My Week, Onward and upward

Sunday

I ended last week as it was sinking into my thick skull that I am actually getting good at digital photography. I don’t quite know yet why that was so difficult for me to accept, but it was. Now, I’d like nothing more than to build on that, and get even better.

After today, the weather is forecast to be poor for photography for the next three weeks, yuck! So, I’m planning on some indoor photography in the near future, Frederick Meijer’s Gardens here in Grand Rapids, and the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It just so happens that there is an orchid show at the gardens next weekend, I’ve been to one, it was beautiful! At least it is nature related. 😉

The Air Zoo is history, something I haven’t done much on lately, but seeing the historic aircraft will be a treat for me, even if not to my readers. 😉

Here I am all fired up to go out and get some great photos, and the weather refuses to cooperate! There’s a front passing through the area, it’s gloomy, windy, and of course snowing once again, with harder snow headed this direction. For the record, we’ve now topped 5 feet of snowfall for the season, and we’ll add to that just about every day for who knows how long. The lake effect snow that falls doesn’t usually amount to very much, just an inch or two a day, but it has been a near constant thing this winter so far.

I don’t mind trudging through a snowstorm now and then, but when that becomes my daily routine, it gets old after a while. I’m even tired of taking photos of the snow as it falls for the record here.

I was going to go to Aman Park today, as it is the most sheltered from the wind of all the places that I go on a regular basis, but I’m asking myself why I should bother to drive that far today. The weather is too bad for me to carry the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens), so even if I saw birds, I doubt that I would get good photos of them. Just about everything else worth photographing will either be swaying in the wind, or buried under the snow. I can trudge through a snowstorm and not take photos here just as well as I can there.

I wish that the camera store that I shop at was open on Sunday. Today would be a good day to shop for the odds and ends that I would like to add to my camera gear.

Since I have decided to postpone my quest for the perfect lens for birding, and not purchase a 400 mm prime telephoto for a year or two, that will allow me to purchase some of the other things that I need and will probably make more of an improvement in my photos anyway.

One of those items is a light source. The built-in flash unit on my, or any camera that I know of, just doesn’t cut it for nature photography. I’m leaning towards an LED panel light, rather than a flash unit. I know that my brother has tried many different methods for lighting while doing macro photography, up to and including one of the ring lights that attach to the front of a macro lens. He gets his best results using a flash unit, and holding it in his hand, with a cord running to the camera to control the flash, rather than mounting the flash on the hotshoe of his camera.

I like the idea of an LED panel light, as I can have it on to see how the light will play on the subject that I’m shooting, and, it doesn’t have to be connected or attached to the camera.

The other area I need to work on is holding the camera steady. I would say a tripod, but I am looking for more than just a tripod.

I have an inexpensive tripod already, it works, sort of. It isn’t very steady, when I used it the last time I could see camera motion from my pulse as I rested my finger on the shutter release to check the exposure settings. That’s not good.

I also have a good Manfrotto monopod, but I seldom use it, as it simply screws onto the camera. As large and heavy as the monopod is, that has always seemed like a recipe to ruin the threads on the stud, or in the threaded insert of my cameras. I would also have to remove the quick release plates that fit my tripod from my camera bodies before I could use the monopod as well. That increases the chance of damaging the threads on the various items, as well as the chance of my losing a quick release plate.

A good tripod suitable for my needs is quite expensive, more than I can afford to purchase right now, it would cost nearly as much as the 400 mm prime lens, but I think that I can come up with a system in piecemeal fashion.

So, this is what I’m thinking. I can purchase a good tripod head fairly soon, and I’ll be able to attach it to the legs of the tripod that I already have, or the monopod that I have, depending on which of those would work the best at the time I need something to steady the camera. It would take only a few seconds to switch the head from the tripod legs to the monopod. I think that I could also attach the head to a window clamp so that I could use it for birding from my vehicle in places like Muskegon, where I shoot many photos from inside my Subaru.

Then, once my bank account has recovered, I can purchase a better set of legs to use. I think that all the pieces have ways of attaching together to make what I have in mind feasible, but I’d like to check that fist to see if it will work. I would like to put together a list of the items that will work together, along with prices, so that I can plan everything out.

Well, I’m back from my walk, and I think that it’s just as well that I didn’t bother going anyplace today, other than around here. It was sure cold and windy today! I know that there are windchill charts that you can use to calculate how cold it feels like outside in the wind scientifically, but I have one of my own. When it’s so cold that my eyeballs begin to ache, it’s really cold!

You have to really feel for the wildlife stuck outside in this kind of weather, I spent two hours out there, and that was enough for me!

I shot a couple of photos today, they’re fair, so I’ll start this post with an older one first.

Herring gull in flight

That one was shot last weekend in Muskegon, handheld using the Beast and the Tamron extender for a 700 mm focal length.

Okay, for today’s photos.

Ring-billed gull in flight

Blue jay

Hey, at least I got a photo today, that was more than I expected.

The photo of the jay, and for that matter, the first photo of the gull, bring up something that I have been forgetting to say.

Since the spot where there’s a footbridge across the creek in the park that I walk in everyday was somewhat sheltered from the wind, I stood there for a while so that my eyeballs would stop aching. I was just standing there, not trying to hide at all. At first, there wasn’t anything around for me to even try to photograph but as I stood there for a while, birds and a fox squirrel emerged from their hiding places, and that’s when I got the photo of the blue jay. The squirrel got quite close to me, the end of the bridge in fact, then it stood there looking at me as if trying to figure out what I was. So I talked to it, and it was off like a shot. I was wearing my usual parka, which is orange and grey, hardly what I would call camouflage of any sort.

Last Sunday at Muskegon, most of the waterfowl were on the south side of the channel when I pulled into the parking lot, which was good, since I was on the south side of the channel. I hadn’t taken more than a few steps from my vehicle before all the waterfowl began swimming to the other side of the channel, out of range of the Beast even with the extender. I did get close to a couple of ducks that had been underwater when I started walking down the channel, but the rest had all crossed the channel.

Once I had gone as far as I could, there is a bench there, so I sat down to see if the ducks would return, and they did. That kind of surprised me, as I was still out in the open, and they could see me just as well as when I had been walking. The only difference was that I was sitting still, rather than moving. Even though I moved around a little on the bench to get in position to shoot photos, the ducks didn’t seem to mind.

My point is, as long as you’re quiet and not moving, wildlife doesn’t seem to mind the presence of humans no matter what you wear.

Completely off subject, my brother just sent me what is close to the perfect photo of a chickadee. It’s a head shot so sharp that you can see the chickadee’s nostril and little pink tongue.

Monday

The really cold air is settling in from the north, we’ll be below zero fahrenheit several nights this week, and only in the low teens, if that, for high temperatures. If there’s a bright side to the cold, it could be that it will be a little brighter around here. The wind is out of the north, which means less lake effect cloudiness, if we’re lucky. There’s no sunshine in the forecast for the next eight days, but I think that the forecast may be incorrect on that.

