As fine as the D200 is, a gray, sunless day is just that. Enter Picasa. Here are some before and after shots, taken at Barr Lake (an old buffalo wallow) to the east of Denver, CO.
Now that I have a semi-pro digital camera, the Nikon D200, I've become more interested in wildlife photography. This is at 200mm, with the camera set for ISO 200. The D200 picked this up at f/9 at 1/320 of a second. It's cropped and saturated a bit in Picasa. Click on the picture to see how sharp it is.
Mt. Meeker, near Estes Park, CO, is a pretty peak, but mountain shots on their own are often fairly bland. Here a Nikon 200 mm VR lens on a Nikon D200 puts both this church and and the peak into a rather dramatic relationship.
We were driving down the Front Range from Estes park when I saw this red walled butte against the deep blue sky. But my first shots were totally without life. I think framing the picture with the telephone pole and wires added a contrast that brings the picture more into perspective.
This picture, taken on Pearl St. in Boulder, CO, is an example, at least in my mind, of when a small amount of color goes a long ways. The charcoal gray "border" for the picture, coupled with the one poster in the deep shadow, causes the other poster to jump out of the frame.
Here's the dual advantage of a high-end digital camera: I was able to set the ISO on my new Nikon D200 to 1600 and also set the noise reduction to high automatic; also, because there is no shutter delay, I was able to capture the exact moment I was looking for. This is taken in the book store on Pearl St. in Boulder, CO, April 5, 2009.
Location: Burnsville, North Carolina, United States
I am a Continuing Lecturer for the Departments of English and Linguistics and Continuing Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. A proud US Army Veteran, serving with the US Army Europe during the height of the Cold War, I'm also happily married for over forty years. My wife and I have three grown, well-adjusted children and two precocious grandchildren!