If anybody wants to split registration costs with me this year (2009) - let me know. I can either go as your guest (and pay you $125) or you can go as mine (same deal). Might feel like a small saving, but I’m sure those add up quickly when in Vegas :)

Nikon D90 + Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 = Fun :)

This was the combo I decided to take with me to Orlando. I also had my 24-70 f/2.8 with me, but ended up not using it at all. It’s amazing how versatile this ultra wide (14-24) is… at least on a DX camera.

Built in 1810, burned to the ground in 1873 and completely re-built in 1875, Odessa Opera House is a stunning looking architectural marvel. All the pictures are taken with Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR lens

Wow, it’s been a while since I blogged. I’m going to try to catch up in this post, going from the most recent events back to where I left off.

From the most recent

Last Sunday my friend Randy and his brother Steve took me to the Buccaneers vs Cardinals football game. They had an extra ticket and they generously offered me to go for free :) I took the opportunity to work on my new shooting technique (which is shooting in Manual exposure mode, which I will comment on a little later). I grabbed my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens and headed to the Raymond James stadium. It never crossed my mind that I may have trouble getting this lens past the security checkpoint. The guy who was checking the bags by the stadium entrance pulled me over and said “This thing is too big, I don’t know if I can let you in with it…Let me check with my supervisor” So he called another guy who then called another guy who then asked me “Does this thing extend any further?” And I must say, with the hood on, the 70-200VR looks quite long :) I said “No sir, this is as far as it goes” :) after which he waved me in.

Even though our seats were quite close to the field (row H, which is like… 8th row from the field), because we were sitting by the end zone, I realized that 200mm wasn’t offering me enough reach to shoot midfield and you can absolutely forget about it if the action was on the opposite end. But I managed to snap few interesting shots anyways. Here is one of my favorites:

The entire gallery of that game can be viewed here: Buccaneers vs Cardinals

Unfortunately, most of the action took place on the other side of the field, and not being so much into the game I was “stuck” with… taking pictures of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cheerleaders :) It actually happened to be a challenging task I must say. In some cases the girls would either have some dudes on the background (photographers, security staff, etc) while in others I wouldn’t be able to compose a good shot b-cs some fan’s heads would get in a way. Finally, nailing down exposure turned out to be a bit tricky too - because the light was very harsh (early afternoon sun) it was resulting in strong highlights on girls faces. Bright white stripes painted on the grass were not helping either - they were creating quite distracting background which confused the heck out of my D70’s matrix metering. Eventually, I decided to spot meter off of girls faces and ran with that (which turned out to be a winning strategy). I locked my aperture on f/4 (to be on the safe side, making sure I was getting more than just their eyes and noses in focus ;-) and shutter speed was usually floating around 1/2500 (plus/minus third of a stop)

I must say, I was really “sweating” the shooting conditions… Constant doubts were attacking me - am I being too agressive with the highlights, should I back out exposure a lil bit, may be go by the matrix metering and preserve as much highlights as I can? But that will result in heavy postprocessing with a lot of curving later on… so, I was literally “sweating” it :) By the very end, I got a bit frustrated, I thought nothing was going to come out of my “Manual” approach. So when the game was over, I came closer to the field, and just in case my “fooling around on M” was not going to deliver any decent results, I flipped into Aperture Priority and snapped few pics of every girl.. just in case…

When I got home and sorted thru the material I was stunned. All my work in “Manual” resulted in perfect exposure! I simply nailed it. No postprocessing was needed. And the only pictures that didn’t make the cut were… the ones I took in the end, using Aperture Priority - they were a bit too dark and required “curving”…

Anyways, here is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cheerleaders pictures gallery

One week ago

We attended Guavaween celebration down in Ybor City. To our surprise, it went pretty well. We got there about 20 mins before the night parade began. Parking wasn’t a problem at all (although did cost $20), getting inside was another $15/person but everything was quite well organized. Police was everywhere, we haven’t seen any “misbehaving” drunks and overall, had a lot of fun!

The entire gallery can be view here: Ybor City Guavaween Pictures

Two weeks ago

Attended AirFest in St. Petersburg. My friend Dennis told me about this event, but because their web site looked kinda boring I decided I wasn’t going to go. But then later on, as Nadia and I were sitting at Panera bread on Saturday afternoon and trying to come up with what we were going to do for the rest of the day, I decided to give it a shot. And so we rushed down to St. Pete, and were quite surprised with how many various activities were going on there besides the airshow itself…

The entire picture gallery can be viewed here: St. Petersburg AirFest Pictures

Three weeks ago

Denis and I went on a photo safari to Ybor city and Tampa downtown. To our surprise it went quite well, we’ve come out with few decent shots, but my favorite still was this one, when we fooled around in the end with a cigar we picked up at Ybor for exactly this purpose :)

The Ybor City/Tampa picture gallery is here

Four weeks ago

Trip to new York.. boy, there is no way I can even begin to describe it :) I’ll just say that the pictures are here and that will have to do it :)

New York City Pictures gallery

Finally

And finally, my DELL Vostro 1400 has been working flawlessly ever since I got it. I’m very happy with my purchase, it’s a relatively light, very mobile laptop with extremely bright LCD screen and long battery life (I consistently get 6 hours on this 9-cell battery).

