My new cable release finally arrived today–and of course, it’s raining cats and dogs outside, so there’s no way I’m going to venture outside to try and setup some long exposures. Instead, I thought it would be a good night to practice setting up my camera on the tripod quickly and efficiently. I had never really taken the time to closely examine the tripod and the plate that attaches to the camera, and how all the knobs and latches function. I usually just fumble around with it until I find something that seems to work. So tonight I took the time to test each knob and latch to make sure I understood how they function. I made sure I knew which way to put the plate on the camera so that it rests in the tripod’s latching mechanism in the right direction for switching between portrait and landscape mode (something I had screwed up before). After I set up the camera on the tripod, I attached my new cable release, and then I started looking around for something to use for some test shots.
I decided to use a couple of Southwestern art pieces that we have collected–a Hopi kachina doll carved from cottonwood, and a piece of Navajo pottery. I set these up on a table under a lamp that’s burning a compact florescent bulb of the “warm” variety. I used my new cable release to take a series of three bracketed shots at ISO 200, 38mm, F/8 using the aperture priority setting (no flash). The shutter speeds were 3 seconds for the normal exposure, .77 seconds for the underexposure (-2.0) and 13 seconds for the overexposure (+2.0). I then played around with the three shots in Photomatix’s HDR processor, but there really wasn’t a great deal that could be done with them beyond intensifying the colors somewhat.
Anyway, I’ve verified that the cable release works, and I’m more familiar with my tripod now, so I guess I’ve accomplished a little bit tonight. Tomorrow is supposed to be less cloudy than today, but Thursday is supposed to be positively stormy. I’m hoping I can get a few outdoor shots tomorrow before the storms blow in.
the Zen of Zann 
This night is not shot with the camera .Your shot next day than storm are stop.And storm night is very useful for practise.
Hey, don’t neglect the storm itself! I’ve gotten some good shots during a storm, and depending on when it clears, you can get some spectacular sun ray shots through the dark clouds.
Storms are one thing, but it was also pitch dark outside and the wind was blowing 30-40 mph. I’m still not proficient enough yet with this camera to setup the shots quickly, so I’m not quite ready to stand out in the rain with brand new equipment while I fumble around trying to get the perfect shot of rain slashing through a streetlight’s glow (or something like that!). That time will come, but it wasn’t last night! Thanks for the encouragement, though!! 🙂