Shooting "micro" on Easter

 

Happy Easter everyone!

 

I got my hands on a Nikon 105mm "micro" lens a few weeks ago and this is the first chance I've had to use it. The snow has finally melted and the sun is out and it's actually 60 degrees today. Even though I'm still not 100% I had to get out and take a few photos of the only flowers we have so far.

 

I was suprised to see that in certain light this lens can be set to an f stop of 52! These three shots were taken between f32 and f45. Now all I need is some interesting bugs!

Dog tired!

The weather over here on the West Coast has been absolutely gorgeous for the last couple of days and is forecast to continue through Easter weekend. 

So today Jake and I headed out with the bikes and dogs and camera gear (note the GoPro on Jakes helmet) and spent a few hours riding and taking pictures and video. I took this nice picture of Maggie near the end of our ride, I'm thinking the dogs are going to sleep good tonight, I know I am!

By the way Happy Easter everyone!

Pictures from today...

Yesterday I found myself "Down Island" in the bright lights of Campbell River a 3 hour drive South from my home. Campbell River is the nearest town with "Big Box" stores and is big enough to support two well equipped photography stores. Long story short one of the photo stores had just received their first D7100 which I promptly purchased.

Today I spent a few hours bonding with the new camera body and my existing lenses. The first three pictures are all photoshopped, cropped and resized.

The remaining photos are all as shot out of the camera except for resizing. First the clam shells and two fairly tight crops of the shells.

 And lastly a little lawn Daisy and a tight crop from it. Please note all pictures were handheld.

Needless to say I am very pleased with my purchase and the results I'm getting with the new D7100!

Sick and Tired...

...of being sick and tired!

 

I am on my second round of the flu in the past four weeks now and it sucks! This first photo is how I have felt the last few days with half of my brain out of focus.

 

Just another humuhumunukunukuapua'a among the coral on Ka'anapali Beach

Vapor trails

Took a picture of a "Turbo Beaver" taking off from Stephen's Bay the other day. I always find it fascinating to see the vapor trails left by the propeller. This is usually most prominent on the more humid days.

Orcas in the Narrows

Found this small Pod of four Orcas in the Narrows while on my way to Quatsino this afternoon. Fortunately I already had the camera out and ready to go with the Sigma 120-400.

In order to get all four Killer Whales in the same picture I had to combine two pictures together in Photoshop. For whatever reason they never all came to the surface at the same time...

Sure signs of Spring!

Suddenly within the last week or so everywhere I look I'm finding sure signs of Spring , sure nice to see! The only downside to all this new growth is that for the next 6 months I'm going to be a slave to my lawn... Ha ha!

Yea! The Hell with Work!

 

If I'm getting away from work my place of choice is Maui!

 

Sunstars on the waves off of Papawai Point

 

A hibiscus run through a NIK software filter called "solarization".

The Hell with work!

After an hour put the primer on my new shed, I have decided lets have some fun with the birds.  These are from this morning "Nikon D3 with 200-400mm".  

I'm back!

After all those time I'm spending at the new job, and building stuffs around the house.  I have decided to a little break, and heading down to park near my house.  This is a first time I have seen this type duck in my area, so I don't know it will be stay around permanently.

I'm learning...

Had a few minutes to kill yesterday afternoon so I headed down to the Port Hardy waterfront, always something of interest going on down there. Sure enough one of the Coast Guard boats was coming into Hardy Bay, so I put the Sigma 120-400 on the camera, set the aperture to f8 and started taking some pictures as it approached.

Then out of the blue this Eagle shows up and starts putting on a show... Rather than panic and take a bunch of Eagle pictures I would regret later, I quickly but carefully adjusted the camera from aperture priority back to "P", ISO to 3200 and the auto focus from  "S" to "C" for moving objects.

My methodical readjustments to the camera rather than just stabbing away at the shutter buttons paid off with several Eagle pictures of a presentable quality!

All pictures taken with the Sigma 120-400 handheld except the top shot, I was resting the camera on the hood of my truck for that one.

House guest

Spring you say??

 

We woke up to 30mph winds and 22 degrees this morning and oh yea, 6+ inches of snow on the ground!

 

I also found this new house guest in the eave of our garage. I'm not sure how he got in and it's too damn cold to go outside and look for holes right now so hopefully he'll be happy right where he's at until I can get outside and figure it out.

 

I took this with the Nikon 28-300mm lens and the SB-900 flash from about 20 feet away. There is a screened vent behind and below the owl that was letting in a lot of light from the reflection off the snow. I wasn't sure the flash would give me enough fill light to bring out the owl so I turned the ISO up to 6400.

 

I don't have a clue what kind of owl this is. I think he was happy to be out of the snow and wind though.

I Rode an Eagle !

Grounded!

The year was actually 1959. Back in these days a roll of film might not be developed for months or even years later. Every frame was exposed before the film was sent to the developer. But anyway, getting back to the story, ' Riding an Eagle can be Tough Work!'

