Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a bright and beautiful 2014!

Turtle in Turtle Town

After posting yesterday's picture of the fish in Turtle Town, I suddenly realized I've never shared the turtle who came to visit us in Turtle Town!

Turtle Town is an area on the coast of Maui where many turtles like to live. This one came swimming out to our boat, and actually ended up swimming right under us! Stunning, amazing, incredible...

Macro of a Bee

I love macros. Now that I have a proper lens, maybe I can get more like this. (Once the weather warms up.)

Balance...

The toy was balanced on her nose. When we tell her she can have it, the result is a flung toy that she has to chase!

Canada Day Fireworks

My most disappointing photo outing of the summer. I brought the camera and the tripod and fresh batteries and an empty memory card. I checked for trees and power lines and people.

I didn't notice the little switch had flipped from auto focus to manual focus, so I assumed the camera was focusing and it was not. A couple ended up accidentally in focus - sort of. But I had a couple hundred blurry smudges.

Star Trails

This was about a 25 or 30 minute exposure at our camp site in northern Sask.

Playtime!

Canada Geese

I recently spent a couple of hours at a local park taking pictures of the birds. So I hope you like birds, because there will be a lot of them over the next few days! This post will showcase some of my favourite pictures from that day of Canada Geese.

A beautiful day to ponder life, the universe, and everything. Or at least whether that gull is going to steal a tasty morsel he wanted.

I think this is my favourite from this set. I caught these two in take off. It's not a perfectly sharp, clear image, but that's okay. I was working more on getting my camera in the right place at the right time. They aren't a completely fuzzy blur, so I call it a win.

I imagine he was studying his reflection. He was probably looking below the surface for a bite to eat. He just looks so calm and stately.

A moment later, surveying his domain. I love his reflection in the water. Not completely clear, but quite nice.

Squirrely business

This little guy was chittering angrily at me one morning as I was leaving for work. I managed to snap off a couple of quick pictures, and I'm quite please with how this came out!

There are a FEW advantages to fall/winter - this little guy would be completely hidden from view if the tree was in full leaf!

Awesome photo

This is not my picture, but it's just too awesome not to share it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/willyc808/8704071668/in/pool-15529695@N00/

Go look! GO BLUE ANGELS!

Great Blue Heron

Absolutely at the distance limit of what my camera could manage clearly. But it is very obvious that this is indeed a Great Blue Heron. We actually followed him for quite a while, unintentionally. When we got too close (which wasn't close at all) he would take off, and watching him in flight was just breath-taking.

1/160 sec, f/5.7, ISO 80, 100mm focal length

Pretty Butterfly

Had to track this one for quite a while before it settled enough for me to get this picture. And I'm very pleased with the results of my patience! I'm of two minds about whether I should crop this one. On one hand, I'd like to focus in a little more on the butterfly, but on the other hand, I love the contract with the rocky ground.

1/640 sec, f/5.7, 100mm focal length, ISO 160

Too good to miss

This duck was diving for lunch under the water. The view was priceless - including the feet visible beneath the surface of the water! Strangely, I actually like that it's off-center. Usually I'm not fond of it, but this one works. Maybe that's because it's only a little off?

1/125 sec, f/5.0 aperture, ISO 80, focal length 41.4mm

Bumblebee

Lovely shot of a bee taken while waiting for people to clear out so I could put a geocache back in to hiding! I need to crop this one to bring the focus more on the bee, since it's quite sharp and the wings are fairly detailed.

1/400sec, f/5.7, ISO 80, focal length 100mm

Rainy day

Cue sequence of events: Dog starts to bark like crazy. Woman gets up to look outside and see what's going on. Woman sees nothing of note for the dog, but a lovely photo opportunity. Woman gets camera, and does her best to get the shot without having to go outside in the rain!

As I've said before, I love my SX10, but every once in a while, the lack of true manual focus drives me to distraction. Today, I could NOT get the autofocus to do what I wanted, so here we are - this is what I could eck out with the limited manual focus the camera offers. Overall, I'm quite pleased with it. The focus may not be razor sharp, but it is very good. the background is beautifully blurry, to make a muted and not-distracting canvas for this pretty iris leaf.

And did I mention I shot this through the window? (which is a little smudgey, and that might contribute slightly to the sharpness issue.)

0.02 sec exposure, f/5.7 aperture, ISO 200, 100mm focal length

Just buzzzzing along

I am thrilled with how this picture turned out! I stopped to take some pictures of these beautiful Alberta Wildroses at the same time as a couple of bees were visiting. Normally I hate bees, but I decided to gather my courage and take this fabulous opportunity. And my efforts were rewarded! The bee is perfectly in focus, you can even see the detail in her wings. The flowers are sharp, but the background quickly drops away to a soft, fuzzy green. I'm thrilled!

Wordless Wednesday: Moon

1/400 exposure, f/5.0 aperture, 59.2mm focal length (to eliminate background items), ISO 100

Focus just where I want

My camera is not a DSLR. I only have a very awkward and imprecise manual focus. So things that are easy with a spin of the lens on a DSLR are a real challenge with my lovely SX10.

This is the first time I was able to get both the foreground AND background out of focus, with something in the middle clear and sharp! I'm thrilled with the results of these beautiful bleeding hearts.

1/60 sec exposure, f/5.0 aperture, 63.6mm focal length, ISO 200, Flash on (it was later evening), non-macro

Lighting Day 3

Here I was playing with essentially the same set up as yesterday's image, but instead I had the light on red.

Believe it or not, the light was perfectly still here. This is not an example of writing with light. I'm not sure if it actually qualifies as caustics, but it does quality as really neat - at least to me!

Auto white balance, 0 exposure bias, ISO 200, aperture 3.2, 0.8 second exposure length, and no flash.

More lighting

So I have really been slacking off on the blog posts lately. The simple fact is, it's winter, it's hard to get outside, and I am just not all that fond of shooting indoors. Part of that is due to the fact I have lousy lighting, and with such short amounts of daylight at this time of year, it's hard to get any chance to work with natural light. And part of it is just that I'm not feeling inspired in my own house. However, I have recently acquired a pair of small LED lights on foldy tripod legs, a lot like a Joby Gorillapod. It also has the option of both white and red lights (meant, I believe, as emergency roadside lighting). So perhaps that will at least help with the lighting issue!

What prompted the acquisition of the new lights was my attempt, and mostly failure, to capture some images of caustics. (Here is a description, fancy method, and beautiful images of caustics.) This image wasn't a raging success, but it's not bad, either. I am certainly much more pleased with this than I was with my earlier attempts using a regular desk lamp with a bulb that apparently shines yellow. My set up was a fairly simple one. I was using a sundae glass (tallish, flares out at the top) filled with plain tap water. I played with the angle of the light until I liked what I saw. I considered cropping it closely, but I like the bits of light arcing out at the top and bottom right.

Auto white balance, 0 Exposure Bias, ISO 80, aperture 6.3 and 0.8 seconds exposure length. Clearly, no flash.

Have you ever played with caustics?