Tag Archives: Fujinon XF 23mm f/1.4

A Late Autumn Train and Bike Ride

Even though most of the leaves are down around here and the weather is getting colder, there is still plenty to do outside.  Some friends rented a house at Deep Creek for the weekend and invited me to visit.  So I spent Friday night and in the morning we rode the train from Cumberland to Frostburg and then biked the 16 miles back.  We stopped at one point on the trail to wait for the steam engine to come through a tunnel.  After we completed the ride, we drove over to Swallow Falls State Park for the afternoon.  Being there a few weeks earlier would have been spectacular.

Views from Myrtle Beach, SC

One of our favorite places to vacation is a very specific neighborhood in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  It’s a small community sandwiched between the State Park and a large campground.  No high rise hotels within a mile and the only people on the beach in front of the house is people in the neighborhood.  It’s very quiet and the beach is great.  Walking a half mile to the north is the Myrtle Beach State Park pier.  This provided me something to include with the sunrise shots.  A tripod and variable ND let me slow the shutter down enough to flatten the water.

We also visited the aquarium down here and just had a wonderful week relaxing on the beach.

A quick trip and a new lens

Once a year or so, I get to tag along with my wife and travel to her work conferences.  This time we were at the Greenbrier for a few days in West Virginia.  It’s much more high class than I’m used too and the only thing I owned that fit in were my Billingham Hadley bags.  The new lens is a Rokinon 12mm f/2 prime.  I’ve been wanting an ultra wide angle for awhile, but couldn’t justify the price of the Fuji 10-24mm f/4.  Every review I could on the Rokinon/Samyang 12mm was overwhelming positive and the price can’t be beat.  In my first outing, it performed remarkably well.

During the day when I was on my own, I ventured out and took a hike around Sandstone Falls in the New River Gorge National Park.  I managed to arrive before the sun cleared away the fog and low lying cloud cover, which added some darker atmosphere to the pictures.

Since I was working on a tripod for all of these shots, I decided to test out the new Panorama Merge feature in Lightroom 6.  This panorama is from 5 shots that it stitched together.

Once back at the Greenbrier I still had some time to walk around and enjoy the old world charm of the buildings.