Almost time to hit the beach!

Five image handheld HDR finished in Photomatix Pro and Nik.

Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, Lexar Media

I had been passing this spot all week, I really liked what I saw but couldn’t get the light to fall the way I wanted or couldn’t get any light period.  I know as photographers or want to be photographers we shoot a lot of images and not all are keepers.  But every once in a while you get one you really like, well this is one of those for me.  Like Moose always said, you only have to please the guy behind the camera!

This is a five image HDR I took with a make shift tripod or commonly known as a bridge railing because I had no tripod.  I finished it off in about two minutes in Photomatix Pro and NIK Filters.

Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, Lexar Media

The Red Bar at Grayton Beach is a popular hang out just off 30A east of Destin before you get to Watercolors and Seaside.

Catch the Donut Hole on 98 just west of 30A for breakfast anytime they are open, try the Chocolate Angels, homemade breads or deserts.

Be early at both or expect to wait!

Five image handheld HDR, Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, Lexar Media

It just takes a little patiences and a little light.  I spent the week east of Destin, FL for spring break.  As I had posted it was flat and grey most of the week and I had limited shooting opportunity with a lot of kid stuff going on.  I love to shoot, but I really love playing with and enjoying my family.  I had two or three things in mind and how I wanted to shoot them, but I was missing one key ingredient – a little early morning light.  It had to be shot in the morning because of how the shot laid amongst the trees and background.  I also had decided on one camera body and two lenses for the trip, I usually take all my gear but this trip I was going to make it work with two lenses.  The fourth morning I finally saw a partially clouded sunrise in the works so I grabbed my gear and out the door I went.  Remember the only person you have to satisfy is yourself, I was satisfied with this five image handheld HDR finished in NIK.

Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, Lexar Media.

I have been down in Florida and the skies have been flat and grey.  The options for photography have been slim pickings to say the least.  The clouds have been so flat that black and white has been hard to come by!  A little sliver of light opened up in the Gulf of Mexico so I grabbed a five image handheld HDR.

Nikon D4, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, Lexar Media

Technology is not my speciality, as much as I want to understand computers – I don’t!  An upgrade in technology to me is a new chisel for my stone tablet’s.

I have been contemplating replacing my old MacPro with a new one and I am not convinced that Apple is ever going to make an aggressive change in the MacPro line.  So I decided to save a few bucks and go with a new 27 inch iMac.  I have been dying in front of my old MacPro, it takes forever to render an image and it is so slow I don’t even want to work in Photoshop.  The old MacPro was probably a 2008 model with 8gb of memory so I don’t blame Apple, programs have just gotten bigger and stronger.

To make a long story short I purchased the 27 inch so I could upgrade the memory myself and save $400.00.  If I can do it anybody can do it, trust me.  If you are contemplating a new iMac realize that even though you can upgrade the memory in the 21 inch model it is not practical and unless you are comfortable pulling the screen off and doing some other work, plus voiding your warranty it is not a smart move.  The 27 inch iMac is a breeze and it takes longer to open the package of the memory than to install it.

The 27 inch iMac came with 8gb of memory and to have upgraded to 32gb through Apple it was an additional $600.00.   Nothing against Apple and the free market system but if I can save $400.00 by placing an on-line order and taking the two minutes to insert the four memory sticks please sign me up!  The iMac has no problem pushing Photoshop and my Nik Filters now !

I went with the Crucial 32 gb for $200.00 it gets really great reviews and worked great.

Here is a YouTube video on installing the memory.

I realize this is not rocket science, but I was going to buy the 21 inch iMac and I would have been a little disappointed that I would not be able to upgrade the RAM myself and had to pay Apple an additional $600.00 for the memory upgrade.

It is not always in front of you, sometimes it is above you.  Just a simple pattern finished with Nik Detail Extractor and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

Maybe a little too much HDR, but when your in the shadows with a nice sky handheld you just have to make the best of it.  Finished with Photomatrix Pro and Nik Filters.

Nikon D3s, Nikkor AF-S 28-300mm f 3.5-56, Lexar Media

This isn’t really how I wanted to finish this image but after PS shutting down five times I had enough.  I decided about three years ago to get off the technology merry go round and that every time something new came out I had to have it.  But I have been pushing this old Mac Pro for a number of years and it has become brutally slow because of the age, it takes foreverrrrrrrrrr to process a file.  With digital cameras getting larger file sizes and programs demanding more memory I am coming to terms that it may be time to look at a better engine to drive the train.  I am not sure if I am justifying purchasing a new computer in my mind so I don’t feel guilty or I really need one!  I know that I am going to look serious at the new iMac’s instead of throwing down a lot of cash on a Mac Pro, I think we all have the same frustration when we go to purchase new technology “we paid a lot and now it it is worth almost nothing”.  But I will say I have pushed this one past her prime and she has stored a lot of good memories for me!