Phoenix, Arizona.

Usually, on Thursdays, I publish my response to the weekly Lens-Artists Challenge; however, the Lens-Artists team is our summer break. There was no challenge post on July 6, but on Saturday, July 13, the first of three guests will host July’s challenges. For the record, the July Lens-Artists Guest Host schedule is at the end of this post.

As a result, here’s my chance to share some photos I captured at the Phoenix Zoo. By way of disclaimer, this post is not a review; it’s a journal of my experience with a couple of long lenses. Visiting with other photographers about getting into birding and wildlife photography, I’d been recommended to purchase a long lens for my D500, a Nikon 200-500 mm F/5.6 that is very popular among Nikon shooters. I stopped at Tempe Camera to see what they had available in used lenses. I was shown a Nikon lens that met the recommendation for $850, but the salesperson also showed me a Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.5-6.3 offered at $350.

The Sigma appeared to be a little more well-worn than the Nikon I was shown, but besides the lower price, it had three other advantages. It weighs less than the Nikon, is shorter than the Nikon, and has an extended zoom range. I wouldn’t have to change lenses if I needed a wider shot.

Tempe Camera has a reasonable return policy on its used gear. I was told that I could evaluate the lens and return it if I wasn’t satisfied in five days. I fired a couple of test shots in the store, and the photos looked good as viewed on the back of the camera, so I plunked down my credit card. I added a lens carry case and a monopod to help me hold the large lens steady.

At the zoo, Lynn and I enjoyed wandering around while I looked for opportunities to take some test shots. When I got home, I downloaded the set and selected 13 photos to process and evaluate. I found that the lens’s stabilization worked nicely even at the slower shutter speeds, but these animals weren’t moving all that much anyway. The images are generally sharp, and the lens appears to have plenty of life left. I posted the original and edited versions of the Sigma photos on Flickr here.

I spent some time looking for reviews of the Sigma lens since it is no longer available as new. Finding online reviews was difficult as searches either brought up a predecessor or a newer replacement. Remembering there is a used Nikon option, and I could still return the Sigma, I watched some reviews of the Nikon 200-500 mm lens. I could still purchase that lens today for $1400 new, and despite the advantages of the Sigma noted above, I decided to spend the extra $500 for the used Nikon they had available.

I immediately noticed the Nikon’s extra weight. While I lost the advantage of a faster 50 mm wide angle, I gained an additional 1/3 stop at 500 mm. That extra light helped capture this mandrill in the shade, especially given the faster shutter speed I used. I also considered that Nikon’s service on this lens should be available if I ever need it.

Another trip to the zoo was in order. I could take advantage of Tempe Camera’s 5-day return policy on used equipment, and if I found anything wrong with the lens, they even had another used Nikon 200-500 available. I decided to keep the Nikon. Both lenses, designed for full-frame DSLRs, gave me extra reach on my D500, which is an APS-C crop sensor camera, giving me the equivalent of a 750 mm maximum zoom.

One key difference in my test shots between the Sigma and Nikon is that I used a faster shutter speed with the Nikon. After evaluating many of the Sigma images I shot, I realized that many of my photos were marred with motion blur, either from the animal or camera movements (even though I was using a monopod.) Still, I had plenty of Sigma shots that were not blurred, so I considered it a fair comparison, knowing that the blur was caused by operator error.

I purchased the lens in April, and after a couple of months of using it, I’ve learned that I can actually dispense with the monopod in some cases. While I may use it for some purposes, I’m building enough muscle to handhold the 5-lb (2.3 kg) lens. That means fewer trips to the gym for me. I posted the original and edited versions of the Nikon photos on Flickr here.

If I do not enjoy wildlife photography after all, I’m sure I can find other uses for this specialty lens. I brought it with the monopod to a track meet where my grandson ran in several heats. I had only a few unacceptable photos and learned to keep the monopod still when shooting.

As promised, here’s the schedule for guest hosts in July 2024:

July 13: Leanne of Leanne Cole explores TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

July 20: Elizabeth of Albatz Travel Adventures leads us with PAIRS

July 27: PR of Flights of the Soul presents BALCONIES

John Steiner

Niagara Falls, New York.

