Geeee, I WON a photo contest!

You people on this board are like family and have been so supportive even when Im posting “boring” photo stuff…. so I thought I would let you know that yesterday I actually WON a contest!… The contestants are mostly profesional and free lance photographers from all over the world… though the number of entrants is not relatively large the competition is fierce (much like a fishing tourney!)… I wont bore you with my winning entry its an “artsy” kind of shot…. just thought I would let you know the result…. and thank you all for your support……
I WILL include a wildlife shot here… probably my best to date… its amazing what a big lens and a digital SLR camera CAN do if you know how to use them!… Im STILL learing…. but getting better all the time…. here a Chickadee eyes his next meal of sunflower seeds from a safe perch in a nearby tree…….

Way to go!!

I would be interested in seeing the winning shot if you don’t mind.

Hi Jolly….
ok… YOU asked for it!… or in this case (fork it!)… that was the title I used for this shot, which blew away the competition in this contest winning by more than 100 points….. (yeah.. I cant believe it either!)… purely an artistic shot… a Pitch fork stuck in a snow covered garden in the light of a full moon……

You da man Rivereyes.

Gator Hunter

RiverEyes,

Your winning photo portrays a very calm and serene image. I like it very much – excellent work!

Dave Gulczinski

I think the title was the kicker.

Congrats Ken! Nice photos. I now have new wallpaper on my computer screen. Thanks.

Jon J.

Hey Rivereyes congradulations!!! I know your shooting a digital and i’ve got a 35mm slr minolta that i can control the speed of the shutter. With 35mm-600mm zoom lenses its really nice to get clear shots and fill the entire frame with just whats important, nothing more, you know what i mean. Thats the kind i shoot that agfa film in, amazing clearness but thats all in the quality of the lenses not the camera box itself only. I’ve got a bunch of pics to post but my scanner won’t load its driver. Got a cousin thats a wiz at pc’s and hes got too look at it for me. Its amazing what you see through the eyes of a camera. Do you use a tripod? Again congradulations!

thanks everyone!…….

wow… mossy… a 600MM? with the cropping factor my sigma 70-300mm tops out at a 480mm equivilent…. though Im looking at the sigma 50-500 (known as the BIG MA cuz it weighs nearly 8 pounds!) which would give me a max of 800MM equivelent…. often I do USE tripods…. but sometimes you just cant.. you probably know the rule of thumb for hand held shots, IE you take the MM dived by 100 to come up with the correct shudder speed for a hand held shot….. this chickadee was a hand held shot… taken at 1/500 of a second which nullified the “shake” from using a 480mm equivalent lens….. so the result was clear and sharp….

anyway.. thanks again for all your support… you guys are great….. heres a shot I took the other day… I know a lot of you like sunset shots… these 3 trees standing on the crest of a hill in a winter pasture seemed serene to me and I had to take the shot….

if someone really wants the larger versions of some of these shots and I will be honored to post them in the photo album area under scenery so you can use them for wall paper….

Congradulations Ken
Excellent Nice shots…
That is a great hobby you will probably be making money at it soon..
Keep up the great work….You Rock..

^5’s Ken !!

and your just getting started,,,

keep us up to date !!

Ken, You’ve come along way in a year and a half. I really like looking at all the pics you post. We’ll have to hit the saugers one of these days. Take care…

Very nice shots Ken, and congrats on the contest, what camera model are you using, is it one of the high end digitals with replacable lenses? way to go. looking forward to more shots. Jack.

Hey Jack!.. (geee wanted to say Hi Jack!..but these days I could get arrested!)…. Im still using 2 different cameras… the wildlife is mostly shot with a digital SLR, the Canon Rebel with removeable lenses… the “fork” was shot with my old (last year is considered old these days I guess!) Fuji S602…. which is what the consider to be a high end digital prosumer…. but the lines are blurring fast for that class… in fact this year they have came out with the fuji s5000 for a little over $300 (online) which is very much the same camera as the S602, but with a more powerful optical zoom….. I cant imagine what next years models can do….. and for you night fisherman who are having some problems with night and low light photography they have cameras that use IR focusing systems and even take pix in the dark… Ive seen some pretty amazing things… particularly with some of the upper echelon sony cameras….

Hey buddy! Sorry it took me so long to get a “WAY 2 GO GERANIMO” out to ya! Ya know………….you’ve always been a winner in our book………….so it appears the rest of the world is just catching up! Keep up the efforts my good friend………….it’s the struggle that sweetens the victory…………and the “hard” that makes it GREAT! We’ll be right here to cheer you on!

Now……….next on the agenda SHOULD be getting you a good close up of a sauger or two……..without a zoom lens!

