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Greetings,
Sorry about skipping last month's newsletter. What? You didn't even notice? I'm hurt.
Well, I forgive you.
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Auroras of Yellowknife tour report
 Wow! Another amazing trip to see the auroras. This year I co-led the trip with my friend Victoria Dye. And if you know Victoria, you know that we ate really well. Not only does she have a knack for finding great places to eat, she's also just happens to be a great field instructor as well as a Lightroom expert.
This year was a little different from last year's trip. Last year we got clouded out a couple of nights. This year we went out every night except the very first and every night we went out we saw auroras.
But I think we saved the best for last.
On our last night we had to wait a bit for things to get going but when they did: OH MY!
Read the rest and see more images on my blog
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Super Moon
 Here on the west coast, it looked like the eclipse might have hit totality just after sunset, while the sky was too bright to really see much.
At any rate, I went out about 7:30 while the sky was still relatively bright. I could see the moon, just barely, as a red smudge above the eastern horizon. As the evening moved on the moon became clearer and redder. Very cool. I used my Nikon D810 and my 80-200 f/2.8 to photograph it. The accompanying picture, taken at 8:22 p.m., is a crop from a 200mm shot. Thanks to all those megapixels of the D810 it looks pretty decent.
Focusing was achieved using Live View, which worked very well for this.
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Camera weirdness
During my recent aurora tour, my D810 all of a sudden just stopped working, giving me an ERR code on the LCD. I tried everything I knew to try to revive it: change batteries, change cards, change lenses, change various modes, reset the camera, talk nice to it, swear at it. Nothing seemed to work. The shutter would fire, accompanied by an unfamiliar noise, but not at the shutter speed I had set. And then the camera would do nothing. Other things weren't working. I turned the power off then on and the same thing would happen.
After a few minutes of pushing various buttons and turning various dials, and swearing various swears, it started working again. Yay!
I took two shots and then went to set up my tent to use as a prop for aurora shots. When I once again tried using my camera, it once again gave me the finger, uh, the ERR code. And that was it for the rest of the trip.
And wouldn't you know it; this is the one trip where I didn't bring a backup. But as luck would have it, one of the tour participants, Brent Wright (all around good guy and very enthusiastic soundtrack to an aurora storm) let me borrow his Nikon D700 full-frame. So I was saved.
A few days after I got home I started prepping the camera to send in to Nikon for repair. The only problem: the camera was working again. Being a former electronic technician, I know that this makes it rather hard to troubleshoot. After all, if it's not broken, what is there to fix??
This is probably the most frustrating thing of all. I almost wish the camera hadn't started working so I could get it "fixed".
So if any of you have had a similar problem, drop me a line and let me know how it was resolved.
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2016 trips
My 2016 schedule is still in the planning stage but I've got several tentative dates and at least one firm date. I've get to post an official schedule with individual web pages and prices and a way to sign up, but if you see anything interesting, let me know and I'll put you on the list so you'll be sure to have a space.
Here's what's planned at the moment, all dates tentative except Palouse. That's a firm date. Arches and Columbia Gorge are "mostly" firm. Mostly:
- April 13-17 Arches/Canyonlands National Parks workshop
- May 4-10 Columbia River Gorge workshop
- June 22-26 Washington's Palouse Region workshop
- July 12-17 Olympic National Park workshop (may shift to earlier in July)
- July 19-23 Oregon Coast - Newport workshop
- Sept. Auroras, Yellowknife, Canada tour
- Late Oct/early Nov. Zion National Park tour
I'm also hoping to add a Crossroads Photo Workshops trip to the schedule as well.
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Winter is Coming
Well, now that the workshop/tour season is over for me, it's time to get to my annual/perpetual/eternal winter to-do list. This list includes tossing old slides, doing more writing, reinstalling the operating system on my computer, and re-watching Battlestar Galactica (the Ron Moore Sci-Fi channel version).
But first, a yard project. (Who of my long-time subscribers didn't see that one coming?)
Yes, a yard project. Fortunately, this one doesn't involve a lot of thought on my part, just removing moss and moving dirt. And lots of it. We're trying to fix our lawn and improve some garden areas.
Why just yesterday I managed nearly 20,000 steps on my Fitbit just prepping the backyard for new grass seed. Bailey helped by laying down in the fresh dirt.
Until next time, I hope you all find some great fall color to enjoy and photograph!
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