It’s about time I started telling the story of our first trip to Niagara Falls. After all, we made that visit in 2022. I’ve featured a couple of Cellpic Sundays, including one published just a couple of weeks ago on June 30, here. In that post, I shared a close view of Bridal Veil Falls in an altered reality after experimenting with AI image modification. In today’s post, I promise there is no AI alteration.

In that post, I described many details of the Cave of the Winds and how it once allowed people to view Bridal Veil Falls from behind. After the cave’s collapse, the attraction was reimagined as a close-up view. On the Maid of the Mist boat, I captured the opening photo of the American Falls as we sailed by. The smaller waterfall at the right is Bridal Veil Falls. It is separated from the more significant falls by Luna Island, now part of Niagara Falls State Park. At one point, they built an observation area at the dropoff that you can visit while on the island.

From a distance, that sizeable flat area looks like a concrete wall, but when you get close, you can see the rock surface of Luna Island jutting up from the dropoff at the falls. In the two images above, you can see part of the wooden structure built to accommodate tourists wanting a closer view of Bridal Veil Falls.

As you can see from the photos, there is plenty of room for people to stand and options to exit the area without climbing to the closest viewpoint. The yellow rain gear is provided by the Niagara Falls State Park, the entity in charge of operating the attraction. Upon leaving, you can drop off the gear for recycling or take it with you if you plan to get close to the falls elsewhere.

Upon entering the scaffolding area, you start low near small rivulets that diverge from the main flow of Bridal Veil Falls. The entire area around the falls is wet from spray, so proper footwear is a must.

The Rainbow Bridge connects the United States and Canada over the Niagara River. I will feature a story about the bridge in a future post. That tall tower on the right is not connected to the bridge; it’s an observation tower on the American side. On the left in Canada, the Casino Tower is the tall tower to the right of the Sheraton Falls View Hotel.

I conclude this post with the original image I shared in June, which was the starting point of my experiment in AI removal of the scaffold structure. If you’d like to pixel peep or see the metadata from these images, you can view them in 2K HD here. By the way, I kept my D500 Nikon camera safely under my rain gear. I used my Samsung S20U cell phone for all the images taken from the scaffold. My cell phone was much better protected from the watery spray.

John Steiner

Alcova, Wyoming.

With the Fourth of July less than a week in our rearview mirror, I created a panoramic view of Wyoming’s Independence Rock. On a chilly day in October, we stopped at the rest area near Alcova on our way to visit friends in Wyoming. In the distance, a large rock outcropping stands as a historical landmark and a prominent feature along the Oregon, Mormon, and California emigrant trails during the mid-19th century. Rising above the prairie, the outcropping provided a well-known reference point for travelers on the long and arduous journey westward.

The name “Independence Rock” originated from a group of fur trappers who camped and celebrated Independence Day near the rock on July 4, 1824. Thousands of emigrants subsequently camped at the foot of the rock, carving their names and messages into the granite, essentially turning Independence Rock into a giant message board for those traveling the Oregon Trail.

Today, Independence Rock is part of the Independence Rock State Historic Site, managed by the Wyoming Division of State Parks and Historic Sites. The site features a footpath that circles the base of the rock, interpretive exhibits detailing the history of the trails, visible wagon wheel ruts, and the numerous emigrant inscriptions etched into the rock. Visitors can hike on the rock, although touching or stepping on the inscriptions should be avoided as they are fragile. I featured a more detailed set of images from an earlier visit to the historic site here.

About the photo: I selected two pictures of parts of the outcropping from my Samsung S23U to create a panorama. I could have used the camera’s panoramic mode to generate an image wide enough to capture the entire rock while we were at the site. Still, I prefer to let Adobe Lightroom Classic stitch two separate photos together as I’ve found stitching provides a better chance of a distortion-free panorama.

I then sent the image to Luminar Neo for minor tweaks in the Develop module to reduce clipping of the highlights and blacks. I also tweaked the Enhanced AI tool to redistribute light between the foreground and sky. For a close-up pixel-peep in 2K HD on my Flickr site, click on the image.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

This week, it’s Tina’s turn to host the challenge, and she’s asked us to focus on habitats, human and animal. She writes, “We are the stewards of this beautiful planet, still learning how to protect and share its resources. We hope you’ll join us this week to explore the habitats of both human and/or animal ‘residents.'” You can read her entire challenge post here.