Since I had some time on my hands yesterday, I did some playing around with macro photos using my tripod. I also saved the basic settings that I used for those photos to the custom mode of the landscape body, just as I have saved bird in flight settings as the custom mode of the wildlife body.

It now takes me less than a second to be ready to shoot macro or landscape photos correctly using the tripod, which makes it much more likely that I’ll use the tripod. As it was, I had to fumble my way through half a dozen pages in the menu to make the changes needed from shooting handheld.

Just as when I shot the really good landscape and waterfall photos during my UP trip, my tripod doesn’t do that poorly when the camera is set up correctly. There’s some slop in some of the adjustments which shouldn’t be there when everything is locked down, but when I use the mirror lockup and a two second delay with the self timer, I was able to get some very sharp close ups.

Macro test using a penny

That, by the way, is as close as I can get, and the most magnification, using the Tokina 100 mm macro lens and the Tamron extender. That photo was not cropped at all.

Another thing that I learned is that a good light source of some kind is an absolute must! That photo required a 30 second exposure time. Of course it was taken indoors using the ambient coming through the window of my apartment, but exposure times that long aren’t going to work well outdoors, and the light inside was about the same as I would find outdoors in a shaded spot.

If there’s a hint of breeze in the air, it would be enough to ruin any close ups of flowers or insects on plants which could move with exposure times that long.

So, to sum up my testing from yesterday, the camera, lens, and extender are fantastic! My tripod may not be the world’s finest, but I can make do with it for the time being. However, I do have to purchase a light source.

I can see how tricky lighting for macro photography is going to be. The front edge of the lens hood was about four inches above the tabletop for the photo of the coin. There’s no way to get light from a light source mounted on the camera’s hotshoe on the subject being photographed.

Anyway, I am leaning towards taking my time in replacing my tripod, just as I have postponed purchasing a long prime telephoto lens. I want to have some money this year to go out and use the equipment that I already have.

Last year, just about every extra dollar I could squeeze out of my budget went to cameras and lenses, and that left me very little to use on excursions to places other than those close to home. I could easily put myself into the same situation this year, but I’d rather not.

This year, I’d like to travel more, and hit more spots than what I have the last few years, and that won’t happen unless I stop buying camera gear. 😉

I have my new tent/cot, or cot/tent, whichever you prefer, which will make camping a lot easier than dealing with a full size tent. I have also learned that I can sleep well in the back of my Forester if need be, which is even easier yet.

Somewhere during typing this, I went for my daily walk, and didn’t bring back a single photo. So, I’m going back to August of last year for this one.

Moth or butterfly?

I don’t have much else to say today, since it’s the day I visit my mom in the nursing home.

Tuesday

Sunshine! It’s very cold, but the sky is almost clear as I sit here typing this and drinking my coffee. We deserve it.  Since Dec. 1, Grand Rapids has had just 15.8% of possible sunshine. That compares to an average of 23%. The most sun we have seen on any single day this month was 57% on the 3rd.  We’ve didn’t officially have a single minute of sunshine from the 16th through the 20th.

Today is the 43rd day in a row with 4″ or more of snow on the ground in G.R.  The record for most days with 1″ or more of snow on the ground in G.R. is a whopping 117. Interestingly, that was 1903-04, a very cold winter and the year we had our worst spring flood on the Grand River. That string ended on March 23rd.  Second place was 1978-79 at 107 days ending on March 13th. Third place is 105 days ending 3/21/1963. (The statistics are from a local meteorologist’s blog that I follow)

I did a silly thing and stopped at the camera store on my way to visit my mom yesterday, but that story will have to wait until I get back from my walk. I want to get out there and enjoy the sunshine, even if it is only 5 degrees F outside!

I may have been out there too early, I don’t think that it really mattered. It was very cold, bitterly cold in fact. It felt colder today than any other day so far this winter, even though there have been days when the temperature was lower, or the wind higher.

I also had equipment problems, some how the diopter of the wildlife body was way off today. I wasn’t sure what the problem was, so I waited until I was back inside before fixing it. I used the L series lens and Tamron extender today, the L series lens is a very sharp lens, but it doesn’t auto-focus accurately all the time on the wildlife body, I often have to tweak the focus manually. Since everything in the viewfinder was blurry today because of the diopter being out of adjustment, I had to take what the lens and camera came up with. So, I ended up with a mixed bag, with many photos completely out of focus.

Here’s the best of the lot.

Red-bellied woodpecker

Fox squirrel trying to stay warm

Lichen

Patterns in ice

With the sunshine, I was hoping for more, and better photos, but that was all I could come up with today.

I thought that the sun would bring more birds out, but the cold cancelled out the sunshine. The wind was really rather light, but any wind when it’s as cold as it was is enough to overcome the sunshine as well. I stopped in areas sheltered from the wind a couple of times, hoping that the sunshine would feel good, but it didn’t. In fact, when I got to the lowest point as far as elevation in the park, it was sheltered from the wind, but it felt even colder there because of the cold air pooling there.

So, before I whine any longer about the cold, I’ll change the subject to my visit to the camera store yesterday.

First of all, I ended up talking to the two least knowledgeable of the sales staff there. That’s one reason that I do as much research online as I can, in fact, I’m thinking about making purchases online as well. I do try to buy local if I can, and part of the reason for that has been because of the knowledge of the sales staff as far as knowing the product line and being able to make recommendations.

However, the two people I dealt with yesterday had no knowledge of the products that I was asking about, LED light panels and tripods. This could turn into a very long rant if I’m not careful, I’ll only say that I asked if they had a geared tripod head that I could look at, and neither knew what I was talking about. The best part of the trip there was when the store got very busy, and I had the chance to play with the display models on my own, and figure out all the features, because not only didn’t the sales staff know the features, they had told me the opposite of how the things I was looking at actually function.

I went there in the first place to pick up an LED light panel. Since I’m planning to go to Meijer Gardens this weekend for the orchid show, and other things indoors, I thought a good light source would be handy to have.

The LED panel that I bought is less than half the size and weight of a speedlight, which is a good thing. The output seems very good, as the LED panels are meant for use while shooting video. I haven’t tried it for any photos yet, I will today or tomorrow indoors, so I doubt if I will post any of the test photos.

I also picked up a Joby Gorillapod to hold the LED panel in place if I don’t attach it to the camera. Like I said, I haven’t tried it out yet, but this looks like a winning idea so far. I can use the Gorillapod as a tripod for subjects close to the ground, or attach it to the tripod, a convenient branch, maybe even wrap the legs around the barrel of the camera lens if needed. I will post a photo or two sometime if this set up does work the way that I think that it will. I’m almost positive that I’ll be able to get the light where I need it.

I had talked myself out of purchasing a tripod for my camera, thinking that I could get by with the one that I have. But, I looked over a carbon fiber Manfrotto tripod that has changed my mind back again. In the first place, it is much more reasonably priced than I thought that a carbon fiber tripod would be, and in the second place, it looks like it was designed for macro photography. It is also less than half the weight of my current tripod, even though it is much steadier than the one that I have now.

If I had listened to what the store clerk told me, I would have thought that it was one of the worst engineered items of all times, and I would not be thinking of buying it. I even asked how you were supposed to use it for macro photography close to the ground, and the clerk’s reply was that I would need another tripod. Yeah, right, I’m not about to purchase several tripods to cover a range of heights, let alone carry them all.

However, a few minutes of my playing with it, and I had figured out how to use it. The neat thing about it is that you can raise the center post of the tripod all the way up, press a button, and the center post swings to the horizontal position, great for sliding closer or farther away from a subject while doing macro photography. With the legs splayed all the way out, it puts the camera nearly at ground level. It’s a very well-engineered piece of equipment, I fell in love with it!

They sell sliding rail systems that you mount to your tripod for just that purpose, to move closer and farther away from a subject. With the tripod that I looked at, I wouldn’t need one of those, making the tripod somewhat more affordable when compared to an aluminum one that doesn’t have the sliding boom feature that the Manfrotto does.

Since that model is about a third of the cost that I thought that I would have to pay for a good carbon fiber tripod, I have added it to my list of things to purchase relatively soon. It’s sturdier than my current tripod, but weighs a fraction of what the one that I have now weighs, making it more likely that I will have it with me, and it sets up easier, making it more likely that I’ll use it.

Wednesday

Sad, bad news today. The officials at the Kent County airport have been shooting snowy owls this winter. So far, nine have been killed. I could hardly believe it when I read the news, the owls are a protected species, yet it seems that they are being killed at several airports across the country, due to the possibility of plane/owl collisions.

If there is any good news on that subject, it is that public outrage over the killing of the owls once the news was leaked about what was happening has caused the officials at the airport to switch to trapping and relocating the snowy owls.

I understand the need for air-passenger safety, a snowy owl sucked into a jet’s engine could lead to a catastrophe, but there has to be a better way of dealing with the owls than shooting them.

In weather news, we’re back to cold, windy, and snow for today, we had our quota of sunshine for the week yesterday. The longer range forecasts are looking just as grim as they have all winter, continued very cold with occasional snow. The next three weeks are looking exactly like the last three weeks, minus the short thaw that we had. I’m getting really bummed out about the weather.

I shouldn’t be, I had a feeling that this winter was going to be a rough one, how, I don’t know, but I had that feeling.

If there’s an upside to the weather, it is that because of it, I have been earning close to $100 a week in overtime pay that I wouldn’t otherwise get, which is helping me to afford all the recent purchases I have made. If this keeps up, I’ll have that new tripod a lot sooner than I could otherwise hope to.

I’m still ticked off about how uninformed the staff has become at the camera store that I shop at. One of the jerks that I dealt with on Monday is the same one that told me that you had to have a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 to auto-focus when using a 1.4 tele-conveter, wrong!

Anyway, I’m going to bring my new panel light along today, despite the cold, and see if I can shoot a few test shots with it.

I’m back, and I have to say that the weather out there today was simply lovely, if you’re a polar bear. However, I may be big and fat, but I’m no polar bear.

I did take my new panel light with me, but it’s hard to concentrate on photography while warding off frostbite. 😉

The only photos that I shot were of lichens, and they are not very sharp, so I’m not going to bother posting them.

The panel light doesn’t put out as much light as I had hoped, or needed under conditions as they were today, but I want to use the panel light for additional lighting, not the main source of light as it was today. So, the jury is still out deciding if the LED panel was a wise purchase or not. I think that it will work as I had in mind for the right subjects in better weather.

What has surprised me is the Gorillapod. They have been on the market for some time now, but they always looked too gimicky to me. But, in playing with the one that I purchased, it works very well. I can wrap the Gorillapod around the lens hood of my lenses, and it and the panel light are light enough so having them out on the end of the lens isn’t a problem. On the shorter lenses anyway, I haven’t tried that set up on the Beast, as the Beast is heavy enough all by itself.

I can see that I’ll be able to position the panel light just where I need it one way or another using it mounted to the Gorillapod.

Looking at the filter on the front of the L series lens, I can see why I’ve not been getting sharp photos the past few days, it’s filthy. Well, let me rephrase that, it has a coating of what is probably salt spray from the roads that I walk along getting to and from the park. I’ll give it and all my lenses a good cleaning after I finish this today.

I know that I have a serious case of the winter blahs right now. There are photos that I probably could be getting, but I’m not. I’m getting geared up, and fired up for spring if it ever arrives. I want to photograph flowers, butterflies, and other subjects which aren’t around right now. That’s okay, this winter may be costing me money as far as the camera gear that I have been buying, but I’m saving a lot of money by staying home most weekends for the time being.

I have decided that my finances are in good enough shape that I’ll purchase the tripod that I fell in love with on Monday. That will be my final “big-ticket” item for the foreseeable future. The poor weather will give me time to play with my new gear indoors, even if I don’t post the photos here. That way, when spring does get here, I’ll familiar with how everything works together, and it should result in better photos sooner this spring than if I had waited until then to start using my new gear.

For the photo for today, I’m going back to last Sunday for this one of a demure female long tailed duck.

Female long-tailed duck

Time to clean some lenses.

Thursday

There’s more sunshine streaming through my windows this morning, normally that would have me rushing out in hopes of some good photos, but not so much this morning. As harsh as this winter has been so far, and looks to be for the next three weeks, I’m not going to chase birds or any wildlife when they are struggling to survive. It’s only a couple of degrees above zero fahrenheit, so I’m in no rush to get out there today.

I see that the countdown to spring widget that I added to my blog is very optimistic, as it now reads one month til spring. It may not be until April or even early May before the traces of this winter are gone.

I cleaned all my lenses yesterday afternoon, then set up the L series lens and Tamron extender for some near macro photos indoors using the tripod. I was very pleased with the results that I got, especially when I used the new LED panel light. As I expected, with the light mounted to the camera’s hotshoe, there was glare on the subject, and the light was rather harsh. So I switched the light to the Gorillapod, dimmed it a little, and set it up to the side slightly, and the results were about perfect. I have very high hopes for this set up once spring finally arrives.

I also checked the pricing of the tripod that I would like to purchase from several of the large mail order camera retailers, and found that the prices were significantly lower if I were to purchase through one of them. So much lower that I could buy the tripod and a ball head suitable for my needs for what I would pay for the leg set at the local store that I normally shop at.

I would normally feel guilty about going into the local store, spending an hour asking questions, then making the purchase online, but since the personnel at the local store not only didn’t know their product line, but gave me misinformation, I won’t feel guilty if I do decide to make the purchase online. Or I should say, I’ll feel less guilty. 😉

I do try to buy local when I can, but one thing that the local store have to do for me to shop there is provide service and information, if they can’t, then I’m better off saving money by doing my shopping online.

I’ll be back after my walk.

Call me crazy, but I felt the first hints of spring today, I swear that I did!

I’m not about to start packing away my winter clothes, far from it, in fact, I suspect that we’re going to get even colder weather in February than what we’ve had so far.

But, for the first time since last fall, I could feel the warmth of the sun penetrating all the way in to my tired old bones. It felt so good that there were several times when I just stood there soaking it up.

At first, I thought that I may have been imagining it, but when I got to the metal footbridge over the creek, I could see that the sun was melting the snow on the railings. Ten degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun was strong enough to melt snow.

That means that while there’s still a lot of winter left to endure, the corner has been turned and that I’ll begin seeing more signs of spring coming soon.

I even managed a few photos today.

I took the L series lens and the Tamron extender, and when that combination focuses correctly, the results are excellent!

Red-tailed hawk in flight

However, the one problem that I have had with the L series lens since I purchased it, is that the auto-focus is off a touch at the close up end of its range. The Tamron extender seems to make that problem even worse.

When I shot the test shots indoors yesterday, I had to switch to manual focus, use live view, and zoom in to get the focus correct. That’s par for the course with the L series lens. Today, I tried a few lichen photos, but every one of them is off slightly as far as focus.

The L series lens focuses better when I use it on the landscape body, I have thought about switching the intended use for the bodies, but the wildlife body works so very well with the Beast, and the landscape body works so well with the 15-85 mm lens and Tokina macro lens, that I’m afraid that I’d regret making the switch. Once spring gets here, the L series lens won’t get much use anyway.

Anyway, here’s a few of the other photos from today.

Park decoration

Snow on burdocks

Blue jay trying to get my attention

Blue jay

Blue jay

I saw a few other birds, but they didn’t pose as nicely as the jay did, and as I have said, I’m not going to chase them until the weather gets nicer.

I think that I may have come up with a way of relieving myself of any feelings of guilt about purchasing the tripod that I would like online. It’s the leg set that is on sale online, for $80 off the regular price, the price that the local store is asking. I’ll see if the local store will match the online price, if not, I’ll purchase the legs online. When they arrive, I’ll purchase the ball head from the local store. It works for me.

Now, it’s time for a shower and a nap before work.

Friday

As I have proof read what I have already written, one thing that I forgot to add stands out. It was sunny with a light wind on Tuesday, but the sunshine didn’t feel warm to me. The conditions were almost exactly the same on Thursday, but I could feel the sun’s rays penetrating my clothes and warming up from the core. Could the angle that the sunlight hits the Earth have changed so much in two days? I would say that I had been imagining the sun’s warmth, but I also saw that it was melting the snow, not just on the footbridge railing, but on one of the benches in the park.

We are gaining several minutes of sunlight each day, so maybe there was enough of a change. One thing I know for sure, it sure felt good to feel Old Sol again yesterday.

There’s no chance that I’ll be feeling the sunshine today, as the clouds are back, along with a stiff west wind. Conditions are going to get even worse for the next day or two. I’m not looking forward to working tonight at all, as they are predicting close to blizzard conditions for tonight into tomorrow morning.

I think that I’ll go to Frederick Meijer Gardens on Sunday, I’ll have to remember to make sure that both camera batteries and my new LED panel light are fully charged before I go.

I can’t quite understand how I have gotten myself all charged up over purchasing the tripod that I fell in love with this week. The clerk at the store told me that model was being discontinued, but I don’t know whether to believe that or not. Sales people will say a lot of things that aren’t true if they think that it will lead to a sale. But, when I see that the big online retailers are all discounting that model by 25% and offering free shipping, then, that starts to bother me. It could be that the local clerk was correct, if so, it was about the only thing that they got right. 😉

I’ll save my ranting about the tripod for later, right now, it’s time to report on my walk today, not that there’s a lot for me to say. The word for the weather today is dangerous.

Between the bitter cold and the high winds, frostbite was a distinct possibility. For most of the time I was out there, I had my neck sock pulled up over my nose, and my knit cap and hood of my parka pulled down to my eyebrows, leaving just my eyes exposed. It was still cold, the kind of cold that makes my joints ache, and affects my thought process. It’s really hard to believe the difference from yesterday when it felt pleasant, despite the cold.

I wimped out and walked through the subdivision to reach the park, rather than walk up and over the hill that I have to go over if I take my normal route to the park. That hill isn’t really much of a hill, but it is the highest point around, and completely exposed to the wind. I’m glad that I took the coward’s way to the park, the thought of battling the wind had no appeal to me what so ever.

Walking through the subdivision, I did see a few birds huddled around bird feeders in the yards along the way, but I didn’t shoot any photos of them, or anything else for that matter, it was too darned cold.

Just for the record, right now, after my walk the temperature is 3 degrees (-16 C) with a 28 MPH wind, I must have been crazy to venture out today. 😉

The forecast for both tomorrow and Sunday is much the same, although the winds will be a little lighter. If the forecast is correct, I may stay indoors tomorrow and start my income taxes, and my spring housecleaning in my apartment. That way I’ll have those things out of the way when, or maybe I should say if, the weather ever gets better around here.

Looking at the longer range forecast, we may see a moderating trend next weekend, I sure hope so, even though my guess is that it won’t last long.

Well, I took a short break from this to get a nap in before work, and to order the tripod that I want so badly. I may have been crazy to do that as well, but I don’t think so. I couldn’t pass up the chance to get a light carbon fiber tripod for under $300. If that model is being closed out, the new model will probably be more costly, that’s hard to say. I do know that the one that I just ordered is much lighter than its aluminum twin brother, about a third less weight, and I know that the new one will be much steadier than the one I’m currently using. I also know that being able to rotate the center column 90 degrees and slide it horizontally saves me from buying an accessory to do much the same thing. So in the long run, I should have less money into this set up than if I had gone another way.

Since I didn’t shoot a single photo today, here’s another from last Sunday.

Male mallard macro

That one was a test of sorts, I shot it using the Tokina 100 mm macro lens just to see how sharp it was, it passed the test in my opinion, even though the mallard turned its head at the last second.

Saturday

Any thoughts that I was having about going for a walk today were just put soundly to rest by the white out that occurred outside my window. The garages, which are less than 100 feet from my window disappeared in the snow. I could barely make out the line of cars parked 25 feet from where I’m sitting. I had enough of that last night.

I could whine about all the problems I had driving for work last night, but I’d rather forget that last night ever happened. This storm has been the real deal, the authorities in Indiana had closed most of the major expressways, other than the toll road, so I had to slug it out on the back roads to and from our branch in South Bend.

Here in Michigan, they’re having trouble keeping the roads open due to the number of abandoned cars left where they got stuck and couldn’t go any farther.

There are two bright sides to this storm, one, I made a few extra dollars last night in the way of overtime. The other is that my little Forester handles deep snow with no trouble at all, so I could weave my way around the few stuck vehicles that I had to avoid on my way home from work, once I had finally gotten back to Grand Rapids.

It feels weird knowing that I’m not going for a walk today, I can’t remember the last time that I skipped a day. It was probably a little over a year ago, when I was moving from my old apartment to this one.

As I type this, I can hear people outside working to get their vehicles unstuck, so it’s just as well that I not venture out anywhere today. I had the passing thought of going to the orchid show today rather than tomorrow, but I think that I will stay home, do my taxes, and clean my apartment.

Since there won’t be any photo from today, I went back to my photos from my vacation this past fall for this one.

Grand Sable dunes, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

There’s no spring-like weather in the forecast for this upcoming week, so I chose that one because it reminds me of spring, even though it was taken in the fall.

Well, I guess that since I’m not going for a walk today that I really don’t have anything else to say, other than I’m sick of winter and I hope that we get an early spring.

That’s it for this one, as always, thanks for stopping by!

January 25, 2014 | Categories: Birds, General, Hiking, My Week, Nature, Photography, Weather | Tags: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photos | 20 Comments

My Week, New toys, new attitude

Sunday

As has become my typical routine, I’m up before sunrise, drinking coffee, pondering the week ahead, and looking back, a little.

I ended last week’s post after I had purchased a Tamron 1.4 tele-converter, and I’m dying to try it out with some of my lenses in some better light than I had yesterday. I bought the extender mostly to use with the Tokina macro lens, and occasionally with the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens), but I was pleasantly surprised by how much the extender increased the versatility of my 70-200 mm L series lens.

Since the extender doesn’t change the close focusing ability of the lenses it is used with, the L series lens becomes very close to being a 280 mm macro lens on the close-up end of the scale. That extra 80 mm also seemed to make more difference than I expected for longer shots. I suppose that I shouldn’t be that surprised, after all, I got by with only a 70-300 mm lens on my old Nikon.

I know that the photo quality will suffer a little when I use the extender, but, I can still get photos good enough to make me happy when I use it. hopefully I’ll get a chance to test it further today.

Okay, that brings us to today, and where I should go. My best chance of seeing sunshine would be to head east, away from Lake Michigan. But, it’s been a while since I’ve been to the big lake, and I’m also chomping at the bit, so to speak, to take some photos of birds.

Of the places that I go often, Palmer Park has been a complete bust for birds, or anything else since late summer for some reason. Aman Park has been better for birding this winter, which is somewhat unusual. Aman Park is much better known for the spring wildflowers than for birding.

Anyway, I’m thinking Lake Harbor Park today, even though it is on Lake Michigan. I know that I’ll find the widest variety of birds there, along with chances for some landscape photos as well. Another thing going for it is that it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from the Muskegon Channel, so I can make a quick stop there after my hike at Lake Harbor Park.

Wish me luck!

Well, today was a huge learning experience for me, or should I say that I had to relearn the art of manually focusing, along with learning a few other things, which I’ll touch on as I go.

I went to Lake Harbor Park, and there were plenty of birds to practice on, but I have few photos to show for the time that I spent there. It’s not that I didn’t shoot many, but most of them are bad. There was little light, a 30 MPH wind blowing, and my ability to manually focus was off. I will share a few that surprised me however, I’ll get to those in a second.

Before that, one of the things that I learned today was that using the 1.4 extender works well with the Beast, when everything is right.

Horned grebe, non-breeding

Male red-breasted merganser

Male white-winged scoter

Those three were all taken later in the day at the Muskegon Channel, after the sun had come out, and the wind had died down a little. The photo of the scoter was cropped slightly, the grebe and merganser are just as they came out of the camera. Under very good conditions, there’s not a lot of fall off in quality from what the Beast produces without the extender. That makes me a very happy camper!

It was very cloudy when I arrived at Lake Harbor Park., with a 30 MPH wind blowing out of the south-southwest. I knew that the photos I was shooting at the time wouldn’t be great, but I didn’t know how bad they were until I got home and blew them up on the computer. By looking at the photos, I learned that the depth of field of a 700 mm lens wide open is infinitesimal, there were shots in which a duck’s bill was in focus, but the back of its head wasn’t. Of course part of that was because I was standing too close to the ducks. 😉

I also learned that a 30 MPH wind was enough to blow me around to the point where I couldn’t keep a subject in focus, nor could I hold steady enough for a sharp photo. In addition, I learned that I can’t manually focus quickly enough to keep up with smaller birds, such as nuthatches and chickadees, which never sit still for very long anyway.

Luckily, most of the birds that I photographed poorly weren’t very special, that is, until I got to the channel from Mona Lake to Lake Michigan. I saw two bald eagles in flight, but before I could get the camera up to my eye, they had dropped below a dune, out of sight. After I got closer, I could see them perched out on the ice on Lake Michigan, one was about 100 yards from me, the other, a little farther than that. I shot a few photos of each, no need for them here though. As I was standing there watching them doing nothing, an immature eagle flew past me, this time I was quick enough.

Juvenile bald eagle in flight

The young eagle landed next to one of the mature eagles.

Mature and juvenile bald eagle

That makes me wonder, how do eagles recognize each other at great distances, eyesight?

Anyway, I turned around to head back to my vehicle, and another mature eagle flew over me.

Bald eagle in flight

Not great, but handheld at 700 mm, manually focused, and very little light, I’ll take it!

My plan had been to walk the length of the channel carrying only the Beast with the extender, then return to my vehicle, shed the extender, and grab the second body with the macro lens on it, then go for a walk in the woods there at Lake Harbor Park.

I had just removed the extender, when yet another eagle flew over the parking lot.

Bald eagle in flight

That eagle disappeared off to the east, but it was soon followed by another.

Bald eagle in flight

Bald eagle in flight

The last three were all shot at 500 mm, and cropped a little. As you can see, the sun was breaking through the clouds by then, I wish that I had the time to put the extender back on, but the eagles didn’t wait around.

My plan to walk the woods didn’t go well, the trails at the base of the dunes were drifted shut, and I didn’t feel like busting through drifts, some of which were taller than me. So, I walked one of the trails that runs along the top of a dune, then walked back via the beach. The only photo worth posting is this one.

Lake Michigan in January

That was shot with the Tokina macro lens, which also makes a fair landscape lens it turns out.

So, with that part of the day over with, I went to the Muskegon Channel to chase a few more waterfowl around. By then, the sun was out, the wind began to die down, and I started getting much better at manually focusing, so my photos from there are much better. But, I’m going to be a jerk and make you wait to see them.

The weather forecast for the next eight days looks much like it has all winter long, other than the brief warm up this weekend, cloudy, cold, and snow. I doubt if I will get many photos worth posting this week, so I’ll throw in a couple of the ones from today as needed this week, maybe even next week.

