My First Attempt At Astrophotography And What I Learned

So this was a very fun and interesting experiment, with some surprising results. I've previously read enough about astro photography, to understand a few things. First, I need to be in a dark area with no light pollution. Secondly, my little wind up electric car doesn't have enough range to get me to one of these areas. At least not if I want a return trip home that evening. So last night, I got an itch and wanted to see just what could be done where I live. So after work, I got on YouTube and refreshed my memory by watching “How to photoraph the Milky Way in <5 minutes”. My goal was not to make an amazing photo, but rather to see what could be done from my backyard in Antioch, TN, 10 minutes from downtown Nashville.

All the conditions were wrong. The moon was out, literally full, and bright. I was also pointing my camera towards all the light pollution of Nashville. The video I watched brought me to an astro photoraphy calculator. After entering a few bits of info about my camera's capabilities, the lens I was using, etc., I was instructed to use a shutter speed of about 30”. This didn't make much sense to me, because I was always told that anything over 15” would start to give you star trails, due to the rotation of the Earth. Nevertheless, I followed the instructions. I took a few photos and uploaded them into Lightroom.

First astro photo ever. Taken at 11:47pm.

There were two moments during this experiment, which made my mouth drop. This was the first one. The photos were so overexposed, I thought they were completely useless. Shooting with a mirrorless camera, I don't yet understand why this didn't show up on the LCD screen of my camera. Normally, what I see is what I get and I know immediately if I'm overexposing something. In this case, it was like shooting with a DSLR. I wouldn't know it was overexposed, because I didn't bother reviewing the images until I took a few and imported them into Lightroom. At this point, it was just a learning experience, but now that I was behind the computer with my photos, I decided to play around and see if I could actually get any detail out of them.

This was the second time my mouth dropped. I couldn't believe the level of detail I could bring back from these images. The white light at the bottom of the image is from the lights of Nashville, so that can't be salvaged, but I was very impressed with the rest of it. These are not photos I would share with anyone, other than for this example as a teaching tool of sorts. As in “don't do what I did, but look what you can still do with the image”. I've now learned a lot more about this genre. I've looked at light pollution maps before, but until today, I had no idea what a Bortle scale was. This may sound pretty amateur to anyone reading this, and that's because it is. I'm learning more about photography every day. I certainly know more as I type this, than I did last night, when I was taking super overexposed images. I thought it was pretty neat and this is definitely something I would like to do more of. Perhaps I'll get the opportunity on my trip to Colorado in a few weeks.

A few things I've learned:

• I live in a Bortle class 6.

• The Milky Way is very weak or invisible near the horizon and looks rather washed out overhead in a Bortle class 5.

• I can easily get to a Bortle class 5 in about 20 minutes.

• With my particular vehicle I can get to a Bortle class 4 with some prior planning, and a charge to and from, in about 30 miles.

• In my opinion, the best photos I'm going to get of the Milky Way (with the least amount of driving) are going to be from the north side of McEwen, TN, looking northwest into a Bortle class 3. So if anyone would like to take a trip and offer their vehicle, so I don't have to rent one, I'm down for the road trip and will pay you for gas! McEwin is about a 1hr 20min drive.

Uncle Tony's Garage

In this modern era of being able to change the thermostat in your home, from a computer in your pocket, while you’re at work, it’s nice to be able to take a step back once in a while. I have a fascination and admiration for things of the past. I love mechanical watches. I’ll take a Seiko 5 with an NH35 movement, over the wrist computers everyone is wearing these days. Smart watches have no soul. If you have to charge it, it’s not a watch. I wet shave with a safety razor, the way my grandfather did back in the 40s. I yearn for the days where kids are playing flashlight tag in their neighborhoods, instead of doing sock puppet dances on that social media site that shall not be named. Seriously, putting sock puppets on your hands would at least be more entertaining than watching you have a seizure with your arms and calling it “dancing”. But I digress. I also believe fashion from the 30s-60s should make a serious comeback. Wool and twill suits are awesome. I’d love to see a return of men and women dressing up to go out. We are far too casual today, and I’m just as guilty of it as anyone.