When I searched for wildlife photos to populate my response, I was surprised that I had many more images than I thought. Life in the desert is hard in Arizona and Utah’s vast Monument Valley area. There are several herds of wild mustangs there. As we hiked the desert trail around the Mittens rock formations, we saw a pair of horses who looked like they could use a good meal.

In the summer, mountain goats stay above the tree line, where they can find plenty of food. In the winter, they migrate to lower elevations, where they can find food and shelter from the harshest weather.

Pronghorn are found in open prairie and desert habitats across western North America. Though often called antelope, their closest living relatives are giraffes and okapis. Some of the highest pronghorn populations can be found in Wyoming’s Red Desert and Yellowstone ecosystems.

Crocodiles live in freshwater habitats worldwide, including lakes, rivers, swamps, and wetlands. Some species, such as the American crocodile, can tolerate brackish water, a mixture of salt and freshwater. A few species live in a saltwater environment. The Everglades are a mixture of fresh and brackish water with more freshwater in the inland regions.

California sea lions are found along the eastern North Pacific Ocean’s coast, from southeast Alaska to central Mexico. Their primary breeding range is off the coast of California and Mexico. This large male enjoyed the day at home on the rocks near La Jolla.

According to Google, anhingas are found in warm and temperate regions in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. They are great fishers and prefer shallow, slow-moving freshwater habitats with nearby trees or other perches for drying and sunning. This specimen was photographed in the Florida Everglades.

There are two varieties of shearwater birds in Hawaii. They nest at low-elevation sites on almost every island in the Hawaiian chain, including burrows under sand, soil, tree roots, or loose rocks. This chick awaited its mother’s return with food at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai.

Some geese families live near a pond in Moorhead, Minnesota. This family braves traffic on an Interstate frontage road as it transits between the pond and a large area with plenty of food.

This collection of residents was likely inhabited by the Sinagua people. They are believed to have been the primary builders and inhabitants of Montezuma Castle, living there from approximately 1100 to 1425 AD. The name Montezuma Castle is really a misnomer. Montezuma and his contemporaries never lived in southern Arizona.

The Sinagua at Montezuma’s Castle might be considered living in a “small town.” According to Google, the inhabitants of Mesa Verde in Colorado were the Ancestral Puebloans. Their large apartment-style dwellings at Mesa Verde are more like a big city. Mesa Verde is famous for its cliff dwellings and multi-story stone structures built into the sides of cliffs. However, the Ancestral Puebloans also lived in above-ground villages and pit houses. They likely chose the cliff dwellings for defense, access to sunlight, and cultural significance.

The world combines rural areas, small towns, and big cities. This long-term resident of the United States is familiar with these lifestyles only in this country. I have seen a few examples of European environments, but only as a tourist. I could have included many images of life in Fargo, but instead, I decided to feature an image from Hillsborough, North Carolina. Indeed, according to the 2020 Census, the small town’s population was less than 10,000 residents.

Millions of people prefer to live in large cities, one of the largest of which is New York City. Manhattan Island contains most of the Borough of Manhattan, with approximately 1.6 million residents as of the 2020 census. Comparing the areas of Manhattan Island, at 22.6 square miles (58.7 sq km), to Hillsborough, at 4.6 square miles (12 sq km), Manhattan Island is about five times larger in area but contains about 160 times the population.

Thanks to Tina for this week’s challenge. I discovered how many wildlife photos I have in my galleries. I can now consider myself a wildlife photographer… well, I like to think that, anyway.

Last week, Egidio brought us the Two Rectangles Challenge, a concept I discovered that I use even though I didn’t know it. One of the advantages of participating in these challenges is learning about photographic concepts that are new to us.

The Lens-Artists Team will be on a summer hiatus starting next week. There will be no challenge the first week of July. We welcome guest hosts for the remaining weeks in July. Here’s the schedule that Tina posted on her challenge this week.

July 13: Leanne of Leanne Cole explores TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

July 20: Elizabeth of Albatz Travel Adventures leads us with PAIRS

July 27: PR of Flights of the Soul presents BALCONIES

John Steiner

North Canton, Ohio.