Monday

I’ve said it before, but it fits well here, I’m my own harshest critic when it comes to my photos. When I first looked through the photos from yesterday, I was convinced that they were all junk, maybe one or two good ones. That may be because I shot a much higher percentage of clinkers than I normally do, but that was part of the learning curve when using a new piece of photo equipment. My problem is that even though I may know that there will be things to learn using new equipment, I don’t allow myself the luxury of bad photos as I learn. I know, that makes no sense, but it is me. I set high standards for myself, even though I know that I won’t reach them right away.

One thing that I forgot from yesterday, the Canon 60 D, the Tamron extender, and the Beast performed very well together as a team. The Tamron extender transmitted the correct data back and forth between the camera and lens, the Canon body calculated great exposure settings based on the true focal length of the stack, and the Beast reacted accordingly. The Canon upped both the ISO and shutter speed as much as it could, while keeping the Beast stopped down as much as was possible to give me as much depth of field as could be gained.

I’ve read that some other combinations don’t work as well together, and that the user’s end up going to full manual because their camera bodies don’t communicate correctly with the extenders and lenses that those other users have chosen. It pays to do your homework before purchasing something.

Okay, on to today. A rare bit of good news weather wise around here, the front that was predicted to arrive here about the time that I’m typing this has slowed down, and won’t arrive until this evening. That means one more day of warm weather before we go back into the deep freeze. There’s some clouds, but they aren’t the heavy, dark clouds that we have most of the time around here in winter. Still, I won’t be trying the extender with the Beast today, I learned yesterday that they are best used on bright, sunny days. Instead, I’ll take the L series lens and extender for more testing with it.

Big, big news here from the humble abode today, while I was eating breakfast, I decided that there was enough sunlight to try the new Tokina macro lens, and the Tamron extender out on the British soldier lichens that I posted a photo of last week. I think that you’ll be able to see just how good of choices that I made in purchasing these items, when I get to the photos. But, to build suspense, I’m going to begin with the bird photos from today.

With the warmer weather, I saw more birds around here today than in the entire week last week. If I had taken the Beast with me, I could have gotten many more photos than I did, but I used the L series lens with the extender for these.

American goldfinches

American goldfinch shaking seeds out teasel

American goldfinch in flight

American robin

Female downy woodpecker

Nothing special, but it looks like the L series lens works well with the extender as a walking around lens.

Now then, for the good stuff. By the time that I entered the park, the clouds had thickened up, and the light wasn’t nearly as good as it had been when I started my walk. In fact, it sprinkled it bit off and on for the rest of the time that I was out there. But, I didn’t let that stop me, nor my cheesy tripod either.

To be fair to the tripod that I have, the snow piles and ice were part of the problem that I had, but not all. Nothing locks solidly on the Vanguard tripod. I also tried some test shots with the L series lens and extender using the tripod. I was all set up, used live view to focus manually, and as I had my finger on the shutter release, I could see movement caused by the pulse of my heartbeat on the screen. I should have turned on the mirror lock up and self timer for absolute steadiness, but it was sprinkling, and I didn’t want my camera gear exposed to the rain any longer than I had to. None of the shots using the L series came close to being as sharp as I was able to get handheld in worse light last week.

I may just have to postpone the purchase of the 400 mm prime lens that I would like, and work on getting a better tripod and accessories for macro photos. I’ve lugged the Beast around for nearly a year, and it hasn’t killed me, I suppose I could go another year with it as my main birding lens.

But I digress, it’s time for the big unveiling!

The first is the Tokina macro alone.

British soldier lichen

This next one is the Tokina and the Tamron extender together.

British soldier lichen

Neither of those were cropped at all, they are straight out of the camera! I may be overly proud of those, but I don’t think so. If I am, please correct me.

For the record, these were shot at ISO 100 and f/14, using manual focus through the viewfinder.

The photo where I used the extender looks sharper, but I think that’s because I did a better job of setting the exposure, and was probably lighter on the shutter release, so there was less camera shake for that one. But, in any event, the Tokina Lens and Tamron extender make a great combination for getting close. And, I could have gotten even closer if I hadn’t been thwarted by a snow pile and a poor tripod. I’m a happy camper!

Now I’ll have to be patient, and hope that spring comes early this year.

Tuesday

We’re still waiting for the storm that refuses to arrive. It’s colder today, about average for this time of year, and there was sunshine when I first woke up. That’s fading as I type this, as the clouds try once again to invade the area.

After the successful trial using the Tokina macro lens and the Tamron extender together, I have decided that the time has come to spend some time with the manual for my camera, and lock in saved settings for use when shooting using the tripod. That means using the mirror lock-up function, and the self timer, among other settings. The settings that I used for the macro photos were virtually identical to the settings that I’ve used for the very good landscape photos that I have gotten so far.

I have a saved set-up for flying birds in the wildlife body, which saves a lot of time and fooling around. Now it’s time to do the same with the landscape body. I’m much more likely to photograph subjects the “right” way if I don’t have to fool around changing half a dozen, or more, camera settings to get the shot. So, I’ll take care of that problem this week.

One other thing before breakfast, and it’s a repeat of something that I said yesterday. I have to quit being so critical of my own photos. I shot some excellent ones on Sunday, I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but some of my photos are almost as good as any that I’ve seen. I may not have the very best equipment, so I can see that my photos may not be quite as sharp as those taken by people who do have the finest lenses and cameras, but I’m coming very, very close.

Redhead duck

Time for a walk.

Now what do I do? I have 30 photos left over from Sunday to use up, but I came home from my walk today with a good crop of photos to go with them. Well, let me rephrase that, I came home with a few very good photos, a few of a blue jay battling a red-bellied woodpecker, and a few that are so-so, but I saved them because I was able to get photos of most of our common winter resident birds today.

I guess I’ll use up the photos from today now, and save the waterfowl for bad days.

Male northern cardinal

Blue jay eating sumac

Male Downy woodpecker eating sumac

The next few are the series of photos that I shot of the blue jay trying to chase a red-bellied woodpecker away from the sumac, it didn’t go well for the jay.

Blue jay warning a red-bellied woodpecker

Blue jay attacking a red-bellied woodpecker

The woodpecker tried telling the jay not to try that again.

Red-bellied woodpecker scolding a blue jay

But the jay was dumb enough to try again.

Red-bellied woodpecker driving off an attacking blue jay

The blue jay thought that imitating a vulture for a while before an attack may work better.

Blue jay imitating a vulture while trying to drive off a red-bellied woodpecker

That didn’t work either.

Red-bellied woodpecker driving off an attacking blue jay

The woodpecker eventually flew off, the jay ate a little of the sumac, and then it left as well. I’m not sure what prompted the jay to attempt to drive the woodpecker away, other than both species are bullies in the bird world. I’ve seen red-bellied woodpeckers following downy woodpeckers, wait for the downy to drill a hole to food, then the red-bellied would drive the downy away to steal the food.