Another blast from the past, which I love, are old school cars, prior to the early 70s. Whether it’s the dream cars of the 50s, or the muscle cars of the 60s and early 70s, I’m drooling over all of it. I was never a “car guy”. I didn’t grow up working on cars. I don’t know the difference between a fuel pump and a cam. I don’t know what a drag link or intake manifold does. These are terms I’ve heard thrown around, but I have no idea what they do or what they even look like. And it’s not for a lack of wanting to learn. I was just never exposed to it. So when guys are standing around talking shop, it’s all over my head. But I still dream of cruising around in one of these mechanical monsters, while listening to doo wop or rockabilly on an old retro tuner shaft radio. My dream car is a 1968 Barracuda Super Stock with a 426 Hemi. A close 2nd, is a 1967 GTO.

My love for these cars, and lack of knowledge of them, is what got me turned on to Tony DeFeo’s YouTube channel: Uncle Tony’s Garage. I followed this channel for several years, before realizing he lives right down the street in Murfreesboro. I couldn’t believe it. If and when I ever get the point where I can buy one of these cars, at least I know who I can pay and trust, to work on it. At the very least, I can hire the guy to tell me if the car I find, is a diamond in the rough, or a dog with fleas.

Tony DeFeo grew up in Long Island, NY, where he was apparently kicked out of school at the age of 16 for stealing a school bus. He later went on to become a mechanic and an automotive journalist. He wrote for Cars Illustrated and founded High Performance Mopar, as well as Mopar Action. The man is a legend in the automotive community. From what I’ve gathered, he and his buddies became famous in the late 80s when they learned how to really get the most performance out their fox body mustangs. The technology was new, the shifting was different, but they eventually taught themselves how to get some really great times out of these things. So much so, that the engineers at Ford’s racing division, SVO (Special Vehicle Operations) accused them of lying about their track times. The SVO engineers said “we know you’re lying, because we can’t even get our cars to go this fast”. So Tony and his pals were going faster than the Ford guys, with their own equipment. They even had an ongoing joke: “It takes a MOPAR guy to make a Ford go fast”.

Fast forward about 20 years later, and Uncle Tony and his wife Kathy moved to Murfreesboro, TN somewhere around 2009 and never looked back. Long story short, Tony was working out of a shop, which was sold out from under him. So he moved his business into his home garage, where he got into the parts business. His primary focus was Chrysler products between 1960 and 1980. Tony is a firm believer in teaching people how to work on their cars without access to things like car lifts, paint booths, and rotisseries that cost thousands of dollars. If you can’t do it with a floor jack, a flux-core welder, and a paint gun from Harbor Freight, Tony isn’t going to make a video about it. He wants to teach every day people how to restore their cars at little to no cost. After a while, as fate would have it, Tony came across a warehouse available for lease, which brings me to the purpose of this article. I was fortunate enough to be able to document the grand opening of Uncle Tony’s Garage Global Headquarters, by photographing the event.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that Uncle Tony is the real deal. The man has a brilliant mind and a pleasure to be around. I was so happy to have the opportunity to do this. People like him aren’t going to be around forever and we need to learn as much from them as possible, while they are still with us.

The Christmas Morning Bombing In Nashville.

As the sun was coming up on December 25, 2020, millions of people around the United States were blessed with the ability to wake up with their families on Christmas morning, and open gifts with their families by the light of their Christmas trees. The people of Nashville were not so fortunate. At 4:30am, a local resident heard gunfire outside her downtown building on 2nd Ave. At 5:32am, she heard another round of gunfire and called the police. By 5:38, the police arrived and found a suspicious RV parked on 2nd Ave, with an audio recording playing from inside the vehicle. The recording was warning people to evacuate the area, because the vehicle was going to explode. Police began to go door to door, waking people up, and evacuated the area. At 6am a 15 minute countdown began, which alerted residents to leave the area, due to an impending explosion. Between warnings, speakers on the RV played the 1964 song “Downtown” by Petula Clark. At 6:30am, the bomb exploded, killing the 63 year old bomber who was inside the vehicle the whole time.

I was fortunate enough to have flown home to Pensacola, FL to see my family for Christmas. My brother was the first to read about the explosion and notified us while we were eating breakfast. The following are photos taken on December 27.

My journey to shooting professional sports in Nashville.

This was a blog post I intended to make a while ago, while I was contacting the professional sports teams in Nashville. However, after yesterday’s encounter, it seemed appropriate to write about it now.

