February Calendar Image

The Story behind the image, February

The caledar printing company, Bay Photo, choose pink for the base color of February (probably to do with the 14th). Joan and I descided that flowers would look good on this calendar, and choose one from Georgetown . 

Georgetown, is one of our favorite places to walk. Not only because of Georgetown Cupcake, but because it is a great little loop from Roosevelt island parking lot, over to Georgetown, through DC and back.

This photo has a longer walk and story behind it. The photo adventure started a few days earlier when I stopped by Ace Photo to see if they had heard any news on the Nikon 100th year anaversery edition 70-200mm Lens. As usual, a quck stop by there, ends with a dent in the savings account.

As I mentioned on an earlier post of the 100th year Lens, I was intereseted in the 70-200mm f/2.8 Nikor lens after renting it a few times. It is one of the ‘Nikon Holy Trinity’. On July 23rd, with no news on the 70-200mm, I thought, why not get one of the others three the 24-70mm f/2.8 .

For the non-photographer crowd, there is a quick few items to understand the alure of these lens. Let me take a few moments to explain the high level.

Aperture, the thing that makes the background all fuzzy (Bokeh). It also premits you to take a photo in lower light. This makes Lens with a low aperture of higher value. The aperture is expressed in f-stops as f/2.8 (which is a low number).

Focal length, the thing that makes the object apear closer. On simple cameras you buy a ‘Zoom of 10x’ this is the change of focul length. Your eyes see about 50mm focal length, so a zoom of 10x is 500mm. A Prime lens has a fixed focal length, and if you want the object bigger, well, move closer. a Zoom Lens has the ability to change the focual length.

Like anything if you give something, you take something, and for Nikon Lenses to give you zoom, you loose Apature, or pay more. It comes from the complications associated with building a lens that can change focul length, usually prevents a low aperture.

In the Nikon Lens line up there are three lenses that will take you from 14mm (wide angle) to 200mm (Zoomed) at f/2.8 (fuzzy backgrounds, or low light). I bought one of them, while waiting on the other.

With my new prised lens, Joan and I went for a walk around our Round Hill Neighborhood, on July 23rd, and captured the butterfly in the smaller photos, the one on the left, with these photos;

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A week later, our weeked walks, let me capture a few more photos around Round Hill on July 30th, and the butterfly on the right.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Now what about the main photograph.

As we have done many times when I need to get my car services, Joan and I take the opertunity to go for a walking adventure. August 1st 2017 we went for a very long one.

On this walk I was able to take some of my most favorite pictures of the year, with the help of Joan’s great eye. The main photograph is from a fountain in Georgetown. Shot with my D500 and the new 24-70mm f/2.8 Lens.

Below are a few of the other shots from the same fountain that day, that show of the power of the apature.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Our walk took us on the path below. We ended up taking the Metro most of the way back from the National Musium of American Indian to with in a mile of the car dealership.

I will leave you with a few other photos from that day;

This slideshow requires JavaScript.