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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 1000 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/13, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Bit of Color
and a bird

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything this month besides Lightroom stuff. Last year I posted 2,082 photos in 268 posts, but my running rate for this month extrapolates out to zero real posts. Where did Spring 2010 go? (The answer is “Lightroom 3” of course, but today is the first time since its release that I'm actually just using it as a normal user, on my own photos, for pleasure. Ah, but what a pleasure it is...)

Anyway, still no time for a real post, but I wanted to put some color up to enliven myself, so here's a sunset from late April, from central-Japan's Awaji Island, taken five minutes before this one.

I took it with the new Sigma Bigma with the Sigma 2× teleconverter at 1,000mm. As I reported earlier, with the TC (or, perhaps, due to it) it's pretty soft and mushy at 1,000, but it's not such a problem for something like this.

I'd like to take it up to Kyoto's Shogunzuka overlook for a good sunset, if I could ever find one. I've been looking, as evidenced here, here, here, here, and here, among others, I'm sure.

And HOLY COW, when lightning strikes in downtown Kyoto (which is near a lot of short mountains), it reverberates with tremendous force for a long time, as I just found out at 12:56am as I was just about to post this. I grew up in Ohio where major thunderboomeers are common, and I've been within 30 feet of a direct lightning strike, but I've never heard anything like the shot that hit somewhere about a half a mile south of me. Holy cow, it was powerful.

And crap, three minutes later and fire sirens are starting to blare. It was in the general direction of Kiyomizu Temple, but there are oodles of temples all around here, so this doesn't bode well.... )-: