ramblings

A Bird is A Bird

f/10, 1/160 sec, at 300mm, 100 ISO, on a NIKON D80

f/10, 1/160 sec, at 300mm, 100 ISO, on a NIKON D80The Holiday Season always goes away and leaves me in sort of a funk. Nothing to do with the celebrations really just the slide from go, go, go and much social interaction to slow. slow, slow and the interaction and outings. I think this and the lack of sunshine outsides brings on a sort of ennui.

I have tried to keep myself occupied by going out to the Wildlife Refuge and Park to take pictures.  I am stuck on birds right now.  I love to watch them fly, land, and hear them squawk.  It is peaceful to me watching their graceful flight with strong wings.  Even the littlest seed forager can entertain me for hours.

The news of all the birds falling from the sky has me shaking my head. While we may never know why they are falling I gotta wonder.

Now more have fallen.  Some say hey it is just Blackbirds – you know plain old Blackbirds. Well dang, to me a bird is a bird is a bird.

A few years ago the photogroup I belonged too went up to Willows to photograph Snowgeese. It was rather funny that at the Snowgeese festival photowalk there were NO Snowgeese around – too funny really. I remember we were trying to get some shots of hawks. I watched as many of the photographers deleted their shots the second they reviewed them and realize they had gotten a pic of a common vulture type bird of some sorts.  Many of the groups members were irritated that there were no Snowgeese and went on complaining.   My friend Galen and I were driving home in the pouring down rain and fighting strong winds. It was a miserable trip back to Sac. But, on the way home we spotted a large group of white birds in a field off the freeway. We decided to exit the freeway and managed to find the field. We were rewarded with a field full of – you guessed it – Snowgeese!

f/5.6, 1/1250 sec, at 400mm, 900 ISO, on a NIKON D80

(2008:01:27 14:45:10)

After the trip I started wondering why a great shot of a vulture with his wings spread totally in focus was considered a garbage shot. I also realized that if you look you may find something interesting along the way if you look. I bird in flight is a beautiful thing period. I shot of a less seen bird is special. Catching an white egret in flight with perfect exposure and great detail for me would be awesome!  But I sure am not deleting a great shot just because it a lowly vulture or seagull. What if no one photographed, painted, etc. Blackbirds and they all fell dead from the sky?

Monday at the refuge another photographer made the comment to me that he was going home because all that was “out here is a bunch of ducks”.   I just kind of shook my head and decided for whatever reason not to tell him that all the geese came in between 4 and 4:45 right before the last light.  It might also have had something to do with the fact that he had really nice long fast lens and I was jealous thinking about what great detailed shots I could get with it.  Well I did get a few ok shots but mine are way better than the ones he did not get because – well he was a bird snob LOL.

Another gal started a conversation with me near the end of the short trail.  Her husband had gotten her a nice camera for Christmas. It was fun watching her enjoy getting a shot of any bird in flight. She had never had a long lens before so she was so excited.  Heck I got excited for her. I shared a few tips that my friend Karoli had shared with me about shooting birds.  And yes, I told her about the flight patterns and where to hang at what times to catch the birds coming in. She was not a bird snob.

I did not go out yesterday . But the sunshine I got Monday  seems to have helped my funk. Now if birds would just stop falling from the sky dead!  Creepy and sad.

f/6.3, 1/2000 sec, at 300mm, 400 ISO, on a NIKON D80f/7.1, 1/2000 sec, at 300mm, 400 ISO, on a NIKON D80

Shooting For The Moon

f/10, 1/500 sec, at 66mm, 0 ISO, on a NIKON D70

f/10, 1/500 sec, at 66mm, 0 ISO, on a NIKON D70Ok 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!

Train Of Thought

It is all about color. Light has a color temperature.  Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path. Light travels in the form of a wave. Different wavelengths = different colors in the spectrum.Light is either absorbed, reflected, or transmitted. If light hits something solid and is absorbed the object is black. If it is reflected it is white. Light going through something  is transmitted such as a piece of glass. If the glass is tinted green the light coming out is tinted green.  Some light is cool and some light is hot!  There is a shade of gray that is a  “neutral” gray  ( 18% gray)  and will reflect all colors equally. Very over simplified but it works for me and this is my blog ha ha.

Light has a color temperature

It is kind of neat how well todays cameras will automatically figure this out for you – up to a point. Then if you use the automatic settings you might turn the little dial (or select it on a menu) and choose sunny, raining, cloudy, or night hoping to compensate for the lighting situation.  This works fairly well, most of the time but, yep there is the but, when there is a mixture of ligh sources it usually fails. Sometimes the temperature (kelvin blues are 5,000 kelvin and up  while reds are  3,000 and lower) of a light source can add to the photo’s creativeness and at other times it can ruin it.

Nothing sucks worse than shooting a family group photo in front of the all the presents and having everything tinted orange or capturing a great skiing shot only to have the scene tinted blue.  Shooting in RAW format makes this a non problem because you can adjust the white balance with the software.  To get the color right the camera needs to register white as white . What all the little sunny and cloudy settings do is tell the camera to adjust the color temperature over one way or the other (shift)  to get the whites white. Incandescent  lights turn everything  an orangish red light temperature.  In film days filters  were used to shift the light coming in the lens.  In digital you just tell the camera hey I am shooting in incandescent light and it shifts it over for you.  Cool no?

Here is a photo where my friend Tim took a  LED flash light into the train and waved it around (light painting) while I took a long exposure shot. I held a standard flash light  on the side of the train to paint the lettering.  It took us several tries for me to get close to what we wanted. The errie looking light in the train, the red letters showing red, and the rest of the train and background dark.  And no Tim in the pic.

One of these days Tim and I need to go back and improve upon what we started.

When I am not lazy and really want the white balance set right I use the gray card and maually set the camera to the right kelvin setting. Sometimes I guess at the kelvin setting and after entering it adjust. Real lazy days I use the software and adjust the RAW file.

My mind is now wondering why my D80 only has a max flash sync speed of 1/200 but my older D70 has 1/500 sec.

Ok nothing to do with light but all about perspective – since I was on a train of thought:
Tracks Two

This evening we stopped on the way home from Vacaville at the Vic Fazio Wildlife Refuge.  By the time KRP had worked the wagon through all the mud it was almost dark. This is known as a last ditch shot LOL.

Shot at

  • f/5
  • 1/1600  sec
  • IS) 1600
  • @180mm

Limited light sometimes bring interesting results.  That are only visiable after pushing the expore to get a look.

Night Flight

photos © kmilyun

If any info is wrong above please let me know cause I have forgotten more than I know LOL LOL

A Relentless Need

These past few weeks have been a gift and I catch myself wondering where it came from? I mean why all of a sudden I can do things that for the past months, and years, caused nothing but frustration and usually failure.

I am on a roll and feel a relentless need to get everything in. Driven to cram everything into a day I can. Since I have not a clue as to why I am able to ride my bike, hold my guitar without dropping it, and how my balance has improved I also have no idea when it will all disappear.

Is it the last hoorah before the doom and gloom of the MS Monster hits me over the head?