and like so many other areas in El Dorado County though you’re only a few steps off the main road, you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.

• Grave at the Tong cemetery
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/5.6
• Shutter: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
• ISO: 200
• Focal Length: 12 mm

Today, Clarksville is located on private property, so you can’t get in there normally. On the grounds are a handful of old houses — curiously, some lived in until shockingly recently — and a number of old stone foundations.

The folks who put it on did pretty well. There were folks in period clothes and wagon rides and all that. There was even a shootout by the varmints in the Blue Canyon Gang.

Window on one of the many abandoned houses in the area.

• Window in time
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/5.6
• Shutter: 0.004 sec (1/250)
• ISO: 200
• Focal Length: 22 mm

I also had the odd opportunity to meet one of the six — yes six — candidates running for El Dorado Sheriff. Bob Luca made an appearance and I worked up the courage to ask him about his stance on CCW permits and Open Carry laws in the county. While Luca has taken some heat in the past for not being as rabidly pro-CCW as the other candidates (notably Larry Hennick), he did state he was in support of AB 375, the bill to make California a “shall issue” CCW state (tho we agreed it would never pass), and talked about the need to proceed cautiously, “look what happened over in Isleton.” While I’m still not sure who I’m voting for, that he took the time to show up won him points.

Anyway, while I shot a lot in digital, I also shot a half a roll of Ilford Delta 100 with the Leica. In a few days I’ll soup that roll and hopefully add to the set.

and yes, this post also serves as a fine test of the Flickr slideshow embed code…

• Wolf Spider, head on
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/11.0
• Shutter: 0.017 sec (1/60)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 105 mm

Since getting a 105mm Micro lens (its real name is AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED but yeesh…) I’ve been experimenting a lot with macro photography or in other words shooting reeally, reeally small things up close. Since, I’ve never owned a macro lens before, it’s been kindof a learning experience.

This is "Rollie" my daughter's first pet... er I guess.Strobist: SB-800 with a diffuser on camera putting out a whole f/22 at point-blank range. Poor little Rollie has gotta be blind now.

• "Rollie" the Armadillidiidae
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/22.0
• Shutter: 0.017 sec (1/60)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 105 mm

The first thing you figure out when working up real close is that as far as focus goes, there’s little room for slop. Tilt your head a little bit and the image is out of focus. No, not “a little soft” but blown-out blurry.

Of course there’s auto-focus, but when shooting macro it’s not always a big help. Generally auto-focus works pretty poorly up close, it simply pushes the limits of the technology. You can hear the motor frantically trying to move the lens back and forth that 1/16th of an inch you need to get that bug or whatever in focus (usually while you’re holding your breath and trying not to wiggle the camera, which when you do throws the auto-focus off even more).

Yes... more macro ;)It's the built-in mic on the top of the iMac.

• The computer is listening...
• Camera: n/a
• Aperture: n/a
• Shutter: n/a
• ISO: n/a
• Focal Length: n/a

Now if it’s dark, or you’re sporting an astigmatism in your shooting eye like me, we’ll then sometimes you might have to punt and just use AF. But be warned, if you use auto-focus for macro work it has to be dead on accurate. I used the wicked cool “AF Fine Tune” feature of my D300 to kick the focus of my 105mm macro lens back just a bit (+8 if you care). It’s not that the lens isn’t sharp, it’s just that “a wee bit” is the difference between a bug’s eye being tack sharp and nothin’ but blur.

Moderate crop of a bee shot.Strobist: SB-800 on camera at -1 EV

• Polinatin' bee
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/22.0
• Shutter: 0.013 sec (1/80)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 105 mm

My favorite subject at the moment is bugs and other creepy-crawlies, probably because they look so creepy up close and given the semi-rural area where I live, there’s a healthy pool to choose from.

Bugs however tend to move around a lot, and often times pretty dang quickly, so they offer additional challenges. I try to use small apertures to squeeze out the most depth-of-field that I can, in case the little buggers move. f/22 gives a little bit of leeway but the downside is that sometimes a little bokeh is worth having. f/5.6 on the other hand is pushing it. That wide and you can have a spider’s eye sharp but the rest of it too blurred to be recognizable.

This guy was small, all of 3.5" long and we suspect one of the cats brought him in.After a routine showing to the kids and several blasts from an SB-800, I let him go out front.

• Californal Sharptail
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/11.0
• Shutter: 0.008 sec (1/125)
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 105 mm

I’ve found having a strobe handy is a huge help. Even a small strobe can easily throw enough light for f/22 at close range and have enough left to cycle quickly. I tend to pop my SB-800 on the camera, sometimes with the diffuser, and let the iTTL mode do the right thing, usually matching whatever f-stop I choose. Other times I just use it for fill.

It’s a lot of fun, and along the way I’m picking up a lot about the various critters we share this part of the world with. Did you know there are tarantulas in California?

Of course you don’t need a marco lens for those.

