It Was Warm

“There is no instinct like that of the heart.” – Lord Byron

It’s not often you have a warm day in February, but when you do you take advantage of it. The other day it was 70 degrees outside. I loaded up my camera bag and bicycle, and took a 12-mile bike ride. I headed down the Charlotte Light Rail Trail for a little bit, and then I headed over to Freedom Park. To get to the park on a bicycle is pretty easy, it is all downhill. The way back, about did me in. Since the weather was so great, I decided to try out my new Neutral Density Filter for my 18-55mm lens. Typically, when you do slow shutter speed photography you have to either be in almost total darkness, or it has to be completely cloudy outside. With this filter by K&F Concept, it can be completely bright outside, and you can still get that smooth waterfall effect every time. It also doesn’t do the x-pattern like so many filters do. I had a lot of fun with it yesterday. I took a few photos of the stream and the lake by the park. I have several other spots in town I want to try in the near future. My goal is to practice here in Charlotte, and get good at here, so when we go out of town this spring break, I will be able to take some amazing photos.

I only have a few photos to post from this day so far. These shots I took were at a fountain right on the Little Sugar Creek Greenway at the Metropolitain, a shopping center near Uptown Charlotte. As you can tell it was super bright outside that day, but the filter I used did the job. It’s a very inexpensive purchase, but totally worth it if you want to do some slow shutter speed photography. Another thing that helped me yesterday was using my phone as a remote to take photos. The less I could touch the camera while taking the picture, the better. I did invest in an actual camera remote because it takes too long for my phone to sync up with the camera. The Amazon brand one looks like it will work pretty well. It’s inexpensive, so I thought I would give it a try. The great weather was awesome while it lasted. I will take advantage of it when it warms up for spring soon.