Scattered Thoughts . . .

I was revisiting some photos from last summer at the lake house since that time of year is fast approaching. This is the time of year when I think about what I hope to accomplish with my photography skills while at the lake. Once I know my goals for the summer, I evaluate my gear... then swap gear I don't need for gear I do need. Ultra-wide angle lenses are needed in tight spaces especially when there is an expansive landscape right outside. My gear is weak in two areas... the two extremes... ultra-wide angle and super-telephoto. For now, I am focused on my ultra-wide lens options. Wildlife photography is always a top priority and that is where the super-telephoto lens comes into play. Capturing Sheila and the grandkids is also a priority topping my list and this involves some portrait lenses... I am covered fairly well here. Landscape photography, including the night sky, is also an area I would like to improve and this involves ultra-wide lenses.  Part of this evaluat

In addition to using a tripod for these shots, I also used a small flash which can be seen reflecting in the eyes of this tiny birds. I've been wanting to try using a tripod when shooting birds over the past couple of days but the birds around the house disappeared for a few days while we had a hawk in the area. My tripod and camera sat in front of the kitchen window waiting for some birds to return so I could attempt to shoot while using a tripod. This afternoon we had a few very skittish birds out there so today was my first chance at giving this a quick whirl. I only spent about ten minutes testing what it is like to shoot with a tripod but I came away from this short practice session feeling that using a tripod for bird photography is the way to go! The tripod allowed me to shed the weight of the camera which is a tremendous help for my spinal injuries. The tripod also kept the camera rock steady. I should also point out that my spinal injuries are so severe that hand

I've been feeling a bit better the past few days as related to the lingering cold that Sheila and I have been struggling with since January. Now I am struggling with lingering fatigue... an oppressingly overwhelming fatigue which defies any accurate description. I slept for 11 hours last night... 10 hours a night has been the norm since this cold started in January. I've also been sleeping for 3-4 hours every afternoon... and, sometimes, I've been napping for upwards of 5 hours. That doesn't leave much time awake each day! I manage to get beyond breakfast each day... make my lunch... but then have no energy for cooking dinner. I rarely even have the energy to shower although I do shower on some days but must skip breakfast in order to save some energy so I can shower.   Energy management... everything is a trade-off. My body is rundown and I can't seem to accomplish much. Needless to say, I am quite bored and feel the need to accomplish something.  A fe

The kitchen window where I shoot bird photography practice sessions seen in this blog. You can see the tree where these birds are normally perched in the background. As I wrote in a previous blog entry, my next step in bird photography practice is to figure out the most effective way to shoot while using a tripod or monopod. Today, I'm all set up for my next photography practice session... camera is mounted on my tripod using my Gimbal head... and tripod is setup in the kitchen in front of the window... the sun is shining... it is above freezing out there...  I'm all set... there are no birds out there though... it is silent out there... I waited for a half hour and then started looking around outside for a reason for there being no birds around.  At first, I was wondering if there were some cats out there. I moved from the kitchen to the living room to check one of the windows there. As I was peering out our living room window, I noticed some movement in a big tree

Black-capped Chickadee. The last couple of times that I wrote about practicing my bird photography (I practice this time of year so I am ready to consistently capture acceptable photos while at the lake house in the summer), we had mostly overcast skies which resulted in a lot of poor photos. Even the few good photos I managed to capture were rather 'flat' because the light was quite flat. Yesterday, however, was a different story. Yesterday was a very bright and sunny day. The sun was reflecting off of the snow creating even more light like an enormous reflector stretched out over the ground. These brighter conditions meant I could drop my ISO down in order to retain more detail while still keeping shutter speeds high.  This brighter environment also meant that I could stop down my lens into a much sharper zone providing me with sharper images. When you stop down a lens, the aperture gets smaller which cuts down on light getting into the sensor. When we have bright co

Most people (photography beginners who know very little about their cameras) set their camera to one of the many "auto" or "scene" modes (although, really, scene modes are also "auto" modes). Although using "auto" modes are the easiest to use, they are far from the most effective modes to use. An "auto" mode is one of the worst modes for getting the focus right where you want it to be. I've mentioned in previous blog posts that focusing on a tiny bird in a thicket of branches can be difficult. When you are using all the camera's auto-focus points, this can be an impossible task. In auto-focus, you are allowing the camera to choose what it thinks should be in focus. The camera chooses what it thinks would be the easiest to put into focus (to greatly simplify how auto-focus works). When trying to shoot a photo of a tiny bird in a thicket of branches, the camera will most likely focus on one of the many branches in front of th

I like to try my hand at nature or wildlife photography whenever the opportunity arises. Of course, my health needs to be cooperating... the weather needs to cooperate... and my photography gear needs to be ready to go for when these situations arise.  (Note:  When I say "the weather needs to cooperate", I don't necessarily mean clear, sunny skies. I mean the weather needs to match what I intend to capture. For instance, I often get up early in the morning while we are at the lake house so I can get out on the lake while it is still foggy... the environment is thick with a lot of depth which makes for nice photos. I rarely will want sunny, clear skies... some clouds are much more interesting! So, cooperative weather means different things depending upon my photographic vision.) Sometimes I'll choose an area of the yard... say, just a small area of only about 50 square feet... and I'll try to find a few things to photograph in that limited area. This forces