Here’s the rest of the photos from today, captions will be enough for these.

Dark-eyed junco eating sumac

Female northern cardinal

American goldfinch

Bertha, the very large female red-tailed hawk

Black-capped chickadee

American tree sparrow

It was nice to see so many birds today, both species and the number of each species, even better was hearing them chatter away. I even heard both a titmouse and a goldfinch warming up for their respective spring songs.

If you’re thinking that my photos from today look a little washed out, you’d be right. You see, while I was at the camera store on Saturday, I bought some screen protectors for the LCD display of my camera, and I applied the protector Sunday night after I got home from Muskegon. Apparently, the screen protector darkens the display slightly, for when I checked my early photos, they all looked a bit dark as viewed on the display. Today was also my first day of seriously photographing birds using the new extender on the L series lens, so I assumed that the display was telling me the truth, and that I needed to go up a little in EV when using the extender, the display lied.

If you remember, early on after I purchased the Canon 60 D I had a similar problem, when I brightened the display slightly so that I could see it better. I shot a number of photos that were too dark after that because of what I saw in the display when I checked. It took me a while to adjust to the brighter display. It may take me a day or two to adjust to the display with a protector on it.

Funny how little things can throw me off.

The snowstorm first forecast to arrive Sunday night is just now reaching the area, and there’s light snow falling as I type this.

Wednesday

Winter has returned, the brief January thaw was very welcome though. It’s much more winter like this morning, with lake effect snow falling, driven by the last of the wind from the storm that came through last night.

I have decided to stop following a number of blogs that I had been following, several people have taken to posting multiple times per day, I assume in an effort to make their stats look better. That’s their privilege of course, but it’s been taking me too long to view them all, and as much as I may have liked their blogs, I don’t have the time to read two, three, or even four posts per day from the same person. That’s bordering on spamming people in my opinion.

Anyway, it’s time for food and a walk.

Well, I’m back. We didn’t get very much snow overnight from this storm, and most of what did fall got blown around until it became part of existing snow drifts. I was deep in thought for most of my walk, as I wasn’t seeing very much wildlife of any type, it was a ho-hum kind of day. I did look up once to see a pair of mourning doves flying past me, out of camera range, and with the sun behind them as they passed me. A second or two later, a Cooper’s hawk flew past me as if following in the tracks of the doves, but I didn’t get a photo of it.

I did shoot a photo of a fox squirrel, as I’m still testing the capabilities of the Tamron extender, here it is, in the slightly cropped version.

Fox squirrel eating crab-apple berries

That photo plays into things that I have been thinking about over the past two weeks, and also goes along with what I said about being my own harshest critic. I am beginning to rethink a few things, mainly purchasing the 400 mm prime telephoto lens.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been going back through the photos that I have taken this past summer, and posting one or two now and then as a way of looking back at the past year. Here’s another example, from last August.

Male indigo bunting

Also, the photos that I shot at Muskegon on Sunday that I thought were junk when I first viewed them.

Male long-tailed duck

But the photo that has hit me the most was the second one of the British soldier lichens that I inserted earlier into this post.

With a lot of careful research, I’ve managed to put together a very good kit of photo gear, and under reasonable weather conditions, my photos reflect just how good my current photo gear is. Of course, it isn’t just the gear that’s responsible for the quality of my photos improving.

I have allowed myself to go on a quest for the “Holy Grail” as it pertains to photography, looking for the magical lens which will improve my photos dramatically.

There’s no doubt that the 400 mm prime telephoto lens that I’ve been drooling over is superior to the Beast when it comes to optics, and it’s much easier to carry and handle as well. I’m sure that I will purchase one eventually, but I’m no longer in any hurry. I look at the photos that I have taken with the Tokina 100 mm prime macro lens and know that I would just love to have a long prime telephoto lens equally as sharp as the Tokina is.

While the prime telephoto can produce better photos than the Beast, there’s still room for me to improve the photos that I get while using the Beast, as well as all of my lenses, and especially the camera bodies. I’ve been taking a slow, methodical approach to learning my new gear, and I believe that I still have a lot to learn. I think that I can extract more quality from my current gear than I would see if I were to purchase an even sharper lens. I could be wrong about that, but it doesn’t matter, I won’t know until I try, and even if the increases in quality aren’t as large as I think that they will be, there will still be improvement, and that’s what counts.

I think that if I continue to fine tune the camera settings, that I will continue to see the quality of my photos improve, and I hate to sound like I’m bragging, but many of them are darned good already.

It’s funny, I inserted the photos of the bunting and long-tailed duck, and the first thing that I wanted to do was apologize for the poor quality of those photos because I’ve reduced both the physical size of those photos, and the quality of them before posting them here.

One thing that I have begun to do this week is to make two categories for my photos that I post here. One is of “throw away” shots, the photos of the birds from yesterday are an example of that category. With the poor light, I knew that none of the photos from yesterday would be wallhangers. I reduced the size and quality of those photos a little more than I have in the past, as they were just fair to begin with.

The other category will be the “trophies”, really good photos and/or of species that I seldom if ever post photos of. I’ll still reduce the size and quality of the trophies, but not as much as I do to the throw aways. That will help me conserve space as far as the WordPress limits on uploads, and besides, I don’t see any reason to try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

I’ll post slightly better versions of trophy photos, however I still won’t post the full versions, not only because of space limits, but I don’t want any one stealing my photos either.

As much as I would like to post nothing but trophies, that isn’t going to happen, as this is still a record of my daily walks.

But, and this is hard for me to say in a way, I’m getting some excellent photos, and it’s time for that to make its way into my thought process. There is no such thing as the perfect photo, so it’s time for me to stop knocking myself because I’m not getting perfect photos every time that I press the shutter release.

Thursday

Cold, windy, and snow, we’re back to full blown winter again around here. However, last night at work, I noticed that as I backed up to the dock at the Lansing branch that it was still light out, even though I had stopped for fuel on the way there. The days have already gotten longer, I’ll have to remember that as the next arctic blast hits next week. Spring is on its way, it’s just a matter of time, and gutting out the cold spells until it arrives.

Yeah, right, spring is right around the corner he says. It was cold and windy today, and so gloomy that there seemed to be no color at all in anything.

I shot two photos of a wreath that some one placed on the gate to the park, but neither turned out well. That wreath is giving me fits, and I don’t know why. Today isn’t the first time that I’ve tried to photograph it, but I have yet to get a properly exposed photo. It gives me something to practice on even if I never do get a good photo of it.

That gives me an excuse to post three photos of a male common goldeneye that I shot on Sunday.

Male common goldeneye

Male common goldeneye

Male common goldeneye

I’ll add those to the post that I’ve already done on them in the My Photo Life List project, just as I have added some photos of redhead ducks to the previous post on them.

