It's Spring In the Valley. Time for Nesting!

It's Spring time in the Shenandoah Valley and all the birds large and small are breeding and nesting. Spring is off to a chilly start with some night time lows in the 30's and the chance of snow this weekend but the little bursts of color from the flowering trees and the breeding wild turkeys confirm that "yes it really is Spring" even if the weather says otherwise. Happy Spring everyone! :-)



I'm a hobby photographer with professional dreams and my photography is self sustaining at this point but if you wish to contribute to funding my dreams, prints and greeting cards are available below, just click on the images below.  Any little bit is much appreciated! :-)  :

How To Get Nikon Optional Picture Controls Onto Your D300

Sometimes it's the little things that either drive you crazy or make you happy depending on the outcome.

I just spent hours and hours trying to figure out how to load the Nikon Picture control landscape setting onto my Nikon D300. I love nature, I love photographing nature but I am no programmer. All the computer jargon took my poor brain for a ride. What's a "root folder" anyways? Through trial and error I finally succeeded in getting this onto my Nikon D300 and I can now shoot using the landscape mode if I so choose. Here's one of the first photos using this mode:

Ahh greens look ...well green! And I have nice saturated color but not too saturated. I'm not exactly sure why the camera didn't come with this and also the portrait mode but it didn't. I tried following the instructions on the Nikon website but they were as clear as mud. I'm pretty sure the newer Nikon D800 and 810 comes with these already in the camera but I'm still saving for one of those. If you want to contribute to my new camera fund you can buy something Here or Here  :-)

So for anyone else who has pulled their hair out trying to figure out how to add the Nikon optional picture control settings onto their camera, here is my non-programmer minded explanation for the rest of us.

First you go to their website Here

Next I went onto my main drive on my computer and created a folder called PICTURECONTROL. I don't think it matters what you name the file but I put it in all caps because I read another tutorial somewhere that had it in all caps so I did this just in case it did matter. I don't think it matters what you name it either. Then I went back to the website and selected the one I wanted (landscape in my case) and then I found my camera model and operating system which was Nikon D300 and Windows and I clicked on the button to accept the download. Then I navagated to the folder that I created and clicked inside it and made sure it downloaded there. I have Windows 7 so it may be a little different on windows 8. Your computer may default to another place for downloads but you can change it to get it into the new folder you created by navagating there.  Once it downloaded, I then had a file in my new folder. Next I double clicked on this and it created a Nikon folder with the picture control inside.

This is where it got tricky. At frist I just put the file on a formated Nikon CF card using a card reader but my camera wouldn't recognize it. *Note I think it's important to start out with a formatted card (card that has been formatted in your Nikon camera).  It said "no file on card" or something to that effect.  I finally figured out that I needed to copy that whole Nikon file that contained the picture utility file. Once I copied the Nikon file with the picture control utility inside, I pasted it onto the Nikon CF card (not in the DCIM file but just on the card.

Next I put the card into the camera and in the menus found the little icon that looked like a camera. Under that I went to manage picture control and then load/save and then copy to camera and OK. Wala! Now I have more options to choose from on my camera.

I hope this is helpful to anyone else who was pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to add these onto their Nikon D300 or other Nikon DLSR Cameras.

Why Am I A Photographer?

   

Why am I a photographer?

I’ve always been fascinated by photography.  At 6 or 7 years old I begged my Dad to let me take a picture with his camera and although he probably knew that it might be a waste of a little film (yes I started with film I’m that old) he let me take a photo anyways. I even got to see it in our family slide show. It wasn’t exactly a masterpiece. In fact it was just a photo of a street sign! But the fact that he let me take even just one photo created a seed in me that would someday turn into my love of photography today.My mom also fostered that seed unknowingly. At the time, I didn’t realize how special it was to have a mom who had lived overseas and had seen the world. I guess I assumed everyone’s mom did that.  We didn’t have a huge color TV growing up but we did have a slide projector and a big white wall. On that wall I would see magical places that my mother had traveled to. I saw slides of places like Mt. Fuji, I saw slides of a Japanese ice festival where a magical temporary city was created entirely of ice! And I even saw slides of Germany where our family came from. And of course we always got to see the family vacations recorded on slide film so we could relive our adventures like traveling northward to the California redwoods or the giant spruce forests of Oregon on our annual summer camping trips.

I’ve been photographing for years now and if someone were to ask me why I am a photographer, this is what I'd tell them. 

I see beauty in a sky or a flower or a bird or butterfly or even in the smallest insect and when I see something that is amazing to me I want to share that with others and I want them to be amazed too.  I also get great joy from bringing other people happiness so it’s only natural I guess that when I see something that inspires me,  I want to photograph it and share it with others in the hopes that it brings joy and inspiration to them as well.

Photography is also an historic record. My mother in law used to photograph the whole family at our family gatherings. We would all try to hide from the camera and complain that we didn’t want our photo taken but you know what? We all couldn't wait to see the great shots she got  when the photos would come back from the lab!  I started bringing a camera to the family gatherings as well and then there were two family “paparazzis” to hide from.  And now we have all gotten in on the fun of taking photos.  Just the other day my husband I found a suitcase full of old family photos.  This suitcase is really a family history book. Did you ever notice when there is a tragedy like a flood or hurricane and homes are destroyed that it’s those precious family photo albums and framed photos that are the cherished item and not a table or a couch?  So I guess the second part of my “why am I a photographer?” question would be to capture moments in time to share with family and friends at a later date, or more simply put to be a history keeper.

Do I shoot photos to make money? The answer to this one would be yes and no. There was a time when I thought “wouldn’t it be great to quit my day job and do photography for a living?”.  I tried shooting weddings and even did some portrait work in addition to trying to get published and selling my nature photographs. I even tried stock photography for a while too. I started to realize when I put too much emphasis on the making money aspect of it that it became stressful and I lost some of that creative spark. It wasn’t as much fun anymore.  Sure it’s great to make money but it can also become a pressure which actually in the long run, hurts the ability to make money when your creativity suffers. Since then I’ve come to the realization that it’s best just to keep it at a level that is fun. Since changing perspective from “how will I make money with my photos” to “what can I shoot to share and inspire?” I’ve actually began to make a little money. I haven’t abandoned the money aspect and I still try to market my photos to sell them but I have a day job that I love and photography is just a fun thing I do when I'm not at my day job.