Sammi and I went for a walk along the wharf and we found this sea-gull waiting for us. I decided to play with my brand new Nikon D700 (ok, I bought it slightly used, but it was new for me) and took this photo.

On our way back from the wharf we noticed this Pelican was standing perfectly still as if it had planned on modeling for me the entire time. It sat there for a long time while all the tourists, obviously including myself, snapped away. It actually let me get pretty close without being bothered. The D700 was able to get some great detail in the Pelican feathers and I liked how the boat is seen driving away here -- adding another line. The one thing I did notice about the D700 though, is that the 70mm end of my 24-70mm lens is no longer "zoomy" enough for some things. I wanted to be able to zoom in even more when I took this photo (since I didn't want to get too close to the Pelican). This is a crop of the original framing.

On our way back from the wharf we noticed this Pelican was standing perfectly still as if it had planned on modeling for me the entire time. It sat there for a long time while all the tourists, obviously including myself, snapped away. It actually let me get pretty close without being bothered. The D700 was able to get some great detail in the Pelican feathers. The one thing I did notice about the D700 though, is that the 70mm end of my 24-70mm lens is no longer "zoomy" enough for some things. I wanted to be able to zoom in even more when I took this photo (since I didn't want to get too close to the Pelican). This is a crop of the original framing.

On our way back from the wharf we noticed this Pelican was standing perfectly still as if it had planned on modeling for me the entire time. It sat there for a long time while all the tourists, obviously including myself, snapped away. It actually let me get pretty close without being bothered. The D700 was able to get some great detail in the Pelican feathers. The one thing I did notice about the D700 though, is that the 70mm end of my 24-70mm lens is no longer "zoomy" enough for some things. I wanted to be able to zoom in even more when I took this photo (since I didn't want to get too close to the Pelican). This is a crop of the original framing.

I liked from this angle you could see the color of hte sunset and the marina in the background. I had to do some heavy post-processing to get the exposure right (the sky was blown out and the pelican was good, or the pelican was dark and the sky was good. This is just one exposure and I pulled up the darks (which is why it was a bit noisy) and then used Nik's DFine plugin to remove some of the noise. Why is there noise at ISO 400 on a D700 you ask? Well, it's cuz it was so underexposed any photo will have noise when you pull it up that far!

On saturday our first stop was to go to Ganna Walska's "Lotusland", which is a collection of something like 30 themed gardens of exotic plants that she collected over her lifetime. The gardens are just gorgeous and we actually had a really fun 2 hour tour!

Lillypads at Lotusland

Cacti on the way to Ganna Walska's house.

Cacti on the way to Ganna Walska's house.

Cute little cactus man

A really really big cactus. IT fell over but they were able to put it back up, with some support.

Gnarly looking creepy cactus.

There were a bunch of spiders all over but I couldn't really get any good pictures cuz 70mm on a D700 isn't that much of a telephoto :(

Another neat lookin' cactus

This cactus garden was promised to Ganna before she died but it never happened. This is the newest garden to be added to her collection and it was donated after she died.

Pretty flowers somewhere on the gardens.

Agave plant

On sunday we took a little road trip and went wine tasting in Santa Barbara area (straight out of the movie Sideways!). Our first stop was at Melville Vineyards and as soon as they saw my big camera they asked if we wanted to take a tour of their barrel room. OF COURSE!

On sunday we took a little road trip and went wine tasting in Santa Barbara area (straight out of the movie Sideways!). Our first stop was at Melville Vineyards and as soon as they saw my big camera they asked if we wanted to take a tour of their barrel room. OF COURSE!

The library room at Melville Cellars

The pretty Melville Cellars vineyard.

While wine tasting Sammi and I made a couple new friends: a young boyfriend/girlfriend and her parents. They were really nice and we ended up spending 2 tastings with them (they even paid for our tasting here at Carhartt!). This was one of our favorite wineries -- a really really cute tasting area (in the back of a shack), and the red wines were DELISH! Sammi almost joined the wine-club!

While wine tasting Sammi and I made a couple new friends: a young boyfriend/girlfriend and her parents. They were really nice and we ended up spending 2 tastings with them (they even paid for our tasting here at Carhartt!). This was one of our favorite wineries -- a really really cute tasting area (in the back of a shack), and the red wines were DELISH! Sammi almost joined the wine-club!

After we got back from wine tasting I noticed that there were a couple clouds in the sky and thought it might be a good chance to try to get some coastal photos with my new camera. I drove down to Hendry's Beach (officially called Arroyo Burro beach), picked out a spot and waited. The sky was SO bright that even with my filters I had trouble getting a good photo. This was about the best I could do from the spot I wanted. Also, the surf was really low so it didn't kick up as many waves/exciting thigns as I had hoped.