Wednesday, May 28, 2014

# 9 - Weekly Chronicle and Photo Album of our current two-year trip across the U.S. and Canada in our RV with our Ricoh/Pentax equipment. This week, Baltimore, Maryland, with my Pentax K-3 and help from Adobe Lightroom v 5.3.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

The  week we were in Baltimore, Maryland.


Click on images for enlarging.


Baltimore was established in 1729 and was named after Lord Baltimore. In the 18th century, Baltimore was known for its sugar granary from the Caribbean  Colonies. During the war of 1812, Baltimore was attacked by the British after they had burned down Washington, D.C. 


The battle took place at Fort McHenry and after a long naval battle, the Americans won. The battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem "The Star-Spangled Banner" which became the lyrics to the United States National Anthem.


The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in less than thirty hours. The recent re-development of the downtown area led to the rejuvenation of the Inner Harbor. 



The City's largest employer is the John Hopkins University and the John Hopkins Hospital.

The City is now a major U.S. Seaport.

**************************

We visited My daughter, her husband and our grandson this spring. They live in Bel Air, Maryland, and we had the opportunity of visiting Baltimore a few times. We took the water taxi which connects several location within the harbor. 

The images below were all taken using my trusted Pentax K-3. I manipulated all images with Adobe Lightroom v 5.3 by making them much softer and accentuating the colors. 

Fell's Point. 
My grandson Henry

Historical buildings are all over the place.

It's a great place for lunch at any of the multiple restaurants and coffee shops. In the square at Fell's point, there is a food vendor that sells the best giant soft pretzels I have ever eaten.

The City streets were the cleanest I have seen in any of the major Cities we visited.

It looked like we were still in the 18th century.

The horse you came in on Saloon. It was established in 1775 making it the oldest Saloon in Baltimore. It was the last known destination of American writer "Edgar Allen  Poe" before his death.


Inner Harbor

The USS Constellation.

Beautiful ship that you can visit


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We are the only publisher of e-books for the Pentax brand of cameras. Check our e-book series "Everything you need to know...and then some", for the Pentax Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras. We have sold thousand of copies all over the world. We have e-books for the Pentax K100D, K10D, K20D, K-r, K-x, K-30, K-50, K-500, K-7, K-5, K-5II, K-3.

Become a better photographer with the e-book written specifically for your DSLR. Check us out. ebooks4cameras.com

Do you have a smart phone or a tablet? Get the e-book for your Pentax DSLR and access it anywhere you go. Bring all the information with you for references when and where you need them.


Our Blog site: pentaxdslrs.blogspot.com

E-commerce site: ebooks4cameras.com



Thank you for visiting us,



Yvon Bourque


See any typos? Let me know. My first language is French.  

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

# 8 - Weekly Chronicle and Photo Album of our current two-year trip across the U.S. and Canada in our RV with our Ricoh/Pentax equipment. This week, South of the Border, with my Pentax K-3 and a circular Polarizer Filter.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com 

 Hi Photographer friends,

When I was living in Montreal, we would drive to Florida each year for vacation. Driving to our destination would bring us on Interstate 95 which runs North/South from  New England to Florida. For as long as I can remember, an highway rest area/oasis called "South of the Border" has been in business at the border of North and South Carolina. 

What is interesting, is that billboards announce the place for about a hundred miles from each direction. There must be several hundred  signs all along the highway. They get more frequent and bigger the closer you get to the place. I remember the first time we drove to Florida, we thought that South of the Border would be a gigantic amusement park or something similar. To our surprise, the place wasn't much more than a gas station, a restaurant and a small motel. We couldn't figure how the place could be profitable. The price of the signs was undoubtedly many times more expensive than the place itself. Today's South of the Border is much bigger and has a lot more to offer.

We drove the same highway a few weeks ago, from Florida to Maryland and back.




