Tag Archives: Chicago

Bears Training Camp

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It is that time of year when large men start practicing to inflict pain on each other – and if you are a Bears fan – on us too!  With the negotiations over, it is time for training camp.  The Chicago Bears hold their camp at a university down in Bourbonnais Illinois.  With some spare time now on my hands, I decided to make a trek down for one of the public sessions.

With the temperature in the 90s, this might not have seemed like the best idea but it was windy and that really made things feel a lot better – although I think some of the receivers might have been using it as an excuse!  I went to the camp for the first time last year.  I had checked on what camera gear they allowed and the person I had spoken too said nothing too big.  That time I took a 70-200 as my biggest lens and got there to see a fair few honking pieces of glass.

This time I took what I wanted and I’m glad I did.  Not only does it make shooting easier but people are amazingly accommodating when they see big lenses.  While they were all fighting each other for a spot when they were shooting with their phones, as soon as I wandered up, people would drag their relatives out of my way without me ever having to say a thing.  Great stuff.  Don’t see that at an air show very often!

I didn’t stay for the whole session.  it was a bit toasty and lugging the gear around to different spots to try different things doesn’t help to keep you cool.  However, I was happy with what I saw and slightly happier in the car with the aircon cranked up!  It is a great thing if you like football.  The price of a ticket for Soldier Field is astronomical but this is free and you get to see a bunch of stuff.  The staff were all universally welcoming and you felt good about being there.  Plus, some of the shots came out quite well!

More Time Lapse Fun

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I have been messing around with time lapses for a while as regular readers will know.  One of the things that I had been thinking about was getting a panning effect in a time lapse.  I was chatting with Ken Sklute at ISAP and he told me that, rather than bothering with expensive motorized panning heads, it was simpler to use the full image size that a DSLR offers and let the video software undertake the panning for you by cropping in on the shots.

I am not a big video guy and have Pinnacle Studio as my package.  It is fine for the basic stuff but doesn’t have the most impressive features.  When I goggled this topic, I came up with After Effects techniques for doing what I wanted.  I tried the free trial but struggle to come to terms with what was required, despite the detailed tutorial.  Guess that says something about me as a self teaching student.

Then I got lucky,  My friend Jo Hunter over at futurshox posted some video from Oshkosh of time lapses doing exactly what I wanted.  I dropped her a message and she came straight back with the solution.  The program is called LRTimelapse and it is a standalone program that makes Lightroom develop settings that you can then combine with a video output setting to make the final product.  It is developed by a guy called Gunther Wegner and you can find the whole thing at his website.  It is donationware and I have made one because it works and has solved a problem that had been troubling me for a while.

I need to get better at the effect but for the time being, here is a sample of the effect.  For comparison, first I have the original time lapse and second I have the panning version.  No change in the content but certainly a more interesting thing to watch I think.

What’s the best camera?

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I suspect you have heard the phrase, the best camera is the one you have with you.  Well, I am a bit of an idiot as I went out to a location the other evening for another reason but didn’t stick a camera in the car.  We headed to Moreton Arboretum out in Lisle.  We are members and go there pretty regularly to wander around.

This time they were running a cheese and wine type of event.  Tables were set up outside, there was a bar and a tapas menu.  A very pleasant way to spend an even out in the warm as the sun gradually headed down.  The photographers amongst you are thinking golden hour.  Why didn’t I think of that.

There is a lake near the visitors center which I will have shot a number of times from different directions, usually in the harshest light of the day.  This time I was there when the light was great and as soon as we took a stroll around the lake, I was kicking myself for not having brought my camera with me.

Plan B was my phone.  The camera is okay but not special.  However, it was the best camera I had with me so it would have to do.  It doesn’t handle too much contrast well so a little angling to try and get what I wanted was in order.  Not stunning results but it’s what I got so here you go.

This last shot was something we saw when wandering around.  I might explain more another time…

Lego Masterpieces

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An event was held recently that I had never thought of visiting before.  It was a Lego convention of some sort held up in Wheeling.  I had no idea what to expect at this – was it going to be a lot of vendors selling stuff or exhibitors of their creations.  It is safe to say, it was a lot more fo the latter.  I don’t know whether I was being unimaginative, but the quality of the work was astounding.

There was a lot of variety.  Quite a few Lego fans obviously like fantasy themes and so there was plenty of work like this.  I wasn’t as interested in that as I was in the creations of normal things that people had put together.  They obviously have a lot of imagination – and a lot of Lego.  One guy (who admittedly worked for Lego) had come from Australia.  I had seen a previous creation of his online.  It was a Qantas A-380 and was stunning.  This time, he had recreated the Love Boat and the captain from the series had coincidentally been in the day before and autographed it!

There was far too much stuff to fairly represent here but below are just a few shots of things that I was really impressed by.  (By the way, I know I said the fantasy stuff isn’t my thing but the Lord of the Rings display is included since it was quite incredible!)

Firework City – or not!

