Month: April 2012

Today, Action Camera called to tell me that . . . my new 50mm 1.4 lens arrived. I was hoping for the D800 but this lens is for the D800, whenever it arrives, so it’s a good thing. My first subject using the new lens was Mady who was afraid I was paying too much attention to Bobo. Mady is staying with Bobo and me for the next two and a half weeks. When I pet Mady, Bobo gets jealous. When I interact with Bobo, Mady is jealous. It will be an interesting couple of weeks. And, I have much to learn about this lens. I love that it has an exquisitely shallow depth of field when it is wide open but I neglected to study how close it will focus so this shot is a little “soft,” the term photographers use for less than crisply sharp focus.

Today’s daily challenge theme is “The Bottom Half” and I considered taking photos of Mady’s tail and hindquarters but I love dog noses and when I started shooting closeups of her face, I decided the bottom half of her face featuring her nose was adorable, even as drippy as it is, and perfect for the challenge. I was so excited about the lens that I failed to increase the ISO and when I realized it, Mady had laid back down and gone to sleep so my photo ops were gone for the time being. I had to make a levels adjustment.

Focal Length 50mm
ISO 200
f/1.4
1/50
Levels

Today’s daily challenge them is “Symmetry.” I found a couple of Dutch Iris blooms in my front yard today and I picked them and brought them in because I’m having company for dinner tonight and they were the only flowers I had. As I looked at them, I realized that the Dutch Iris is very symmetrical. I shot it with the diffuser behind the iris and in front of a large window and placed one OTT light above and one below the flower.

Focal Length 122mm
ISO 200
f/5.6
1/50
SOOC

I spent today in Benicia visiting my dear friend Melinda and her family along with a couple of old friends, Joan and Rudy. Our focus was not photography today, but on friendship. We spent most of the day catching up and reminiscing but I did manage to capture a few shots of Melinda and Lonnie’s adorable grandchildren, Miles and Henry. I guess their delightful and attractive parents, Caitlin and Justin, should get some credit for these precious babies. My favorite from today is a profile of Henry’s face as he munched on some chips. I started with increasing the ISO to settings far outside my comfort zone. There is quite a bit of noise in this photo but otherwise, I like this shot. When I finally attached my Speed Light, the magical shots were gone.

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 2000
f/5.6
1/40
SOOC

Today, while I waited for my friend Barbara to finish her transactions at a local boutique in The Fountains, the trendy shopping center across from the upscale Galleria Shopping Center, my eye was drawn to the colorful trolley that takes people on rides around the Mall. It was parked and no one was on it nor was anyone waiting for a ride, so I took a few shots of the still train and then remembered that today’s challenge topic is “Dutch Angle” a term that I’d never heard until today. A “Dutch Angle” is a shot made with the camera tilted for effect…or at least that’s what I understood it to be. I decided to tilt the camera to make it look as if the train were moving, coming round a corner. I was also mindful of today’s lesson on composition in the photography workshop in which I’m participating so I was especially challenged in the few minutes I had to take my photographs. I tried to compose the photo by filling the frame to make my subject obvious, getting a nicely balanced shot, and avoiding unsatisfactory mergers, and considering the rule of thirds. When I downloaded the photos I took, I discovered that I failed to tilt the camera enough for the “Dutch Angle” effect I wanted and I didn’t really get my subject composed as nicely as I hoped. But, the shot is colorful and a slight tweak with the “straightening tool” resulted in the photo I desired. I also had to adjust levels to achieve correct exposure so today’s shot is far from technically perfect. But I ended up liking the processed result.

Focal Length 68mm
ISO 200
f/9
1/200

It seems I can’t be satisfied with my photos unless I get at least one bird shot every day. Today, though, I resisted running out with my camera when the hummer was at the feeder dueling with the bee again, hovering over the fountain ready to plunge in, or sitting or a branch surveying the yard. But when the robin was bathing, I just had to grab my camera. I started shooting inside through the window, then decided to see how close I could get walking outside. The robin didn’t leave the fountain as I inched closer but I didn’t want to push my luck so I stayed back further than I normally would since the robin isn’t used to me. Of course all of the rules of composition went right out of my brain and, consequently, my composition was terrible. So this photo is cropped but the exposure is SOOC.

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 200
f/8
1/100
Cropped

While I poked around my house trying to find something that might illustrate today’s challenge theme, “hidden,” because I had no Easter eggs, things that are normally hidden on this day, I opened a ceramic walnut that I keep on a cabinet and I was surprised to find a stash of bills that had completely slipped my mind. I guess I haven’t opened that walnut since before my husband passed away five years ago. It held our gambling stash for our occasional forays to nearby Thunder Valley Casino. We were apparently ahead by $65.

