Hunting Birds with the Camera

Hello!

Day 7 of my 365 day photography journey

I went to bed at 1AM this morning and Lee's alarm went off at 5AM. It was a short rest. I got up and packed my gear for a trip to Hesperia Lake to catch the sunrise over the lake and capture some birds.

The sun rose as usual but I didn't capture anything that great as for as the sunrise goes.

I did capture this thing. Not sure what this is a product of, but I'm sure it's mother loves it.

Don't you just love the stance of this Night Heron? Shoulders hunched, head dropped low. You can almost hear the sinister laugh as you look at this.

This Grackle and the Night Heron didn't mind sharing space this morning, but the Grackle sure was talking up a storm.

This duck just seemed to blend in with it's background, but it was very poetic somehow. I liked the photo.

>This is a Mourning dove. I always thought it was a "Morning dove" till Lee said it sounds like it's mourning and I thought you called it that because of it's mourning. I'd always seen them in the morning so I thought they were morning doves. Learn something new.

I watched this hawk dive on several birds to no avail. It was eventually chased off by some of the same birds it tried to kill.

Apart from a mug full of ants that I found later, in my coffee mug, this was the last thing I saw at Hesperia lake. The Ash-Throated Flycatcher.

Make a great Day.

Textures

Hello!

Day 6 of my 365 day photography journey

80 mm, f/8, 400, 1/8 sec

I was reading about textures and thought I would share a little study I did about textures. Images should make you want to scratch or smell and feel real things sometimes. Images with texture should remind you of the sensation you'd have with the subject. A picture of a cold beer with droplets of water running down the side should invoke images of coolness and refreshing. Images of a coarse brick should remind you of a chalky dry sand paper like surface. Well that is my goal here today. Create images that give you a sense of texture.

106 mm, f 11, 1/6 sec, ISO 400

This is an old Rope Pulley from many many years back, above. To the right here is some of the rope from the pulley. Below are images of a brick fascia and a tree. I hope you felt what I was trying to convey.

40mm, 1/640 sec, f5, ISO 200

105mm, f 10, 1/640, ISO 200

105mm, 1/640 sec, f 5.6, ISO 200

105mm, 1/4 sec, f9, ISO 200

It's my hope that you look at this rope and think, "I'm not handling that without wearing gloves."

I hope you enjoyed my little study. Make a Great Day!!!

New Tripod

Well today didn't go as planned, for a good reason and a bad reason. The good reason is I received an order for one of my upcycled picture frames, from Hong Kong, and the bad reason is I didn't get any sleep last night. I couldn't turn off. So I was up in time to head out and get some pictures but I needed to make a picture frame for the order. I clearly feel right now like a zombie but don't think I could sleep if I tried.

Well to my exciting receipt of yesterday.

Manfrotto 055CXPro3

I finally received my new tripod. It's so strong and yet light weight. I was hoping to get out to Hesperia Lake today to shoot some birds but things happen.

I did shoot a new sprout from my unknown tree, which just started growing about three years ago. It provides shade so we've kept it. I saw it as I was feeding my German Shephard, Prince.

Prince Valiant Vom Bruiser

If you know this tree comment and educate me, please.

Make a great day!

Unknown Tree

Brown Paper Packages

Day 4 of my 365 day photography journey.

Don't you just love packages arriving via mail. Even if you ordered it, there's nothing like receiving packages in the mail. I guess it's like Christmas. Today I received "Ulysses" by James Joyce, via the USPS. I bought the book on ebay. It's my photo of the day. I'm expecting another and more exciting package today. Oh boy. I'll have several nice photos tomorrow, using my new tool.

Goals and White Balance

Day 3 of my 365 day photography journey

Today was a day to sit down and start writing goals and a working schedule. It's very difficult to punch your own clock and make money at it. I personally need a schedule and plan of attack to be successful. I need goals, targets, something to drive me to success. I only have two at the moment to get published and to blog daily. I need more.

I was reading about white balance today and for proper white balance or temperature a 18% grey card should be used. The card over lapping my legal pad. This card is used to set the white balance accordingly. Below is my corrected white balance.

Depth of Field

Day 2 of my 365 day photography journey

I was reading today how different lens types have different sweet spots. Some aperture settings provide better quality photos. Today I decided to check my 50mm f/1.4 AF-D Nikon lens. My camera body is a Nikon D90 by the way.

At first, I set up the Panasonic as the subject and changed to my Seagull guitar to better see the depth of field better on the guitar strings. In the picture with the camera you'll see the camera ring in focus but the books staged a little back in the picture are blurry, but I couldn't really tell the depth of field.

50mm, ISO 200, f/2.5, 1/6 sec

I didn't stage this picture for anything apart from testing the lens, so it's not framed properly and not very stylish. I was trying to avoid pulling out my tripod, which I should have done from the beginning. Shot details are: 50mm, ISO 200, f/2.5, 1/6th of a sec shutter speed, approximately 2 feet from the subject. Images taken from f/1.4-2.2 had a slight glow that got better as I stepped down the aperture.

The following picture was taken with a series of about 30 others. I wanted to check picture quality with an object that wasn't so shiny and reflective. I staged the guitar with a little tilt to see the depth of field better on the bridge. The point of focus are the bridge pins and you can see how small the depth of field is being this close to the subject, with only a small portion of the strings being in focus.

50mm, ISO 200, f/4.5, 0.4 sec

Make today great day!

Photography Journey

Day 1 of my 365 day photo journey.

I started yesterday, fathers day, to blog everyday for the next 365 days. I will blog with at least one photo from the day. I didn't post yesterday because I had a camera problem. I'm hoping that's not a sign of things to come. I will try to keep it fresh, using the most of my creative abilities, which isn't a strong point of mine.

I've been reading Time Life's Digital Photography magazine, so I thought it would be good to have a picture of my gear with that magazine. I can think of no great accomplishment then to get a photo of mine in this magazine.

As it's hard to get a photo of your photography gear without a mirror I needed to use another camera. I used a Panasonic Lumix DMC - TZ4 pocket camera.

This is the gear that will be capturing photos everyday for the next year.