(NEW) First post of our weekly (Wednesday) chronicle and photo album of our current two-year trip across the U.S. and Canada in a RV with our Ricoh/Pentax equipment.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

Hi Photographer friends,

(NEW) First post of our weekly (Wednesday) chronicle and photo album of our current two-year trip across the U.S. and Canada in a RV with our Ricoh/Pentax equipment.

Our house on wheels.

This week, it's New Orleans.

There are no other City like New Orleans. The liveliness of this City is like no other place. Music is everywhere and people do seem to have a good time. “Let the good times roll” or as they say “Laissez les bon temps rouler”. BB King sang about it. 

I don’t think the bars ever close and you can see people strolling all night long.

Not what I wanted to see through
 the car's window.

We were a little disappointed when we arrived in our RV because it was pouring down. We knew that it was going to rain for our entire stay. For once, unfortunately, the weatherman was right. I wanted to go downtown and take pictures. Lucky for me, I had the Pentax K-3 which is rainproof. This was going to be a great test for it. I had previously decided that I was going to use the PENTAX smc DA 16-45mm and even if it is not sealed like the WR lenses, I believed it would do just fine, and it did.

iPhone photo from my
 Daughter Marisa.

So we set out, in the rain, in the direction of the French Quarter to get some beignets and “Café au lait” at the world famous Café du Monde. If you never had beignets, you are missing on a special treat. Here’s a secret, but don’t tell anyone. Make your own, with this authentic New Orleans recipe.

From there, we walked to Bourbon Street and the surrounding blocks. This is where the excitement resides in New Orleans. The images below were all taken with the Pentax K-3 outfitted with the PENTAX DA 16-45mm. As is turned out, rain gave us a wonderful look at the Big Easy’s neighborhoods. All the colors were brightened by the water and the reflections in the streets gave me that unique attractiveness you always want in your images.

I'm am one that believe in retouching every images I make. I have a workflow in Lightroom 5 that consist of tweaking the clarity, the white and the shadows. I then continue with sharpening and noise reduction. The amount is sometimes negligible and other times as needed to satisfy my taste. Photography is an expression of art and you control the final image. However, the K-3 gave excellent results without any post-processing, but I like to improve all my images to what my mind's eye imagined or saw.

Note that all images were reduced to 640x480 resolution for quick uploading.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 45mm, 1/1600 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Added little Sharpening and Noise reduction. Also desaturated a little to bring vibrant colors out.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 26mm, 1/40 sec @ f/22, ISO 1000. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Added little Sharpening and Noise reduction.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 45mm, 1/50 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 1000. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 50% and added a lot of Sharpening and Noise reduction.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 38mm, 1/125 sec @ f/5, ISO 1000. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 25% and desaturated the background trees.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 23mm, 1/200sec @ f/4.0, ISO 500. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for  Shadows. Cropped 20%.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 28mm, 1/20 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 10% and added  Sharpening and Noise reduction.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 45mm, 1/200 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 50% and added  Sharpening and Noise reduction. The frame was done within the K-3.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 36mm, 1/125 sec @ f/5.0, ISO 1600. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 50% and added a lot of  Noise reduction.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 45mm, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 1600. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 10% and added a lot of Sharpening and Noise reduction.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 40mm, 1/25 sec @ f/5.0, ISO 100. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 20% . I braced the camera against a lamp post for stability.

Pentax K-3, DA 16-45mm @ 23mm, 1/250 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600. Used Adobe Lightroom 5 for Clarity, White and Shadows. Cropped 50% and added  Sharpening and Noise reduction. The Pink was accentuated to give more punch.

The PENTAX K-3 did just fine in the rain and so did the lens.

Thanks for reading,
Yvon Bourque

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