When I took the photo, I tried to keep in mind what I’m learning from my latest photography class. I listened to this week’s first lesson on the treadmill at the gym this morning so composition was swirling around my head: identify the subject; keep it simple; rule of thirds; balance. I know there’s more to the lesson but those were the things I thought about with this composition. I know all this stuff from the several classes I’ve already taken and I try to put it into practice in my daily photo shoots but sometimes I get too caught up in the moment to remember them, like when I’m following a hummingbird around the yard or tracking a hawk soaring overhead. The reminders contained in this lesson are good for me. I also tried to be extra careful with exposure because all the photos we post during the nine weeks of class must be straight out of the camera. No tweaking, not even just a little. What you take is what you post—so here’s my own take on WYSIWYG—WYTIWYP—pronounced “whit – ee – whip.” 🙂

As I look at my photo, I think I was fairly successful in applying the rules of composition. The subject is the money and I think there is no doubt about that plus it is apparent that the money is inside something else so it sort of tells a story; it’s simple, no extraneous background, or distracting elements; the photo is loosely divided into horizontal thirds and the 5 on one of the bills is at one of the crucial intersections; the top of the walnut literally and figuratively puts a lid on the money so it creates a balance with a bottom, middle and top.

Focal Length 170mm
ISO 100
f/8
3/5 second
SOOC

I think I might have to rename my blog “Hummer Photo of the Day.” Lately, my go to photo of the day seems to be something to do with hummingbirds. I did photograph a Swainson’s hawk that flew over my house today, and was able to identify it because the shots I took showed the distinct underwing patterns of the Swainson’s, a hawk I’d never knowingly seen before. But, it was pretty far up so the shots were not good enough to use on the blog. While I never tire of watching and photographing hummingbirds, I think I need to add more hummingbird friendly plants in my yard to get some different views of them instead of shooting them perched on the feeder. If they don’t have a place to land comfortably, I might be more apt to achieve my goal of getting good, in focus shots of a hummer in flight.

Today’s daily challenge topic is “happiness” and to me, happiness is getting a good bird photo, so when I saw the hummer at the feeder I went out to see what I could get. While I didn’t get any shots of a hummer in flight, I was rewarded with what I think is an interesting sequence. The hummer, a female Anna’s, had something in her beak when I started to photograph her high in a leafless branch over my head. At first I thought she was eating small bugs on the branch and it was only when I downloaded the photos that I discovered that she was trying to get a piece of fuzz, perhaps a bit of spider web from her nest, off her beak.

Here she is with the fuzz on the tip of her beak:

Here she places the fuzz on the branch:

And, here she is with a fuzzless beak and the fuzz can be seen on the branch where she placed it.

All photos:

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 250
f/14
1/250
Cropped and Levels
Yesterday, both my shots were SOOC. Today, the shots seemed drab so I brightened them using a levels adjustment.

If I’d only waited an hour, I wouldn’t have had to rely on the daily challenge for my photo so I decided to post a second today. Mainly because I’ve never photographed a large butterfly. I posted a photo of a small white one a while back but when I noticed this swallowtail flitting around the azaleas, I grabbed the camera and ran outside. I really like the focus and the exposure on this one but the shadows from the pergola’s cross beams resulted in part of the wing being in the shade.

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 200
f/11
1/160
SOOC

Today’s photo is an homage of sorts to Jacques Cousteau, and not to the 1955 horror film titled “It Came From Beneath the Sea” in which an H-Bomb radiated giant octopus wraps its tentacles around the Golden Gate Bridge and pulls it down. The daily challenge theme is “from the sea” and this is a photo of a giant conch shell that a friend brought me 30 plus years ago from the Caribbean. The photo reminds me of the Jacques Cousteau films from the early ’60s in which sea creatures emerge from the murky depths into the harsh lights mounted on Jacques’ submarine.

I used my Speed Light and I am finding it to be a very interesting tool. I took the photos in my living room with the conch on its usual bottom shelf of the curio cabinet. There is a mirror in the back wall of the cabinet and so I was careful to make sure I pointed the light anywhere but at the mirror. I tried angles to reduce reflections and shadows on the shell and adjusted shutter speeds for the best effect. I was surprised that at certain angles even though the room was light and the mirror reflected that light, the background was completely black, and with the shallow depth of field, the shell appears to be emerging, hence my reference to Jacques Cousteau.

This shot is SOOC. It could use some brightening; I obviously need to figure out how to adjust the Speed Light and to coordinate shutter speeds to get best exposure but I actually liked this one so I’m leaving it alone. And, besides, although I’ve just begun to allow myself to edit photos before I post them, the class I’m taking requires all postings to be SOOC so I’m back to posting SOOC for the foreseeable future.

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 300
f/5.6
1/100
Speed Light
SOOC

Today was a day for birds . . . and bees. . .and the birds and the bees. I spent a few minutes outside photographing the hummingbirds. I never tire of photographing these birds. And if I keep practicing, maybe I’ll get an in focus shot of one of them in flight. I saw the hummer fly to the feeder, then immediately flit away. The bird’s actions surprised me so I went outside and saw that there was a honeybee crawling around the hummingbird feeder. My new feeders don’t have bee guards like the old feeders had. While I was outside, of course with my camera, the hummer landed and began to feed again. And so did the bee. The following sequence shows the hummer feeding, both the hummer and the bee flying away, and the hummer feeding again. It was a fascinating sequence of events; before the hummer returned, the bee examined the feeder again (I got some uninspired-but actually in focus) shots of the bee crawling around but I chose not to include those. Then when the bee left, the hummer returned and resumed feeding.

