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Exposed Tree Stump, Arkansas Bend, originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

I spent most of my time taking wide angle views last weekend but did manage a few detail shots too. The exposed tree stumps along the waterline at Arkansas Bend Park were particularly fascinating. The grain texture was accentuated by having spent a long time underwater and a fine coating of dried silt gave the stumps an almost petrified look.

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Lake Travis Contre Jour, originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

Continuing on the Lake Travis theme, here’s another image created shortly after the Lakeway Sunrise shot I posted a couple of days ago. This shot is directly into the sun and was created using two handheld exposures, 5 stops apart. While there is no way to prevent the sun from being burned out, I could probably have stopped down even further to reduce the size of the bright spot but, overall, I find the dramatic effect rather pleasing.

Pointing the camera directly into the sun is not something I am in the habit of doing but I was inspired to try this shot after seeing an outstanding portrait by David Ziser last week. If you are at all interested in wedding photography or the photography business in general, his blog is a wealth of information and inspiration.

I freely admit to being a Nikon fanboy since moving from Minolta 5 years ago but I can’t help but be stunned by the features of the new 21MP Canon 5D Mark II. Take a look at Vincent Laforet’s HD video shot with a pre-production model, for example. With the Nikon D90 introducing the concept of a DSLR that could also shoot HD video, I suppose it was a certainty that Canon would follow quickly but supporting full 1080P a mere 3 weeks later was quite a surprise.

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Sunrise from Lakeway, originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

Here’s another of Saturday’s D90 images. The morning light didn’t seem particularly impressive when I set out (just after 7:00am) but by the time I got to Lakeway on the south shore of Lake Travis, the sun shining through the haze generated one of those wonderful layered views from the top of the hill. I love these contre-jour “tonal recession” images and just wish I was out early enough on more non-office days to catch more of them.

This was taken with a long lens to compress the perspective as much as possible. I used Photoshop to emphasise the contrast in the layers using some curves adjustments but nothing significant otherwise.

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Mansfield Dam, Austin, originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

Here’s the first photo I’ve published taken with the new and rather fabulous Nikon D90. I spent the day out at Lake Travis on Saturday and put the camera through some of its paces while looking for locations for a potential client shoot. I say “some of its paces” since the number of options in the menu are truly staggering. The instruction manual is about twice the size of the D70 version and I’m still not fully conversant with all its options despite 4 years of using it.

I had a great day until I got back home and imported the images, at which point I fell into the “early adopter” trap – neither Photoshop nor Photomatix would read the new NEF format that the camera generates. After some advice and a bit of Googling, I tracked down beta versions of Adobe Camera Raw 4.6 and PhotomatixPro 3.6 both of which support the file format and appear to work fine.

One lesson I am taking from this, given how quickly file formats go in and out of fashion, is to seriously consider converting all my NEF and CR2 files to DNG format. If it goes the way of PDF, I would expect that it will be supported a lot longer than the ephermeral NEF flavours that Nikon seems to prefer.

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Hamilton Pool (Exhibition Version), originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

Tonight is the Austin Photography Group exhibition at Figurative Gallery, 315 N. Congress in downtown Austin. The theme is “A View from Within” and I’m showing this Hamilton Pool image.

This is a third (and likely final) version of the shot which was originally taken in August 2007. It is a 3 exposure composite generated in Photomatix but also has a great deal of rework in Photoshop to remove some of the “ghosts” which the HDR process tends to produce (due to people moving between the individual exposures).

My shiny new Nikon D90 arrived yesterday afternoon just as things at work are getting really busy and just as I have a bunch of things to do related to an upcoming exhibition (this Friday, Figurative Gallery, 315 N Congress) and some price quotes to prepare. As a result, I’ve been an owner for 26 hours and still have not got past page 10 of the huge manual.

I’ve shot a total of 3 exposures, handheld, in the kitchen, at Hi ISO (3200?) and the initial impression is very good. I am stunned by the noise level (or lack of it) in the images. This bodes well for a lot more fun later. All I need to find now is the time to actually play with my new toy!

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360 Condomimiums, Austin, TX, originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

This is, apparently, Austins new, tallest building. The downtown skyline has changed dramatically in the last 10 years and the 360 Condominium building is the latest completed addition. I still think the Frost Tower is the highlight of the tall buildings but this is a pretty pleasing addition aside from the weird spike on the south side, hidden in this view.

I remember downtown Austin as a pretty quite place during weekend days but recently the city has a dramatic new vibrance about it. With so much new residential property developed, people are moving there and businesses are following. 2nd street has changed from an area of defunct warehouses to a thriving collection of boutiques, bars and restaurant and the entertainment district, previously pretty much limited to the famous 6th street has expanded to a 4 block swath running parallel to the lake.

People may argue that area is being gentrified but I’m pretty sure most people would prefer the busy, active downtown area that central Austin is becoming to the declining ghost-town it may have become without the condos.

Boston.com has an outstanding collection of photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike on their section called “The Big Picture”. You can find these here.. Most of the images are taken by AP photographers and all are remarkable. The work of David J. Phillip of AFP stands out for me though – incredibly poignant images of devastation.

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Drew as Eragon – Arts Run 2008, originally uploaded by David A G Wilson.

I must admit to feeling a bit of a hopeless photographer-Dad in that I have terrible trouble getting decent pictures of my own kids. This is partly due to the fact that I’m not particularly comfortable taking people photos at the best of times (some people seem to have the knack of getting models to be at ease and look their best – I’m not one of them) and part of it is that the boys tend to run around faster than my focusing and framing skills can handle.

Last weekend, however, we went into downtown Austin and the boys and Nikki ran in the 2008 Arts Run – a kids’ K and 5K raising funds for the Paramount and State Theatres. It was a fun event with a lot of the runners in costume (“Dress as your favourite film character”), Drew was dressed as Eragon but had a hard time keeping his helmet on. In the end, I got to hang on to it during the race but I did get one cute photo of him before the helmet got the heave.