And here I am, back in Tampa. Return was relatively trouble-free - quick train ride from Odessa to Kiev followed by a 10 hour flight to JFK were more or less painless. Passing trough US Customs took less than 10 minutes (thanks to the green card). The weather at JFK, however, was a bit off - very foggy, which resulted in long delays on departures. We spent almost two hours sitting in the airplane, while taxing between runways from one queue to another, waiting for our turn to take off. Other than that - no complaints :)

Once again, I am very happy with Aerosvit - good service, smooth flight. I also liked JetBlue aircrafts - plenty of leg room in every row, just like the exit rows on Delta airplanes. As a matter of fact, I was a bit out of luck this time - I booked myself an exit row seat not realizing that first, I am actually not getting anymore leg room and second, that I am loosing seat recliner! So, I guess next time I’ll stay away from exit rows on JetBlue :-)

All vacations have to end eventually, as they say… Three weeks flew by as if they were three days. It feels that I just came here, and it’s time to go already - from the coast of the Black Sea, back to the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

In these three weeks I feel that I accomplished a lot - I rested well, spent ample of time with my family, experienced Odessa and its surroundings and by the end, I felt almost like a local, like a native Odessit :) who lived here for many many years. It’s a beautiful city and as always I feel a bit sad that I have to leave. Did I mention that I also rested quite well ? ;-)

Last night I happened to catch a small orchestra playing popular tunes in the city gardens. Apparently they do it every Wednesday. While most of the people simply sat and enjoyed the wonderful open-air performance, some were not shy to dance, and kids were having a total blast :)

More pics here.

Last two weekends we (the entire family :) managed to pull off a couple of out of town trips. Both times we went pretty much to the same place - a little town called Koblevo, about 40km north of Odessa. Because tourist season hasn’t begun around here (yet), most of the “remote beaches” are totally deserted, which is something you don’t get to experience anywhere in the city.

Doesn’t it look like Florida ? ;-) Fourty minutes drive was well worth it - not only we were almost alone on the entire mile-long stretch of the beach, but also coastal waters were a lot cleaner over there comparing to what you get to see within city limits. We wondered around, ate, went swimming, and pretty much enjoyed the surroundings. Last week’s trip pictures can be viewed here. During our first visit (actually, when we were on our way back home) we spotted a wild field of poppies which was an awesome photo opportunity for me :)

More pictures of the first trip is here.

That’s what it is :) Every year as I plan my vacation time, I try to factor in at least a couple of weeks with my family - my mom, dad and my brother. For the last five or six years they have been living in Odessa - a beautiful Ukranian city on the Black Sea. Usually, my trip to Ukraine also includes a stop over somewhere in Europe - I’ve always thought, since I’m flying all this way anyways, and since I have to connect somewhere in Europe anyhow, why not? That’s pretty much how I got to see France, Italy and England in the last 3 years :-)

However, this year I decided to try a non-stop route instead. Last summer as I was boarding my Air France flight from Borispol to Paris, I overheard Borispol-JFK flight boarding at the gate next to mine. To me it came as a surprise - for several years I’ve been under impression that there were no direct flights between the US and Kiev. And at that time I decided that next year I’m going to give it a try.

So, this time, as I was planning my trip, I asked around and turned out that there is this Ukranian airline called Aerosvit and apparently they offer non-stop service from JFK to Kiev. Moreover, on their web site, Aerosvit was giving out $100 discount to everyone who chooses JetBlue for connecting at JFK. And yes, it’s true - I booked both Aerosvit and JetBlue flights online, withing 1 hour from one another, emailed Aerosvit both confirmation numbers and 3 days later the $100 discount showed up on my credit card (just note, that the discount comes as a credit from Aerosvit, not from JetBlue. JetBlue’s customer service knows nothing about it).

This was my first trip on JetBlue as well. I was quite happy with the airline - the service was good, the aircraft was roomy (felt like they had a lot more leg room comparing to Delta or AA carriers), and their terminal at JFK was also relatively nice and clean.

Aerosvit is flying an old Boeing 737 (I think) - no personal TVs or anything like that, the two projectors that they had in our part of the cabin were also ancient - picture was constantly jumping and sound was terrible as well. Luckly I had my laptop with me and 5 episodes of 24 stored on the hard drive :) Onboard service was also good (alcohol was free :) and the fact that I didn’t have to connect in Paris really made the whole trip a breeze. I do have enough miles for a free Deta ticket to Ukraine now, but I can’t imaging going back to having to do a stop over… Unless I decide to pay Europe another visit.

My mom met me in Kiev and we both took an overnight train to Odessa. I like trains, but I think next time I’ll fly instead.