We are on a cross Country RV adventure for the next few years. We left our fifth wheel in Florida and drove to Maryland with our tow vehicle "Ruby". We have a daughter living there with her husband and my grandson. We stayed with them for almost two weeks. We had a great time. 

On our way back, I shared my Pentax K-3 with my wife "Anne" and decided to document the portion of road that leads to the South of the Border place. We took hundreds of images, but for this blog,  ten images are more appropriate.

I always give myself assignments when I take pictures and this time the assignment was to use a circular polarizer for all images. A polarizer darkens the blue skies and eleminate reflection. By doing so, it also makes the colors bolder. Many photographers discourage the use of polarizers with digital cameras as it requires a larger aperture of a faster shutter speed in some conditions. A polarizer will indeed block some of the light. Although skies can be darkened with Photoshop, the effect isn't quite the same. The only situation where I discourage the use of a polarizer is with ultra wide angle lens. Because the angle of view is so large, only part of the sky can be darkened.

The end result for our essay turned out fairly good. The images below do show darker skies and the colors are bolder while still looking natural. I have one circular polarizer filter and I chose to purchase a 77 mm in diameter. That way, I can use it on all my lenses with an adapter. Have you checked the price of these filters?  I doubt that you want to purchase once for each lens you own with various filter sizes.



Similar billboards were erected along the road, just a few miles apart from each other.

Someone with great imagination and humor created these signs.

This kind of advertisement has to be very expensive.

This is what you see when entering South of the Border.

"Pedro" is the mascot of the land.

Plenty of souvenirs available, however I would have liked to see more USA made souvenirs.

You can see the advantage of using the polarizer in this image taken by my wife. The sky is true blue and there are practically no reflection from the shiny painted elephant.

This is "Ruby". Notice how little reflection and bold red the truck is!

This is the giant Pedro. Dark blue skies possible with the filter.


You can really see the contrast that the filter produced in this image.

Want to know more about the history of South of the Border?

Thank you for reading. Keep using you Pentax equipment. Pentax is gaining on the competition. I'm glad that Ricoh took Pentax under it's wings.

Yvon Bourque


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Friday, May 16, 2014

The Ricoh THETA. This is not a professional camera, but it sure is fun to use.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com 

 Hi Photographer friends,

Ricoh introduced a fun camera called "THETA" a little while back. It is very inexpensive at around $350.00 and it is a lot of fun. The camera allows a full 360 degree spherical image.  Furthermore, is can be controlled with a smart phone. You can read more here about the specifications.

If you already own one, there is a contest in collaboration with CNN about taking a photo-journalistic image. Read about the contest here

I entered the contest with this first image entitled "Theta me out to the ball game". It's about taking my  two years old grandson to its first major league baseball game. His Dad, my Daughter and I had the pleasure of watching his big eyes looking around at the Baltimore's Oriole game against Detroit. He liked it and we were there for all nine innings. 

Click on the image below to see and navigate the 360 degree spherical image. 




Here is another example. This is the Press Box Operation of the Orioles in Baltimore. Click on it.



Thank you for visiting,

Yvon Bourque


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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Canon EOS 70D - AF Fokusprobleme !? Fokustest mit Fokus-Testcharts von Y...



Check this video. I can't speak German, but the video is about checking the front and back focusing on a Canon camera using my charts. They were originally designed for the Pentax cameras but can certainly be used for other brands.

Look at the charts yourself here: http://www.ebooks4cameras.com/Auto-Focus-Check-System-Auto-Focus-Check-Chart.htm

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

# 7 - Weekly Chronicle and Photo Album of our current two-year trip across the U.S. and Canada in our RV with our Ricoh/Pentax equipment. This week,Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with my Pentax K-3 and the SMC 50mm and DA 16-45mm ED-AL


Email: brqyvn@gmail.com 

 Hi Photographer friends,

 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,  with my Pentax K-3 



Pennsylvania Dutch Country, also called the Deitscherei in Deitsch, refers to an area of southeastern Pennsylvania, United States that by the American Revolution had a high percentage of Pennsylvania Dutch inhabitants.