Hey Ken, i’ve got a question about the shtter speed you used to get your photo at night. If i used my camera it would bottom out on the led display that shows me my exposure timing because it bottoms out on zero and no negatives below that for manual exposures. I’d have to use the manual mode at about a 3 to 5 second shutter speed by counting in seconds. How did you do it with a digital? Plus one more, from the angle of the moon it looks like you shot it from the west to the east-southeast at about 8:00 at night, just wondering. Plus you have nice clear edges on the pitchfork and the shadow of the handle. The plants on the ground are leaning to the south so it looks like you’ve had some wind from the north befor it snowed or while its been snowing. Nice picture! makes me think of wood in the “ol” stove on a cold winters night. Do you have or can you get macro lenses for extra close up shots for a digital, you gotta get some of those, if you can, up to 3 power if you can use them, they will blow your mind. I can see why your picture won, a person dosen’t see many pictures like this taken at night. I’ve got one of an owl, its mother and two other siblings were just out of the nest and learning to fly, and still in downy feathers sitting on a power line in front of my house with a full moon in the background. The owl is in the center of the moon and its a closeup with the moon completely surrounding the owl. I wish i had left the shutter open for a few more seconds but its still clear and you can still see the downy feathers. I can see the greys and blues in your picture, nice job!

Wow RiverEyes, very impressive. Please put some of your work in the photo album. I really like the shot of the Chickadee and the way the out-of-focus background seems to blend with it.

thanks guys….

Mossy… so you want my “secrets” do ya? well I dont know much about the film SLR’s… I hear they are similar to the digitals… but I THINK they digitals have a few new tricks.. for one thing there is the ability to take multiple exposures… with a bit of experimentation AND a tripod you can easily take shots by moonlight…. I can set for up to 5 exsposures at 3 seconds each for a total of 15 seconds…. if your not careful it will light it up like day…. the full moon on snow is pretty powerful actually….. it WAS an early moon.. as you know its like the sun and after midnight there is hardly any shadows….

well… dont know if that answered all your questions.. but anyone can feel free to PM me and I will do my best to answer questions…….

and for those not quite as tech minded here is a deer I “shot” today… shhhhhh dont tell anyone!!! got her right between the eyes…. (a really good focus point.. though some prefer the nose, I think the eyes are better!)…. note how the nose is slightly blurred… with a digital SLR and a telephoto the depth of field puts anything too far in front or behind very out of focus… and you end up with the background effect like you see on the chickadee and this deer…… if you want to use a tripod you can increas the aperture to its max and it will increase your depth of field to put more things in focus… but your exposure time will be lengthened…. which when your using a heavy duty zoom like this one will cause you to blur your shots without a tripod….. this shot was taken at 1/800 of a second and hand held….. with a 480mm equivalent and an aperture of F5 I was way over what I needed to not blur the shot…. I prefer to handhold shots if possible.. because the tripod will restrict you from following action if something exciting happens…..

ummmm… this pic looks a bit dark to me… do you think it looks better like this or not? this is adjusted with fade correction in paint shop pro….

Yeah…………better!

I like the look of the dark photo.Gives the idea of stealth and hiding in the shadows. I g uess it depends on what you want to convey to the viewer. Congrats on the win.

I like the deer pic. My daughter clearly identified it as a Reindeer, but NOT Rudolf (she’s two).

Hey Ken, I just (finally) got a digital camera. Be prepared for some novice questions coming your way.

I know, I know… You HATE to talk about photography!

Nice pic of the deer………..I now have a new background for my screen!!!!!!

Great work Ken!!!!!

Nice pics Ken…
I wish I could get my fish pictures to turn out this nice!!
You have definately got the nack for perfection.

thanks again everyone!
Steve… you do pretty good with your pix… but low light pix with a digital are the trickiest…. its all about light and focus… and if you use a flash it can easily burn out a shot… and the focus has often NOT done its job because its too dark…. but many of the newer cameras are employing an active focusing device for night shooting… some are IR.. some are laser….. when I get a chance I will write up some tips on low light shooting with your digitals… then there are some tricks you can do with a post processing package that will really bring back the life to your shots….. you see the difference in the 2 deer shots above… it can be even more dramatic for night shots……
I will include a squirrel I “shot” today….. he was apparently praying that I was not going to use a gun for my NEXT shot….

Nice picts. and nice colors ken.

Nice work Ken.

The squirrel pic is awesome Ken! I’ve got a caption for you though.

“Alright kid…………run up to the fifth branch on the left, do a button-hook, and I’ll hit ya with the acorn. BREAK!”

or

“If I could just get a grip on this hang nail!”

Ken,these pics are awesome.I really enjoy looking at them.You have a great talent!Keep them coming please.
Ryan Hale
Congrads on your win also.