It’s been raining for a week. I happened to get a new camera the day it started raining. The Nikon D7000 seems nice, but I‘ve reluctant to take it out in the rain. Yesterday’s drive home offered the first chance of capturing a few shots. I happened upon a rainbow over the 710 freeway in Long Beach. A rainbow in Los Angeles is rare. I was lucky I had a camera handy.
To tell the true there was no luck involved. I always have a camera handy. Let me explain. I take a camera with me every day no matter where I am going. As I drive (I do a lot of driving), the camera is sitting on the seat next to me primed and ready to shoot. When I saw the rainbow I made some quick adjustments to the ISO and switched over to aperture mode. Plus, I set the camera to manual focus and fixed the focal length to what I desired. I also set it to shoot at its maximum frames per second. With camera ready I shot 144 photos in the 15 minutes I had a shot at the rainbow. Fully 90% of the take was worthless. Shooting while driving is risky at best. II only take photos when I did not pose a danger to others. So when I shoot I shoot like a paparazzi. It was essentially point the camera, shoot ten frames, return to driving. Where is the tip in this – you must be ready for a shot. Plan ahead. Take your camera with you and get it ready to shoot. Don’t waste time on composing because you will just end up in an accident. You may have to crop – I did, otherwise there would be an annoying crack in the left of the picture. Does anyone have $600 for a new windshield?
