Small Town Montana

more small town life

Just a crazy sampling of small town Montana.

Small town road trip

I gave myself an asignment to capture small town live in Montana. For this I chose to take a road trip along the "higline" which is basically the stretch of farm land along old hwy 2 in northern MT. I headed to Havre, MT then cut east through Chinook, Lohman, and Malta before cutting m=back south to Lewistown and back west to great Falls. It always amazes me how large Montana is considering this was over 430 miles and yet on the map it is only a chunk about 1/5 of the state. At any rate the neat thing here is that nothing is ever torn down... it is just locked up and left to rot natually so there is an endless supply of old homesteads, buildings and farm equipment to take shots of. This was the ideal trip for the versitility of my Sigma 18-250mm lens. It was able to widen enough to capture buildings up close and still zoom in those distant critters and equipment in fields.

Water blur in Giant Springs

For some reason I have had the toughest time learning how to correctly blur water. Things are starting to finally make sense and I am getting decent results during my practice sessions now. For this shot I waited for sunset to set up at Giant Springs park. I used Canon 50D and Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM lens. I placed it on a Vanguard Tracker 2 tripod and switched the optic stabilization off on the lens(can be counter active if left on while tripod mounted). I stopped the apeture down to a tiny f/32 to limit the amount of light coming in for the longer exposure I was after. With ISO-100 I was able to leave the shutter open a full 5 sec to create a nicely milked rapids. 50mm focal length and auto white balance setting. Getting better I think.

Gibson Park

These shots were taken in Gibson Park named in honor of Paris Gibson who founded Great Falls, MT in 1883. I shot these geese with Canon 50D and Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM lens. ISO-100 and f/5.6 for 1/80 sec at 120mm focal length with sunlight white balance setting.

I shot Tinaat the flower garden arch with f/5.6 for 1/160 sec ISO-100 and 28mm focal length.

The squirrel was taken at f/7.1 for 1/160 sec and ISO-320 at 178mm focal length. I later cropped the shot to key in on the trees reflecting in its eye.

5 Loaves

Here are a few shots in 5 Loaves Bakery. For Tina staring out the window I used Canon 50D and Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM lens. To keep the focus on her I opened it up to f/4 apeture. ISO-400 for 1/50sec at 28mm. Naturally light by window and sunlight white balance setting.

For the bread stand I used ISO 250 for 1/20 sec at f/4 and 21mm focal length. And finally for the wall I left the apeture at f/4 and ISO-250 for 1/30 sec at 18mm partially window light and partially store lights with sunlight white balance setting.

Lunch

5 Loaves bakery is one of the favorite little spots me and Tina like to sneak away to for lunch. I took this shot with Canon 50D and Sigma 28-250mm DC OS HSM lens. Natural light from the window and sunlight white balance setting. ISO-400 at f/11 for 1/6 sec at 31mm focal length.