I’m watching birds early in the morning while sitting outside writing my morning pages. Then I pick up my camera while sitting at a table inside. I’ve seen three separate families of quail. They are small families with the largest having four babies, then another with two and the final family has mom, dad and one baby.
House finch on a young saguaro.
A Harris Hawk stopped by and the little birds flew away.
Mrs. arrived for a snack. A House Finch tried to intimidate her, but she stood her ground.
I hope you enjoyed my photos that I took over the weekend. Happy Father’s Day to everyone and have a great week!
I caught the morning light in this photo yesterday. It was taken in the shadows of our pergola. Although it’s a bit dark, I like the way the light made patterns on the Barrel and Moroccan Mound cacti.
I turned in my week nine photography assignment last Friday. Then I spent a lot of the weekend practicing and playing — using my macro lens I got for Christmas and my telephoto lens and tripod.
Red has been avoiding me lately, but he finally showed up and I managed to get some pictures of him in focus.
Without a homework assignment — which I’ll have later today — I was able to play and experiment. I tried different lighting, different settings, and waited patiently for Red to make an appearance.
While I shoot, especially out in the sun, I don’t know what I’ve got until I put the memory card into the card reader on my laptop. Then I use Adobe Bridge to look through photos and rate them. It has a zero through five stars labeling system. I put a star by ones I like for future reference. Adobe Bridge is a great tool to organize my few good photos from the hundreds that don’t turn out. I was excited with the photo of Red above! It got two stars.
Here’s another Red photo I thought turned out. Funny (not funny), the next time Red showed up, every photo I took of him was blurry. I think it’s because it was early in the morning and the low in the sky sun was shining right into my eyes. The final photo session of the weekend with Red, the photos were all dark. I had the shutter speed set too high and not enough light was getting into the camera.
Here are honeysuckle blooms I caught in the morning light.
This is called a Fairy Duster.
I know this is an aloe bloom. From what I learned online, the common name is Lace Aloe.
Here’s Mrs. Red with a House Finch buddy enjoying what is a called a Cardinal Block. I bought it at the hardware store and it came complete with a picture of a Red Cardinal on the wrapper. How could I refuse?
This is one of the photos I took of Red that was too dark. I was able crop and lighten it up a bit digitally. I understand the reasoning behind my photography instructor to learn how the camera works and how to make better images — without digital touchups. It’s helped me improve tremendously. I’m also thankful I could rescue a few shots of Red with the help of technology — while playing with pictures.
What were you playing with or enjoying that was fun or creative this weekend?
Red made it into my week seven assignment. This was shot with a 55-200mm telephoto lens.
My homework this week was about lens perspective. I learned about lens speed, focal length and how my different lenses can be used. Whew! A lot of stuff there.
The assignment was to take or download from the interwebs two photos with a short focal length lens. The “kit” lens of my camera is 18-55mm, so I set my wide angle photos at 18mm which is the shortest focal point.
This is my wide angle shot at 18mm. It’s of our backyard outside the fencing that keeps the wild critters away — or at least some of them. If you compare this photo to Red’s, you can notice the difference in the depth of field. Red’s photo looks like the wall is right behind the fence. In the photo below, I was standing against the outside of the fence. It was taken at a focal length that makes the distance look further away. The real distance is at what we see with our own eyeballs, more in between the two but closer to the photo below.
This is my wide angle view of the nature’s preserve across the street from our home.
The next part of my assignment was to take two photos with a normal focal length. I used the same lens, but set it to around 50mm. Notice the difference of the photo below and photo above. The photos were taken only a few yards apart, but the photos are different due to focal length of the lens. Look at the mountains below compared to those above. They are the same mountains, shot from the same distance.
This is the entrance to our neighborhood. I picked a great day for photography because of the dark sky and clouds.
The third part of my week’s assignment was creating two telephoto long focal length images. My photo above of Red is my first example. I like using my telephoto lens to capture birds and wildlife. I also like the shallow depth of field that includes a fuzzy foreground or background with the emphasis on the subject.
I had taken a shot of a Gila Woodpecker in the tree and had completed my photography for the day. Then lo and behold, Mr. Harris’s Hawk stopped by for a visit. But after looking at the two photos, I’m going with the woodpecker. It’s a cleaner looking shot with less distraction in the background.
I’m enjoying this class because I’m learning new things. It motivates me to take a look around me and see things from a new perspective.
What’s going on with you that you find motivating or interesting to learn?
Do you think I made the right choice with the woodpecker photo?
This is an early morning photo my husband took with his phone. It’s a full moon he captured during a walk around 6:30 a.m. Yes, he has a newer and better iphone than me. Maybe it would be a benefit to upgrade my iphone? It’s something to think about.
Here’s a photo I took with my DSLR camera and telephoto lens. It’s a husband and wife quail and a curve-billed thrasher in the tree outside our casita. I’m not sure the iphone could capture this as well as my camera. When quail are in our yard, I notice at least one is up high for lookout duty. It’s fascinating. The lookout calls out a warning if a predator comes near — like a hawk or me taking out the trash.
Another moon shot my husband captured with his iphone. The saguaro details are so good.
More photos from my Nikon. The lookout quail.
Bunny and quail.
Tonight my husband and I will be on the lookout for a comet. A neighbor showed me a photo her son took of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. It is so cool with the tail visible.
Comet C/2023 A3, also known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, has been in the evening sky for a week now. If you haven’t seen it, that’s understandable because there’s also been a bright Moon in the sky. But the Moon is Full tonight (Oct. 17) and will rise later tomorrow (Oct. 18) and each night thereafter. So, try to catch this beautiful celestial visitor before it moves so far from Earth that only telescopes will capture it.
To give you some idea as to how easy it is to spot, last night in Tucson, Arizona, I saw it in the western sky even though the sky was half full of clouds and light from the nearly Full Moon in the east was making them bright. I spotted it first through binoculars, but after 20 minutes the part of the sky the comet was in cleared, and I could see it without any optical aid.
