A Father, Photographer and Computer Geek living in Chester County (PA).
My Photo Journal of images taken in Chester and Lancaster Counties, including Covered Bridges, Barns, Nature, Fine Art and Events. Images can also be found on VisitPA.com and ExplorePATrails.com.
As part of “Daddy Day Camp”, I took the kids up to Lionville Elementary School to practice their biking riding, in prep for taking off the training wheels.
We first started in the upper play ground, and after parking, I unloaded the bikes, and the kids were gone. I had to coach them a little, but with the follow-up tweaks after Sunday’s outing, both kids were doing much better.
Now I was able to grab my tripod and camera and set up for some shooting.
The wind was rather gusty, and was really nicely formed white clouds against a very deep blue sky, and I had my new filter… Tee hee! wink… wink…
With my first few shots, I felt like a complete amateur, because as I would set one thing that, I’d forget about something else, and the shot would be blown, but I got into a rhythm and finally began to click off some shots.
Long exposure 019 – Take of the intersection of Rt 113 and Devon Drive.
Long exposure 022 – Taken from the outfield of one of the Baseball diamonds.
Long exposure 024 – Taken of the Main School Building
Long exposure 035 – Tennis Practice
Most of these pictures were taken at ISO 100 f22 for 30 seconds to 1 minute, the tennis practice image was around 3 second, using the B+W 58mm 3.0 ND MRC 110M Filter.
At one point, I could hear Logan asking me why I was taking pictures of cars, as I set up for my shot looking north on Route 113 with the Devon Rd. intersection in the background.
He was very puzzled, and even more so, when I showed him the pictures later during proofing. The cars just disappeared!
While playing with my new filter, it became very apparent to me, that I was going to need to recalibrate my water shots, and how to do my HDR work with so much potential ghosting issues during processing.
But as they say no gain without pain.
So come back again, and see what new things I’ve done with this new filter of mine!
After lunch, I asked Logan to go check the mailbox, and within a few seconds, he came running back screaming “Sissy, Sissy, come see this!”.
Madison darted out the front door, and after a few seconds, in the distance, I could hear “Daddy! Daddy! Come see this!”.
I exited the house, and see both kids at the end of the driveway looking down, still very excited.
When I got to their location, and looked, I could see a big cluster of small ants that had swarmed for some reason, and I started to explain to the kids, that ants work as a group, and explain the various functions of each group, and what they provided to the colony.
The scout ants go out first, and explore for food, and when they do find food, the scout ants return to the colony, leaving a scent trail for the foraging ants to follow, back to the found food, and with each back and forth from the colony to the food, the scent trail is built up.
In this case, there was no visible reason why the ants had swarmed, but there were two very distinct tails going in opposite directions, which I followed, and show the kids where the ants where disappearing into the ground.
I also explained that both entrances where most likely part of the same colony, because ants where smart enough to do so, just encase one entrance got destroyed, the ants could escape out the other side. (Being a home owner, the concept of the main colony being in the middle of my driveway entrance was not the most comforting.)
Returning to the main swarm, I asked the kids if they wanted to see something cool, and I proceeded to gently blow on the group, and as I expected the ants started to scatter, to the delight of “That’s cool!” and “Let me try!”.
It was from here I said “I have an idea!”, to which Madison responded, “I don’t like when he says that.”
I went back inside the house, and grabbed a small container of crackers, and returned to the driveway edge.
Breaking the crackers into smaller pieces, I placed the first piece in the center of the main swarm, and as expected the ants started to scatter, but soon where crawling and biting the cracker, trying to break it into smaller pieces to be carried off.
We watched for a few minutes, and because the crackers were orange, it was easy to see some of the ants heading back to the colony.
I also explained that ants were capable of carrying things may times their own size. We also saw several ants working together to carry off larger pieces, and I explained how ants work together for the good of the colony.
After a few more minutes of watching, we went back inside the house to get ready for some soccer, but before we left, Logan insisted that we take another look at the ants.
When we got back to the foot of the driveway, the kids noticed that several of the larger cracker pieces has moved several inches since we had last looked. I was able to point out that their noticing the movement of the crackers was a good observation, and good observations are very important when doing science.
Here is a perfect, innocent way to introduce your kids to the wonders of nature and science.
What started as a routine trip to the mailbox, turned into a basic lesson on ant colonies and how they function, as well as the importance of good observations.
Welcome to the first day of “Daddy Day Camp” 2012!
I am starting this blog segment in an effort to exchange ideas with other Parents that might be needing some ideas for what to do with their kids this summer!
Over the past couple of days, I have been working with my kids to come up with a list of things they would like to do during the course of the summer on Monday’s and Tuesday’s, and here are a couple of ideas to start off with:
Arts and Crafts
Make Official T-Shirts
– Every camper has to have one!
– Very simple, just grabs some white t-shirts and markers and let them make their own!
– Let the kids design the logo!
Education period
Reading or Blogging
Math
Science!
Library Time
Both my kids have library cards, and we are going to take advantage of our great local library!
Outdoor time
Nature Walks
Sports Play
We also plan to mix in chores (weeding, pick-up the lawn, etc.) and little projects (clean basement, paint mail box post, etc.) that are a benefit to the “Camp”.
There are plans to also visit local parks and museums!
On Tuesday (6/6), I finally broke down on ordered a B+W 58mm (MC) #110 (ND 3.0) filter, from B&H Photo, and it just arrived today!
After opening it up, my first word were, “Holy Crap that is dark”!
One can barely see though the thing!
For those that may not know the lingo, a Neutral Density filter is used to reduce the amount of light entering into a camera, there by increasing the length of time for a correct exposure, which can be used for interesting effects!
A quick easy example of this, would be the blurring effect done to moving water.
I do have a set of Tiffen ND filters, that only increase the exposure by 2 stop (0.6), 3 stops (0.9) and 4 stops (1.2), but with this new filter, my range now jumps to 10 stops (3.0) stops!
Another translation, let’s say I have an exposure of 1/500th of a second, not too uncommon during the day time, but with this new filter, the exposure time would now increase to approximately 2 seconds!
Many of my water shoots, are shot in the 1 second range, but now that will increase to a possible 15 minute exposure, which should be very interesting!