As this post is published, it’s just two days from Independence Day in the United States. What is a better tribute to our country’s history than a trip to a military aviation museum? On our way through Ohio in September 2022, we visited the MAPS Air Museum (Military Aviation Preservation Society) in North Canton, Ohio, on the west side of the Akron-Canton Regional Airport. The museum is internationally known and dedicated to aviation history, featuring many aircraft types, from blimps to biplanes.

The museum is housed in a hangar formerly belonging to Chautauqua Airlines, but their collection is so extensive it has spilled out to the ramp near the hangar. The aircraft descriptions below were sourced from the comprehensive documentation located on the MAPS website here. One of the nicest exhibit aircraft we saw on the ramp is a delta-winged Skyhawk painted in Blue Angels livery. This unit was built as an A4D-1 Skyhawk before being redesignated an A-4A in 1962. Though the aircraft can carry the bomb load equivalent of a WWII-era B-17 Flying Fortress, it is still considered a “light” fighter.

The MAPS Air Museum’s C-47 is painted in the colors it would have worn during the D-Day invasion of Normandy in France on June 6, 1944. The aircraft is nicknamed “Ruptured Duck.” Our “Gooney Bird” was manufactured as a C-47B in July 1945 by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and delivered to the US Army Air Force on July 17, 1945. After its deployment for duties in the United States Air Force, it was dropped from the USAF inventory in October 1962, when it was picked up by the Moroccan Air Force. After service in Africa, it returned to the United States, went into private service, and retired to the MAPS Air Museum, where you can go inside the Skytrain to look around the cockpit and transport area.

This helicopter is a Bell AH-1 Cobra from the Vietnam War era. It is on loan from the U.S. Army and maintains the markings it wore during its service with the Ohio National Guard in North Canton, Ohio. It arrived at the museum in May 1994 for static display.

The A-26C “Invader” is the last propeller-driven, twin-engine bomber produced for the U.S. Air Force. It’s also unusual as a single-pilot bomber. This aircraft saw service in France at the tail end of World War II and was redeployed to Japan during the Korean War.

Our first views of the aircraft ramp included (from left to right) the AH-1S, a North American F-86A Sabre, a Grumman F-14B Tomcat, and just the tail of the number 6 Blue Angel A-4A.

The Martin B-26 Marauder series had a rocky start before becoming one of the war’s most numerous American medium bombers. The unit on display at the museum underwent over 14,000 hours of restoration. It had a short combat history; on January 16, 1942, on her way to its first assignment, she crashed en route to Alaska, near Smith River, British Columbia, Canada, with the crew being rescued on January 19.

The MAPS Air Museum’s Goodyear GA-22A “Drake” is a rarity, the sole example of its design. Built in 1953 by the Goodyear Aircraft Company in Akron, Ohio, the “Drake” was envisioned as a successor to the GA-2B “Duck.” Designed to carry passengers and potentially some light cargo, the aircraft never progressed beyond the testing and demonstration phase. Despite not reaching commercial production, the “Drake” serves as a reminder of the unique design efforts in aviation.

I’d never seen the inside of a blimp, so I was happy to see this display of the “City of Akron” gondola. Constructed in 1990, the blimp was a common sight around Ohio for a decade. In 1999, the aircraft suddenly entered an uncontrolled left turn and descended. The crew sustained minor injuries when the aircraft settled in a stand of trees.

The Loral GZ-22, also known as the Goodyear GZ-22, was built to impress the U.S. Navy. Designed initially by Goodyear, the project shifted hands when Goodyear exited the airship business. Loral then constructed this sole GZ-22, showcasing modern airship capabilities for potential military use.

I was most interested in the blimp’s cockpit and control structures. The airship features a steel-framed gondola with composite skin suspended beneath a massive helium-filled envelope constructed from two layers of neoprene-impregnated polyester. Christened the “Spirit of Akron,” the GZ-22 officially received its airworthiness certification on August 31, 1989.

Akron resident Bill Woodall spent 20 years meticulously building this Sopwith Triplane replica using original drawings. It’s one of around nine Triplanes, original or replica, making it extremely rare.

Nicknamed “Tripehound” or just “Tripe,” the Sopwith Triplane inspired awe (and perhaps a little fear) in its opponents. The legendary “Red Baron,” Manfred von Richthofen, was so impressed he demanded a German triplane of his own, leading to the creation of the Fokker Triplane.

