Glamour Shots

As I mentioned in last night's post, I had an opportunity to spend the day in Chicago with the photography club I belong to.  It was a really fun experience.  At first I thought I might be just a chaperone since the average age of the club is over 65, but, no, I actually was able to bring my camera and shoot.  The day was made possible by joining another camera club out of Schaumburg.   They had chartered a bus and had room for up to 15 members of our club. For a grand total of $30.00 a person, the day included bus to Chicago that left Schaumburg at 10:00 am, several hours at Lincoln Park Zoo, then several hours down around the Chicago River and Wacker Drive for architectural shots, 3 hours at Millennium Park,  several hours at Navy Pier, and then off to either the Planetarium or Buckingham Fountain to shoot sunset pics of the city and then trip back to Schaumburg at 9:30 pm.  Oh yeah, the $30.00 included lunch, snacks, endless supply of bottled water and a driver who made sure we were taken care of and nobody got left behind.  People, I don't know if you know this or not, but, if I made that trip myself, it would have been probably close to $200 bucks when you look at everything involved.  It was truly a great deal.  We had a glorious day of 92 degree temps, even by the lake, with plenty of sunshine.  For the people that know me, this was an opportunity since in my almost 25 years here in Chicagoland, the only place of the aforementioned places that I had ever been was to Navy Pier and I think that was at night for an event.....in December.  So I brought plenty of memory cards and shots away.  Around 600 shots worth.  How many were keepers?  I don't know yet.  I'm still sifting through my shots.  But, I think I got several to share and several that would make good wall art.  This day was really needed to play with some of my new equipment.  I must say that all the reading of reviews and studying photography sites online and photography magazines to pick the right equipment paid off since pretty much everything I bought to replace my stolen gear was exactly what I hoped it would be.  The shots I am posting tonight I think are testaments to the lenses I bought.  I don't think I could have gotten these with my previous gear.   Here we go: