Morning Walk

 Got out before ten yesterday morning for the daily walk. There had been a skiff of snow overnight and some of it was still hanging around in the shady parts. We got a lot warmer weather recently and most of the snow and frost hasn't hung around on the branches. I liked how you could see the texture of the fine flakes and the spruce needles. The dark background and narrow depth of field helps to highlight both of these. I increased the shadows a tiny bit to bring the attention even more to the snow and needles.

 The morning sun - not quite a sunrise (I value my sleep too much for that these days) but still some nice colours. The tall trees are just behind the backyard of my house. I liked the colours of the sky and the silhouettes made by the trees, but not the field. Straight from the camera.

And another, but from a different viewpoint. The sky just looked cool in this one. Minor adjustments in the shadows on this one.

500 mm Reflex

 So this is the accidentally neat shot I took the other day. I was trying to get some shots of chickadees with my 500mm reflex (aka mirror) lens. Its a really cool lens, though it has a rather narrow scope of use. Instead of using a lot of glass and being really long to get the increased focal length, it uses two mirrors. One at the back of the lens close to the camera body facing your subject which bounces the light to the other, smaller mirror towards the front end of the lens that faces back into the camera. Because of this second mirror, the lens has some odd side effects. First, its has to be a fixed focal length (you can't zoom in and out, just focus), second, its a fixed aperture (f 8.0), and lastly, its manual focus. However, that front mirror also turns all the out of focus highlights into blurry doughnut rings - which you can just see in the above photo on the right side of the image. I think they are kind of cool, but I hear its kind of a love it or hate it aspect of reflex lenses. Anyways, an aperture of f 8.0 doesn't let a lot of light in the camera so you have to make do with ISO adjustments and slower shutter speeds. Of course then you either have to hold the camera really still or deal with ISO grain. My new D300 is better on the grain side of things than my old D200 but its still not what you could get with the new cameras (but they cost a lot!). So I usually try to keep the ISO under 1000 and then use the fastest shutter I can. This shot is of the power line to my house and the cable it's wrapped around. I was trying to make sure my exposure and focus would be adequate when a chickadee landed, and surprised myself with this shot. The trees behind it were dark enough to make the background black, and the way details on the cable pop just makes it cool. More of an artsy photo of the everyday I suppose.

 This one I took yesterday from my back porch across the yard with the same lens. I've cropped it some, and fiddled with the highlights/shadows/sharpening in Picasa. I find that without a really good brace its hard to get a sharp image with this lens. It does have a lot more reach than my auto-focus enabled 70-300 lens though so I haul it out on special occasions... like the next two photos below

The best two shots of an adult female (I think) goshawk that flew through my yard after I filled up the bird feeder and landed at the top of this tree way off in the neighbour's yard. I only knew it was a raptor when it landed, and actually had to use the lens like binoculars to find the bird on the tree top when I came back out with my camera. I walked through the field between us and the neighbours house, using different bits of the horse fence to help steady the shots. I've included them here because the subject matter is cool and they were taken with the same lens as the others. They aren't really very good images at full size - between trying to get the focus right without a split circle viewfinder like in the old film cameras, the high ISO needed, and that the hawk was still small in the frame, they are pretty grainy and not print quality. That said, you can see some of the details on the grey feathers on her wings and can easily identify the species, so they are kind of neat. I cropped both of these and adjusted the highlights/shadows and sharpness in Picasa.

Front Yard Visitors

 I took Meg and Anna out on a morning walk with the camera, hoping to find some good shots with no luck. I had resigned myself to posting my one accidentally cool shot I took yesterday and was getting ready to give Anna a bath when I heard a bird run into the window. I bundled up to go check it out, and was pleasantly surprised to find some Pine Grosbeaks at the feeder in nice light. I took some time to get as many nice shots as I could - including some of a Hairy Woodpecker that showed up and started having a go at the willow bushes just outside my front door. I haven't done much to these shots - mostly cropping (to get rid of things like the scuzzy bird feeder or some blurry christmas light wires) and a bit of fill light/highlights/shadows/sharpening in a few. All shot with the 70-300mm. I am very pleased with the results - sharp, neat compositions, great light, and even eyeshine! Yay! Maybe I'll post that other photo tomorrow.

 

 Male grosbeak with two females in the background

 

Close-up of the male investigating some sunflower shells dropped by the chickadees in the snow.

Hairy woodpecker in the willows. I love the contrast with the background in this one.

Male Pine Grosbeak by the feeder when I came out at first.

A Trip to Town

 Took the camera into town with me today in case I found something interesting to photograph while going about my days tasks. The Nechako river, which flows through town, isn't frozen over yet, and made a nice contrast to the white landscape. Unfortunately, it started snowing again while I was grocery shopping and so the water didnt look as dark when I had a chance to stop the car and take some photos. The tree and the fence just worked here.

Some straw bales on Loop road harvested just before it snowed. I liked the way they are capped with snow. The irrigation pipe in the foreground added perspective and interest, think I'm going to try to paint this one..

More Snow

 

 I took lots of photos today, many of them good, so here's my favourite five. Its been snowing pretty well all day and around -10 C, perfect weather for a longer walk. I headed out the back towards the spring, thinking to get some contrast of open stream with the snow. I put the neighbours' horse first as its by the top shot here. I love how you can see the falling snow in front of him and how the focus on him contrasts with the background. I cropped this in picasa and increased the highlights a smidge to brighten the snow.

I found this little spruce tree growing at the base of the old barn wall. I like the texture of the boards how it contrasted with the smooth snow. The tree gave it a subject and more interest. Straight from the camera.

 

I've been trying to get some good chickadee shots from around my feeder for a while, but have been unhappy with the lack of sharpness in the details at higher ISOs. I turned off the high ISO noise reduction in the camera and have been happier with the results. Got this guy in a more natural setting and was able to crop it down without the softness of before. Now to get some of these little dudes in flight!

Trees and rosehips on the side of Birch road at the start of my walk. Something about the scene is just right. I liked the added red from the rosehips to bring a bit more cheer to an otherwise chilly image. Straight from the camera.

 The view from partways up the hill to the spring. Again, the spots of the falling snow is just neat. The tall spruce looks a little forlorn in posture, giving some focus and setting the tone. Thinking I will use this as inspiration for the background of a painting... we'll see. Straight from the camera.

Snowscapes

It was snowing pretty hard this morning and I thought it would be fun to get out in it and take some photos. I love how the snow can completely change how the scenery looks so I brought the wide angle lens for some landscape shots. This is the start of my typical daily walk, the drive out into the back field. You can see Meg's fresh tracks on the left hand side - I think she was pretty well at the other end of the field by then. I increased the highlights a bit on this to make the snow a bit brighter, but otherwise straight from the camera.

The view back the way I'd come. I liked the grass as a foreground and the haziness of the distant trees made by the falling snow. One of these days I'll try to duplicate the effect in watercolours - a lot more likely these days with more of my time spent at home. This one was straight from the camera.

A snow covered cow parsnip skeleton. I though the little flowerette bits full of snow looked particularly like little hands with their boney little palms out to catch the snow. I used the angle, shallow depth of field, and dark sticks in the background to contrast the snow blobs. I like how the required speedy shutter also froze some of the nearby falling snowflakes. Cropped in Picasa but nothing else.

Waxwings

 Found a flock of these winter migrants in the top of a poplar tree yesterday. I couldn't see them clearly, even through the camera's zoom on the viewfinder as the sky behind was too bright. As it was, I should have stopped down the aperture more than I did so the exposure was darker and the depth of field deeper. As it was, I had to increase the shadows pretty severely in Picasa and sharpen them to make them satisfactory. I still liked the shots, though, especially the lower one when they took off. Taken with the 70-300mm.