The Hawk Walk was a thrilling and emotional experience for me. I took so many photos that it was nearly impossible to decide which to select for my photo of the day so I decided I had to add a few more of the incredible Don Diego.
Lens at 200mm
ISO 200
f/11
1/125
SOOC
Lens at 200mm
ISO 200
f/11
1/125
SOOC
Lens at 46mm
ISO 200
f/11
1/125
Cropped
Lens at 105mm
ISO 200
f/13
1/125
Exposure +1
Lens at 200mm
ISO 200
f/13
1/125
SOOC
I spent an unforgettable afternoon with a master falconer flying a Harris’ Hawk. I took 483 photos (well, I took most of them; thankfully, my friend, Cindy, took some of me so that I could document my participation in this event). I didn’t make any exposure adjustments after the initial ones because I was so caught up in the experience, I didn’t think about camera settings. In retrospect, I should have set the shutter speed much higher to freeze the flight of the hawk and the day was bright and sunny and the hawk was dark and there were contrast issues. But, overall, I’m happy with what I captured. Here is just one of Don Diego eating the food reward (a smidgeon of jack rabbit flesh) after landing on my friend Cindy’s outstretched arm.
Lens at 82mm
ISO 200
f/13
1/125
SOOC
While I was at the gym today, I noticed activity in the courtyard between the gym and the city library next door. It was a book sale. So, after the workout I wandered out and took some photos; one of the volunteers was thrilled that I was taking photos and asked me to send them so they could post them on their website. I also found a few interesting books, several on photography and I came home with 6 books for $2.
Since this is Day 100, I decided to set the ISO to 100, the shutter speed to 1/100 and set the lens at 100. The ISO and shutter speed were easy to do, but the lens seems not to have such finite settings; I got either 95mm or 105mm. Then I realized that I was being ridiculous and started taking a few photos. Because all the books were in cardboard boxes, I couldn’t get long rows of interesting books. So I took a few of books inside boxes. This box of language books was my favorite because of the colors and the shadow which I think gives the composition some interest.
Lens at 95mm
ISO 100
f/13
1/100
SOOC
While standing in line at Rite-Aid this afternoon, I found myself staring at a large sign that read in plain white letters on dark blue: Goldfish 99¢. This being Day 99 of the 365 Challenge, I asked, and was granted, permission to take a couple of photos of the sign. I made a few adjustments, took a few photos and then I got back in line. It was then that I looked down at the display next to me and there I saw what really would be my Photo of the Day:
Lens at 55mm
ISO 1250
f/7.1
1/100
WB set at florescent
Applied “curves” in Aperture (it was slightly underexposed and a bit dull; since I was standing in a checkout line, I didn’t want to be continuously changing my settings so I decided I would make any necessary adjustments in Aperture after I got home).
Post Script: I really must have my head examined. After all my rantings yesterday about making sure I reset everything (and I actually did), I made another major faux pas today. When I left the house today, I had in mind to take a landscape photo with clouds and perhaps find some wild mustard in the foreground, all planned out in my head. So before I left, I attached my polarizing filter, not thinking that I might be taking some indoor photos. The idea for 99 occurred to me only when I saw the sign in Rite Aid. It was only after posting today’s photo, and trying to figure out why the exposure wasn’t quite what I expected after making white balance and other adjustments, it hit me like a ton of bricks! The polarizing filter! AARRGGHHHHH!
Today I’ve been busy focusing(!) on pressing, non-camera related matters. I’ve been very preoccupied but about noon, I realized I still needed to think about what to do for my photo of the day. I saw that the white azaleas in the backyard were in full bloom so I thought I could take a few shots and be done with it. Nothing in my life these days seems to be that simple, however.
My azalea shots were plagued by clouds intermittently and unpredictably obscuring the bright sunlight. I was outside at noon (or the DST equivalent of noon) and when the sun WAS out, I had trouble finding correct exposure, the brilliant white display overpowering everything. After taking several shots I noticed that auto focus wasn’t functioning properly and many of the shots were out of focus. Then I realized that auto focus was set continuous from three days ago when I was photographing bees. When will I ever learn? No wonder I did not like many of the photos I took yesterday and the day before. It wasn’t only the incorrect white balance settings that threw everything off; I wondered why I wasn’t getting crisp focus on many shots.