I was told that you couldn't take pictures of them, but as you can see below, they granted us permission to photograph them. In fact, they were very nice and polite. The teenagers were probably a little wild in their own way. 

My daughter Marisa (Marisa Bourque Photography) and I were sharing my Pentax K-3 and we both share the camera to produce the images herein. I had the camera set to Continuous HI and we just shot as many images as we could. The images were all cropped and most were corrected in Lightroom 5,0.


Amish children are as cute as can be.

They might have a simple life, but I think they have less worries than us.

Even the horse seems to be posing for us.

Teenagers being wild, or as wild as Amish teens get.

Their horse was beautiful and the buggy was a work of art.


These teenagers were a pleasure to chat with. They were very polite and they all giggled so much when I showed them the images of themselves. I felt so humble.

I guess it was laundry day.

Moving right along.

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Sunday, May 11, 2014

Impossible picture you say? Not if you have a Pentax K-3.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

We were in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, this week. I will have a complete set of photos this coming Wednesday, but for now, I just had to post this picture. I was told that Amish people won't let anyone take pictures of them. Well, with a nice approach and a promise of sending them four pictures of the group, I was able to get this image. By the way, the promised pictures were sent today. They were very nice and polite young adults.



Thanks for visiting,
Yvon Bourque


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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

# 6 - Weekly Chronicle and Photo Album of our current two-year trip across the U.S. and Canada in our RV with our Ricoh/Pentax equipment. This week, Bel Air, Maryland with my Pentax K-3 and the SMC 50mm and DA 16-45mm ED-AL

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,


Email: brqyvn@gmail.com 





This week we are in  Bel Air, Maryland, where one of my daughter's live. Bel Air is not a real big town, but it is very pretty.  According to the 2010 census the population of the town was 10,120. 

However, there is something very special about this town.:

 John Wilkes Booth, (born May 10, 1838, near Bel Air, Md., U.S.—died April 26, 1865, near Port Royal, Va.), member of one of the United States’ most distinguished acting families of the 19th century, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.  


On the morning of April 14, 1865, Booth learned that the president was to attend an evening performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in the capital. Booth hurriedly assembled his band and assigned each member his task, including the murder of Secretary of State William Seward  He himself would kill Lincoln. About 6:00 pm Booth entered the deserted theater, where he tampered with the outer door of the presidential box so that it could be jammed shut from the inside. He returned during the play’s third act to find Lincoln and his guests unguarded. Entering the box, Booth drew a pistol and shot Lincoln through the back of the head. He grappled briefly with a patron, swung himself over the balustrade, and leaped off it, shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (the motto of the state of Virginia, meaning “Thus always to tyrants!”) and “The South is avenged!” He landed heavily on the stage, breaking a bone in his left leg, but was able to make his escape to the alleyway and his horse. The attempt on Seward’s life failed, but Lincoln died shortly after seven o’clock the following morning.


Eleven days later, on April 26, Federal troops arrived at a farm in Virginia, just south of the Rappahannock River, where a man said to be Booth was hiding in a tobacco barn. David Herold, another conspirator, was in the barn with Booth. He gave himself up before the barn was set afire, but Booth refused to surrender
The house and grounds of John Wilkes Booth's birth place are pictured below.

The pictures were all taken with the Pentax K-3 and the Pentax DA 16-45mm or the SMC 50mm f/1.4. I just love this DSLR. There is nothing on the current market that compares to it, price wise and features wise. The SMC 50mm lens is my oldest Pentax lens but it is still my preferred lens.

The house is opened to the public.

Another view of the house.


We were lucky enough to be there when they were letting the public visit.
View from the inside.
Looks like the real  deal.


My grandson Henry.

View of the.property.
Maryland is pretty this time of year.
Henry lost in the flowers.






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