Levi Jacket and Levi Jeans!  Shades of  'Rebel Without a Cause' , my best James Dean Impression! Black horn-rimmed glasses? Buddy Holly was still belting out 'That'll Be The Day' on the radio! Riding Eagles was in Style! Some of us got thrown!

I will never forget the day! Two longs and a short rang on the telephone. That was our ring on the telephone line we shared with two other parties. Mom and Dad were out and I answered. It was a cousin who lived in Montana and needed to talk with her Mom or Dad who lived on the other side of town! It was dark and I had just got home from basketball practice. Jumped back on my Eagle and made a mad dash to my aunt and uncles house to relay the message. As strange as it seems? Everyone did not have phones back then!

Should have known that there was a reason that Eagles don't fly in the dark, but I was only fourteen! No excuse! Drove that Eagle straight into the back of a parked plumbing truck just a few doors down from my aunt and uncles! Cost me a couple of months of not being such a 'Cool Cat!'

1959 Cushman Eagle

Used to be that a kid could get a scooter license at fourteen if he could pass a written test. Nothing to it! Left arm straight out-Left turn. Left arm held at a forty five pointing up,Rt. Turn. Left arm down, slowing or stopping! I passed with ease!

I had been working and saving my money for over a year with the hopes of  getting a Cushman Eagle. While still living in El Reno at our home place there, Dad came in one day and told me to get my money because we were headed to Ed's Cushman Shop on Linwood in OKC! Money in hand I was the first one in the truck! The money was not near enough but Dad said he would make up the difference. $395.00 dollars later we had the most beautiful Trojan Red Eagle loaded in his 59 blue Apache Chevy  Pickup, and were headed for home!

Skinny Kid!

In late 1959 Dad choose to move us to Yukon where he built us another home. Nothing like an Eagle to break the  ice of being the new kid in Town!

Deer, deer...

Spotted these two yearlings and their mother a few mornings ago. Usually they are not so easy to see but the fresh snow made them stand out like sore thumbs. So I stopped to take a few pictures. At first mom was suspicious of what I was up to but eventually went back to grazing when she decided I wasn't a threat. As soon as mom relaxed these two came out into a more open area where I was able to take a few pictures.

Snow on the Mountain

Snow on the Mountain

At first glance it appears this is a large white flower. Then looking closer one can see it really is just white leaves with green stripes. The actual flowers are in the center surrounded by the white leaves.

Ghost Weed

Some choose to call them by another name but I like Snow on the Mountain because it was a Hot, late September day when I found these wildflowers blooming. When it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit  in the shade, Snow has a good ring to it!

Will end this series of Remembering Fall with this post. I had fun taking the pics and had fun sharing them with all you Good Folks who read our blog!

Remembering Fall

part 6

fin

Jake's new toy!

Jake my Stepson and avid mountain biker has been talking about getting a GoPro video camera for a couple of years. Yesterday he finally succumbed to the urge and got their latest and very capable unit the Hero3.

Besides mounting the GoPro on his biking helmet he's talking about getting a mount for his dog Maggie to wear, Maggie usually follows Jake quite closely when he rides and would make a perfect four legged, high speed, all-terrain camera platform. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of interesting video he comes up with! 

First day of Spring...

Oh the smell of freshly mown lawns, the sound of birds chirping, flowers blooming everywhere... NOT!

Our first day of Spring on this part of the Coast was a little white. Oh well the dogs loved it and it was all pretty much gone by late afternoon thankfully!

Shave and a haircut...

This was the view out the front windshield of my boat the other day as I made my way to the docks at Coal Harbour...

If you ask me these "Fly Boys" seem to be having way too much fun, and they get paid for it too. Ha ha!

Infrared

Looking through my new issue of Popular Photography the other night I stumble across a article on how to convert your color images into a kinda of infrared state using Photoshop. You can take infrared images with a regular camera after a few modification, but I don't really feel like more or less destroying a perfectly good camera so I will stick with the the Photoshop conversion. 

I am not sure how I feel about the way these turned out. I just picked a few random photos I have take over time and started the conversion. If I liked the way the images were turning out I finished the process. These four are the ones that I kept.

Black-eyed Susan

Stages and Phases

It was almost October when I came upon this dark eyed beauty! May to July according to the books is when this cycle should occur! As usual I chose my eyes to make the final choice! Oklahoma is a fickle State and we are subject to change on a whim!

Upper center in the photo finds seed pods drying in the sun. A tad lower are the pods still clutched in green. My favorite are the yellow flowers which are still begging attention from pollinators! Entangled as they appear it is just a phase in their cycle!

Brown -eyed Susan!

Ox-eye daisy, poor-mans daisy, or poor land daisy, take your pick! Sometimes it even chooses to remind you of a sunflower and blooms in May. Fickle!

Black or Brown?

Whatever you choose to call this Wildflower, if you are are a visitor to the Refuge from May thru September, chances are good to see this fickle beauty!

 

 

Remembering Fall

part 5