A daytime picture!

So far no one has talked me into going out at 2am to take pictures in the dark... And I'm not tired today either, ha ha!

I did however have the camera and Sigma 120-400 out a couple of days ago looking to get a few bird pictures. No bird pictures but I did get a nice shot of the Arrow Post on it's way into Hardy Bay. 

You'd think I would know better

The day started like any other, up early and working by 6:30 a.m. but in the middle of the afternoon Aaron calls and asks if I want to go take photos of the Milky Way, at 2:00 a.m.!

Now my first thought was no, well, actually, "hell no, I will be sleeping at 2:00 a.m." but then the right side of my brain took over and I said yes. I couldn't let the young guy get the best of me you know.

I have to say the boy does have some good ideas even though my brain and body are making me pay for it today. It sucks getting old!

The bright lights in the bottom left corner of the second photo are from a small town about 20 miles from from my house where this was taken. The bright lights in the bottom center of the first shot are from another, smaller town about ten miles away.

These first two shots were twenty second exposures with an ISO of 3200. This last shot was something all together different.

This shot was taken with a new gadget I bought about three weeks ago. I haven't been able to use it because it's been cloudy every night since I got it so last night was a treat.

This is the Milky Way with a few wispy clouds passing by.

For those interested in the technical aspects of this photo; it was shot using a Nikon D800 and Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens. The lens was set at f2.8 and 14mm with an ISO of 400 (yes, 400!) and the shutter was 155 seconds.

How's that possible without getting star trails you ask? Come on, you know you want to know.

The new gadget is an Ioptron Star Tracker. It mounts to your tripod and then your camera mounts to the Ioptron. Once you have it adjusted properly you can open your shutter for up to six minutes without getting star trails. The tracker does just that, tracks the stars as the earth turns so that your camera is always looking in the same spot in the sky as time passes. 

You are limited to six minutes on the shutter because the Ioptron Star Tracker uses the star Polaris as it's tracking point and Polaris has a "wobble" to it that will affect the photos after six minutes. A shutter of two to three minutes is just about perfect for these kinds of shots anyway I think.

I am more than impressed with how well the Ioptron worked and I will be taking more star photos in the near future.

I think I better stock up on the coffee!

A Charlie Brown Day In Color

This is the same photo as yesterday but in color. 

I couldn't decide which one I liked the best.

A Charlie Brown Day

I almost got a sunset out of the day before it began to rain.

Reaching for the sun

I went out to our local lake last night to try to take some sunset photos. I think I was there for about 15 minutes before it started to rain again. The sun was out but a rain cloud formed right above me. I may have to change my name to Charlie Brown!

Bobbing for a Sunset

I had planned on getting out this morning and taking some photos but as luck would have it, it's raining!

I dug back into the Maui photos from January for these two sunsets taken from the water. I'm still trying to figure out how to keep the water drops off of the port when I take surface photos.

My Apologies

Work has kept me as busy as this hummingbird the last few weeks. I haven't had time to take any photos, much less post anything to our blog. 

Being busy is good I guess. It means I can by more camera equipment! Hopefully it will level out some soon so I can spend some time out with my cameras taking photos.

Blue spray paint...

While out exploring a few days ago my wife and I came across a large Cedar tree, the only tree left standing in a freshly logged area which was somewhat unusual. Normally when they log they take all the trees!

So we parked the truck and walked up to the large tree to take a few pictures. On the way up I noticed some blue spray paint on the tree but couldn't quite make out what it said as it was quite faded.

We walked around the big tree and speculated on it's age and girth. Just as I was trying to decipher the faded blue lettering on the tree my wife finds that the tree is hollow under one side and says "This looks like a Bear Den under here"... Suddenly the cryptic blue spray paint made sense. "BEAR DEN"!

Needless to say we were out of there and back to the truck before you could say "I think I smell a Pick-a-nic basket"! Never a dull moment over here on the West Coast...

Sea Dog

Found this little Harbor Seal watching me as I took some pictures of the boats down around the docks in Port Hardy, so I took his picture too!

Once upon a pothole...

Ah, ah, ah...

Budda, budda, budda, budda,

Ahhh!

Still more signs of Spring...

Periwinkle

Wild Strawberry

Soldiers Herb or narrow leaf Plantain

Not sure the name for this pretty little wildflower...

All of these pictures are taken with the Nikon D7100 and Nikor 18-300 lens.

Flying Rubies

 Well I finally got sometime to take a few photos that weren't kindergarten or kid related the other day. I was able to capture quite a few photos of this Ruby Throated Hummingbird the other day while at Ron's house. I spent most of the day sitting outside enjoying the warm day waiting for this little hummer to buzz to and from the feeder. I also captured a few photos of another acrobatic hummer but I will post the another time. 

 All of these are shot at or around 750mm (crop sensor mm) with a tripod. In the top three photos I was lucky enough to have the hummingbird land about 7 ft from where I was sitting. It stayed there for a good 2 minutes before buzzing off.  These are not cropped at all. In the bottom three I cropped them about 50% to get rid of some of the excess background.  

More signs of Spring!

Pussy Willows

Unknown little flower

Fawn Lily

Salmon Berry Blossom

Euuu!

They're baaack!

Must be Spring,,,

Back to the Sea

I was very tempted to grab my camera gear and head to Kaua'i today to take some photos of a new born baby seal with Val but cooler heads prevailed. Oh OK, my wife wouldn't let me go, something about money I think is what she said. All I heard was blah, blah, blah. LOL

Crowded Airspace

Just a few shots from our trip in March to Oklahoma.

Colorful Coral

I'm back to looking into the old files again. I always seem to migrate to the Hawai'i files when I do this. Hmmmm...

Paul,
I think your area are similar to these photos.  If you add the ND, and GND to the scenery, it creates better mood to it.

Don't forget to look up!