Lake Weekend with the Wheeler Family

We spent the weekend with our good friends, the Wheeler family. Mobius (and family) and myself went down Thursday night, which gave us a day of (relatively) calm waters Friday morning and time to play golf in the afternoon. The golf was hot as !$(#($*#@ outside, but we played fairly decently all things considers (+/- a few handfuls of shots). All in all I had a great time.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend… all were taken with my Sigma 10mm Fisheye lens. I used flash and metered on the background, with the logic that the skys would end up blue and the flash would fill the foreground. All shots were shot in Manual mode, ISO100, 1/200 sec shutter speed, and an Aperture around 5.6. If you click on any of the photos, I believe you will be taken to Flickr which will provide detailed EXIF information. Most of these are straight from the camera, with the RAW conversion done by Aperture (Apple).

I really have enjoyed the Sigma FishEye. It renders colors beautifully when paired with the flash in daylight (foerground and background) , has been pretty sharp, and offers unique perspectives. Given how much is captured do to the fishyness of the lens (often my feet are in the shot), you really get a lot in each picture. I really, really, really want to get the Canon 10-20mm wideangle lens so I have the option for Wide Angle without Fish – but that won’t be in the budget for a long time

Zack launching off the dock into the lake.

This photo would benefit from a small amount of straightening, but I sort of like the relatively horizontal angle of his left arm, so I did not do so. I really like this shot, although I wish the shoes off to the left would have been his. I might recolor them to make them look like he just jumped out of his shoes and into the water. I also am planning to make a black and white out of this image.

Toby behind the wheel

A quick snap of my good friend Toby, as he was in the middle of circling Pam (who was wake boarding) to get her the rope in between runs. What I like about this picture is that it is an expression that reminds me of sitting in meetings with him at AG Edwards as someone proposed something off the wall and he was getting ready to shoot it down. Makes me wonder what he is thinking at the moment this picture was taken. Probably something to the effect of “get that camera outta my face you jackass” or “should I gun the engine and watch this idiot roll across the deck of the boat?”.

Note: This portrait was taken with the EFS 85mm 1.8 Canon lens, not the Sigma FishEye.

You can wakeboard, but you can’t hide

Check out the storm brewing behind Toby as we pulled him on the wake board. He was back in the boat a few minutes after this shot was taken, and we gunned it back to the dock. We beat the storm by mere minutes and it was surreal as we drove back. The sky was dark, the wind was blowing hard and we couldn’t get much speed with all that wind. The water had white caps, both from the wind and all the other boats trying to rush home alongside us. On the other side of the land mass on the left is the dock, so we had a little ways to go to get back. The kids and females on the boat were panicking because they were thinking tornado – and I have to admit the sky looked mean.

Note: This image was taken with the EFS 85mm 1.8 Canon lens, not the Sigma FishEye.

Sarenna and Zack

I managed to stop the two of them from jumping in just long enough to get a quick shot. Ethan was supposed to be in it, but he got impatient and jumped before I was ready.

Poor Alex

Toby’s son, Alex, was being directed by Toby as to exactly how he wanted the shot. Basically he wanted to take consecutive photos of Alex falling backward (think “back flop”) into the lake and wanted him to keep his eyes open as he was hitting the water. Alex thought they were open as he did, but Toby showed him otherwise. This photo was exaggerated quite a but with the color boost and vignette, but I personally like the effect. I included the original for comparison. Toby is as much (if not more) of a photo geek as I am

Zack Launch take 2: This time aimed at the ducks.

Zack launching off the side of the deck and clearing old boards in the process and aiming right at a school of hungry ducks. They are hard to see in this picture, but they are right in his flight path. Toby caught it as well.

Sarenna Launching

I can’t believe that only 3 weeks ago she was afraid to jump off the side of the pool by herself. Now she is jumping off anything she can: the dock, the side, and even the big diving boards at the community pool near us. She is even diving off the side of the pool. Utter joy on her face when she is in the air. She is a little fish and I love being in the water with her.

Ethan jumping blind

Here is ethan jumping backwards off the dock… still holding his nose though. This is bad habit that I need to break!

Cannonball!!

Ethan getting some air as he cannonballs into the water. This image was boosted to make the blues exaggerated, as I felt it added to the picture. The whole image is overly saturated to make it sort of feel postcardy. I like the presence of the shoes/dock in the corner. I think this image is my mental picture of us swimming this day.

Flush?

Natasha’s comment when she saw this picture was that Sarenna looked like she was “swimming in a toilet bowl”. The angle of the fisheye can be quite dramatic depending on where the horizon is within the frame of the shot. Compare this picture with the ones above to see how dramatic the fish effect is. The funny thing about this comment (to me at least) is when I take it into context of the e-coli issues the lake had last year.

All in all, I had a bast this weekend and always enjoy my time when the Wheeler’s join us at the lake. They are just such easy people to spend time with – so easy going, laid back and just plain fun, good people.

-b