June Farms

As described on their website: 

June Farms is a peaceful farm located on 120 acres of beautiful, fertile land in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley. We are often referred to as a “gentleman’s farm” because we do not profit from the sale of our animals or crops. Rather, we aim to be a safe haven for our heritage-breed animals, which are the ones that predate factory farming – the same breeds raised by our ancestors centuries ago. At June Farms, these include our Scottish Highland cows, giant Shire horses, Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, Nigerian dwarf goats, chickens, ducks, 2 barn cats and a dog!

I'm pretty settled in with the two body, two lens setup. I'm currently carrying them in the Think Tank Speed Freak shoulder bag. On longer hikes I take the spare batteries out of the bag and put them in a pocket to lessen the neck and shoulder strain. But I've done up to three miles so far and it hasn't been a problem.

Here are some shots from June Farms late this morning made while dodging an elementary school field trip.

R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 87mm, f/5.6, 1/350 sec., ISO 100

R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 96mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec., ISO 100

R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/4, 1/350 sec., ISO 100

R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/5.6, 1/1500 sec., ISO 100

R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 63mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec., ISO 100

R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/5.6, 1/120 sec., ISO 100

R8, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 19mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec., ISO 100

R8, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 23mm, f/8, 1/750 sec., ISO 100

Similar Sunsets

I've started keeping an eye out my window for potentially decent sunsets over the Hudson River again. Sunset is a little after 8PM and by 7:30 or so I can tell if there's any point in walking the three blocks down to the river or not.

I headed down twice recently for sunsets that didn't turn out to be anything special. Both times there were widely dispersed clouds so I brought the 14-35mm lens to get as much of the sky and reflection as possible. 

These were made six days apart but almost look like the same sunset.

EOS R8, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 14mm, f/8, 1/180 sec., ISO 200

EOS R8, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 18mm, f/8, 1/350 sec., ISO 200

New Gear

I have been getting along with only one camera body since last summer but changing lenses when hiking can be a pain. The lens that's on the camera tends to stay on the camera even if I could do better with the other one. 

A confluence of circumstances has caused me to remedy that situation. I spent last weekend going over camera specifications and reviews to see which of several bodies would be best as a second body. I decided that an EOS R8 would best suit my circumstances, taking into account financial constraints. And Canon has an instant rebate on new R8 bodies that brought the price of a new body below the MPB "like new" used price. And Best Buy had one available near me.

You can see the differences between the R8 and the R6 Mark II and my current body, the R6 here. Some specifications at DPReview are misleading or just plain wrong. For example, they give the 6 fps for the R8 with partly mechanical shutter but the full speed electronic shutter speeds for the R6 and R6II. The R8 shoots 40 fps with electronic shutter.

I think this two body, two lens solution will work nicely. The R8 will be paired with the 14-35mm lens and the R6 with the 24-105mm lens. I can carry both with the OP/TECH Dual Harness system.

While the R8 does not have in body image stabilization, the RF 14-35mm f/4L lens has stabilization rated at 5.5 stops without IBIS and only 7 stops with IBIS. The RF 24-105mm f/4L lens, on the other hand, has stabilization rated at 5 stops without IBIS and 8 stops with IBIS. It works out nicely.

I am awaiting the extension grip for the R8 and a couple of backup batteries from MPB for which I traded my mostly unused battery grip for the R6. Here are some photos of the two setups followed by some shots with the R8 and 14-35mm f/4L lens.

14mm, f/8, 1/350 sec., ISO 200

35mm, f/8, 1/250 sec., ISO 200

18mm, f/8, 1/180 sec., ISO 200

18mm, f/11, 1/750 sec., ISO 200

The New Website

I've been spending time organizing and refining the new SmugBug based website at www.trulandphotography.com while I can still access the old site via its Zenfolio address. While downloading files from the Zenfolio site is problematic, it's helpful to have the images to look at to see when they were made and on what camera so I can find the files in my chronological, by camera body, hard drive archives.

The new site, like the old one, is organized by location but I intend to be much more selective in what I put up on the new website. The old site had many galleries containing photos from school plays, sporting events and church assemblies which will not appear on the new site.

In order to populate some of the sparser galleries I am giving marginal photos the benefit of the doubt until I can make better photos from that particular location. There are galleries from Saratoga National Historical Park, Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve, Oakwood Cemetery, Maine, Niagara Falls, Nova Scotia, Three Sisters Sanctuary, Vermont, Paradox Lake and the Detroit Zoo as well as a miscellaneous gallery. 

There is also a folder containing galleries from New York State Parks including Peebles Island, Saratoga Spa, Grafton Lakes, Northampton Beach, Thacher Park, Prospect Mountain and Crown Point Historic Site.

While the old website had many photos from Oakwood Cemetery, Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve and Peebles Island there weren't many that I wanted to put on the new site so I visited each over the past week looking for new images to upload. Here are some of those.

RF 14-35mm f/4L at 24mm, f/11, 1/500 sec., ISO 100

RF 14-35mm f/4L at 14mm, f/16, 1/60 sec., ISO 100

RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/8, 1/350 sec., ISO 100

RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/11, 1/750 sec., ISO 200

RF 24-105mm f/4L at 26mm, f/11, 1/90 sec., ISO 400

RF 14-35mm f/4L at 14mm, f/11, 1/500 sec., ISO 400

Lightening the Bag

I've noticed that when I'm carrying both the 14-35mm and 24-105mm lenses that it's the wider zoom that I tend to use more and which produces the images I prefer. Some of that, of course, has to do with where and what I'm shooting. And, of course, anything in the 24mm, 28mm and 35mm ranges can be made with either lens.

Yesterday I carried just the wider lens and only once wished I had the longer lens. There was a nice farm field with golden color across the Hudson River that would have been nice to "get closer to."

Now that the sun is high in the sky during the day, midday photos are not really working and I need to get back to early morning or late day shooting.

Here are some midday photos from Saratoga Battlefield I made before an afternoon volunteer orientation/training session at the Visitor Center.

EOS R6, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 21mm, f/8, 1/750 sec., ISO 100

EOS R6, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 35mm, f/8, 1/350 sec., ISO 100

EOS R6, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 23mm, f/8, 1/500 sec., ISO 100

EOS R6, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 14mm, f/8, 1/500 sec., ISO 100

EOS R6, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 35mm, f/11, 1/125 sec., ISO 200, CPL

EOS R6, RF 14-35mm f/4L at 28mm, f/11, 1/125 sec., ISO 200, CPL