Mike Noble's Page

My Nikon D700 has been picking up dirt on the full frame sensor to the point that I felt I needed do do something about it. I am a little disappointed that the internal sensor cleaning action in the camera wasn't keeping this to a minimum. The sensor cleaning on my Olympus E3 was much better.

Before I tried cleaning the sensor I read a great deal about it. It is definitely a scary undertaking. Nikon recommends professional cleaning (theirs, of course) and if you screw it up, you void t… Continue

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, our daughter's family came to visit. We had a great Thanksgiving meal and, on Thursday, our son-in-law, Joe, headed to deer camp for some testosteronal bonding. On Saturday we planned to take the kids, Jackson and Mikey, to Strasburg, PA to ride on the Santa Express. Of course, I was going to bring a camera.

I had both cameras out (D700 and D300s) to test out the Cotton Carrier (more on that at another time). The cameras look very similar. I had the 24-70mm on the… Continue

Before Adobe actually brought Lightroom to the market, it made the Beta version available to the public in order to get their feedback about the software. I took advantage of Adobe's offer and began working with the Beta version. I have stuck with Lightroom and now am up to v 2.5 and looking to download the 3.0 beta.

For the last year or so, I really didn't use Lightroom as my primary image editing software. I used it to convert my RAW files to DNG, Adobe's universal RAW format, and to do some… Continue

This past week I invested in a more substantial tripod. I have a Manfrotto tripod with a pan and tilt head that I bought a number of years ago. The tripod is great and, at the time, what I could afford. It was a combo deal at B&H Photo. The tripod is light and easy to carry around. However, at any serious extension, it is a bit shaky and the pan and tilt head is sort of fussy. But the build quality is excellent and it has served faithfully and will continue to do so.

All this notwithstandin… Continue

This past weekend (October 17-18), I went down to Middletown, VA to photograph the 145th anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek. This battle occurred later in the war and pitted Jubal Early against Phil Sheridan. There was a sizable turnout of participants even thought the weather was cold and sometimes rainy.

The battlefield itself was sizable and I walked a great deal to cover as much as possible. My goal is to channel Matthew Brady as if he were a correspondence with today's di… Continue