Category Archive

Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona.

Another one from last weeks tour – Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona.

Colossal Cave Mountain Park, Tucson, Arizona.

Just wrapped up a really fun Awesome Arizona Photo Tour!  This was inside the Colossal Cave during our private tour of this cool location!

Morning horse roundup, White Stallion Ranch, Tucson, Arizona.

Another one from day one of the Awesome Arizona Photo Tour / Workshop.

Been a very busy week here at the Desert Photo Retreat building a new photo blind along with a reflection water table!  This one should be perfectly orientated for the morning light.

Lumber for the new blind

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Great Horned Owl, Desert Photo Retreat, near Tucson, Arizona.

A pair of Great Horned Owls nest on our property – we enjoy listening to them at night. On occasion, they will bath in the water hole. Last night, I was set up with my remote camera trap when one came in for a bath!  He actually climbed into the water and splashed around, but unfortunately those images were inside my focus point.  I never know for sure where to focus and usually chose the waters edge.  When you are just 2 feet from the subject, I have very little depth of field.  Here I went with f/8, which gives me about a foot of depth of field, but I lose a lot of stars at this aperture.   I could pick up a lot more stars at f/2.4 or wider, but then I have even less DOF.

This was with a Canon 5d III (don’t want to risk my newest camera!), 24 Rokinon manual focus lens set at f/8, iso 1600, 20 second exposure and two off camera Nikon SB-28 flashes manually set to 1/32 power.  Triggered this time with a Camtraption trigger.  I also use Camtraption wireless triggers for the flashes.

Brittlebush.

This morning at the Desert Photo Retreat – it is amazing how colorful the desert has been this year!