When Will It Be This Year?

I've shot the same little bunch of Crocus each of the last two Springs. The Crocus blossoms last for several days but when they appear can vary widely.

It is looking like this year will be more like last year than the year before. Currently, the patch of ground where the Crocus are waiting to pop up is frozen and covered with several inches of ice and snow.

In 2012, only three days after this date on March 19th, the blossoms were up and showing. This shot was made with an EOS 5D, which I've since sold, and the EF 300mm f/4 IS USM, which I've also since sold. I suspect I also used Canon's 500D closeup lens for this shot but am not absolutely certain.

Last year, this same bunch of Crocus was up much later, as this shot dated April 15th shows. This was also made with the EF 300mm f/4 IS USM and an EOS 5D Mark II which I recently sold.

I'll keep my eye on this patch of ground for this year's appearance. I don't know if we can blame the Groundhog or not but I'm much happier with weather like 2012 than 2014.

UPDATE 3/19/14: While watching local news this morning I realized why the blossoms were up on this date in 2012. That year was the warmest March on record and the temperature on the 19th reached 78 degrees. Today, 30's with rain and snow in the forecast.

Little Mermaid Jr. with the EOS 7D

Last evening, I participated with in a photography meetup group to shoot a dress rehearsal of a middle school age production of Disney's Little Mermaid by C-R Kids productions at Cohoes Music Hall in Cohoes, New York. This is the first event I've shot since selling my EOS 5D Mark II thus limiting my options to my crop sensor bodies.

I brought along an EOS 50D body but utilized only the 7D body and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens. I did wish I had a second body with wider focal lengths handy as, at times, I was shooting from the back of this very small theater at 70mm (112mm field of view) and still couldn't get the entire stage in the shot.

As is usual with stage productions and concerts lighting was uneven and white balance changes with different lighting setups. Post processing the RAW files requires constant adjusting of both white balance and exposure.

All shots were with the equipment described above at ISO 1600 and f/2.8. The entire gallery can be viewed at http://trulandphoto.zenfolio.com/littlemermaid.

200mm - 1/180 second

200mm - 1/60 second

200mm - 1/125 second

140mm - 1/500 second

Live View Concert Shooting

I have not been using the EOS 5D Mark II all that much and decided to use it yesterday to make some photos of a high school All-County Music Festival. I was using live view mode because the camera is much quieter without the mirror slapping around.

When I was trying to sell the 5DII I had reset a lot of the camera options to their default settings. I forgot that I had done this so was surprised when the camera wasn't doing what I expected it to do when I switched it to live view. It took a bit of fumbling in the menus to get settings back where I wanted them.

I had originally planned to use the EOS-M with the EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II lens but knew that 112mm on the short end of that setup would not be wide enough to capture whole groups. After deciding that the EOS-M with the 24-70mm f/2.8, and it's 38-112mm field of view, would not be long enough to isolate small groups of performers, I decided to go with the full frame 5DII and the longer zoom.

All of these shots were made at f/2.8 and ISO 1600. The only parameters which changed were the focal length and shutter speed which are set forth in the captions.

1/750 sec. at 102mm

1/1000 sec. at 200mm

1/500 sec. at 70mm

1/1500 sec. at 200mm