Photo Hunters: It's About Time

My new Canon Rebel SXi arrived at the house today. I spent the late afternoon setting it up, putting on the strap (yikes! that's tough!) and taking photos around the house. I am overwhelmed with all the widgets on it but excited. I took the daffodil photograph by simply lying right next to the flower, pointing and shooting. I am still using automatic mode while I read the manual and practice shooting. I hope to get to using some sort of program mode tomorrow.

This photo of Scout was the very first photo I took with the camera, after I put in the battery. Why is this "about time"? Because after saving my money for months in order to buy this camera, my car's front end needed to be completely replaced, taking all the cash. But because of raises, no bills, and Bush's reparation payment, I was able to get the camera and the software to support it (Mac OS X Leopard, iLife '08 (including the newest iPhoto) and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac).

I have found that I do macros by simply standing as close as possible. The camera does the rest. This is a photo of buds on my kitchen lilac bush.

I'm thinking that my zoom photos of beavers and birds will be a thing of the past until I am able to buy a zoom lens. Until then, I will carry both the Canon and the Kodak. The macro seems okay at this point but may not be adequate with bugs. I'll also need a safer tripod and a flash attachment. And a case. Extra battery, filters. Oh, more storage . . . . . (are my children listening?)

These photos will open full-size in a new window when clicked.

Thank you for visiting.

Click PhotoHunt to view more participants.

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Wordless Wednesday: First Flower of 2008

The first flower, wild or domestic, that bloomed on my property. 

Sunday, 20 April 2008

Please click on the photo to view full size in a new window.

Visit more participants by clickingWordless Wednesday

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First Crocus

My sister has more snow on the ground than I do. But she also has flowers blooming and mine are not even coming up yet. Her elevation is 1215 ft (370.3 m) and I am at 1330 ft (405.4 m). Photographing the first crocus of the year is always fun. These were taken Thursday, April 18, when I visited my sister in Wheelock.



Technorati Tags: crocus
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Heads or Tails: Three

Three Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea) in today's snowstorm.

Painted Trillium (Trillium undulatum)
found this past summer at Moose Bog in Victory, Vermont

To see more Heads or Tails participants, visit Skittles
or click Heads or Tails.
Thank you so much for visiting.

Carduelis+flammea Common Redpoll Painted+Trillium Trillium+undulatum

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Unplugged Project: Haiku: Hackmatacks

Hackmatacks


All the tamaracks

Glow yellow in the darkness;

Autumn winds blow cold.

To see the hackmatack tree properly, please click on the photo in order to view it in a new window.

For an excellent New York Times article on tamarack trees (Larix laricina, or the American larch), click here:

But it's in the Northeast Kingdom, that wild, lonely upland northeast of Montpelier, where the tamarack really comes into its own. This stands to reason - the closer to the arctic treeline you go, the more the tamarack likes it. Every year about the time that maple tree down on our common sheds its last leaf, I take my family on an overnight drive along the back roads of the region, enjoying not only the golden tamaracks and the spare, craggy beauty of the landscape, but the luxury of having it virtually all to ourselves.

Visit other participants of the Unplugged Project here. Next week's project is open-ended and the theme is RED. 

Technorati tags: tamaracks hackmatacks haiku Unplugged+Project

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Dog Mountain Flowers In Autumn

Technorati tags: Dog+Mountain St.+Johnsbury Vermont autumn wildflowers 

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Heads or Tails: Hobby

New England Aster (Aster novae-angliae)

Black-capped Chickadee (Parus atricapillus)

Common Buttercup (Ranunculus acris)

Playing with iPhoto 7 from iLife '08. I'm getting different results and some I don't like, like the noise in my macros. I am posting these to see what they look like in Blogger and in different browsers.

