Wackos in Wisconsin

For those of you who didn't go to Rosemont, neither did I, although I was a part of the traveling circus that terrorized Door County, Wisconsin earlier this week. Suffice it to say that it seems that a great time was had by all and there was talk of a reprise next year before people had even finished with this road trip.

Those who went got a screensaver handout on CD from me... "Postcards from Lake Michigan," which is a collection of some of my favorite lighthouse slides of my own from around the lake. For those of you who couldn't go, not to despair. John our fearless webmaster has a downloadable form of the thing that should be posted on here for anyone wanting a copy to download. It's a little over 4 Mbyte downloadable .exe file (yes I virus scanned it before I burned CD's) that will put an icon on your desktop when it's installed. Watch for details probably after John returns from Rosemont and family vacation.

Oh... did I call John fearless??? Rumor has it that he's afraid of seeing the sun rise, at least based on his "participation" in two sunrise photo shoots that I led to the Sturgeon Bay North Pierhead lighthouse before dawn this past Thursday and Friday morning. Thursday morning was a total bust (oh well, you pay your money, get up out of nice comfortable bed, and take your chances) and on Friday morning we had pretty good light and color. I burned up a couple of rolls of film (posts coming Monday, I think) as did Jakers and Chesapeake Bryan.

While I don't normally shoot anything with a digital, I did take one along and shot a number of gathering photos as well as a few "record" snaps for my own purposes and to speed posting here without having to wait until my slides are back on Monday at lunchtime. There will be so me threads following here in a short time if anyone is tuned in this evening.

Gary

[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 06-29-2002).]

Gary,
Thanks for the screensaver CD.

For those WACKOS that didn't go around terrorizing Door County, you should have seen Gary photoing the old Bailey's Harbor light. Water prevented us from getting close, BUT that did not stop Gary! He got out the "big lens" (looked like a tomahawk missle launch tube .... maybe a slight exageration). I think he was able to count the ants on the tower besides getting a close up photo. I'm impressed anyway!

Interesting description of my 500 mm Nikkor lens + the Nikon TC-20E-II 2X teleconverter, Dan. Got a chuckle out of me anyway! Seems like everyone who had a Nikon camera body that they could mate to my lens took advantage of the opportunity to shoot the Old Bailey's Harbour light up close and personal! For those of you who didn't take a look through one of the cameras that were mated to the lens, here's about what you would have seen.



The photo above was actually shot last summer in the early morning when the light was better and showed off the vertigre on the copper roof of the old birdcage lantern room of the Old Bailey's Harbor light.

Here's what the 500 mm lens/Nikon F5 combination looks like in my office and out at a local bird sanctuary where I was about to photograph the resident mute and trumpeter swans, and Canadian geese



I actually don't have a normal focal length photo of Old Bailey's Harbor that people could compare with the shot above. OK, so I'm a camera junkie who's far beyond obsessed with photography. But, if I haul that 17 pound, 500 mm lens out to Door County, do you think I'm not going to use it?
Anyway, if someone has a normal focal length shot of Old Bailey's Harbor, it would be fun to see it posted on this thread for comparison.

I certainly had a great time wiht all of the wackos and made many new friends and am most definitely looking forward to next year's Door County Wacko Road Trip!

Gary

[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 07-01-2002).]

Here is a pic of Gary preparing the missile launch tube..


As for a more "normal" view - my digital says I was at 377mm for these pics:




We had lots of fun on the Wisconsin road trip. FWIW, I ripped off about 500 digital pics for the trip and Rosemont. I took in 12 rolls of print film today.

Dave