Four images after Irene visited

Hurricane Irene came and went this weekend. Overall, the house faired pretty well and the trees made it through without much damage. My butterfly bushes, however, didn't do so well.

The winds knocked them all over. But it was nothing a little hard work couldn't rectify. Here's hoping there was no permanent damage.

After the landscaping work, I took Meg and CJ to Great Falls, where the water was high but not as ridiculously excessive as you would expect after a major hurricane passes through. Of interest was a great blue heron that I captured with my new lens:

I'm not 100% certain it was a heron, and will try to find time to confirm later today...

Family portraits (sort of)

On Saturday, we went on the first hike we've taken in what seems like forever. It's the first time I was in any kind of woods since March, really. It's been that kind of year.

Anyhow, we somehow missed a large number of rainstorms and got in some nice tree-hugging. And almost everyone smiled for their portrait...

New Lens

It's been an absolutely crazy summer--crazy year, actually. And while I've been home for the past few weeks, I thought I should treat myself to something. So I sold off a lens on ebay (my heavy Tokina 50-135 f2.8) and bought a Sigma 100-300 f4 on sale.

So what did I shoot in test-driving the new lens? A nice buck was kind enough to pause for a few photos in my backyard before moving along (I helped in that process, of course). Unfortunately, no butterflies and no hummingbirds were available for additional shots, but there as a cute little moth at least...

How sharp is the lens? Pretty sharp. This is a 100% crop from my Canon 60D: