Barracuda’s keepers – photos that I let other people see

[Barracuda]

The wild flowers are in full bloom here in Texas. The park near by seeds several areas of the grounds each year, bluebonnets (Texas state flower) for the most part, but several others as well. So of course my wife wanted to get a few photos of our corgi in the bluebonnets, and I took the opportunity to take some w/o the dog as well.

More wild flower photos towards the bottom of my Parks & Nature album (link in post above and original post)

[Farktographer]

Love the lighting caught in your corgi’s eyes in that first shot

[Barracuda]

Friday afternoon was windy, sky was mostly cloudy-ish, I was tired, I wanted to be outside, but didn’t feel like trying to ride through the 20+ mph winds (did that for 47mi on Saturday), so went back to one of my favorite local parks to see what sorts of things were in bloom there.

(color done post-process)

(polarizing filter and ND filter, possible use for next week’s theme)

More in the Parks & Nature album.

[CauseISaidSo]

Nice. Especially like the dragonfly and the mix of colors in the wildflowers shot above it.

[ravnostic]

These are some awesome shots. The 2nd dog one, the landscape flowers, the sepiesque wheat–very nice!!

[Barracuda]

Thank ya. My wife can’t stop showing her friends the pictures of the pup in the bluebonnets to her friends. They all love Penny. She’s also submitted the picture to a dog treat company in Oregon which features customer’s dog photos on their packaging. Penny’s picture will be use on an upcoming run in a few months as well on the company website. The sepiasque shot was done using Split-Tone in Lightroom. I liked the composition of the original, but the colors and shadows were not what I wanted, so a good excuse to play with some of the more creative features of the software.

Last night I finally found a second wind after suffering through Monday at the office, so decided to head out to another local park I had not been to yet. I knew there was a fountain at one of the ponds with a decent backdrop of trees where I could try out using my ND filter set I got for my birthday. Happily I was greeted with a few other good photo opportunities while I was there as well.

This red tailed hawk was watching over the second pond waiting for something tasty to come out of the woods for a drink. Managed to get six or so shots off before either the shutter sound or my movement scared him off.

Along one edge of the deck along the edge of the pond were these flowers, they looked a little past their prime, but a few were still fairly fresh.

And lastly, the purpose of this stop, a 30 second exposure on this pond/fountain. Couldn’t / didn’t quite get the angle I wanted due to tree/fountain positioning, may try to move deeper into the trees next trip, but this I’ll call this a successful first trip.

30 second exposure, f22, 27mm focal length, 6? stops of ND filter (.9 and 1.2 marked on the Tiffen filters I have)

After the park I went over to the public library to try to improve on an earlier shot I’d taken that I’m considering for next weeks’ theme, but ultimately I think the original is still the best (forgot a few details that I liked in the original that I failed to duplicate), and then wandered around downtown Allen for a bit with the tripod. Was hoping to reproduce a shot I’d taken shortly after I got the XSi, but there were too many cars around the auto repair shop where I’d taken the shot that night – someone working late on their own truck it appeared. Managed to get a few worth uploading, but mostly just enjoyed being outside on a nice evening.

[sleeping]

This red tailed hawk

The rule is it’s a red tail unless proven otherwise, but I think that might actually be a Red-shouldered hawk.

[Barracuda]

This red tailed hawk

The rule is it’s a red tail unless proven otherwise, but I think that might actually be a Red-shouldered hawk.

Fark-a-dilly. Looks like you may be right. I’d confirmed it wasn’t a Coopers Hawk that I’ve also seen around before posting, but didn’t ID against the Red-Shouldered Hawk. Good eye, but yes, that is the general rule.

[Barracuda]

Some reorganization of the Picasa albums this morning after yet another trip to the parks for more photos.

All my picasa albums: https://picasaweb.google.com/102637182371352471338

[fluffybunny]

Nice one of the fountain Cuda. I read somewhere that hawks don’t like to be stared at and they see a lens as a big eye. I guess it’s OK if your moving though, I rode the Trinity trail system a couple weeks ago and quite slowly rolled past one standing in the drainage ditch not 10 feet away. He watched me like a hawk but stood his ground. What tele were you using?

[Barracuda]

55-250 for the hawk and the flower below it. The hawk shot was at ISO 400, aperture at f8, 1/15th second shutter. Switched back to the kit 18-55 for the fountain shot as the 55 was not wide enough. Went to a chamber music concert that my wife was performing in this evening, managed to get a few keepers, but the low light meant using the Nikon 135mm for close ups, and was lucky enough to borrow a 50mm 1.4 from the other photographer at the event, but fully manual and the small hall that was more than full meant I had a hard time dialing in the focus. All the way open to keep the performers from being nothing more than a blur my depth of field was too narrow to get everyone on stage in focus, but such is the trade offs when shooting low light with budget gear.

EDIT:

One of the few decent shots from last night’s performance of Ensemble 75.

And this second shot demonstrates (taken with a borrowed manual 50mm 1.4) my issues with front-focusing continue. I think it has something to do with the eye piece being out of adjustment as this is the second manual lens I’ve noticed it on. Of course, in this case it could also be the fact I had to move the tripod several times as people were moving around as the very small house was PACKED.

[Barracuda]

zoom + crop = bug eyes.

Hoping to get a few more weeks of decent wild flowers for my hiking/biking trip on the 14th-16th.

[orionid]

Nice work lately.

[ravnostic]

Nice work lately.

Agreed. Love that last flower.

[Barracuda]

50mm f1.4 first outing:

Wide open:

And very much NOT wide open:

And I think I may have tweaked the grass in this shot a bit too vibrant:

[Author]

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