Night Photography With Nikon D7000

I got home at midnight last night and the yard was lit up by a bright Moon. I immediately thought I should take a minute or two and try a night photo with the Nikon D7000.l I mounted the camera on a tripod. Lens was 17-55mm f2.8 Nikon, exposure was 20 seconds at f2.8, iso 400. I have done very little night photography and very little with digital cameras. I was impressed with the result. The light was mostly from the Moon, however, there are some street lights in the neighborhood and I think they account for the reddish color in the trees.



After shooting the back yard I did an about face and snapped this shot of my driveway. Same exposure and camera.


It has been a busy Summer so far and I have had little time or energy for this blog or keeping up with FaceBook. It's too bad because I have had numerous interesting things that I could have blogged about. When time permits I will try to write about them.

Nikon D7000 Back Focusing Problem

It is a beautiful day here in Chaumont, N.Y. The sun is shining, there's a nice breeze blowing through the trees. Just ideal for working on the wood pile. I had this wood delivered from a man in Rodman NY. This is the third time I have bought wood from him. It is mostly cherry. I wish I could spend the rest of the day here. However, I must go photograph a couple of jobs for the Post-Standard. I also have to edit photos I took yesterday for a freelance job.

This is a self portrait of me and the wood pile I have been stacking this morning.

So here is what I
ve been up to. This past Wednesday I played a 2 hour guitar gig at the Carthage Savings and Loan. It was a wine tasting and art show fund rainsing event for the Carthage Library. A most enjoyable event. Saturday evening I attended the Syracuse Press Club awards dinner. I was recipient of a first place award in the spot news category. I got home and into bed around midnight. Sunday morning (yesterday) I drove to Cicero for the freelance job. The photos were for Discover Card. They sponsored a contest involving the Stanley Cup. The winners were from Fulton. THe event took place at an ice arena in Cicero. Anyhow, I spent the day documenting the event and taking photos of of all the Discover Card signs that were placed in the arena, the locker room, the lounge, etc. I also went to the winning family's home and photographed them with the Stanley Cup. I left the house yesterday morning at 8:15 and got home at 8:00PM. A long day. It was made more stressful than it should it have been due to the cameras I was using. They were a Nikon D700, and a Nikon D300. The biggest problem was with the D7000. It has a terrible habit of back focusing. Sometimes the simplest of images were not in focus. Most frustrating. I had to continually check & double check every photo for correct focus. Then there is the constant tweaking of exposures. I spent as much time studying the pictures on the camera's screen as I* did looking through the viewfinder to make the pictures. I'm re;living the stress as I write this! I simply cannot go into all of the details right now because my time is SHOT! Suffice it to say that the D7000 is not rerliable unless you are very diligent and constantly monitor what you are doing. Otherwise you will have more soft pictures than sharp ones. So, I had to overshoot everything yesterday which means I have a much bigger editing job than I should have as I wade through, scrutinize and delete a million unsharp photos, praying that I pull enough acceptable ones out to satisfy the client. That is no way to work.