It looks like winter – or whatever you want to call the last 3 months – has finally passed, and spring is on the way. Everywhere you look,  trees are starting to bud and flowers are sprouting up. While lunching with my family, we spotted a couple of Bluebirds checking out the Bluebird house in the yard. I retrieved my camera and was able to snap off a few frames of the prospective tenants.

Eastern Bluebird (M), Sialia sialis

One thing you find immediately about photographing birds – you can never have too much magnification. (This is a substantial crop taken at 300mm on a crop sensor – in other words, an effective 450mm focal length in 35mm terms.)

While it’s been a very mild winter in both Indiana and North Carolina (I’m writing this post with my windows opened), we were lucky enough to have a little bit of snow. This, of course, was ideal for a little photography. Dharma, the main pack’s youngest wolf and now only female, was fortunately happy to do some posing.

I was especially happy with the way the second shot turned out. Shooting something in the snow, even if it’s relatively stationary, can be pretty difficult. With the wolves, you never quite know where they will move next, so it’s a lot of waiting and no small amount of luck. It certainly helps to have a good autofocus system, too. This was shot with the D300 using Nikon’s 300 f/4 AF-S lens. With that combo I was able to lock on to Dharma without too much difficulty, but I doubt my D40x would have been up to the task (not to mention having to kick the ISO way up for these conditions).

And lets not forget some of the other critters that call Wolf Park home. The foxes are some of my favorites.

I won’t do an in-depth review of Lightroom, since those have already been done to death on countless internet blogs (yeah, I know I’m a little late to the game). I will, however, mention a few of the things which I personally find invaluable as compared to Bridge+Photoshop.

1) It’s Bridge on steroids (in a good way)!

Put simply, Lightroom combines the best aspects of Bridge and ACR into one seamless application. Not only is the organization aided by the inclusion of Collections, enhanced metadata options, and rating systems, but simply switching panels gives you access to all the editing tools of ACR. This is a huge time saver. Collections is probably my favorite inclusion, since it simply does what I was always trying to do with folders in a virtual space. Now I can create a folder for a certain subject, and if I want to add photos later, it only takes a single click! No more moving file folders around and trying to add NEFs to different locations on the hard drive. The keyword metadata is also handy, as it allows you to search through any files in the catalog you have tagged. Furthermore, you can do a lot of this when you import items, making the process flow even faster.

2) I don’t need Photoshop 90% of the time.

First, I should note that Camera Raw has progressed a great deal in it’s own right since CS3, and the version included in CS5 is considerably more powerful. However, the value of having the ability to jump between the Library and Development modules on the fly cannot be understated. You have the ability not only to make universal edits to white balance, sharpness, and distortion, but you also have access to brushes that allow you to make changes to individual portions of an image. All this is done within Lightroom and is completely non-destructive (meaning your original RAW file remains theoretically untouched). You can even have Lightroom create an infinite number (okay, it is constrained by your hard drive space) of copies of an image – called “virtual copies” – to apply whatever adjustments you would like, such as black and white conversions, any HDR effects, etc. You even have access to certain plugins within Lightroom (more on that in a future post)!

3) Lightroom makes what to do “post-Lightroom” simple.

Perhaps my favorite part about Lightroom is the ease which you can export your files for different purposes. At some point, you will probably need to go beyond a RAW file. Lightroom makes it super easy to set up presets for exporting images. You can then export images (or groups of images) with specific parameters depending on what you want them used for. For example, I have settings for images I post on this blog, for sending images to Flickr, and for images I want to send to the printer. Once exported, you can still include these images in your Lightroom catalog if you wish, but it’s not mandatory since you will still have access to the RAW files from which they were created. There are even separate modules within Lightroom for printing and making slideshows. I haven’t used these as much, since I generally send my images to an online vendor to print. But if you print at home, it’s handy to have the options Lightroom gives you for custom printing.

So why write about Lightroom 3 when were are probably looking at LR4 in a year or less, and when every other photog has already blogged about it to death? I’m simply sharing my thoughts on the system, take it for what you will. After all – if it’s new to me, it’s probably new to someone else! And some people (like myself) who can’t afford to be on the bleeding edge of technology all the time might still be looking for an average enthusiast’s impressions. So take it for what it’s worth, but I would certainly recommend Lightroom to someone who is looking to streamline their workflow.

If you are interested in learning Lightroom, I recommend Scott Kelby’s book, Lightroom 3 for Digital Photographers.

And Lightroom can be downloaded directly from Adobe.

(Of course I don’t get anything from these recommendations – I think it’s a safe bet to say that none of these folks even know I exist. )

I started with a stop at the Tom’s Creek falls, and then moved down the parkway to the Asheville area. Along the Parkway, I stopped at Crabtree Falls and the Setrock Creek Falls area. Since this was my first trip to any of these locations and I was working with limited daylight, it was a challenge to set up, get some shots, and move on to locating the next falls. Ideally, one should probably devote more time to a specific location and focus on that. If I’ve learned anything from my attempts at landscape photography, composing a visually captivating image is not as easy as it seems.

Technically, the process is seems fairly straightforward: tripod, long exposure, somewhere in the area of f/11… But anyone who has tried knows there is a lot more to it than that. I shot most of the day with my Sigma 10-20 on the D300, with a few switches to the 50 intermittently. I find using a wide angle to be very challenging since I live in telephoto land 90% of the time. It can be difficult to tell a broader story with your image, while keeping a clear and focused subject. I feel like I learn something from these experiments, even though the results may not be stellar. Now at least I have a better idea of what to aim for in the future! With some luck, I might be revisiting some of these locations in the upcoming months.

The fundraiser was a big success. From the initial tally, we raised around $5,000 more than our previous high from last year! Way to go! The weather was pleasant (except for a little rain), and the turnout was good. I certainly enjoyed taking part in the event with all my old cohorts. It felt a little weird not participating as an intern, but it’s still the closest thing to home outside of North Carolina.

Of course, I also took this opportunity to shoot some of my favorite wolves…

The fall colors were nice, and all the animals were starting to grow in their winter coats. Since I was working last year, I’m hoping to make it for the winter season this year. There should be some good action and great photo ops this season!