Our main mission was to visit our son at college. It was Skidmore's Family Celebration Weekend. Belinda and I say through a class offered to parents, showered our kid with time, money and affection, and generally soaked in the atmosphere of being back on a campus.
The food in Saratoga Springs was uniformly good. They now have a decent Mexican food restaurant for homesick Texans called, Cantina. It's right on Broadway. They've got their soft, corn tortillas down perfectly and their instincts for seasoning and spicing were spot on. Steaks at Max London's,just down the street, were also superb.
This year we added a run up to Lake George while the kid stayed on campus to study. Right now, this instant, the color of the trees is turning and the skyline heading up the highway is a riot of color. We parked in town and climbed Prospector's Peak and were rewarded with spectacular views of the lake and the cascade of technicolor trees marching down majestic hillsides to meet it.
In a previous blog post I wrote that I had decided to take a specific camera but, of course, as we were leaving the house at 5 a.m. on Thursday morning I changed my mind and substituted. The camera I ended up taking was the Sony a6300 along with the 18-105mm f4.0G lens. This combination was smaller and lighter than the ones I had previously selected and, I decided to just go and be a proud parent instead of a compulsive photo-junky. It was a wise decision as I found the a6300 and lens to be the perfect travel companion for a long weekend mini-vacation like this one.
Here's a random selection of images I made this last weekend. I'm happy I went. It's an area I'd like to explore more. And sometime I would like to go, spend a few days around the area, and then hop on the train to Montreal. Could be a fun adventure. But I think I'll wait till next Fall for that...
16 comments:
Lovely shots, especially the Swiss chard and the radishes.
Montreal is "ok" but Quebec City has some really nice old world charm. Love your autumn shots. I lived in New Brunswick for 4 years. We toured around during autumn and were stunned by the colours. Unfortunately I was totally burned out on photography at that point and didn't make one image. What a doped.
$3 for radishes?
Nice shots, I had a feeling you would pick the a6300 however I am a little surprise you didn't pick the 16 to 70mm zoom. Are you headed for the a6500?
kirk,
The colors are vibrant and really pop. Do you get that effect in post process or do you shoot the jpg's in a mode other than natural,or landscape? I hope this reads ok. Recovering from cancer surgery and have very limited use of my left hanf. Love you blog it is the highlight of my day for the past 6 months dealing with all the cancer stuff.
Mike
Hi Michael, thanks for the compliment. I did shoot these raw and apply various amounts of post processing to them. I used the "film positive" preset in Lightroom which pops the highlights and increases saturation a bit. Sometimes I just love playing around with the controls.
One more thing... Thank you so much for telling me about your situation and saying what you did about the blog. It made me thankful that I love writing it and it gave me inspiration to redouble my efforts. I am so happy to hear that my writing is helpful in this way to someone.
I wish you the best of luck for a swift and complete recovery. Let me know how I can help. Kirk
kirk,
Thanks for the uplifting kind words. I was using manual focus Lens (3 Tokina lens). I can no longer do the manual adjustments with my left hand so a friend sold me his 28-70 kit lens off his A7. I am truly amazed by this lens. The colors, contrast, and sharpness are all supurb on my APS-C sensor. I may choose to get a Sony RX10** after reading your blogs and viewing your picture.
Thanks
Mike
Kirk, your Western bent is showing! It's Prospect Mountain (named because of the view or prospect), not Prospector's Peak. We ain't had any prospectors here in the East for quite some time...
Best
Burt
After using the Sony a6x00 will you ever fall in love with an Olympus again?
Hi Daniel, There are lots of reasons to still love Olympus cameras and since I never know what will happen in the future I am hesitant to disregard Olympus. The new changes to video are most welcome, the I.S. remains the best ever and the lenses, for the most part, are really wonderful. Let's see what gets introduced...
Burt, thanks for clearing that up. I guess the rigor of climbing the damn thing, coupled with the oxygen deprivation from the effort, blurred my name retention circuits. Tough hike, beautiful scenery. Wish we had stuff like this in Texas.
Sophia, not $3 per radish but $3 per bunch. The only individual $3 radishes I can imagine would probably be at Whole Foods Market... Organic and hand massaged, of course.
Vibrant fall colours!
robert
Did Ken Rockwell process those files?
Hi Anonymous! You forgot to put that little smiley face emoticon while you were typing. Thanks for holding my work in such high regard...
Nice to hear you had a nice time here in my corner of the globe. And you're right: I was stricken at the vastness and fascinated by the sky that went all the way to the horizon as I drove in my rental car from Lubbock to eastern NM for a shoot awhile back, marveling at the trees permanently bent in the never ending wind... Companion thought me looney for wanting to stop and photograph one. Strange as I haven't shot all of the garish frippery on our own local trees this season.
Skip the train to Montreal. Too many signs there that say "just like NYC!!" though I do like the city and the people quite fine thank you. There's plenty to explore in the vicinity of Saratoga within a 1.5 to 2 hr drive, including taking the ferry across to VT. And yes, Cantina has been a favorite for a few years now. Funny, headed to NYC tomorrow and the same lens and my A6000 are in my messenger ...
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