The museum’s Aeronca PT-19A-AE “Cornell” has a unique history. Constructed in 1943 by Aeronca under contract for Fairchild, this aircraft served as a primary trainer for the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) starting in December of that year. Its first assignment was with the 51st Flying Training Detachment at Van de Graff Field in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A complete history of the aircraft is on the MAPS Museum’s website.

Nicknamed the “Vultee Vibrator” by its pilots for its rough ride, the museum’s BT-13A “Valiant” was a primary trainer for the U.S. Army Air Corps pilots before they graduated into more sophisticated aircraft. Built by Vultee (later Convair) in 1942, this particular aircraft began its service at the San Angelo Air Corps Basic Flying Training School in Texas.

We spent over two hours at the museum, accompanied by an informative and personable docent who volunteered to be as succinct or verbose as we wished. We did not visit the Gallery of Heroes, the Ohio Military Museum (2nd floor), or The Timken Library & Research Center, also housed at the museum. The museum is closed on Mondays and holidays (so don’t go there on July 4). At the time of this writing, admission is no more than $15, with discounts for seniors, groups, students, and others. More information about the museum is on the MAPS website here. I have posted this baker’s dozen photos in 2K HD from the MAPS Aviation Museum on my Flickr site here.

John Steiner

Niagara Falls, New York.

Regular readers may recognize this series of images as part of a photo challenge I hosted in April. I thought I would focus specifically on this journey and how the photos were altered. We knew we’d get good and wet when we visited Niagara Falls. From the American side, we took the Maid of the Mist boat. We then visited the Cave of the Winds attraction. To get the close-up views at Cave of the Winds, you descend on an elevator, walk through a tunnel, and venture outside. Wooden walkways, decks, and stairs built on several levels lead us closer, higher (and wetter), to the best viewpoints at Bridal Veil Falls.

Despite its name, the Cave of the Winds is not a cave anymore. It was initially a natural cave behind Bridal Veil Falls, discovered in 1834. Visitors were even able to walk behind the falls at one point! However, the cave collapsed in 1954 and was subsequently dynamited due to safety concerns.

Once down, we were outfitted in ponchos before embarking on the series of wooden walkways that led to the “Hurricane Deck.” The image above was captured from one level below the Hurricane Deck. I walked up to that deck, which is just 20 feet (6m) away from the cascading waters of the falls. It was so wet there that I wasn’t comfortable taking my phone out to capture an image at that vantage point.

About the photo: The opening is the final image that resulted in an experiment comparing Photoshop’s AI generator with the AI tool built into Luminar Neo. The original image is below:

The original image included the very left edge of the Hurricane Deck and the intrepid person willing to take the pounding. He was taking a photo, so his camera was hopefully better protected from water than my cell phone.

The final image came from Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool. After selecting the structure and person on the right and clicking on the Generative Fill tool, I was presented with three possible choices. The choice I picked generated a rock in the area where the staircase was removed.

I then loaded another copy of the original image into Luminar Neo. After selecting the decking, I clicked on the Gen-Erase button. Neo only creates one version at a time, so if I didn’t like the “first draft,” I could just select the same area again. There is no need to return to the original image, as the software will simply redo the highlighted area. Neo’s engine appears to be slower than Photoshop’s tool. Still, since both tools are server-based and the image must be uploaded to the cloud, modified, and downloaded to the workstation again, the difference may be simply in Internet traffic at the moment of processing. One thing I found interesting is that the Neo image is very similar to one of the other choices made by Adobe’s Generative Fill. I can only go from memory since I didn’t keep that choice.

Once the image was turned into an altered reality, the processing was precisely the same. I used Neo’s Enhanced AI to highlight the contrast while still hanging on to the mist in the air. Then, I used the Structure command to add sharp contrast to the bigger water droplets. If you’d like to pixel-peep at the original and two altered images, you can see them in 2K HD in my Flickr gallery here.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

This week, Egidio hosts the challenge. His theme is Two Rectangles in the context of a compositional tool. He writes, “By two rectangles, I mean you have two dominant rectangular areas in your image. For many people, this is one of those compositional tools we use without thinking about it. These rectangles give balance, harmony, and unity to a composition.” You can read his entire challenge post here.