The three hummingbird-related shots are all SOOC, shot at a focal length of 300mm, ISO 200, f/5.6, shutter speed either 1/250 or 1/200.

I wish I’d been prepared to get better focus. The hummingbird hovered for a few seconds and I got three out of focus shots (primarily motion blur but still, out of focus because I was unable to follow the action); this is the most interesting because it shows both the hummer and the bee flying away.

And, it’s back at the feeder, looking around for the bee.

These next few shots are the result of the much-touted “birds and bees” euphemism. I was at Costco to return something this afternoon and decided to take a walk in the Stock Ranch Open Space behind the Costco on Auburn Blvd. I cropped them all and applied a levels adjustment to them.

I met a lady who steered me to a pond where there were baby mallard ducks—eight baby mallard ducks. Mama duck was quick to get her ducklings to safety across the pond when I arrived and I had to quickly take these shots through the reeds. In the only shot with all eight babies, they’re sadly all swimming away from the lens.

The last two shots are coots. At least I think the goofy looking little guy looking straight at me is a baby coot. He quickly disappeared into the reeds after I took this shot and the pair of coots that kept encircling the reeds are likely his parents.

Inspired by an article about mortars and pestles in the Food Section of today’s Sacramento Bee, I filled my rarely used marble mortar and used the pestle to grind up some Chinese Five Spice mix. Since today’s Flickr challenge theme is “DIY—Do It Yourself,” I think that my efforts fit the bill.

Focal Length 112mm
ISO 200
f/5.6
1 second
SOOC

Once again, the gods of Serendip have treated me well. I’m starting to feel better today but again, I decided to stick with today’s daily challenge theme so I wouldn’t have to wrack my brain too much. Today’s theme is “middle.” Actually, that theme takes some brain-wracking for me in the state I’m in but today at least, it is without any cold medication so my brain is a bit clearer. My first thought was “middle C” on the piano but photographing piano keys, which I’ve done in the past without much artistic success, is not very appealing, so after a few shots, I decided to abandon the piano and focus on my recently re-invigorated patio fountain which now bubbles a gurgling plume from its center.

As I sat on the patio concrete in front of the fountain, I heard a bird song that I didn’t immediately recognize. Then I saw the hummingbird darting at the singing bird who, I presume, was probably too close to the hummingbird’s territory (a nest perhaps?). The bird is a male Lesser Goldfinch and I have seen him and his mate bathing in the fountain but have scared them away in the past when I walked outside to photograph them. I sat still and was rewarded when he flew down and watched me as I photographed. He never got comfortable enough to bathe while I was there, but he did pose for a few shots.

I’m going to claim that this photo meets the “middle” challenge because the subject is smack dab in the middle of the frame. This is cropped slightly but I kept Sir Goldfinch right in the middle where he started out. I love this shot because his stance makes it look as if his hands/wings are on his hips and he is looking straight at me as if to say, “would you leave so I can get on with my bath?”

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 200
f/16
1/125
Levels/Crop

First, I must print a disclaimer as I am currently self-medicating with cold medicine that leaves me a bit dopey. That said (inside joke only my fellow photoblogger, Melinda, will understand, and which is not remotely funny but as I said, in my drug induced state of mind my normal acuity for writing has been dulled a bit) today’s challenge topic is “up and down.” As I sat at my Mac staring into space this morning and considering what I might photograph close to home, I realized the light switches on the wall behind the computer go up and down. And the switch plate that I bought at a home show a couple of years ago, actually the oldest thing in my home, makes an interesting background for the light switches. It is carved from a piece of “spiral fossil Marble” from Pakistan that is between 15 and 40 million years old. And, no, I didn’t remember that, I just never throw anything away and the little card that came with it was nearby in my desk drawer.

With the camera set on my tripod, I used a bright flashlight covered with the tungsten gel from my Nikon Speed Light to make the shadow when I took the photograph using my remote shutter release. Then, I made a slight levels adjustment in Aperture and added a vignette for interest.

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 100
f/14
4 seconds

My bubbling fountain was not bubbling too well today so I went out to see if I could fix it. After bumbling around and creating a geyser instead of a soft gurgling bubble, a phone call to a local fountain purveyor resulted in a suggestion that I had air in the line and it was easily fixable by just unplugging and replugging the fountain a few times. It worked. Then, I realized that fountain starts with the letter “F” which is the topic of today’s daily challenge. I thought I’d photograph the fountain with the azalea flowers (another “F”) in the background and perhaps even viewed through something that might create a frame within a frame, yet another “F” word. As I sat in front of the fountain taking shots from various angles, the hummingbird, apparently now used to my lens, hovered nearby and then plunged into the fountain. What serendipity—feathers in the fountain. Here are my favorites from my latest close encounter with my friend, the hummer. I think this is the female hummer and, as you can see, she really enjoys her bath.

I took all of these photos at a focal length of 300mm, using the Sunny 16 rule (ISO 200, Shutter Speed 200, f/16) and WB set to Sunny. I cropped them all and gave each one a slight levels adjustment.