Getting a bit behind....

I'm beginning to think I should change the subtitle of this blog to "occasional photo weblog" - I guess I'm not a Hawkless Falconer right now either.

Some of my backlogged shots:

From Photo of the day 2011

I took this at Elk lake a few days ago. I was going to try out out the macro capabilities of my new phone's camera (HTC Desire). I was not impressed. It wouldn't focus where I wanted and was hopelessly un-sharp. I took the photo with my Nikon and a wide-angle lens so I wouldn't have to stand so far back. This is the underside of of a swordfern frond, the little balls are called sori - clusters of sporangia that produce fern spores. I liked how all the veins looked and hey, if I ever teach biology 11 on call again, I will have an illustrative photo. This one is only cropped to remove distractions.

From Photo of the day 2011

This is taken with my phone. I must say it looks a lot better on the phone. The limitations of a physically small lens are apparent when viewed on a monitor. The colours, likely because of the unconventional and dim lightsource, were washed out and it didn't take much zooming to find the loss of sharpness. Still, it was the only camera on my person, and I got the shot rather than not. This was taken on Mitchell's Farm in one of the fields near my friends helicopter hangar. I have increased the saturation and increased the shadows a bit in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2011

Here is another one from my phone. I think it fared better here (more light, less camera shake?) I guess its just not built for macro. This is the inside roof of the helicopter hangar. I was hanging out waiting for my friend to come back with the heli, enjoying a coffee, and listening to the starlings trying to make nests in the insulation. the pattern of the roof beams and the light just looked cool. Straight from the phone.

From Puppy!

And last, but definitely not least, my hound. I took her down to Gowlland-Tod park this afternoon on the McKenzie bight trail. We saw about 20 harbour seals in the bay - photos weren't great. The lighting picked up towards the end of the hike and Meg was watching some ducks. The nice thing about a pointing dog - they pose! I liked how the evening light highlighted her ears and face. Straight from the camera.