I grew up playing a variety of organized (and unorganized) sports in Pensacola, FL. Baseball, basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, and soccer are the most notable. Each one holds a special place in my heart and in my life. Sports taught me to be respectful and humble. They taught me about winning and losing. I was taught to be punctual and learned that there were consequences if I wasn’t. One of the biggest things I learned, was what type of coach I enjoyed playing under and what type of coach I wanted to be myself.

I played soccer for 13 years. I was 14 years old when Major League Soccer had its inaugural season. With names like Tony Meola, Carlos Valderrama, Brian McBride, Alexi Lalas, Eddie Pope, and Cobi Jones, it was all we could do to not pretend to be our idols while at practice. We were growing up playing the most amazing sport in the world, while the United States was starting it’s first professional league. Not to mention, the classic 35 yard penalty shootouts in the event of a tie (I miss those days. Bring it back.)

Unfortunately, there was no MLS team near my hometown. My friends and I never really had a team to follow. We kind of just watched the games on TV and rooted for whichever team our favorite players were on. About a year ago, I started putting out feelers in an attempt to shoot the pro sports teams in Nashville. I sent an email to the Titans, Predators, and when I heard Nashville won the bid for the newest MLS team, I jumped all over it and sent them an email as well. Being their first season, I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to get my foot in the door to shoot the games. While the Nashville Soccer Club was the only organization to actually get back to me, the news was negative. Apparently I had to be part of a reputable media outlet, to get a press pass. I think Jared Polin was the photographer who said to start a website with a blog, in order to get a press pass for pro sports teams, but I don’t think that’s good enough for the NSC.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was walking through Costco, doing some last minute Christmas shopping and happened to walk passed a couple who both had Nashville Soccer Club logos on their shirts. I asked them if they worked for the NSC, and the man said he did. I explained that I was a photographer interested in shooting the pro sports teams in Nashville and that the Nashville Soccer Club actually responded to me, but declined the offer and stated that I had to be part of a reputable media outlet. I told the man I had no idea what that meant, and that I just wanted to shoot the pro sports teams in Nashville. The man asked for my business card and I gave it to him. He told me he would look into it for me and be in touch with me. I’m not actually expecting to hear from him, but I have to admit I went home feeling a bit better about myself. I feel like I’m on the right track now. I have a website, a blog, business cards, an email dedicated to my name, etc. Even if this doesn’t pan out, I do feel more professional than I did a year ago (even if I’m not being paid for my work yet).

2020

The title should say it all. This year has been one for the ages. One of the reasons to have a blog, is because it allows you to essentially write a journal, containing hundreds of words, which benefits your website through SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You mention the word “soccer” and people who search for that term, may stumble across your site. At least that’s how it was explained to me. The problem is when you get years like 2020, writing a blog is kind of the last thing on your mind. Where to begin…

In the late hours of March 2 and into the early morning of March 3, ten tornadoes touched down across Tennessee. They ranked between an EF-0 and EF-4 on the Fujita scale. Seven of them affected Middle Tennessee, destroying six schools, John C. Tune airport, as well as the gymnastics facility where I coach. At least 25 lives were lost, 2,400 structures affected, 500 completely destroyed, and about $2 Billion worth of damage according to AccuWeather. We were unemployed for 5 months. Thankfully, our employer’s insurance covered us.

About a week later, Covid-19 hits the country. Now millions of people across the country, are unemployed. Businesses are closed, everyone is forced to wear a diaper on their face, and we can’t enjoy our lives. Even the movie industry has grinded to a halt. We’re coming up on almost a year of the country being locked down. Winter is coming, schools are talking about not even opening this year, and Zoom is now a thing. I’m just wondering how much longer businesses are going to stand being told what to do. It’s certainly put a damper on doing any street photography. Every one of your subjects is wearing a mask.

What else? Oh, this crazy city just approved a 34% property tax increase, that’s currently being fought (and rightfully so).

The Gulf Coast was hit by seven named storms this year, affecting my parents in Florida and my family in Louisiana. My father’s van was crushed by fallen oak tree.

I’ve had money tied up in Lipocine (LPCN) stock since August. The FDA was supposed to announce an approval or denial of their drug “Tlando” back on August 28. Instead, it was delayed without reason and the shareholders were all told “you’ll have an answer in the coming weeks”. Well, it’s now been 3 months and although we still don’t have a decision, things are looking very positive and the stock has been gaining all week. It looks like an approval is imminent and it’s just a waiting game at this point.

