Rainy Drummer Hill Hike
I woke up to very dismal looking, cloudy skies with a forecast of on and off rain showers throughout the day. After an initial shower there appeared to be a lull in the rainfall, so I doused myself with bug spray, grabbed my camera, and headed out into the Drummer Hill forest.
Almost immediately after leaving my house, light rain started to fall from the sky. In less than ten minutes, the light rain would became a steady, and increasingly heavy shower. I had checked the weather radar before heading out, convinced that the small green blob heading my way was nothing more than a few sprinkles. Someday I will actually remember that radar does not always pickup all of the rain that is falling.
Knowing that my time was limited, I had to work quickly. For the first few shots, I had forgotten about the polarizer on my lens and did not bother to rotate it. Eventually, I remembered that it was there, and started to pull some intense green colors out of the newly grown Spring leaves. This was my first outing since switching back to a conventional Nikon DSLR after almost a year of using mirrorless cameras with EVFs. I noticed that the viewfinder looked unusually dark because of the polarizer, since the light levels were quite low under the heavy overcast sky.
This was my first outing with a full-frame DSLR in very poor light. I noticed that with the polarizer and the heavy overcast, the auto ISO function of the camera was choosing values in the range of 1250 – 8000, with more values toward the higher end of the range. Given my experience with APS-C sensors, I was a bit concerned that I would be coming hope with weak colors and a bunch of noisy mush since I was shooting everything handheld without stabilized lenses. I was quite surprised to see such vivid colors and detail at ISO 6400 when I processed a photo taken from Old Gilsum Road:
One big lesson that I learned from my extended mirrorless camera experiment was the value of having a tilting rear LCD. My new D750 has one, and it came in handy when I found a mushroom pushing up through the leaves on the forest floor. Normally, this would be a good opportunity to get my knees and elbows soaked and muddy as I attempt to compose such a shot through the optical viewfinder. This time around I pulled out the tilt screen and threw the camera into live view mode to take the shot, which allowed me to get nice and low while still having good control over framing. With the low light levels, I did not bother to cover the viewfinder eyepiece like they say you are supposed to.
It is truly amazing that ISO 6400 shots can have such detail, color, and smooth tonal transitions with very little noise. I will not think twice about letting ISO values go as high as 8000 on this camera, knowing that I will still get excellent results when they do.
Sydney’s Obituary
Sydney LaBarge of Keene, NH died peacefully this morning surrounded by her loving human parents after a period of declining health. Her chest simply could no longer contain her growing heart. Sydney was also known by the nicknames Piddlebug, Baby Deuce, Little D, and later in life, Daisy.
She was born in Northfield, MA, daughter of the late Sugar Bear and Buffy, also of Northfield, MA and received early care from her human breeder, Mena Cote.
She leaves her human parents, Melinda and Trevor; two Sheltie brothers, Chuck and Rusty; human grandparents, Robert LaBarge and the late Betty LaBarge of Winchendon, MA; human grandparents Boo and Denny McCoy of Wimberley, TX; and a human aunt, Sheryl Ramsay of Winchendon, MA.
Sydney was a strong pack-leader with a great sense of mischief. She loved to play fetch, which she did by first dropping the ball at a great distance, followed by advancing it inch-by-inch until after some time it was close enough to be thrown again. She also loved to remove freshly fallen snow from the deck and backyard using only her tongue; when that was no longer available, she would loudly crunch ice cubes straight from the refrigerator. Sydney preferred to communicate by scratching things firmly with her front paw until the appropriate level of attention was received. She enjoyed the epic battles for world domination with Rusty each night after dinner, often jumping over him and pivoting in mid-air like a character from The Matrix. She was known for her loud, heavy, and sometimes piercing bark, especially during pizza and Chinese food deliveries or during walks with the boys.
There are no calling hours or services. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Sydney’s memory to the Monadnock Humane Society.