My first photo was taken at Arlington National Cemetery. Ira Hayes was a World War II hero who helped plant the flag at Iwo Jima. Hayes’s story is complex. A Native American from Arizona, he struggled to cope with the war’s aftermath and the immense public attention he received. He was immortalized in “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” a song by Peter Lafarge and released as a record by Johnny Cash in 1962.

My photo of his headstone is a Photoshop manipulation I created a few years ago. At that time, I started seeing images created as a “pop-out” where the subject extends outside the photograph’s borders. The short version is that the image’s background is shrunk and rotated a bit, and then a white frame is created around the background, giving the appearance of a printed photo. The original of this image really wasn’t “two rectangles,” but by creating a second rectangle of the background, I think it qualifies for Egidio’s challenge.

Almost any image featuring the sky and the landscape below can be defined as two rectangles. I’ve always enjoyed photographing sunflowers, usually in closeups from the edge of a field. North Dakota is a significant supplier of oils and seeds from these beautiful plants. The lower rectangle features the vastness of a typical sunflower field as viewed from a drone at only a few feet above the field. The upper rectangle features fair weather clouds as the golden hour approaches.

Egidio had an example of a highway with the centerline as a leading line through the image center, dividing the image into two rectangles. I immediately thought of this image of the Gillespie Dam Bridge near Gila Bend, Arizona. The bridge structure at the top further defines the left and right rectangle symmetry.

At Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, a park dedicated to the Wright Brothers’ first flight features several sculptures. One lifesize sculpture recreates the flight with statues of both brothers and a full-size recreation of the aircraft. This photo was my own unwitting application of two rectangles. Rather than try to capture the entire scene, I focused on two subjects, the engine that generated power for this first flight achievement and one of the creators and pilot. It just so happened that the aircraft structure framed the two subjects.

As a volunteer for the Civil Air Patrol, I often flew missions in North Dakota for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services. In many of these sorties, I was the photographer. In searching for rectangles for this post, I found many examples similar to this one. We were tasked with flying over bridges, looking for signs of potential problems. In this case, the road bisects the image, and ice chunks flowing down the river were butting up against the bridge structure, impeding water flow. The damming effect creates higher water levels upstream. When the blockage is severe, highway department equipment is dispatched to lift the chunks of ice out of the water to break up the dam. (photo credit: I photographed this image, reproduced with permission from the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services.)

As a passenger on a two-person glider, I have an excellent viewpoint for aerial photography as the pilot sits behind the passenger. The two rectangles of land and sky are obviously present, but so are many other rectangles reflecting the agricultural nature of North Dakota. The long, thin airport rectangle is the Casselton, North Dakota airport. Casselton was a home base for glider operations for many years.

Last week, Ritva challenged us to consider the background in our images and how it impacts the story being told. Next week, Tina of Travels and Trifles will host the challenge at noon EST on Saturday. Be sure to follow her so you don’t miss the theme. If you’d like to join the challenge but aren’t sure how to get started, check here.

One final note: Team member Donna of Wind Kisses is taking a break from blogging. The Lens-Artists will miss her challenges but look forward to a time when she might rejoin the team. My wife, Lynn, and I wish Donna and her family the best, and we share our thoughts with them.

John Steiner

Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

As this is being written in mid-June, we just returned from an afternoon in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, about an hour’s drive from our home in Fargo. I’d learned that on June 10, a permanent exhibition of Thomas Dambo’s trolls opened. I’ve been experimenting and learning how to operate a new camera. Knowing that Nikon would soon be releasing upgraded versions of the Z6 II and Z7 II, I opted to buy a Z7 II and a Nikkor 24-120 mm S lens. Why didn’t I wait for the Z7 III? A major reduction in price on the Z7 II provided the incentive for me to go mirrorless, even if it isn’t the “latest and greatest.” But I digress from this story about Dambo’s Trolls.

I learned about Thomas Dambo and his recycled art on the Internet. Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist with a unique twist on trolls. He creates giant, whimsical sculptures of trolls out of recycled materials. These aren’t your typical scary trolls under the bridge! Dambo’s trolls are playful and meant to inspire people to think about sustainability by giving new life to “trash.”