And since I have already uploaded the redhead photos, I may as well insert them here as well.

Male redhead duck

Male redhead duck

Along with this one which is also a redhead, but I was photo-bombed by a swan as I shot the photo.

Male redhead duck photo-bombed by a mute swan

The darned swan swimming into the frame ruined my best photo of the redhead. That photo also gives you some idea how much of a difference in exposure is needed for the two species. I was dead on for the duck, but the swan is way overexposed.

Friday

The weather forecast is looking grim, not just for next week, but into the month of February. It may be so cold that I won’t be taking a camera with me as I go for my walks, there may even be a few days when I don’t go for a walk at all, if it gets as cold as they are saying now.

Today, it’s about average around here, cold, cloudy, with some occasional snow flurries, brrr.

So, before I go out to not take many, if any photos, here’s another from Sunday at Muskegon. This one is cropped a little just for insertion here.

Male redhead duck

The full size photo as seen on my computer didn’t need to be cropped, but I decided to add this version here to show you how well that my photo gear and I are doing.

The question that I have for myself, and that only I can answer, is, why is it that I can’t see how good my own photos are?

I can remember that after shooting the fall colors in Palmer Park, I nearly deleted all the photos that I shot when I first viewed them, but they were actually quite good in retrospect.

It was the same with the snow landscapes that I shot a few weeks ago, I wasn’t happy with them, either.

Two thoughts come to mind, one is that my initial assessment of my photos is correct, but after viewing them a few times, I begin to overlook the flaws that they have.

The other is that you may think that I’m fishing for compliments, I’m not. I think that what I really could use is a completely unbiased opinion, and go from there.

I know that at least some of the problem that I have in assessing my own photos is that I compare mine to those that have been taken by professional photographers using top of the line equipment, then edited extensively during post processing. As good as my cameras and lenses are, they can’t quite compete with equipment costing ten times as much. Nor can my unedited photos compete with those that have been edited by experts using Lightroom, or some other software.

To make things worse, I take so many photos of common subjects from too far away and in poor light, such as the blue jay trying to drive off the woodpecker from earlier this week, or these two from today.

Fox squirrel

American robin

I consider these two to be throw aways, as I have far better photos of both species. The only reason I shot these two is that I have tweaked my camera to compensate for the Tamron extender, and wanted to see how well the tweaks worked. I would say that they worked quite well.

However, as I said earlier today, I think that the time has come for me to find a source where I can get unbiased opinions on some of my photos. I could use some constructive criticism from some one who knows photography. I have several options in mind, but there’s no need to list them here, now.

I think that along with that, it’s time for me to have a few of what I consider to be my best photos printed, as I haven’t had any of the photos that I’ve taken with the Canon bodies printed yet. I’m going by what I see on the computer screen when I analyze my photos, and that may be misleading.

I do know this, I have agonized over this post far more than any that I have done up until this point. I am afraid that people reading this will think that I’m fishing for compliments, but I’m not. I’m thinking of turning the comments off for this post.

Or, they could think that I’m a nut case for not being able to tell a good photo from a bad one. Only when it comes to my own.

Saturday

Cloudy, cold, and snow, we’re back to the same old rut around here. The forecast for the next three weeks is depressing. The bitter cold is predicted to return early this week, and stick around into February, with just a few “warm” days, when our temperatures will be around, or a little below average. There’ll be no chasing birds by me if that holds true.

There’s been no real sunshine this week other than a few hours last Sunday, it was less gloomy than normal on Monday, but other than that, we’ve had constant cloud cover the entire week. There’s more talk of Lake Michigan freezing over, if that happens, it will be even colder here, but at least there would be some sunshine now and then. I think that I would trade the cold for a bright day once in a while.

Okay, I had some 8 X 10 prints made from some of my photos, and they seemed to wow the people who saw them, including myself. I may have made a mistake though, most of the prints were landscapes, all taken with the 15-85 mm lens while I was on vacation last fall. I did include one photo of an eagle using just the Beast, two taken with the Beast and the Tamron extender together, and the photo of the lichens using the Tokina lens and Tamron extender.

All the prints were very sharp, although the colors were off slightly in a couple of them. That was due to the printing process, and not my fault.

I’m just going to have to face it, I’m a better photographer than I thought. 😉

I know that I have written about that in the past, but it really hit me this week when I saw the photo of the lichens earlier this week. The question remains though, why do I have such a hard time admitting it to myself, or seeing it when I first view photos that I have taken?

I also don’t know how to explain the strange dichotomy about my photography, I am quite proud of the equipment that I have purchased, yet when I see the photos that I’ve taken while using that equipment, I’m disappointed at first.

Anyway, I have come to realize that I don’t need the 400 mm prime lens to take excellent photos, the Beast, the Tamron extender, and the 70-200 mm lens all produce excellent photos, even with me using them. 😉

Going back to what I said earlier this week, it’s time for me to fine tune my settings, and work at improving my techniques.

Well, time for a walk so I can think on this some more.

I’m back. I suppose that I should chalk this post up as another in tracking my evolution into being a good digital photographer, even though I feel that I still have some distance yet to go. Evidence of that is that I see my digital results on the computer, and I’m not happy at first. Yet when I picked up the prints that I had made last night, I knew right away that they were very good. I would even go so far as to say that they are much better than anything that I was able to do back in the days when I shot film. I’m still much better at judging printed results than digital results.

I saw a huge leap in the quality of my photos when I made the switch from my old Nikon to my current Canon camera. Since then, there have been several Aha! moments along the way, but mostly it has been a slow, step by step process to get to where I am today. I hadn’t realized how good my photos have become until I looked back at some of my earlier efforts. I’m making progress, so it isn’t any wonder that I need to take time, look back, and then rethink the course that I’m on, and make any needed adjustments to that course.

So I’m sorry if this has seemed to be another repeat of what I have said in the past, it has been, but with some differences as I have been assessing my progress, and deciding which way I need to go next. My goal hasn’t changed, I still want to become the very best nature photographer that I can be, but I have had to alter my course slightly in order to get to where I want to be.

I’ll have more about that new course next week, right now it’s time to wrap this up fairly soon.

My photos from today were nothing special, but I think that this one is worth posting.

Lichens

That’s the only color I could find with the weather the way it was. I shot a blue jay and a small flock of tree sparrows, but they all look grey, since that’s the only color that shows up this time of year, so I’m not going to post them. My final photo of this week will be this one of a mute swan that I shot at 700 mm on Sunday.

Mute swan portrait

The weather tomorrow is about as good as it will be for the foreseeable future, but windy. So, I’ll return to Aman Park, being down in a valley, I usually find some respite from the wind.

That’s it for this one, as always, thanks for stopping by!

January 18, 2014 | Categories: Birds, General, Hiking, My Week, Nature, Photography, Weather | Tags: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photos | 25 Comments