Best Of
Trip to Nazca, Peru + edits
We flew over the iconic Nazca lines...
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And then we climbed the highest sand dune int he world (over 2000 m above sea level)
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And explored a vicuña reserve at 4000 m above sea level
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Juano
Sunset 8/3/21
Sunset over the Snohomish River. Captured 5 minutes after sunset, amazing color due to wildfire smoke in the atmosphere.
Small Birds with the Canon R3 and the EF 100-400 IS V2 and a couple 1.6 Crop Factor Images
In my previous thread - https://dgrin.com/discussion/268132/a-few-birds-and-other-critters-from-south-texas#latest - I mentioned that I had ordered the Canon R3 body last October 2021. It finally arrived in late April of this year, and I have spent the last 4 weeks chasing small birds in west central Indiana with the R3 body, and an EF 100-400 IS v2 + a version III 1.4 tele-converter that I already owned. This gave me a 560mm f 8 lens for my R3 body. I wanted to see how the AF faired at f8, and how the IBIS worked with the non-RF lens. I own and use an RF 100-500 on my R5, but this post is about the R3.
The lighter weight of the R3, compared to my 1DX Mk II, is appreciated, the inbody IBIS allows me to hand hold lenses that I would otherwise need a tripod with a standard DSLR. The larger LP-E19 battery means I don't usually need to carry a couple extra batteries for an afternoon of shooting, like I might with the R5. The viewfinder in the R3 is a joy to use with no apparent blackouts which are so disturbing if you are shooting birds in flight.
A catbird in front of rhododendron bush 560mm, f8, 1/800th, ISO 2500. This image, like most of these posted here, are significant crops, barely 1/4 of the full frame image. The R3 is 4000 x 6000 pixels, or 24 Mbts in size which is 25% bigger than the files from my 1DX Mk II
I have several frames of blue jays, here is one in the rhododendron bush with a peanut 560mm, f8, 1/800th, ISO 8000
This frame of a blue jay flying directly toward me at 1/800th second shows how well the AF system can be at f8 in the shade, 560mm, ISO 1600 - the eye seems pretty sharp
This cardinal was captured at 560mm, f8, 1/800th, at ISO 3200
I know a shutter speed of 1/800th is too low for birds in flight, but in deep shade with an f8 lens, what are you gonna do? The fact is that the combination of 1/800th and IBIS works pretty well for this body - better than I would have thought.
Now I am eager to see what Canon reveals in a couple weeks with the announcement of the APS-C R7 - A 32 MPxl mirrorless body with, hopefully, the AF and IBIS of the R3. We'll know more pretty soon
Any comments or questions about the images I have posted are heartily encouraged.
Bryce Canyon, Utah
Finally finding the time to post some older images. The following images are from our hiking trip into Bryce Canyon.
We went in late November... cooler weather, fewer crowds, excellent hiking and a “wow” shot around almost every bend in the trail!
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El Gato
Smugmug 3.0 ???
It's been over four years now since "new" smugmug was released. In those four years, we've seen quite a lot of refinement and improvements to the functionality of the website builder. I was just thinking though...is it time for the next iteration?
I've been spending some time looking at Squarespace and Wix's building tools (who have improved HEAPS). Naturally there's pros and cons to each when comparing, but one thing really stands out, and that is excellent UI templates that just leave Smugmug's themes looking...well very 2013!
Is there anything in the pipeline to bring better and more modern templates to the Smugmug UI? I'm talking things like scrolling animation, scrolling fade in&out, clickable buttons or text inside images/video, curved edges.
Shinrya
My Giro d'Italia experience
My husband and I are both avid cyclists (mostly with trekking/touring bikes) and we enjoy following professional bike racing. This year we started our vacation to southern Italy (we drove down with our bikes on the car) a day early so we could catch a stage of the Giro that went through Bologna, a convenient halfway point for us. We arrived in Bologna with a hour to spare and made our way to a point where we could ge a good view of the race. As it happens this stage was the longest and flattest and Bologna was about halfway through the race. When they reached us their speed was about 60-70kmh.
All taken with my Panasonic G81 with a 14-140 (28-280) zoom. This was my first experience being so close to a bike race. The results weren't exactly what I had hoped for but at least I have memories of the race. As I'd expected, it was over in seconds. What I hadn't been prepared for was the sound of all those whirring chains as they sped by. Cool!
So here's how it played out: we arrived about 45 minutes in advance and got a good viewing spot.
1) About 20 minutes before the riders came through we started seeing the parade of police cars and motorcycles, vans selling Giro merchandise (I got a cap and t-shirt for 10€ 
) and the equipment cars. And I mean LOTS of equipment cars.
2 & 3) after what seemed like a never-ending stream of cars, we finally saw the riders. At this point there were two with a 30 second lead followed by the entire peleton. (These two got swallowed in to the peleton a few km later.)
4 & 5) the peleton approaches!
6) for some reason my camera got pointed too low for a second...
7, 8 & 9) the peleton whirred by, inches from us.
10) and quicker than you could blink they had passed us and the excitement over
We walked back to our hotel and watch the end of the race on TV, getting a much better view of things than we had at the sidelines. In spite of that, I'd do it again in a flash, but the next time at the summit of one of the climbing stage, where the tempo is slower.