Shortly after I got my camera, I read Ken Rockwell’s advice to reset the camera to default settings at the end of every photo shooting session. At the time I read this advice, I was so unfamiliar with the camera functions that I thought the suggestion ludicrous. Now I’m rethinking that opinion. I have had so many disappointing results from my failure to double check all of my settings that it it obvious I must do something to correct this problem. Starting today, on Day 98, I am going to try to remember to reset my camera to default settings every time I finish shooting. After all, this is NOT a point and shoot camera; the reason I got it was because of the inadequacies of my point and shoot camera.
Photographing white azaleas at midday is not the best way to do it, but the Sunny f/16 rule worked for me and I ended up with a few acceptable, if not great, photos. Here is the best of the bunch:
Lens at 200mm
ISO 200
f/16
1/200
SOOC
I was in historic old town Auburn today and found a clump of California poppies, our state flower. It was mostly overcast today and so the poppies were closed; they only unfurl in bright sunshine. I took several photos before I realized I had not reset the White Balance from Tungsten. I reset it to Auto and took several more. When I viewed the results, my favorite photos were those taken with the Tungsten white balance setting.
18-200mm lens set at 200mm
ISO 200
f/5.6
1/160
SOOC
Today I went to a food show at the Sacramento Convention Center with a couple of friends who are planning to open a small music and wine bar in Auburn. There were lots of photographic opportunities with all the colorful displays but there were also many challenges in the cavernous main hall of the convention center: high ceilings, unknown light source (definitely not florescent, maybe halogen?); and constantly moving crowds making clear shots almost impossible.
I came across this display of lentils and grains that was simple but somehow very appealing. I knew when I saw it that it would be my photo of the day. I took four shots of this display but I couldn’t improve upon the first one I took.
Lens at 130mm
ISO 2000
f5.6
1/100
SOOC
I’ve posted lots of bird photos. . . now it’s time for the bees. Bees have been scarce around here in recent years and so this morning when I was photographing my neighbor’s flowering cherry tree I was delighted to find a few honey bees squirreling away pollen.
Honey bees do not stay still for long, however, and they proved to be very difficult to photograph. I used both my “go to” 18-200mm lens and my 70-300mm lens.
I set the autofocus to continuous mode in the hopes of getting one of the elusive creatures in focus but I failed to increase the shutter speed beyond 1/250 which was too slow to stop a bee in flight. The only photos I captured that contained in-focus bees were those in which the bee was on or in a cherry blossom. But my favorite compositions today were those that show movement, even if the main subject was not perfectly in focus.
So with a thumbed nose at my primary blog quest, (getting things in focus) I picked my favorite of the not quite in focus active bee photos today. I regret that it is not in perfect focus but I love the composition. And I learned a very valuable lesson; I haven’t been thinking enough about what result I am seeking (e.g., today a bee in flight in perfect focus) and then making proper camera adjustments before I press that shutter release!
18-200mm Lens at 200mm
ISO 200
f/11
1/200
White Balance set to Sunny
Cropped
My brand new iPad arrived today, a day early. I had it inscribed “In Focus Daily” so I thought it might be appropriate to feature it for my photo of the day.
I love Apple Computer and started buying their products once the Macintosh was developed. I saw and fell in love with Macintosh Computers after reading a feature article in Newsweek Magazine a few weeks before the infamous 1984 Superbowl ad because of the incredible graphics interface that allowed me to actually draw using the mouse. I test drove my first Mac the first day test drives were offered but I held off buying my first Mac for almost a year because I discovered Apple was going to launch the “Fat Mac” in early 1985; the “Fat Mac” became my first Mac. I have had several over the years, upgrading whenever Apple offered a substantial hardware change. I am proud of the fact that I convinced my office in 1987 to become a “Mac” only office when we had the option to go the PC or Mac route and most stuffy business types thought of the Mac as a toy. I even owned stock in Apple Computer for a while. We sold it for a nice profit but that was back in the 1980’s. I wish I had kept those shares. Apple is a tad more valuable today than it was then!
Apple Computer was named after Apple Records because of Steve Jobs’ love for the Beatles. A man after my own heart, Steve Jobs. Not only did he create my favorite line of computers and electronic devices (I have been a faithful Mac “evangelista” for more than 25 years) he loves my favorite musical group of all time, The Beatles. Over the years, Apple Computer and Apple Records, the record label established by the Beatles in the late 1960’s, have tussled over copyright infringement and contract disputes. I was thrilled when Apple Computer finally added the Beatles discography to the iTunes store last year. The first album that I remember having an Apple label was “The White Album.” My old Beatles albums after that have various iterations of the Apple logo, including one that features a red apple instead of the Granny Smith that they started with and subsequently, I believe, established as the main logo.