My refrigerator finally gave up the ghost and I was rear ended at a stop sign a few weeks ago. I’m fine and the car wasn’t totaled, but man, that was a $750 and $500 expense that I was not anticipating, while my funds are stuck in a stock that was supposed to approved three months ago. Live and learn.

And to top it off, we lost Kobe Bryant, Alex Trebek, Eddie Van Halen, Tommy DeVito from The Four Seasons, Dianna Rigg of Game of Thrones, Regis Philbin, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Kelly Preston, Charlie Daniels, Joel Schumacher (Directed The Lost Boys, Falling Down, two Batman films, A Time To Kill), Grant Imahara of Mythbusters, Bill Withers (Ain’t No Sunshine and Lean On Me), New Orleans jazz musician Ellis Marsalis, Kenny Rogers, Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (whose work could be heard in films like The Shining and The Exorcist), Max Von Sydow, Lee Fiero (the woman who slapped Chief Brody in the face in Jaws), Ian Holm, Esther Scott, Chadwick Boseman, Kirk Douglas, Tommy Lister aka Deebo from Friday, and the legendary Sean Connery this year. This year can kick rocks.

Nashville Tornado

Depth of field assignment.

This will be a short and sweet post. My morning coffee is brewing downstairs and I’m slightly pressed for time today. I started my second photography class last week. It’s called Business For Photographers and it was recommended by the instructor of my last class (Beth Gorham), and it just so happened to be the only class that worked with my work schedule. I won’t ruin the results of the last class, just yet, because I’m still blogging about it, but I did well in it. The business class is from 1-4 on Thursdays and I have to start coaching at 4:30. Why they don’t offer more of these classes in the mornings, is a mystery. The lighting class, which I’ve been trying to take for two semesters, still didn’t work with my schedule. This was probably the class which excited me the least, due to the fact that we won’t be shooting at all. However, it’s the class which will probably benefit me the most.

Ok, so for my depth of field assignment, I learned a very important lesson. Always check your sensor for dust and debris. Just look at all this stuff all over my image. I was actually very happy with this photograph, and very upset that it was ruined by something as silly as not looking at my sensor beforehand. This could have easily been fixed by using an air blower or a VSGO sensor cleaning kit, but at the time, I didn’t realize cleaning your sensor was so easy. I was always told that I should never touch the sensor in my camera or attempt to clean it.

Debris all over my sensor. Living and learning.

Thankfully, this stuff only showed up at certain aperture settings. The previous picture was shot at f/16. This next image was shot at f/1.4 and granted, the background would be hiding all these spots anyway, changing the aperture helped a lot.

My first assignment

My first assignment for my photography class, was just to focus on getting the proper exposures for my images. I used the images of my previous blog post, as well as some of these skating pictures. I went to a local skate park and as soon as the camera came out, these guys just ate it up. I used the Sony 70-200mm 2.8 and was quite happy with the results. Had I known better, I would have used these for my “motion assignment”, later down the road.

My first model shoot.

My first time shooting with a model, was a great learning experience for me. The great thing about being a gymnastics/cheer coach, is there is an unlimited supply of potential models. So I used Shana, a girl I have coached, since she was probably 10-12 years old. Now she’s in college and works with me at the gym. I paid her $20 to go out and shoot with me on a bridge for an hour, at a state park. She said I didn’t have to pay her, but I get paid $60 an hour to teach private lessons at the gym, and that’s more than she makes coaching, so it was a win for both of us. I went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of small dresses for a few dollars each, that would probably fit the body types of most of the girls I coach. The great thing about buying cheap dresses from Goodwill, is you don’t have to worry about the dresses getting dirty or wet. You can have your models roll around in the dirt and get some amazing shots in a $4 dress. I took them home, threw them in the washing machine, and let Shana pick out one she liked. I didn’t care if my models actually liked the dresses. It didn’t matter if it was stylish, cheap, or something they would actually buy themselves. The only thing that mattered to me, is if they were bright colors and/or full of textures that would look good on camera.

Hair tie on the handrail. Her right hand is cut off.