Technorati tags: Heads+or+Tails, New+England+Aster, Aster+novae-angliae, Black-capped+Chickadee, Parus+atricapillus, Common+Buttercup, Ranunculus+acris
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The Good News

Spotted Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis), also called Jewelweed

Some good things happened today. I have a new site for my photos. It is meeyauw photo gallery at dot Mac. You can view my photos in a slide show, carousel, and other ways. If you double click a photo, you can see it full size. It seems to load fairly well. If it continues to do well, I will renew my dot Mac subscription in October.

I got some good wildflower photos today. Be sure to check out my photo of the day for Sunday. Please.

Buddy took off again for another forty-eight hours. Being me, I presumed him dead. But he is home again, asleep here on the table next to me. His disappearance was reason #2 why I did not go to Rutland.

Best of all: Possum and Turnip are home after nearly three weeks in Amy's cattery at Oasis Pet Resort while they were treated for chronic bowel inflammation (Turnip) and bladder inflammation (Possum). They are doing well and are on prescription food which they won't touch. It was wonderful to have them in bed again at nap time. I missed them badly. Their homecoming was reason #3 why I did not go to Rutland.

A field of New England Asters

Technorati tags: Spotted+Touch-Me-Not Impatiens+capensis Jewelweed cats .Mac New+England+Aster

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Field Of Sunflowers

On my break I took a ride and found a field of sunflowers. They were not at their peak but were wonderful to see nonetheless. I also saw, and photographed, my first indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea). It was a good day.

Technorati tags: indigo+bunting Vermont sunflowers Passerina+cyanea

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It's Too Hot Here

It was 84 freaking degrees here when I arrived at 3 PM! What is this? I have no shorts, nothing cool to wear at all!

So I went outside because there were sunflowers. They are in an overgrown old garden but they are sunflowers.

I disturbed this little cat that was hunting birds in the yard. There are bird body parts strewn about. But they are all starlings. The starlings that have left the Northeast Kingdom because it is too freaking cold.

So this little cat was upset that I upset her hunting and stood way down near the river at the edge of the garden and watched me watching her.

One of the wild sunflowers in the broiling sweltering hot sun.

I won't tell you the real reason for coming down to Rutland until the Photo Hunt on Saturday. I'm excited about it and hope you come back to see what I've got.

Technorati tags: Rutland Vermont sunflowers

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Manual Settings

Ox-eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum)

I used all manual settings for this photo and it is better than any of the other shots I took of this blossom with the factory settings. I am beginning to understand. All I want to do is take photographs. Please click on the photo to see it full size in a new window. 

Technorati tags: Ox-eye+Daisy Chrysanthemum+leucanthemum
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Hummie's World: Light Metering Photography Challenge

Hummie's World: Light Metering Photography Challenge

As always, all photographs will open in a new
window so that you can view them large.

Goldenrod: exposure compensation settings, left to right: -0.3, 0.0, +0.3

Hummie has offered us this Light Metering Photography Challenge which I have done because I need to learn as much as I can about cameras. I had begun learning about exposure through trial and error already, but this challenge has added to my knowledge. Histograms are an important topic to know so that you understand the relationship between exposure, what you see in the view finder, and what you are shooting.

Exposure is important to me because of flower and macro photos. I often have my flowers over exposed, especially if they are white or yellow flowers. If I use the flash for macros I also have overexposed shots. Learning about the histogram on iPhoto and my camera, I learned how to use the exposure settings to my advantage.

I have a Kodak Z710 point-and-shoot camera. I have "exposure compensation" and not the exposure settings the rest of you may have. For less exposure, I move a toggle down to -0.3, -0.7, -1.0, etc. And for more exposure, I move it up so to +0.3, +0.7, etc. The default setting is 0.0. I have found that using the camera's histogram and exposure compensation settings together does me little good. My eye is now what I trust, but I look at the settings to calibrate my eye to what the numbers read. I tend to enjoy photos that are slightly underexposed. I will be very interested in your opinion.

