I took this photo the other day, and was surprised to see a cottonwood tree this far north, let alone a stand of four of them. The female Catkins erupt in late spring and release the cotton like fiber into the air as the seed pods get ready to drop.
Tomorrow I will post the results of my first experiment with HDR editing in Photomatix Pro. You can learn more about HDR photos here.
One of my long time peeves has been rainy days while on vacation and losing camera time with my nieces and nephews. I only get to see them once a year and have to make the most of it. One tactic I have used over and over when they were young is pointing out something outside to get them near a window. Have your camera ready, you will only have a few seconds before they turn to you asking 'where?!"
Another favorite of mine in heavy rain is to get some shots of rain falling along an eave. This one just happened to get framed nicely by a screen door.
The above pictures were all taken with the Kodak DX 6490. I wasn't afraid of taking it out in the rain, but didn't want top push it unnecessarily. And it was compact enough to fit under the peak of my ball cap when shooting. Now with the 1000D that isn't an option. So I have to play around and find new ways to make the most of rainy days.
As anyone who watched the Canadian Grand Prix Formula 1 race yesterday could see, we had a bit of rain here in Montreal. While the race was red flagged during the hardest part of the downpour, I took the camera out back on the covered balcony and practiced focusing with the telephoto lens and doing multiple shot bursts.
This photo is a little grainy . I had the ISO jacked to 1600 because I wanted a fast shutter speed, but found it was a little dark under the storm clouds. This is shot from 3.4 m ( 10 ft ) away with the telephoto. As always click on the photos for a larger view. And yes, that is a single dog hair in the bottom left hand corner. From 10 ft away.
In the spring, while out for a walk, my eye was drawn to a building that was covered in vine stems. The building was gorgeous and made a nicely composed shot.
A few days ago I took the same route home after taking pictures on the waterfront. It looks a little different when it's all dressed up. The crazy thing , is that this house has no protection from the river, the winds must be intense in the winter, but still the Ivy holds on season to season.
I want to do a four season set of this place. Remember to click on the photos for a larger view.
This morning I took the 55- 250mm IS with me on our walk. Usually for taking pictures of flowers or fauna I would use the 18 - 55mm. I like it because it can be focused manually much easier than the small lens. And I don't have to get right down in the grass. I really like the pink/ purple/green combo.
Everything was abuzz on the waterfront this morning. Birds and insects, fowl and fish. If it could move or make noise, it was doing it. I took some sunrise sky shots of cloud cover then hit the mud trail for bird and duck watching.
The picture below was a quick snap of a bird as he perched on a broken reed over the water. The settings were ƒ/6.3, 1/200 sec. at 100 ISO, 250mm lens strolled all the way out with the auto focus turned off.
When I got the image uploaded on the computer it was plain to see that it was really dark. I had been taking most of the shots with the morning sun behind me or right out on the water. The shaded back lit underbrush was a quick reaction picture. But I still really liked the feel of the photo.
Once in Lightroom, I cropped a bit to get rid of the out of focus leaves in the foreground. Then I edged the the exposure down some to get rid of the coloring on the wing to make it a true silhouette. After that I used the recovery function to give substance to the background. Next I added +20 to the clarity to give the water ripples and then brought up the vibrancy to pop the green on the leaves and to give the water some hue. Less than two minutes and it's a totally different picture.
Today started off in a flurry of excitement. As Nalin and I stepped out for her morning walk, there was a small raccoon taking a nap on our front steps. The chase was on. Thankfully, I have learned from experience and didn't try to grab the nylon leash as it was spooling out like fishing line in Jaws. I got a bad burn last year when we first got the leash. She got the critter up a tree by the time I caught up with her. It couldn't have been more than a year old. But it was ready to take Nalin on. After I had pulled the dog 15 feet down the street she finally turned and fell in line with me - for ten seconds. Two squirrels came zipping out of a front yard just ahead of us and she was gone again.
We had some really intense weather last night and it was clouding over to get ready for some more. I finished the walk quick and took the camera bag back to the house. Ran back out to get a few groceries and stop at the thrift store a block over. That is where I usually buy my books. Two fifty a paperback and three fifty for hard covers. And the selection is always turning over because the place has seven locations and they do swap outs.
Today as I went in and started combing the shelves, I noticed that the paperbacks had all been reduced to $0.99. Score! The hardcovers were down a buck too. I got 9 books for twelve dollars and all of them were authors that I have ongoing collections of.
By the time I had trucked over to the supermarket, the rain was starting and the wind was coming up. Time to make a coffee, grab one of the books and go find a big chair.
This photo was one of those instances where taking more shots was better than taking one. I took three shots in Aperture Priority mode and they had great coloring and detail on the foreground leaf. I toggled the f stop up and took one more.
I have gotten used to being a better safe than sorry type, and make a habit of taking a couple of pictures in Manual and one in full Auto if my subject is reasonable still. It takes 10 seconds if you already have your Manual settings ready.
In the case of this photo the depth of field AV shot was nice, but the new shoots budding from between the leaves was not fully in focus, and the shadow of the shoots was lost. The Manual shot was much better and balanced the scene closer to what was intended. As usual, click on the photo for a larger view.
