Fall Hiking and Biking

As I try to do once a year during the Fall, I took a day off of work on Friday to get out into the woods with a backpack full of camera gear and a bike.  There was an overlook that I haven’t been to yet outside of Ohiopyle State Park so I started my day off at that trailhead a bit before sunrise.  2.5 miles uphill later, I arrived at a beautiful scenic overlook, albeit a bit clouded over.  Next I hopped on my bike for a 10 mile ride from the town of Confluence to the Pinkerton tunnel on the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail.  Then I just wandered around Ohiopyle proper a bit.  The last pictures are some detail shots of making fresh apple cider with the family.

First of Fall Portraits

It is fitting that on October 1st, I did portraits for some good friends.  Every year, about this time, we get together to do Fall portraits.

This went very smoothly as I was using my new Godox wireless TTL flash setup.  I metered at about -2/3 of a stop in background light and then used a single speedlight off camera in a 24″ Octabox to illuminate the people.  Since the Godox can do wireless TTL and High Speed Sync with the Fuji setup, I was able to use my Fuji 56mm f/1.2 at about f/2 and shutter speeds above the 1/250 flash sync of the camera.  I dialed the TTL flash exposure down about 2/3 of a stop and everything just popped.  Having gear that just works makes the rest of the process that much easier.