Month: September 2014

I heard one of the scrub jays squawking loudly and thought I might catch him bathing but I was too late. I did catch him up in the shrubs shaking off the excess water.

Focal Length 400mm, ISO 320, f/7.1, 1/500

When I left the gym Tuesday morning, the sun was reflecting off a hubcap onto the asphalt of the parking lot and I thought the reflection was stunning. The white line separating the parking spaces is visible. I edited it in Perfect Effects 8 using one of the filters, either glow or sunshine, I don’t recall which. This is the result.

Focal Length 70mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/320

When I went out to photograph the hummer bathing, he immediately flew to the nearby shrubs to preen so, once again, all I have are preening shots. But, what’s fascinating to me about these shots is that the hummer’s head is covered in pin feathers. The other day, I posted a couple of shots of a lesser goldfinch bathing in the fountain, his head covered in pin feathers. It must be molting season. The first shot shows the pin feathers clearly on his head and neck and the second shot shows a barely visible line of white dots on his neck that are pin feathers.

Focal Length 400mm, ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/125, Speed Light

I was about to bite into a luscious black mission fig when I suddenly pictured all of the little seeds and pink flesh as a macro shot. So, instead of biting in, I sliced the fig in half with a knife, laid the pieces on a chunk of black granite, and zoomed in with my macro lens. The close macros were not as interesting as I’d envisioned so I backed off a bit to get a different composition. I really liked the shots that showed some of the stem and the flesh along with the black background. I think the curving stems add interest, and even energy, to the shot.

Focal Length 105mm, ISO 100, f/20, 1.3 seconds

Periodically, a herd of goats is used to clear the vegetation from the area around Mahaney Park near my gym and they spend several days grazing until all of the unwanted vegetation is gone. I decided to take some shots as they grazed but noticed many of the goats were very curious about my presence, watching me and coming up to the fence to get a closer look. These are a few of my favorite photos from the other day and they remind me of mugshots, especially the last one with his “stogie” clamped in his teeth.

One of my favorite CFBP education birds is Ozzie, a screech owl. Last year, Ozzie replaced Bob as the CFBP’s main screech owl and I have featured him in this blog in the past. Bob is happily retired at age 18 and living in his huge flight chamber at CFBP headquarters. Ozzie is blind in one eye and the expressions he gets on his face are priceless.

While waiting for my car to be serviced Thursday morning, I walked down to Rusch Park in Citrus Heights and at the Skate Park, I met Jason and Jacob who agreed to let me photograph them while they practiced some of their BMX moves. They even asked me if there was anything special I wanted them to demonstrate but since I know nothing about BMX, I told them just to do their thing.

It was shortly after 9AM and the morning sunlight and shade from the surrounding trees created a very contrasty lighting dilemma for me. I set the camera to shutter priority and the shutter speed to 1/500 and the ISO to 800. The resulting shots didn’t isolate the riders as much as I wanted them to be because the shutter speed I selected caused the camera set a relatively small aperture to create a deep depth of field. I should have used a higher shutter speed which I think would have forced the camera to set a larger aperture and I would have had a blurrier background and sharper images. Then again, maybe I should just stick to manual settings.

I decided to desaturate the colors of the background so that the bright greens would be less distracting. I preferred that look to the full color versions. Then I experimented in Photoshop to see what the photos would look like with the background completely blurred. I really loved the potential but I have spent so little time perfecting my Photoshop skills that I was unable to isolate the subject without lots of jagged edges around the wheels and spokes. One shot of Jacob turned out fairly well so I’m posting it just because I think it’s a cool result but it is far from what I would consider a good job and I finally had to remove the spokes of the top wheel completely.

Thank you Jason and Jacob. Maybe next time I get my car serviced, I’ll run across you guys again and I’ll try this all over and maybe get it right!

And the same shot Photoshopped! I obliterated the background and left the shadow.