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Chicago has traditionally held a pretty impressive fireworks display to celebrate the 4th of July.  Since I have lived here, the fireworks have been let off a day early on the 3rd.  While I have never bothered to find out why, I have always assumed it was because they wanted a ton of people to come and see them and this they could do and still see their own local town displays on the 4th.  I guess it worked because up to 2 million people would show up to watch.

Last year, with the city feeling a bit hard up for cash, they did away with the big display and had three smaller displays spread out along the lakefront.  This year, no display at all.  I guess it isn’t the cost of the display that is the issue.  The cost of dealing with 2 million people is a little bit more of an issue!

All is not lost, though.  Navy Pier holds firework displays every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the summer so one more is not a big deal for them.  Consequently, we took a stroll out to the lake to watch the display.  It was a nice show.  Not a stunning display like some I have seen but I’m not complaining.  It still had a lot of people showing up to watch but nothing like the normal event.  It was on the 4th as well.

I like taking pictures of fireworks but I have found I like the shots a lot more if there is some context to them.  I am not a big fan of shots that just have the explosion filling the frame.  With a display out over the lake, my options were relatively limited.  The big Chicago displays are over the harbor and, if you watch from the planetarium, you have the skyline as part of the shot.  That certainly is worthwhile.

I don’t put a lot of effort in to the shots.  I set up the camera as I want the frame to be making some guesses about how big the larger blooms will be.  Then I hold the cable release and have fun watching the display.  I can trigger the shots (bulb mode) as I think looks good without distracting myself from having fun enjoying the show.  Sometimes they are better than others but anything is just a nice side benefit from a good display.

As an aside, if you notice something in the skies, an airship was up watching the display too.  That is what you may see blurred out in some of the shots.

Agility for Dogs

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If herding the sheep weren’t enough, there were other dogs being put through their paces.  An agility course had been laid out and a bunch of owners were running their dogs through the course.  From what I could see, there wasn’t a particular route that was supposed to be followed.  Instead, they seemed to go wherever they felt like it.

Of course, when I say where they felt like it, I don’t always mean the owners.  One dog in particular was very excited but not at all interested in the course.  it ran in circles and barked at its owner until she finally gave up.  They had another go a little later but that ended the same way.

Some of the dogs, though, were very skillful and could zip across the jumps and through the poles without pausing.  A fun thing to watch for a while, particularly when it was too hot to move for a bit!

Perfect Weather for Rugby

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Nothing like playing a winter sport like rugby on an 85 degree day.  Why not make it sevens just in case you weren’t warm enough.  I strolled across to see some of the rugby later in the afternoon.  Having been a rugby fan for many years, I thought I would see how the play was going.

Sevens is a trickier version of the game since it is a lot faster and it requires handling to be very slick.  I don’t know the pedigree of the players I was watching but I wouldn’t be surprised if the heat was affecting their game.

A Scottish winter and an Illinois summer are very different climates in which to be playing.  The ground was certainly wet underfoot after the recent rain but the temperature was high and the humidity higher so I think something as energetic as sevens was a stretch.  However, they still played hard and followed the rugby tradition of trying to harm your opponent at every opportunity.

Pipes and Drums – Not Enough to Scare this Englishman

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As you might expect from a Scottish festival, there were pipes and drums aplenty!  I am sure they are designed to intimidate the enemy and, as I’m sure you know, the enemy of every Scotsman is an Englishman.  Therefore, I was walking into the lion’s den on this day even if some of the claims of Scottishness were a little tenuous!

The various bands that were competing were all taking the thing very seriously.  They were well practiced in their routines and the musical ability was high – no strangled cats on this occasion.  Moreover, they really showed their commitment to the cause by dressing up in the full outfits, despite the fact that they are designed for a Scottish climate, not a hot, humid, summer day in the Chicago suburbs!

There were bands all over the place warming up, tuning the pipes, getting some last minute practice in before their time slot came due.  There were a series of judges around the arena scoring them on different aspects of their performance.  As their time was up they streamed out of the arena and another band was already waiting to come in.  No pauses for the spectators here!

Highland Games

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The suburbs of Chicago had an interesting offering recently.  A festival was held to celebrate Scottish culture (no Rob, don’t go there) and to hold Highland Games.  I haven’t been to this event before and this year it had been moved to a new location which was supposed to be able to handle the amount on show better so we headed along.

It was hot and humid (not very Scottish) so not a day to hurry yourself.  However, to add some authenticity, the recent heavy rains had left the field very boggy in parts.  The vent was huge and I shall tell more about it in the coming days.  One of the first things we went to see was the tossing of the caber!  The games had already had a couple of events and more were due later in the afternoon.  However, we got one fo the more famous events while we were there.

Competitors had come from all over the country.  The men and the women were competing together (obviously with different cabers) and it was quite something to watch.  All of these people looked like they could handle themselves in a fight!  They were big people.  A couple were school teachers so I suspect their pupils know how to behave.

The announcer suggested that the women had chosen too long a caber and no-one managed to get it over while we were watching.  However, the men were having more luck and there were quite a few successes including some that were given perfect scores – do you know how to score this event??  A good start to the afternoon.