We met at 7am, before we had to coach on a Saturday morning. Even though it was just Shana, I was incredibly nervous. I felt that because I was an adult in my 30’s, I should know exactly what I’m doing and I should know exactly what to tell her to do. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I had so many things in my head, that I wanted to try, but I was in new territory here and had no idea what to tell her to do. We tried a few things, but we didn’t have much time, considering we had to walk pretty far to the bridge and then back to the parking lot. I didn’t want it to look like she was just “looking at the camera and smiling for a picture”, though I feel like that’s what happened for the most part.

It was good to get passed the first, initial shoot with a model. I learned a lot. I thought I was happy with the early morning light, until I later bought a diffuser, but that will be explained in another blog post. I learned about cutting off the hands and feet in a photo, and there was even a picture where she had taken her hair tie out and set it on the railing next to her. I didn’t even see it until I got home and was editing the images. There was another picture we took, where a couple was was walking across the bridge in the background. That was actually something I was aware of and trying to avoid during the shoot, but it looks like one of those pictures snuck in there.

People in the background.

What I took away from it, was getting over the nervousness of shooting my first portrait shoot, learning from my compositional errors, paying attention to my surroundings, and that early morning light doesn’t take long to get “high in the sky”. I used the photos for my first class assignment. We were supposed to take 20 pictures of whatever we wanted, and just focus on getting the exposure correct.

Casio PRG-600. This is by far my EDC. I absolutely love this watch. ABC, solar powered, big legible face. This particular watch was originally intended for the Japanese domestic market. In fact, mine was shipped from overseas. However, they are starting to be found in the US. This rare “Safari” version can now be found at my local Sams Club. I know, it needs to be cleaned. This watch was introduced to me by Nutnfancy, so a big thanks to him.

Taking a photography class.

After spending countless hours watching YouTube tutorials, getting used to the settings/functions of my camera, and taking it to a few trips to the zoo and the gym, where I coach, it was time to get some one on one coaching from a professional. It’s like watching a video on how to play the guitar. You will definitely learn how to play, but without a coach to give you that hands on experience, you can easily develop bad habits. Having someone next to you, who can give you immediate feedback, can be quite helpful.

Prior to the start of this semester, I came across a Facebook post from a company that was searching for photographers to shoot bar crawls in major cities across the country. Nashville happened to be one of them. The issue (other than my lack of experience) was you needed a 35mm lens or wider, and you needed an on camera TTL flash. I was already in the market for a 35mm or 50mm lens, but the flash was approaching brand new territory for me. Back to YouTube I went. I did my homework, and picked up a flash and a trigger. Around this time, I also found a great deal on a used Rotolight Neo II from B&H, which is actually the form of lighting I prefer. More so than a flash. LED lighting was another no brainer for me. Just like with the electronic viewfinder, you see what you’re going to get, before you even take the picture. You don’t get that with a flash. It just made more sense to me. Work smarter, not harder. I did submit my application and work to the bar crawl company, told them I’d be happy to be considered as a last minute, backup photographer, and never heard back from them, which I expected. I had zero experience in low light conditions.

I turned to my local community college, to see what photography classes were available. I wanted to take a lighting course. I owned a traditional flash and a Rotolight at this point, and I wanted to learn how to use them. Unfortunately, I was required to take this basic Photo 101 course as a prerequisite to any of the classes I really wanted to take. And after just finishing my 5th week in the class, I can honestly say that if you’re on the fence about taking the “intro to photography” class at your local community college, because you think you’re beyond it, you probably are. If you understand what F-stops are, you know how to use your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to get the correct exposure for an image, you understand that a high ISO will cause grain, you know how to freeze motion with the correct shutter speed, you understand depth of field and how to obtain images with great and shallow depths of field, you know how to avoid blurry images by using shutter speed and a tripod, you understand what soft and harsh lighting conditions look like, you shoot in both manual and RAW (and know what that means) AND on top of all that, your local college will allow you to just take whatever class you want, I’d consider skipping the intro class.

