Eclipse

From Photo of the day 2010

From Photo of the day 2010

From Photo of the day 2010

I know this one has probably been done a lot recently - the whole thing isn't going to happen again for another long time (that is a total eclipse on the winter solstice) so I got myself organised and took a few shots. It turned out pretty good for shooting with only a 300mm lens off my back deck in town without a lot of forethought (such as: "what are good camera settings for shooting an eclipse?"). The weather wasn't really cooperating either - there was a fair amount of high cloud and a number of larger ones that obscured the moon at times, but I shouldn't complain as it had been overcast and raining most of the day.

In the end I shot with a low ISO to combat graininess in the black areas, large aperture, and whatever shutter I could get with the other two settings. I also turned on the long exposure noise reduction feature setting on my camera. I compensated for the halo generated by the clouds by increasing the shadows in Picasa for processing. Not a lot else! I'm impressed with the amount of detail I got in some of the craters. I really should have a go at shooting a full moon in good conditions with a remote sometime, I think I would be suprised by the quality.

Downtown Victoria

From Photo of the day 2010

I have been meaning to take some photos of the old buildings in downtown Victoria for some time and finally got around to it. I took a walk from Clover Point all around the outside edge of town, skirting around the Legislative buildings and the Empress Hotel. It was kind of fun wandering around among the tourists. I didn't find anything around the major landmarks that grabbed my eye though. I've also discovered its really hard to be on your own with a dog down there though, forget going into any shops - apparently its not legal to leave your dog tied up, even in the shade.

Anyways, I found this on Yates street (I think). I liked the symmetry of the windows and the bricks and the angle of the light. I tried to put the flags in the window at the top third, I would have liked to have them in a top third corner, but couldn't make it work with the surrounding buildings. It was only after that I noticed the fan at the bottom third, which works in its own way. I had to fix my exposure settings in Picasa afterwards with a little highlights and fill light, but it is not cropped. I was using a circular polarizing filter to bring out the colours in the bright sun.

Recent Travels

From Photo of the day 2010

I took this shot last weekend while down on Fonyo beach in Victoria with Meg and my parents. I liked the log and the monochome-ness of the shot - It came out remarkably sharp which only intensified this feel. Just kind of a neat shot - and straight out of the camera.

From Photo of the day 2010

I stitched 5 vertical photos together with ArcSoft's Panorama Maker 4 Pro. My pilot friend and I flew out to Port Alberni last week and stopped in at the Mars Water Bomber site. These are the largest water bombers in the world - built in the 1940's and there are 4 left - two of which were in Port Alberni. This one was on the dock, the other in the water. Look at the semi in the shot for a sense of scale. Neat thing to go and see.

From Photo of the day 2010

And last but not least, an adult male kestrel my friends and I trapped in Merritt BC this last weekend. We have permits to take a juvenile for use in falconry but can't tell the age until they are in the hand. This little guy was an adult so we took some pictures and let him loose. Stunning little guy. This shot is also straight out of the camera.

Island Scenery

From Photo of the day 2010

Kind of funny how this shot made the cut - I really like it but it was shot from the hip and its straight out of the camera. A friend of mine has a small helicopter (Robinson R22) and we went flying a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what river this is, its either the Nanaimo or the Cowichan, and something makes me thing its the former. Anyways, I was trying to center the shot down the valley and obviously missed. Once on the computer screen though, I liked the lighting and (remarkably) the framing as well. Who knows, I might even get it printed.

From Photo of the day 2010

This one I took two days ago while walking my dog at Cadboro Bay's Gyro park in the morning. The last few days here have been fantastic weather. I metered this off the log to avoid over exposing it and then framed the boats to lead off into the horizon. Large F-stop to keep things all relatively in focus with plenty of light for the shutter. Again, this is straight out of the camera. The mountains in the distance are those of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

I'm back to taking more photos now that I'm not so overwhelmed with school work but seem to forget to process them. I will work on that and try to get stuff up here sooner.






And in case you are interested, a basic shot of my friends heli, taken when I got out to try get some shots of an osprey.

From Photo of the day 2010

Some Passerines

I took these pictures about a week and a half ago. I was planning on getting them up on the Monday, but I'm enrolled in a summer institute at University which is mainly in front of the computer and didn't have the energy to face sitting in front of the screen for any longer. Last weekend I spent creating a stop motion animation film for the same institute and had had enough of cameras and photos by the end of that. Anyways, Here they are. I took the first two on a walk with the dog at Clover Point.

