Scenes from the Fulton County Fair, McConnellsburg Pa.

 

 

 

Fireworks!

While my photography centers around wildlife occasionally I will give others subjects some attention.  With fireworks slated for 9:30 Friday evening at the Fulton County Fair I decided to give fireworks shooting another whirl. 

These shots were all captured with the Canon 60D and the 24-105mm lens.

Fireworks is on place where I find it necessary to shoot the camera in manual exposure mode.  The trick here is to have a slow shutter speed to record the path of the flying sparks while still retaining the color in the fire. 

The first three images were shot at ISO 100, f7.1, 1/4sec

I cannot explain what happened with this image captured at ISO100, f8, .3sec but I do like the results.

Trying to capture more than just the exploding fireworks (something Tom Dorsey over at Pa Wingers did earlier this year) I shot this image at ISO 125, f4, 2sec.  In the raw image the fireworks were over greatly overexposed with the foreground remaining dark.  Using Photoshop camera raw local adjustments I dropped the exposure 1.5 stops on the fireworks and increased the exposure by 2 stop on the cars and building in the foreground. 

Time out for the Fulton County Fair

24mm, 1.3 sec. exposure, hand-held rested on car roof 

August is Fair time so as our tradition my wife and I set aside an evening to visit the Fulton County Fair in McConnellsburg Pa.

The feature event was an appliance race.  In case you are not familiar with an appliance race it is part race and part demo derby.  Each car's pit crew loads appliances, one at a time with the car having to complete three laps around the track before loading another.  The pit crew is provided with five appliances and 100ft of rope.

The idea is to attach the appliance securely to the car; sometimes its not as secure as it should be.

Appliances dropped on the track can give a driver a nasty jolt.

And a well placed hit from an opponent can put a contestent out of the game.

Deciding to travel light I carried only the Canon 60D with the 24-105mm, f4 IS L lens attached using various ISO's up to 12,800 shooting all photos hand-held.

Shooting at 12800

Always looking for another image I took the Canon 60D along to the Fulton County Fair.  A demolition derby was the main attraction.  The track lights were more than sufficient for viewing but it left much to be desired in the photography department.  Trying to milk the most our of my gear I pulled up the custom function menu and activated the ISO expansion allowing shooting at 12,800 ISO.  Having never used this high of a setting I really didn't know what to expect.  The first image was shot with the the 100-400 lens hand held, F5.6 1/20th second. 

The digital noise was very evident in the images but the noise tools in PS5 camera raw was able to calm the worst of it making these usable images.  I found that a luminance setting of 70 provided the best balance between visible noise and sharpness. 

The half-time show was a fun contest between three teams competing in an appliance race.  The goal was to load five appliances with only 100ft of rope to secure the load and to complete a number of laps around the track.  Bumping, ramming etc were perfectly acceptable tactics to defeat an opponent.  I produced this image for the winning team.  While lacking fine detail in my opinion ISO 12,800 created acceptable images for this type of event but probably will not prove useful in my wildlife photography.

Friday Night at the Fair

Friday night fairgoers were treated to a nice fireworks display by Phantom Fireworks

An attraction that certainly caught my eye was the display of the new military vehicle, the M-ATV.

The M-ATV combines the protection levels of the MRAP in a lighter all terrain vehicle designed to carry our troops safely into the rugged areas where our troops are being deployed..

Oshkosh Corp., a Wisconsin based company is building these vehicles with a very tight production schedule for rapid deployment to our current war-zones. This contract has resulted in about 600 workers being recalled at the local JLG plant, an Oshkosh subsidiary.

For kids the Fair means Rides and this shot captured my cousin's daughters enjoying their big night out.

Feeling a little lazy, I decided to leave the Canon 30D behind on this particular outing and carried instead my wife’s little Panasonic Lumix. The images speak for themselves. Although the camera certainly is not in the DSLR’s league it did a credible job handling the various situations with far less bulk and weight.

Fulton County Fair Photo Exhibits

Last week our little rural county celebrated with its 89th annual Fulton County Fair.