That being said, the class isn’t a waste of time. In my case, classmates are asking me questions about gear, taking photographs, and asking for suggestions, when the instructor isn’t available. So far, we haven’t covered anything I wasn’t familiar with. We meet once a week for 3 hours, and we discuss a different topic every week and our homework is based on that subject. The first week, we didn’t use our cameras. We discussed cameras, gear, and basic requirements of the class. Some of the students wanted to use the first day to find out what kind of camera to purchase. Week 2, we discussed proper exposure, shutter speed, and aperture. We were told to shoot 20 pictures with the proper exposure. I went to a skate park and captured 20 pictures, not knowing we would be doing motion on week 5. Oops. The instructor laughed and said she hoped I didn’t become too bored in the class. I told her I wasn’t bored and I’m still learning. Week 3 was more of the same thing. 20 more pictures focusing on proper exposure, were due for homework. Week 4 was depth of field. Take 20 pictures focusing on both shallow and great depth of field. I was given a slightly more advanced assignment, in order to challenge me a little more (shoot using natural framing, shoot from shade into light, and try to capture blurred motion with a sharp subject). We’ve now gotten to the point where I can’t just go out and shoot a sharp image and turn it in for an A. Now, the class is requiring a little thinking and a little more effort, which I like. Now we are going to actually be graded on the work, based on exposure, subject, DOF, artistic merit, etc. Not composition yet. Week 5 (yesterday) was motion. We have to go out and capture frozen motion, as well as blurred motion, using fast and slow shutter speeds. This is going to be fun. I went to an overpass tunnel after I got off work last night, to capture some head lights and tail lights blurring through the tunnel, and trains kept moving slowly over the overpass. So I walked up to the overpass and it turns out there are like 6 train tracks up there! So I found a new spot and got some great close up pictures of some trains blurred out. Tonight, I’ll head downtown after work and see what I can come up with. I have a few ideas.

Wrist watch check. My first automatic watch. A Seiko 5, SNK803. These are the go to auto watches for people just trying to get into the game, and they are awesome little field watches, with incredible lume. You used to be able to buy these for about $50. Mine was about $69 at Walmart.com, but now Walmart sells it for $93. They’re $80 on Amazon. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

My first digital camera.

My first digital camera was a Fujifilm FinePix 1300, which I bought in college. It was a terrible 1.3 megapixel, point and shoot camera, with a 38mm equivalent lens. It didn’t even have one of those cool looking telephoto lenses that popped out of of the camera, when you wanted to zoom in. But, it did have an LCD screen on the back and you could connect it to your computer via a USB cord or with an SD card. The first cell phone I bought, had a 3 mp camera.

My second digital camera was a Kodak EasyShare Z650. This was a 6.1 megapixel camera with a 10x optical zoom. You essentially went from 38mm to 380mm. Not only did it come with it’s own printer, which you could dock the camera to, but it even had one of those cool looking telephoto lenses that popped out of the camera. Moving up in the world. I used this camera for vacation photos and a wedding, where I did manage to catch some really nice moments. That was when I realized I really enjoyed photography.

Fast forward about 13 years, and life has just taken over. It tends to do that. I don’t know where motivation or the itch came from, but I was in the mood to do some research, spend some money on a really nice DSLR camera, and take some classes. Well, I stumbled down a rabbit hole. YouTube is quite literally your best friend. My biggest two motivations and go-to channels for advice would have to be Jason Lanier and Jared Polin. Followed by David Yarrow, Tony and Chelsea Northrup, Peter McKinnon, Jason Vong, Michael Sasser, and Kai W. I learned more from watching free YouTube videos, than I did from any class I took in high school. Everything from basic photography questions, to gear reviews. It all helped. I’d type in a question in the search bar, such as “what is an aperture” (remember, I’m brand new to all of this), and I’d watch a tutorial on what an aperture is. I’d follow my question with one of the aforementioned names, in hopes that one of them had done a video on my subject. I’d type “Canon vs Nikon” to help me figure out which platform I’d use. All I knew, is I wanted to spend some real money on a high quality camera with interchangeable lenses, to take great photographs of the girls I coached, as well as use it for my own hobby.