From Photo of the day 2010

I'm not sure what this little guy is - my guess is a juvenile sparrow, what kind I don't know. He was pretty tame, but getting my camera set properly took too long for me to get any more than this one shot. I liked how he was sitting on the branch and that the background was free of noise. I cropped this, lightened it up a bit with highlights and sharpened in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2010

This one, on the other hand, I know is a mature song sparrow. The small dark spot on his chest along with his grey and brown striped face gives that away. He was remarkably tame - or defensive - and stuck around for a lot of shots. Most of the backgrounds were too noisy for my taste so they didn't make it up here. This is full frame from the camera at 300 mm (which will let you just how close I was, maybe 5 feet away). I increased the highlights a bit and sharpened in Picasa 3.

As I was sorting these photos I came across a neat one I took nearly 2 years ago. I cropped it today to remove some distractions and change the bird's postition in the frame. Because of that, and the fact that I didn't have this blog when I took the shot I figured it was fair game to put up here. This is a cedar waxwing at the water garden at Minter Gardens outside of Agassiz, BC.

From Photo of the day 2010

Spring Oaks

Just finished off my first teaching practicum this week, so I've had a bit of time to look through some pictures I took last weekend in the sun. Though I completed my entire undergraduate degree at UVic and called Victoria my home for nearly 5 of the last 7 years, with summer work I have not yet spent a summer in Victoria. I'm not quite used to all this green. After cleaning out Fowler's mews officially before removing his anklets and letting him take the summer off to moult, I looked up and saw the light through the Garry Oak branches in my backyard. Always nice - I fetched my camera and took this shot. The white background of this blog really doesn't do it justice - it needs a dark background to offset the sky more. Oh well, it is what it is.

From Photo of the day 2010

Later in the afternoon Mom spied some feathers floating down from the tree tops. We went out to investigate and found this adult male Cooper's Hawk plucking something up on a high branch. I'm not sure what it was, I didn't get a good look at it from the angle I had and he flew off (pursued by crows) after a few minutes. Two of the better shots I took of him below. These were taken with my 70-300mm lens, F5.6 (it should have been more like 7 to get a better depth of field) 1/250 s (that explains it, not much light for a moving animal. I suppose I could have increased the ISO but I like to keep that low.

From Photo of the day 2010

From Photo of the day 2010

I cropped the first one to make him look a bit more hidden as he is a bit obscured and eating, that and to remove a very blurry branch from the shot. The second I cropped out the same blurry branch but put the hawk in the top right to give him some space to look into. As he's looking at me it works a little better.

Its been awhile..

Ah the joys of a busy life. I started this wanting to give myself something to do other than work, now I am a full time student again with my dog, a hawk again, and a whole lot of homework. No doubt things will pick up again when I put Fowler up for the moult in the summer and get a break from school.

With regards to Fowler, it seems I've been in the (real) media a bit because of this blog. It seems a bit ironic to me still, as the site is called *Hawkless* Falconer, that it has led to this sort of thing. The Agassiz-Harrison Observer ran a story on me in the fall - both on my photography and falconry hobbies. You can read that here
Not all my personal information is correct, but it was neat all the same. Partly because of that article and partly because of this blog, CBC Radio One's On the Island based out of Victoria contacted me and asked to go hunting with Fowler. They just aired the first segment this morning, and a few more to come. I will post links to them as I get them.

Anyways. Back to photos..

From Photo of the day 2010

From Photo of the day 2010

These are a few shots I took at the Blue Whale Project's open house. The aim is to have a fully articulated blue whale skeleton on display in Vancouver when it is finished. As it is now, it is in several articulated pieces, as the space they have available by the shipyards in Victoria is not large enough to connect them all together. This is the lumbar section, equivalent to a human's lower back. For more information on them, check it out here

I have only sharpened and done a bit of highlights and shadows in these shots other than convert them to B&W, the one a focal black and white, in Picasa 3

From Photo of the day 2010

This shot I'm quite pleased with as people are not my usual subject and the light was very low. Because it was in concert (I took a series of photos as a favour for Guitar Victoria at a recent concert) I could not use a flash, and managed to figure my camera out for the shots with a tripod. It came out not bad. If you want more information on them, you can head here at www.guitarvictoria.com.

This one is straight from the camera.

From Photo of the day 2010

And last but not least - I headed out to Agassiz and Maple Ridge for a visit over reading break, just at the start of the Olympics in Vancouver. As I was in a vehicle, I avoided all the venue locations as much as was possible. I caught an early ferry and discovered a fantastic dog park in Delta by the boundary bay airport. Meg had a blast tearing all over the place and jumping in water filled ditches, I had some fun taking pictures of the over abundant eagles. I must have seen over 30 between the Tsawassen ferry terminal and Maple Ridge. Spectacular.

The shot is cropped, sharpened and a little of highlights/shadows in Picasa 3.