Not a big fair by anyone’s standard it still has plenty to see from new to antique farm machinery, livestock, produce, crafts etc. Once again I entered a few of my favorite photographs taken since last years fair. The following is a run down of the shots that placed.

2nd Place Color Animal

2nd Place Color Flower

2nd Place Modified B&W

1st Place Night

With Pennsylvania’s politicians unable to agree upon a budget the fair did not receive the expected state funding and was unable to pay premiums. Personally I didn’t mind the lack of premiums. My biggest disappointment was that the ID tags attached remained folded after the judging; keeping the names of the entrants concealed during the entire fair.

Fulton County is a small county with a small population and it is always fun to see who captured/created the various entries as more often than not one either knows or knows of the individual proud enough of their work to support the fair by exhibiting it for all to see.

Fireworks, a Fair and a Contest

The 88th Annual Fulton County Fair was held August 10th-16th. The roar of racing lawnmowers was heard all over the fair grounds on Friday night. At 9:30 the racers were paused to allow all to view the fireworks display.

This year, for the first, I competed in the photographic contest. Each contestant was allowed to enter one photograph in each category. I chose five images to enter. Each was printed 8” x 10”, matted with a complimentary color and framed in an inexpensive Wal-Mart 11” x 14” frame.

I entered the following images; listed with each is the category and standing.

Flower 1st place

Nighttime 1st place

Landscape 1st place

Modified B&W 1st place

Animal 3rd place

I wish I could show you the image that beat out my Nuthatch; it was an absolutely awesome Great Egret!

B&W or Color

While I was photographing the Lawnmower Races my wife noticed this scene and drew my attention to it. I was too engrossed with the little tractors to notice a “Country Capture” begging to be photographed.

I cannot decide between the color or the B&W version. Please comment with your choice.

Let the Best Photo Win!

My First Fireworks

Friday night at the County Fair was my first ever attempt to photograph fireworks.

I captured this image handheld with a .8 second shutter speed. I’m sure image stabilization helped me considerably. The next time I'll be sure to have a tripod and use a longer exposure.

Oops………

The tractors in this race are not your “Backyard” variety lawn mower as evidenced by this shot. This driver did successfully navigate the turn although one of his fellow racers did a flip here but only after the light levels had dropped to low for photography.

Although nothing in this photograph is sharp, it works for me

What do you think?

Lawn Mower Racing

The Fulton County Fair again featured Lawn Mower Racing as the Friday night headline attraction.

Some of these little tractors really fly. I have heard that some are capable of 70-80 mph although on this short track I don’t believe any approached these speeds.

I captured this shot set on a 1/50th shutter speed along with having the autofocus set on servo to give the background a pleasing amount of motion blur while maintaining subject sharpness.

Click the label: Racing, to view this same event shot last year

RedNeck Racin'

Move over Nascar, close you doors Daytona, we have a new sport in town!

Lawn mower racing!

This new sport is more exciting than a gator toss!

Mrs. Dawg and I attended our very first mower race last evening.

What an excitement filled night.

Since I am not a race fan I didn’t understand everything with the flags,

but neither did the announcer!

The drivers had it together and man could they drive!

This is Rednecking at its finest!!! You just gotta see them little suckers mow!

A special feature to our local race was the local Pastors Challenge.

This race featured five of our local Pastors and one Pastor’s wife!

It began with a meeting of the competing denominations.

Now folks this race was a test of faith.

We frequently wonder just who is the ultimate POWER in our local church,

our pastor or our PW.

Now this was the ultimate challenge!

The race began, Pastors were jockeying for position, engines were roaring!

There was our PW moving up, cutting the turns close on all four wheels! Roaring down the straight-aways, mowing past the pastors! Her faith never faltered, her faith never failed, it couldn’t! She has eternal security! She is our Baptist PW!! Move over Lutherans! Move over Methodist! Move over Baptist pastor! Husband!

Move over or be MOWED OVER!

This PW mowed a swath straight to the finish line!

Amey Covert, Winner of the Pastors Challenge!!

If you want a fun evening, if ya just wanna be a REDNECK for a little while, find a Sta-Bill National Lawnmower race near you and have a great time!