My photo today features all four of my favorite Apple devices, my iMac, my MacBook, my iPhone and the newest addition to my collection, my iPad. I thought it would be appropriate to include one of the records from The White Album because of the connection between the two companies and my love for both. Then, I thought, “why not feature that Apple Record logo on all four screens?” My biggest challenge in taking this photo was keeping all four screens on at full brightness while I adjusted camera settings.
So with no further ado, let me present the Apples of my eye!
Lens at 36mm
ISO 1600
f/10
1/50
SOOC
Inspired by an article in the paper this morning about where in the Valley to find breathtaking displays of wild flowers, I stopped off at the Roseville Open Space after I left the gym because it’s only a few hundred yards away. There were lovely fields awash in wild flowers. I also saw a pair of great white egrets flying and landing in a dead valley oak, a perching snowy egret keeping an eye on a hunting red shouldered hawk (now I need to search for a nest there), a jack rabbit scurrying for cover from the hawk and a Northern Flicker, whom I heard before I saw.
I took lots of wildflower photos and even one of a dandelion because I was invited to join the Taraxacum Officiale Group on Flickr (all dandelions all the time) after my dandelion photos of yesterday. I took a few of the egrets and the soaring hawk. When I heard the flicker, I sought him out and found him searching for ants on a log. Since it was my first time in this preserve, I wasn’t sure whether I could walk off the path into the fields so I stayed back and zoomed in on the flicker. I still wasn’t as close as I wanted to be so I cropped this and increased the exposure because it was underexposed.
Lens at 200mm
ISO 200
F/14
1/250
Cropped; exposure +1
I have neglected my yard for so long the weeds have taken over. I suppose it could be argued that dandelion leaves are a culinary delicacy to be cultivated but in my case, I’ve just let it go too far. When I went out to pick a bouquet of freesia to bring some spring fragrance into my house, I noted that my lawn was covered with dandelions ready to go to seed to ensure a continuing crop. Never one to be daunted by pests in and around my home, I plucked three and brought them in.
The hardest part of photographing these dandelions proved to be arranging a black back drop. I wanted to offset the white of the dandelion seed heads against a black background. When black tissue paper laid over a smallish picture frame proved too reflective, I found a scrap of black velvet which worked fine but it’s odd shape created pockets of reflective tissue. I finally cut the velvet and overlapped the two pieces but the overall backdrop was barely large enough and I kept getting edges of light in the photo. Using a tripod helped a little but when I made adjustments I frequently didn’t account for the small back drop and so I ruined many of the photos because of a triangle of reflection showing on an edge or a strip of window appearing at the top. Today I learned that I must make a large, non reflective backdrop to have on hand so I don’t spend most of my time fiddling around unnecessarily. For lighting I used my OTT light.
35mm lens
ISO 1600
f/1.8
1/1000
SOOC
Today, three horses were munching on the grass in a field across the street from where I photographed the sheep the other day. That field was empty so, inspired by the Pioneer Woman’s current photo contest, subject: Horses, I pulled over, jumped out of my car and navigated the steep drainage ditch in front of the pasture. I’m lucky that the rain has stopped because a few days ago, it was filled with water and today I didn’t have on my drainage ditch navigating boots.
Since I didn’t have access to the pasture, I was restricted to photographing the horses as they presented themselves to me, which presentation was not necessarily what one wants to look at in a horse picture. This guy finally wandered over to the fence close to me and his face was covered with flies. I got closeups with swarms of flies but those aren’t very appealing, either. I liked the composition of this picture but the sky was very washed out. Since my inspiration came from the Pioneer Woman’s weekly contest, I decided to make a few adjustments to this photo as most of the entries in her contests are altered with textures and color enhancements. I have Photoshop Elements 9, but I opted to use just the sepia adjustment and a vignette in Aperture. I actually like the results; I am reminded of the westerns from the 1940’s and 1950’s and almost expect to see Roddy McDowall come out to feed “Flicka” a carrot.
Lens at 38mm
ISO 200
f/5
1/500
White Balance set to Sunny
Sepia and vignette added