Not quite as delicate as a butterfly (mariposa is Spanish for butterfly) this Harris hawk, called Mariposa, flew over and among the awestruck crowds watching her performances at the Caledonian Club’s Scottish Gathering in the Bay Area on Sunday. Mariposa is owned by Kate Marden of West Coast Falconry and in those three performances, she flew from Amber, her handler on the ground, back to Kate, on stage. I had nine chances because Mariposa flew back and forth three times in each show and I tried my best to capture clear, crisp images of Mariposa in flight. But, it was not an easy task for me. Each flight lasted only 7 seconds from launch to landing and all three flights were completed within about 35 seconds. Trying to focus on a fast flying bird from relatively close range, with continually changing focusing distance as the bird flew by, while maneuvering around a milling crowd in a small area, proved to be virtually impossible for me.

I started with my 80-400mm lens and quickly realized I was too close, even at 80mm for the very confined space where the show was held. And, in my first attempt, I stupidly stood with the crowd by the stage so I was thwarted in my efforts by heads, hats, and arms. For the two afternoon shows, I changed to my 24-70mm lens and I walked back to where Amber waited with Mariposa away from the crowd. I stood about 15 feet away from her but once Mariposa launched into the air and moved toward me, I was unable to capture a clear image, even using continual focus. Despite my problems, I did manage to capture a few reasonably good images, but not all are flight images. I think I need to plan a better strategy, and do some more study about photographing birds in flight, before I try this again.

Kate’s gloved hand holds Mariposa on stage getting ready to launch.
Focal Length 80mm, f/5, 1/200, ISO 640

Mariposa lands on Kate’s gloved hand and reaches for her food reward.
Focal Length 95mm, f/5, 1/200, ISO 640

Amber signals she and Mariposa are ready for launch.
Focal Length 70mm, f/3.5, 1/1000, ISO 500

Mariposa flies through the crowd.
Focal Length 70mm, f/3.5, 1/1000, ISO 500

Mariposa flies back to the stage.
Focal length 70mm, f/7.1, 1/1250, ISO 1600

Mariposa gets ready to launch.
Focal length 70mm, f/7.1, 1/1250, ISO 1600

Mariposa launches.
Focal length 70mm, f/7.1, 1/1250, ISO 1600

Complementary colors are colors opposite each other on the color wheel; e.g., red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple are complementary pairs. A recent Flickr challenge theme was “complementary colors.” Since I haven’t posted any photos to my Flickr daily challenge group in quite a while, I thought I’d try to catch up. I looked around my house for some complementary colors and discovered one of Bobo’s new rope toys contains complementary colors instead of primary colors as they usually do. I edited the photo in Perfect Effects 8, even using one of the blur filters to give a little hint of the effects of a Lens Baby like my friend Melinda has been using lately.

I’ve posted quite a few bird photos in recent days so here are a couple of bees. Actually it’s the same bee gathering pollen and nectar from my garlic chives. I was outside during the harshest light of the day, right about noon. I was experimenting with the “program” setting on my D800. I still had to tweak these shots a little and of course they’re cropped quite a bit as I used my D800 with the 24-70mm lens. I guess I’ll keep shooting in manual mode.

I’m traveling to the Rain Forest of Costa Rica in January 2015 on another photography workshop with Moose Peterson and Kevin Dobson of K&M Adventures. I obtained my 80-400mm lens in anticipation of that trip and I’ve been practicing with it. Most of the bird shots I’ve posted in this blog recently were taken with that lens. I love it. So, Sunday, when I had an opportunity, as the volunteer photographer for the California Foundation for Birds of Prey, a non-profit raptor rehabilitation organization, to document the CFBP’s participation in the San Francisco Caledonian Club’s annual Scottish Gathering and Games held in the Bay Area, I took that lens with me. I was excited to find a new, to me, bird at the event. Not that I don’t get excited about all the magnificent raptors I’m privileged to photograph, I still do, but this adorable, cuddly looking baby spectacled owl, a native of the rain forest of Central and South America, including Costa Rica, really caught my attention. Kate Marden of West Coast Falconry has had him about 4 weeks. I can’t help posting several shots because I couldn’t decide which I liked best and this face is so irresistible I had to share them. As you can see in the last shot, he is very content with Kate. She scratches around his head, neck, and eyes, and he is in ecstasy.