Kay Martinez - the Prairie Photographer

This song always remind me of my commuting days to work in Tokyo.

I love taking pics on foggy night, it gives eerie feeling to the atmosphere...

I often takes storm photography and you know why, we are in Kansas! Storms are scary but at the same time beautiful and fascinating.

We have most beautiful sunset in Autumn/Winter months here in KS. I love to take silhouette photography during those months, which creates quite dramatic shot because of striking sky!

Trees on Mt. Fuji are very uniquely shaped due to its environment are very old. Pines have much shorter needles and cones compared to the trees at the lower above sea level locations. Mostly look like natural bonsais! These trees are something to look at in person at least once in your life :)

I spotted these interesting plant (at the time I thought fungi) at Aokigahara Jukai at Mt. Fuji. I was informed by both G+ and Flickr member that these are called Ghost Plants or Indian Pipe. They lack chlorophyll thus no color, but they do benefit from sunshine. Their host are some fungi that has mycorrhizal relationship with trees. Such interesting plants!

NRT, Narita airport in Chiba, that's right, it's not "Tokyo" airport! JAL aircraft in the view.

Early morning flight at ICT.

Lumix G5

After a LONG TIME considering pros and cons, I have decided to keep my Canon FF camera after all. I doesn't really matter if I downgrade to 5DMKII, or keep my 6D, both are fabulous cameras. If I find an used deal for a 5DMKII for less than $1000, I would use it instead and sell my 6D to keep $500 in difference. I'm trying to be frugal as possible. I would think about how I can reduce the number of the Canon lenses I have to minimise my possessions. I guess I'm turning to minimalist in a way. I've been working around the house to get rid of things out the house.

This is fairly a long and heavy lens for MFT, but considering the focal length it can reach, this is amazingly small. MEGA O.I.S. works fabulously to reduce the handshake, but focal length this long, it's definitely a good idea to use a tripod for sharper images. 

We'll see!

I've been debating to see if I can be entirely a mirrorless camera photographer, but at the moment, I'll hold on to my Canon DSLR. The compactness of mirrorless is very, very attracting, considering how much you'll have to walk or run around with the kids for portrait session. For that matter, I can imagine easier for wedding or traveling photography as well. There are professional lens line up available from Panasonic, Leica, and Olympus (and Fuji, and so on), AND Sony came up with the very first full-frame mirrorless recently. I see a trend recently that some professional photographers did ditch DSLRs. I know mirrorless is capable, more than I expected, but I'm not entirely comfortable ditching regular DSLR just yet. I shall see as I use Lumix more in manual mode...

This year, we are observing more sundog compared to the previous years. Usually it lasts about 5 minutes, but this time lasted quite long time. The trick is to NOT to hurt your eyes by seeing through VF (da~). Wish I could frame sundogs both side of the Sun, but I'll kill my eyes by doing it. So this was a guess shot, trying to frame it somehow without looking!!

Taken by Panasonic Lumix G5, with the zoom X lens, 45mm-175mm. You want to know the difference between 45-150mm and this lens? 175mm has power zoom, which is great for videography.

Taken by Panasonic Lumix G5, this camera's color rendering capability is amazing!!