NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 175mm — ¹/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Huge Flock of Crows
alighting from a nearby tree off camera left

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I continue to be busy getting my Lightroom Plugins ready for the next release of Lightroom 4 (the real thing if not another beta)... I just don't seem to have the energy to much else, but I hate not posting every day, much less every week(!)

So for something easy to post today, I just went through my photos from a couple of outings last November to pick a few pretty pictures, and ended up deciding to make them all fodder for my desktop-background category. Most have some fairly aggressive processing to make them punchy.

Not much prose with these ones, though for most you can click on the “nearby photos” link under each to find other blog posts about the same outing.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Restaurant Entrance

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/100 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

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It seems that I tend to take this kind of shot when the opportunity arises, most recently posting something similar here.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
( a landscape version of this shot )

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Bit Moody

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Typical Susuki Shot
( Susuki is a common winter grass )

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Vertigo

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Roof

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/3.2, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pleasant Path

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pleasant Path
being used a few moments later

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The last pair of shots was taken at the Yoshiminedera Temple (善峯寺) in southern Kyoto on an outing with Paul Barr, as seen in other posts from that trip here and here (and in many previous posts listed here). This next picture, of where we had dinner on the way home, is great inspiration for me:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/60 sec, f/1.4, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Outside Restaurant “Hagi”
where the burger size falls somewhere between that of Paul and the car he's standing next to

It's inspiration for two reasons. It reminds me that Paul will be in town later this month for the cherry blossoms, and when Paul's in town, I spend much time showing him new photogenic spots, being shown new photogenic spots, or revisiting known photogenic spots. And also because I'm sure we'll make a trip back to that restaurant so that I can make a proper report on what we discovered there: the largest burgers I had ever seen in real life. Looking forward to it!