New England Aster: exposure compensation settings, left to right: -2.0, -1.67, -0.67, 0.0

These New England Aster photos are interesting because I like the dark purple best, yet the flower actually looked like the last photo with compensation setting of 0.0. If the sun disappeared, as happened the day I took these, the color of the flower became darker. The sun is what over- and under exposes our photos. Perhaps our preferences are caused by our personal preferences for exposure to the sun. If, like me, you prefer to be in the shade, you may prefer under exposed photos.

While preparing these aster photos for this post, I noticed that other settings such as shutter, aperture, exposure index and focal length changed. I don't know how that happened because I tried to keep all variables constant except what I was learning, the exposure compensation (or exposure bias). In all the other sets of photos here I have only one variable that I tested.

Little Flume, Dixville Notch, New Hampshire
Exposure compensation, left to right: -1.0, -0.67, -0.3, 0.0, +0.3, +0.67

For the photos of the Little Flume above I purposefully used a dozen different exposure compensation settings. In the view finder the water was always too bright. I am not satisfied with any of these photos because of that problem. The surrounding vegetation and rocks show the effects of the different exposures, but the water is just a mass of undifferentiated light.

Spotted Joe Pye-Weed exposure compensation: -0.3, 0.0, +0.3

These are my favorite photos of this whole week of the light metering challenge. I am very confident with purple flowers now and knew exactly what I wanted to see in the view finder. I referenced the exposure compensation setting and histogram, which confirmed that I prefer under exposed photos of flowers. I could easily tell when this Joe Pye-Weed was focused, but I couldn't with the goldenrod or asters. I got exactly what I wanted.

I learned a lot with this challenge and confirmed a lot that I knew. I need to continue learning how to photograph fast flowing water and the relationship between all of the available settings on my camera.

Hummie's new challenge is an ISO ChaIlenge. I don't even know what that means yet!

Please be sure to leave me constructive comments so that I can learn more.

Technorati tags: Hummie's+Photography+Challenge exposure light+metering

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Wildflower from Long Pond

I will update this post with an identification when I get it.
vtpeacenik on Flickr identified this as Turtlehead (Chelone glabra).

Do you know what it is?

Technorati tags: turtlehead Chelone+glabra

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STOKES BIRDING BLOG: Bee Grateful (More Bumble Bee Pollen)

I have used my own photos of bumble bees on common burdock (Arctium minus) to accompany the quotation from the Stokes about bumble bees and their pollen (used with permission).

STOKES BIRDING BLOG: Bee Grateful:

Bumblebees are our only 'social' native bee. They overwinter as fertilized adult females, or queens. These emerge in early spring and start a nest by choosing an existing underground cavity, such as an old chipmunk burrow, collecting pollen into clumps, and laying eggs on the pollen. The pollen and eggs are covered with wax, and the queen sits on them, keeping them warm while they develop. The eggs hatch in four to five days. The larvae feed on the pollen, and in about a week pupate in tough cocoons that they make. During pupation, which lasts about ten days, the queen takes off the wax that is covering them. The emerging adults are sterile females, and they take care of the subsequent broods during the summer. In later summer, the queen lays eggs that develop into fertile females and males. These leave the hive, mate, and the fertilized females overwinter. All other members of the colony die. The next spring the process starts over.

Technorati tags: Bumble+bees Common+burdock Stokes pollen Arctium+minus Bombus+pensylvanicus

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Hydrangea

While Wingnut made his bat shirt at the library, I photographed this hydrangea bush (Hydrangea arborescens) in the front of the building. It is the most beautiful hydrangea bush I have ever seen.

Technorati tags: Hydrangea+arborescens hydrangea hydrangea

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Photo Hunters: Creative

A Spinning Globe Made Using GIMP

Learn how to make your own here. I used my photo of a pink musk mallow bloom to make this animated gif. Be sure to e-mail me or leave a comment if you want further instructions! In the morning I will update this post with exact instructions but it is now 3 AM. Happy Photo Hunting!

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