I was struggling with my camera choice. I had settled on 3 Canons. A T7i, an SL2, and an 80D. They each had their own pros and cons. I finally found a great deal on a refurbished 80D body and took the plunge about 10 months ago. I bought a 50mm 1.8 lens and a 70-300mm 3.5-5.6 lens. It was a great camera, and served me well, but I soon realized that I was about to head in the wrong direction, as far as what I wanted. I didn’t even know what a mirrorless camera was before this journey, but after doing my homework, I knew I wanted one, no questions asked. After learning what an electronic viewfinder (EVF) was, it just didn’t make sense to me, to use a camera with an optical viewfinder (OVF). With an EVF, you see your exposure and your depth of field, before you even take the picture. As a beginner, why would I want anything else? Why would I want to have to look at LCD screen on the back of my camera (chimping), after taking the picture, and then make a correction, if I could just see what I’m going to get before taking the picture? This was a no brainer. I also wanted silent shooting, zero blackout, eye auto-focus (eye AF), animal eye AF, and more frames per second for sports. I’ll include a link to Jared Polin discussing an EVF vs an OVF.

Everything was pointing me in the direction of Sony, who has been leading the mirrorless market for at least 5-6 years now. I also knew I wanted a full frame camera, instead of a crop sensor (APS-C) camera like my 80D. So, before I got too vested in Canon, I went ahead and sold my gear, when I found a great deal on a used Sony A9. No camera is going to be perfect, but this one is about as close to perfection, as I could have imagined. It has made learning the art of photography, incredibly easy and fun. I would tell anyone else, who is interested in learning, to go the route of a Sony full frame mirrorless camera, with eye auto-focus. You won’t be disappointed.

Wrist watch check. A Neymar, introduced to me by Jodi over at Just One More Watch. I thought they had discontinued this watch, but it’s back at Amazon again.

Neymar Diver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLV-v4sESBI&t=28s

Morning Coffee →

I’m a 37 year old who woke up one morning and decided to pursue photography as a hobby, and with a little luck, a source of income. This blog is intended to document my journey, for better or worse. So, for starters, a wrist watch check and shout out to Tristano (TGV), one of my many inspirations for doing this. I’m sure my other inspirations will be casually mentioned from time to time (no pun intended). I started my blog wearing a Dan Henry 1964 Gran Turismo Chronograph, which I bought as an homage to my dog “Banda”, due to it’s panda dial. Rest in peace buddy.

I grew up on the white, sandy beaches of Pensacola, FL. I took a few photography classes in high school, during the late 90s. It was the perfect time and place to grow up. My generation was fortunate enough to grow up during a time when we were all being introduced to the wonderful technology we have today. We had TVs, video games, and computers, but we weren’t walking around with them in our pockets. If we wanted to call someone, we had to go home to make the phone call, and we had to hope the person we were calling was home. During rainy days, we were allowed to stay in and watch movies or play on our Nintendo. We had computers, but no internet until we were in middle school. We saw the rise of CDs, DVDs, pagers, cell phones, the internet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and many others. We knew what it was like to free play in nature, AND have access to modern technology. A rare thing today.

I took a few photography classes in high school. Most of my class was still using film cameras, while a few of them were just starting to step into the digital realm with DSLRs. I don’t remember how it worked with the “digital students”, but we were all required to learn how to develop black and white film in the darkroom, as part of my grade. That darkroom would soon become the bane of my interest in photography at the time.

I was using a Nikon film camera, which my father used in college. I loved the idea of shooting on film. The smell of the chemicals in the darkroom, taking black and white photos like Ansel Adams, and doing it the way my father did in college. It all sounded great on paper. In practice, however, it wasn’t very glamorous or fun. For starters, I seemed to have a consistent problem with winding my film back inside the film roll, before I even began shooting. Maybe it was the camera. More than likely, it was operator error. Buying brand new rolls of film, only to accidentally wind them back inside the roll, was getting old. Then there was the darkroom… When I did manage to get my film set up correctly, there was no telling how my photographs were going to turn out, until I actually developed them in the darkroom. Most of the time, they were underdeveloped, overdeveloped, or had some ghostly (ghastly) appearance, which only got worse as time passed. Some people will argue that the anticipation of what the darkroom was going to show you, was what actually made it fun. To me, doing all that work, before waiting around for an image which was probably going to end up looking like a hot mess anyway, was not my idea of fun. Another major issue with shooting film, was the limited number of exposures we could take. I’d buy a roll of film and have what? 24 exposures? 24 exposures that I couldn’t see until I spent time in the darkroom, and I’d be lucky if half of them worked out. I remember looking around at my fellow classmates with the DSLRs, thinking “these guys have the right idea”.

Captured during an afternoon at the dog park.