• Lightning at Bass Lake 2
• Camera: NIKON D300
• Aperture: f/8.0
• Shutter:
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 25 mm

Early in my photojournalism career a Sacramento Union photographer once gave me some simple advice: get a hold of all the film you can and shoot it up. But as I’ve gotten back into photography, even when shooting digital which isn’t constrained by the limits of a 36 exposure roll of film, I’ve found it’s just sometimes easier to say to yourself: nah, I’ll shoot it next time…

You don’t make good pictures that way.

Tonight as the midwest-grade thunder cracked and lightning lit the sky up, I finally remembered those words and decided, no, it was going to be this time and I headed out into the rain.

I’m thinking that’s how you make good pictures.

• Shamu!
• Camera: DMC-LX3
• Aperture: f/5.0
• Shutter: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
• ISO: 80
• Focal Length:

So this year the wife and I decided to go to San Diego for this year’s family “vacation”. I say “vacation” in quotes because as any parent knows, there’s not a whole lot of vacationing that goes on during family vacations. There’s running after kids, who’s got the snacks, honey where are my socks, STOP HITTING ME, turn left here… NO NOT HERE, where’s your boarding pass, I’M HUNGRY!… eh, you get the picture.

We’d originally planned to just hit Sea World and then spend a few days at Legoland when the idea of checking out the USS Midway Museum came up. Since my father-in-law was stationed on it during Vietnam it seemed like a cool idea. Then since Ryan just did a report on it, we tacked on a trip to the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala. For any readers not in the 4th grade, that would be the Mission in San Diego (and for non California readers, the Missions are a California thing… look ‘em up).

Anyway, here are some notes on each:

• The USS Midway

  
  The first stop upon landing was a run through the USS Midway Museum which was mildly interesting. Katie, of course couldn’t care less and Ryan didn’t really grasp what it was all about, although he found the maze-like passageways through it kinda fun (more on that theme later).

  I found it kinda “just OK” too until I wandered into the CIC. The CIC was done up just as it was during Desert Storm when the USS Midway served as the command center for the US Navy operations in that theater. When I say done up I mean right down to the actual CNN broadcasts from the night of January 17th, 1991. That was over-the-top cool.

  I was also taken by how cramped the thing was. An older gentleman who was as tall as I am casually commented, “I’m glad I was in the Army.” I couldn’t agree more.

• Sea World

  
  Next up was a day at Sea World. The neatest attraction there — after the dolphins and Shamu of course — was this huge, elevated play area. That kept Ryan’s focus for over an hour while he ran amok across the various bridges, nets and tubes and such (aka “maze-like passageways”).

  Then there were the various enclosures (yay sharks!) and Ryan and I “flew” to the Arctic and we had a lot of fun with that. Our course all of us also enjoyed the Pets Rule show immensely as well. Did you know they can train house cats?

• Legoland

  
  The main event, of course, was two days at Legoland. Ryan’s favorite “ride” was the Pharaoh’s Revenge, which was basically a two-story cage where you could shoot foam balls at each other. That and The Hideaways, where he could again run amok all over the place… yep, you guessed it, through the “maze-like passageways”.

  Katie liked the smaller rides, and getting her face painted. We stayed off the many water rides as it was too cold for getting wet. We also stayed off the roller coasters because we’re all wusses.

  
  Speaking of the weather, it was cool but not overly cold and we only got a little rain at the end of the day Friday. What was somewhat sad was that we reportedly got a few inches of snow at home while we were down in San Diego (we only get snow once or twice a year so it’s still fun when it happens).

  The Sea Life aquarium at Legoland was pretty good too, smaller than Sea World of course but just as good aquarium to aquarium.

• Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala

  
  The last stop was the San Diego Mission. It was pretty neat in it’s own way, being that it was the first church in California. By this time, however, we were all pretty tired but Ryan still found some of it interesting.

  It was neat to walk around the actual Mission that Ryan did his 4th grade report report on. I have to say, after seeing the real deal, his cardboard mockup was pretty good.

• Other stuff

  
  Instead of lugging my laptop and the Nikon D300 (and the suite of lenses and gunk that go with it) along like I did for Disneyland last year, this year I elected to go über light, carrying only my iPhone and my new Panasonic DMC-LX3.

  The camera performed admirably, putting up with all manner of the bad shooting conditions I shoved at it. It does shoot a little “hot” so a -2/3 EV adjustment made it all good. 400 photos made for a decent pool to pull a Flickr set from.

  However, on the phone side, the iPhone ate itself on the flight down. The music I was listening to stopped and the screen went all static-y (seriously, it was kinda neat). And then it went dead as, well, a brick. This was of moderate seriousness because we’ve found the iPhone’s GPS a real plus on far away trips and both parents having working phones is a must in large amusement parks.

  So I looked up an Apple Store in San Diego and took it in. They happily replaced the dead iPhone with a new one but then that one turned out to have a bad ringer switch — which broke off the next day — so that resulted in another stop at the Apple Store in Carlsbad for another new iPhone. Two iPhones later and I was good-to-go.

All in all, a good time.