Cotton Pickin'

Sandy & I recently went to see Memom & Pawpaw Tex (her parents), who live on a farm near Bellville. During our visit we got to see something that a lot of city folks don't have a chance to see -- cotton harvesting.

The top photo shows the harvester (which you could call a Cotton Pickin' Machine). You can click on the photo for a closer view (then press backspace to return to the post). Notice the 8 silver-colored arms in the tractor front (just below the driver). Those act like powerful vacuum cleaners and they neatly whisk the ripe cotton right off of the plant stalks, and then the cotton is quickly blown into a large storage bin behind the driver.


The next photo shows the harvester driving down rows of cotton, harvesting thousands of cotton bolls from 4 rows at a time. If you look carefully, you will notice that the harvester driver is talking on a cell phone.


Whenever the harvester gets a load full of cotton, the driver hauls the load over to the processing area. Once there, the harvester driver dumps the load of cotton into a huge steel-framed compressor bin and another worker begins to tightly pack down the cotton in the bin using a powerful hydraulic compressor. The photos show the driver off-loading the cotton into the steel-framed bin, and then the hydraulic device tamping down the cotton inside the steel casing. You really have to click on the smaller photos and access the larger photos to get a better view of the operation.

When the compressor operator cannot pack any more cotton into the steel case, then the sides of the case are loosened and a tractor moves the large bin to a new location so that the filling and compressing process can start all over again, as illustrated by the photo at left. Tex stated that one large block of the tightly compacted cotton is the equivalent of about 16 standard bales of cotton. The large blocks of compacted cotton are loaded onto big trucks to be hauled away for the wonderful transformation into cotton clothing (the "fabric of our lives" as the advertising slogan so aptly describes it).


The next photo shows some of the very straight rows of cotton as the fluffy stuff ripens in the sun and awaits the harvesting process. And the subsequent photo provides a close-up view of a cotton boll. As we watched the workers harvesting and compressing the cotton, Sandy and I would sing snatches of the familiar song that was a Credence Clearwater Revival hit a few years back:
"When I was a little bitty baby my momma would rock me in the cradle, in them old cotton fields back home.
"It was down in Louisiana, just a half a mile from Texarkana, in them old cotton fields back home.
"Now when them cotton bolls get rotten, you can't pick very much cotton, in them old cotton fields back home.
"It was down in Louisiana, just a half a mile from Texarkana, in them old cotton fields back home."

Nikon D700

I recently purchased a Nikon D700, the first truly "pro level" camera I have ever owned. The camera is somewhat on the pricey side, however it is loaded with great features and is already receiving some of the most positive reviews ever awarded to any digital SLR. My main reason for wanting the camera is the way it can take very clean photos with little or no digital noise, shooting available light (no flash) at very high ISO settings (2500 and above). This will be very useful because at work I shoot indoor photography in which using a flash is either prohibited or would be very distracting -- basketball & volleyball games, theatrical performances, etc.

In this post I will include some of the first pix I've taken with the new D700 to demonstrate the versatility of the camera. I will include some technical info and provide some background just because I find such info interesting. If the technical info bores you, then skip it and just enjoy the photos. You can see a larger version of any photo by simply mousing over it and clicking it, then press the "back" button to return to the post.


'Clean'
This first photo was taken at 6400 ISO shooting available light (no flash) with a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens. The shooting mode was set to Aperture priority and the f/stop was set at 7.1, which produced a shutter speed of 1/125. Notice how the photo is "clean," meaning it has minimal digital noise. This photo has about the same level of digital noise as most other digital cameras produce shooting at about 800 or 1250 ISO. Those who keep up with digital camera technical developments know that such an accomplishment is nothing short of revolutionary.



Flash
The next three photos were taken in our Marketing office at work. The three photography nuts, myself, Aaron and Kyle, put together a portable backdrop (light gray, seamless paper). We used a three-light wireless flash setup, to wit -- the primary light was a Nikon SB600 firing into one black-backed silver reflective umbrella. The hairlight behind the backdrop was an SB800 firing through a "homemade" gridspot (fashioned by Rob). The secondary (fill) light was an SB800 equipped with a colored gel filter and firing through a "homemade" snoot (fashioned by Rob, the original "Do-it-Yourself" cheapskate). We did this exercise for several reasons -- to learn how to use some of the new equipment we recently ordered, and to experiment with different lighting effects, and to experiment with different blur-action special effects. We used the D700 coupled with a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Another thing I really like about the D700 is that the camera is "full frame," which means that the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 (one of my favorite lenses) is now much more useful. With a D70 (my other Nikon camera) the 50mm lens is actually a 75mm lens, due to the 1.5 crop factor, which means the 50mm is not really a medium focal range general purpose lens, but rather a short telephoto lens. With the D700, the 50mm is now a true 50mm and is ideal for general purpose and everyday photography.

No noise
The next photo is taken of Kyle, shown "slaving away" at work. I shot this photo availabe light (no flash) at ISO 5000 with the in-camera High ISO Noise Reduction option set to the High level. The lens was a Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8. The f/stop was set at 5.6 and the shutter speed was set to 1/100. Even when you take a close-up view of the photo you will notice a very low level of noise. I made an 8x10 print of the photo with our color laser printer at work and was amazed at the detail and minimal amount of noise.


Nature
Here's another high ISO photo taken at the Cockrell Butterfly Center, one of my favorite places for photography. Technical specs -- D700 coupled with a Tamron 70-200m f/2.8 lens (outstanding glass just recently released); ISO 5000; aperture set at f/16; shutter speed set at 1/400. I shot the photo hand-held, using available light with no flash. Being able to shoot at ISO 5000 enabled me to crank up the aperture to allow a greater depth of field. It also enabled me to crank up the shutter speed so that the action could be better "frozen." I made an 8x10 print of the photo with our color laser printer at work and was once again amazed at the detail and minimal amount of noise. The bottom line is that I simply would not be able to get this particular photo with any other camera because of ISO limitations.

Action
Here's an action shot to demonstrate focus tracking of fast-moving subjects. Like the high-end D3, the D700 features the Expeed image processor, which provides 51-point 3D tracking to provide responsive coverage of fast action. This photo is one in a series of pix shot in the Contiuous "busrt" mode at 5 frames per second with the AF selector set in the Dynamic mode and the Continuous Focus mode (designed for sports). Specs -- ISO set to 320, matrix metering, shooting in Program mode (the camera chose an f-stop of 9 and a shutter speed of 1/320). The lens used is a Phoenix 100mm f/3.5.

Skin tones
I included the final photo (below) of this little essay to demonstrate how the D700 handles skin tones. Technical stuff -- Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8 lens; 5.6 f/stop; shutter speed of 1/60; ISO set at 320. I used a Nikon SB600 Speedlight with a Joe Demb bounce-type flash diffuser. This is a photo of 3 students at a San Jacinto College cosmetology event. The camera is set at the default saturation level of "Standard" and there was no post-processing. You can click on the photo for a closer view and notice in particular how natural looking the skin tones are of all three subjects. All in all, I'm very pleased with the initial results from the D700 and it's fun to experiment and learn what all can be accomplished with this very versatile and responsive camera.