alaskan,

Very impressed with the sharpness of your images. Is that due to PP or are they coming out of the camera that sharp? If the latter, would you mind sharing a few details, like make & model of camera and lens...and if you have it the settings used?

Dave

Yea lesws, where on earth did you find a new 5D2 for $1200?

Dave

Timmy,

About a week ago I saw one (Bald Eagle) circling near the Loop 202 on the North side of Mesa. I was driving in traffic and it was a good distance away but as it turned the white head, then with another turn the white tail showed up. Nothing else looks like that. They are seen fairly frequently along the Salt River, sometimes even in the metro area.

Dave

Desert Bighorns are a rare sighting, even for those of us who live here. Good catch of a seldom seen resident of the Arizona/Sonora Desert.

Dave

I have a close friend who is an engineering physicist with a speciality in optics. He can take a perfectly exposed image, tell you why his camera settings worked and how the lens produces the resulting picture. By his own admission his pictures are usually un-interesting and soon boring. He claims he doesn't have an "eye for photography" even though he knows everything technical about it.

Perhaps it is true, artists (of any persuasion) are born. Certainly they improve with training and practice but the spark or, as my friend says, the "eye" for it has to be there from the start. I don't know for sure but I am a bit of a shooter myself. I stumble on a few good shots with most every outing but I try a lot of things, views, settings and compositions that don't work along the way. In my mind I'm looking to capture something. Maybe my vision in the artistic "eye" isn't very good? (smile)

Dave

I've never understood why, when this subject comes up people seem to get defensive and/or offended. And sad to say it's most often the zoom users who take offense.

One respondent above said zooms made him a lazy photographer, not everyone who uses them. Immediately someone gets bent out of shape and says he's not lazy and stomps away in a huff.

It was just an opinion, explaining why one guy chose primes. Certainly not a commentary on every owner of a zoom lens in the world. Good grief!

Dave

I agree. That is an absolutely superb image. Well done!

You inspired me to add another one.

Dave

Old Iron Bell on a Wood Post

Wouldn't be at all surprised! The only positive identification I made was the RR spike near by. (smile)

Dave

This was outside a railroad museum as part of the landscape decorations. I don't have any idea what it is but I was taken with the different textures of the weathered wood and the rusted iron.

Dave

Excellent picture of a beautiful bird. Well done!

Dave

Bmac, the weather people claim our sunsets are so spectacular because there is a lot of dust in the Arizona air. All that open/bare ground in the desert areas. Right after a summer rain the sunsets can be a lot more pink that what this one was, because the dust and dirt particles get washed out of the air.

Dave

PS: Here's another view from a few minutes later that evening.

Got the first two just yesterday from an open railroad excursion car with the Verde Valley Railroad in central Arizona

Since most people think of sunsets when they think of Arizona I'll toss in one of those from a few weeks ago. (smile)

Dave

High, Thin Ice Cristals


Those same ice cristals and the sun going behind a mountain range.


Sunset over a Freeway

Nice looking ladies & great looking cats what ever the story may be!

Dave

Careful you don't spill the ocean!

Just kidding. Looks like a beautiful place,
Dave

Since coming to the desert in 1971 I've forgotten what that cold, white stuff is like, but I remember it can make for some beautiful scenery. Nice image. Well done.

As for the sign, it was in the scene you looked at that inspired the photo so I say leave it there. The second one you posted, without the signs, is fantasy.

YMMV,
Dave