Dambo’s sculptures are found worldwide, and now Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, is home to the most extensive collection of troll sculptures Thomas Dambo has ever created in the United States. This whimsical art collection features six troll sculptures and three “portals” to help visitors find the troll’s treasure.

The trolls are made of recycled materials, staying true to Dambo’s signature style and message of sustainability. There’s even a treasure hunt element to the trolls. Each troll has a clue, and by following them all, you can find the hidden golden rabbit.

The puzzle begins at Detroit Lakes Washington Park, near the beaches of Big Detroit Lake. A book carved of recycled wood tells the story of Alexa, her portals, and clues to finding the golden rabbit. The six sculptures and three portals are not all in Detroit Lakes, so you can expect to visit communities as far away as Fargo, North Dakota, to view the portals and sculptures.

At Detroit Lakes City Park, Alexa is whipping up a potion with her spoon and a large pot nearby as she reaches into her portal for ingredients. Dambo’s troll creations, from Denmark and Europe to Asia, Australia, and the United States, can be found worldwide. He’s even had a project featuring six giant trolls placed around the Pacific Northwest called “Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King.”

If you plan to hunt for trolls, you should not expect to find them as easily and quickly as Alexa. The Project 412 website here tells us that Barefoot Frida is near the city’s east edge. You can learn more about the project and see photos of some other trolls on the website. We discovered it’s about a 1/3 mile (550 m) hike from the parking area on Randolph Road to see Frida. This was an excellent opportunity to capture some landscape photos with the Z7 II.

I prefer to bracket exposures and often use Lightroom Classic to create HDR images from the bracketed shots. That’s what I did with most of the photos in this post. I use aperture priority to keep my desired f/stop consistent, and I let the camera determine ISO and shutter speed.

After converting the 3-image brackets to HDR, I realized that the images from the Nikkor lens have the widest dynamic range of any camera I’ve ever used. In fact, some of the photos in this set were not converted from a bracket. I just chose the best image from the set and processed it. That, no doubt, is a result of the Z7 II’s 45-megapixel full-frame sensor.

The trailhead to Barefoot Frida is at the junction of Randolph Road and Highway 54. Until the parking area is built later in 2024, limited parking is allowed on the east side of Randolph Road. As I commented earlier, the hike is short but has several small climbs and descents. The trail first parallels a farmstead and meanders into the forest behind the farm. As we left a clearing, we followed the trail into a thicker section of forest. From here, we kept a sharp eye out for Frida.

We planned to have dinner in Detroit Lakes, and we had to take that short hike back to our car. The 93 bracketed images gave me 31 images for this post. From the processing I completed, I realized that with the sensor’s wide dynamic range, I won’t need to blend the exposures into HDR in the future. I picked the best eleven images to share and also posted them to my Flickr site here for you to pixel-peep.

As we returned to our car, I snapped another image of Frida and one of the many volunteer workers who helped Thomas Dambo create this attraction. He was just finishing a handrail to make it easier for us oldsters to make it down the steep incline to the troll’s base.

From this outing, I realized I still have much to learn about the Nikon Z7 II, but I already love the quality of the images it produces. I considered changing brands, as the Z7 series doesn’t have an autofocus system as robust as Canon or Sony. However, I have some dollars invested in Nikon glass, and coupled with the fact that the autofocus shortcomings are primarily for sports and wildlife, I won’t miss the advanced features of the other brands. It looks like my D500 will become my backup camera.

John Steiner

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

I can’t say much about this giant gorilla, as Internet searches came up either empty or with references to other gorilla sculptures. An attraction at the Taino Bay port area, the gorilla appears to be a bandstand or platform for performances of some kind. As you can see from the photo, the structure is quite close to the cruise ship dock that was enlarged from the cargo ship pier in 2021 to add additional cruise ship moorings to the city.

Nearby, about a 15-minute drive from Taino Bay, the Amber Cove Cruise Port began welcoming cruisers in 2015. Amber Cove is a Carnival property and we were scheduled to visit there via the Carnival Magic in 2018, but bad weather in the area caused Carnival to drop the port stop that week. We would not stop in Puerto Plata until January 2023 via the Norwegian Escape.

About the photo: I captured it on my Samsung S20U. The gorilla sculpture and the Norwegian Escape made a nice composition featuring a popular photo stop at Taino Bay. I had to wait a bit while other cruisers took selfies while standing next to the gorilla.

