Sidney and a Hummer

From Photo of the day 2011

Two of my Aunts from Saskatchewan are out visiting for a few days, so we've been doing some of the more tourist-y activities available in Victoria. Today we made the trek out to Sidney - partly for the fish and chips at Fish on Fifth, partly to visit the Shaw Ocean Discovery Center. We went to the center first, I'd never been, and were impressed to say the least. They make a great show of making you feel like you are going into the deep when you come in and their displays of local habitats are fantastic. Highly recommended. Anyways - this was a shot from one of their jellyfish aquariums at the start, I can't remember what kind this one is but I've seen them off the piers occasionally. I'm a bit disappointed with the moire patterns, but the files of a bunch of the others, along with my moon jelly shots somehow got corrupted (not cool). This shot is only cropped to remove the light that was reflecting in the top corner.

From Photo of the day 2011

A stunning great blue heron in full breeding plumage hunting on the shore in Sidney. This was shot with a wide angle lens! I didn't bring my whole camera bag out because it was having zipper issues (and its heavy) so that was all I had. I think if I had my long lens it would have been the best heron picture I have. I cropped this slightly to "zoom" it in a bit, but not much. I also liked how calm the water is and how well the rocks showed through the sea. Other than the crop, straight from the camera.

From Photo of the day 2011

This was shot from my dining room table a few days ago. This female Anna's Hummingbird has taken to sitting on the side of the feeder so I can get more than her head in a picture. I used my long lens from abou 4-5 ft away from her, so I could zoom in quite close. I was impressed by how sharp it came out of the camera. I did crop this (to remove more of the feeder), increased the fill light, highlights and shadows (to boost the contrast a bit) and then added a touch of saturation. I don't think I would've needed to do all that had the sun come out more. Really, these are just tweaks, all in Picasa3.

Now if only the male would visit that side of the feeder!

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.