Merry Christmas
just saying . …
Author: kmilyun
It’s The Birds
This afternoon KRP was baking and it seemed no matter where I turned I was getting in the way. This made for a good excuse to enjoy the sunshine – yes we saw the sun today! – and head out to the wildlife refuge.
On first glance through the shots I picked out a few to post. It surprised me how many birds were there today. Right after I arrived some kids scared the geese on the other side of the road and they all flew over us and started to land out on our side. Wow all the bird watchers and photographers were so busy staring at them that we forgot to take pictures and look through binoculars. It was amazing and they just kept coming!
I remembered to get out my camera and caught the last bit of it all. Just awesome. Usually I sit there and wait and about once every two hours a gaggle will fly over and/or land but todays flights were not the norm for me anyways.
I know some of you are probably getting tired of nothing but photos but for the most part it is all am finding to do lately. With the Christmas rush it is not fun to venture out and about. The rain has put a damper on many things also.
So that is what I have been doing. Reading and taking photos.
So here are a few from today:
Shooting For The Moon
Ok the gear is set up in the back yard. No telling how long I will be able to keep the moon in my line of sight. Not a lot of room out back to move around and miss the top of the complex.
The moon has popped out a few times and I have managed to shoot past the clouds/mist. I took off the filter to avoid the halo’s. Stopping down seems to help a tad getting past the mist. Decided to go with the Tokina because it seems to have less halo effects going on.
Going out every 15 mins or so to see if I can see the moon LOL
Oh yipee skippy at 10:09 the moon has come out from behind the clouds. I finally got onto the live stream of the eclipse so I can sit up here in the warmth and run out at the good times – lazy? More like cold and wet. We decided it would not be prudent to go our front tonight. So I am adjusting around the trees and roofs.
No way to use the D70 to shot a series from from one stationary position at 17mm to catch most of the arch. So much for setting the exposure on the brightness of a star. The clouds and drizzle kind of make that near impossible. So I am just adjusting each time I have to move the tripod. Scientific equations out the window and having some fun in.
Since this is the first Winter Solstice lunar eclipse since 1638 I am gonna freeze my arse off and try and photography it. Who knows maybe someday far away one of my future relatives will think it cool.
It is now err – 1:41am PT I have stayed awake! The clouds have been good to me . They have opened up long enough to get some shots. So much for watching the craters for 72 Min’s.
Well what I have is – well it is what it is.
So there you have a few of them. RAW=> JPEG => Cropped => and to the screen!
The Rain The Cat and The Moon
Rain, wind, gray skies, and then some more . …
Saturday KRP, Miky, and I headed out to check out the river water levels. There is one spot along Hwy160 (the river road) that I use as kind of a gauge on how close to over flow we really are. Not too bad this time as we could still drive down to the lower levy. I was taking photos from the car window has it was too nasty and wet out. Lots of gloomy gray shots.
There was a slight break in the rain and I did get out and snap a couple off before the rain started again. Looking down the old tracks it sort of looked like this truck was driving toward me on the tracks. It took my slow pea brain of few secs before it registered that it was parked in a small paved area. Ok duh.
Then I spent a few mins talking to this feral cat and yes JAKE we left some food behind for it although he/she seemed to be catching enough river rats to maintain.
I then annoyed the others by working my way under the bridge ha ha I made it and did not fall into the river.
It stopped raining Sunday evening so I attached the Tokina lens and focused on the moon. The lens is ok at this only because of its 400mm but my 70-300 Nikon produces more detail I think. Hard to really judge fairly because where I was shooting (the back yard) there is a lot of ambient light to interfer with the exposure.
Well I guess I am all caught up and the highlights of my weekend.