I cataloged the image in Adobe Lightroom Classic and used the program’s cropping and alignment tools to level the horizon and remove extraneous stuff at the image’s edges. I exported the file to Luminar Neo for development tweaks, mainly the Smart Contrast tool and Enhance AI to adjust the exposure. The jpeg file didn’t need any more than that, so I uploaded it to my Flickr site in 2K HD and posted it here as a 1K image. Click on the photo above to view the high-resolution version or check out its metadata.

Lynn and I are traveling this week for a family reunion. I may be a bit scarce in responding to your comments immediately and in checking out your Cellpic Sunday responses.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

This week, Ritva shares her expertise with a discussion on backgrounds and challenges us to share our own images with an eye toward what is behind the subject. She writes, “This week is a lesson in paying attention to the background BEHIND your subject, does this not sound like a challenge, but it is, if you really start to focus on it. So, think about different techniques you use to elevate your photos and share them with us.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

As Ritva noted in her post, “Utilize depth of field to blur your background, keeping focus on your subject.” That background blur and the rule of thirds helped me create a title slide for a PowerPoint slideshow on desert plants. By shooting close to the main subject, the background flowers blurred, and by allowing the broad background, I had plenty of room to place text to create a title slide. Here’s the image just before adding the title information.

Sometimes, the background can be the subject. At the Oklahoma City Memorial, two gates at either end of a reflecting pond mark the entrance to the memorial. One gate is labeled 9:01, the other 9:03. The reflecting pond marks the single minute between life before and after the 9:02 AM detonation of the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah building on April 19, 1995.

On a cruise excursion in 2013, I captured the image of a clown during a fleeting moment when he jumped on the horse-drawn carriage we were riding in. I had no time to even consider the background for the shot, and as it turned out, the background worked out OK. There were some trees, and the bokeh blurred them nicely, but there were also lots of power lines. With improved AI software, programs like Luminar Neo can remove power lines or an image’s background. As an experiment, I removed the background and replaced it with a pattern of lights.

Telephoto lenses help bring the action closer. This shot was captured from my seat in the stands behind first base with a 200 mm f/5.6 setting on the zoom lens. One of the advantages of those expensive f/1.8 lenses is their ability to have a very shallow depth of field. Those lenses are out of my budget. The lens I owned at the time put the crowd in the plane of focus, causing the subjects to blend into the background and make the photo seem cluttered.

Post-processing tools rescued this photo with the application of a blur tool. By judicious application of a Gaussian blur to the background, I could simulate the effect of a much more expensive lens. Compare the two images, and it’s easy to see how that blur makes the subject stand out.

Sometimes, the background can help tell the story in the image. Near Arlington, South Dakota, at the end of a highway, the road turns to gravel as it enters a cemetery. The entrance to the cemetery is beyond the sign, which takes an ironic turn.

Another example of the background helping define the story features this shot of two people concentrating on a clipboard in front of a laundry basket. That alone is enough to imply they are part of the housekeeping staff. The worker in the background and the presses define the area clearly as the laundry.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to purchase a used Nikon 200-500 mm zoom lens. I took my D500 camera and lens to the zoo to test how well they worked together. The lens works nicely, but my limited choice of background for the shot above tells the viewer I went to the zoo. The chain link fence surrounding the lion’s compound presented no problem for the lens in front of the lion. Focusing on the lion while being so close to the safety fence made the chain link pattern in front of her disappear. However, the links in the background are plainly visible against the out-of-focus sky and trees. This portrait could look more natural with an appropriate post-processing background change.

Another compound in the big cat area provided me a more natural background for this animal portrait. Again, shooting through the chain links directly in front of the lens left no telltale signs of its presence, and the rocks in the background blocked the view of the fence at the back of the compound.

I enjoyed Ritva’s review of the potential of backgrounds to improve an image or enhance the story for this week’s challenge. Her post reminded me of some techniques I could use but have not considered.

Last week, Donna’s challenge reminded us of the value of our connections, both personal and universal. Look for next week’s challenge at noon Saturday EST, hosted by Egidio at Through Brazilian Eyes here. We welcome you to join us with your interpretations. Check here to get started.

John Steiner