Flight

This is one of the early shots I took with my camera after I got it for a Christmas present. We were in Arizona over the holidays and took a hike at Saguaro Lake, in the Superstition Mountains. A mom and her teen son were playing with what was his new camera as well. She pointed out this osprey, ready to dive for dinner, and I just followed along and snapped in continuous shooting mode. Lucky for me, I caught the photo of the lucky bird catching his not-so-lucky dinner.

Jon caught the same series, from a little bit different angle... http://northernillinoisbirder.blogspot.com/2010/06/ospreys.html

Mixed reviews

On a clear August night, the moonscape is a mix of blacks, whites and grays.

Shutter speed: 1/125, f/10, ISO 100, focal length 270. Tripod mount, cable release.

Strange, but true

This is not the best shot, but this little lizard was SO FAST! I thought the way his body changed from brown to blue was pretty cool, but a little strange.

Deep into the depth of field, or deep into the fields

My DBF brought home some lovely flowers to celebrate our 100 month anniversary last week (awwwwwww!) A few days after, several lilies burst into bloom in the vase, allowing me to experiment with different aperture values, thus controlling the depth of field.

Shutter speed: 1/15 (wow! still fairly clear...) f/5.6 (lowest I could get with this lens, and the distance I had to be to remain in focus), ISO 800 (75 watt kitchen light bulb), focal length: 154mm (me, standing on a kitchen chair).

Emptiness

After a storm blew through my neighborhood, the sky lit up this amazing orange...emphasizing the emptiness beyond the trees.

No PS edits done, but before I took the photo, I set the white balance to "cloudy" as someone once suggested, to try to deepen the color in the sky. It worked!

Don't snag your sweater!

The rough sides of the logs on this 1850s era Colorado mining cabin make a lovely backdrop for a long view of rugged Summit County mountains.

Brought back some of the detail in the dark corners by opening up the exposure in Camera RAW editor, then used a Levels adjustment layer in PS to re-correct the color in the view out the door.

I was very thankful for my DSLR, that let me focus on the distance, rather than trying to latch on to the fallen log, or tree, in the foreground, as my old camera undoubtedly would have.

Zoom zoom

A line of Harley Davidsons, parked at a hotel in Colorado, await their riders.

The camera data on this puzzles me a bit: 1/40, f/8, 109mm, ISO 800. This was fairly early in the morning, on the shady side of the building, thus the high ISO. For the depth of field in this image, I would have expected a lower aperture #. Must be the longer focal length? I don't recall what mode I shot this, so I can't claim credit for the exposure. Probably Tv?

Tiny flowers

I dropped my sunglasses into the image for perspective.

Tilt-a-whirl

I wanted to put the rocks in the small lake in the foreground, but I didn't want to lie down to do it. I just sat at ground level and trusted my auto-focus to nail the rocks. It did its job, but I need to figure out how to hold that camera more level! I'd hate for all the water to run out of this pretty lake.

Faces

Houseboat cruising down the Mississippi River this weekend, we came upon this large flock of white Pelicans. How can you not love all those funny faces?

Primary Colors?

Not kindergarten primary colors, but Patriotic, U. S. A. election primary colors of red, white and blue (ok, it's a stretch...)

My pop was visiting from AZ and we went into Chicago for a weekend to visit the old stomping grounds. One thing he wanted to do was get to Buckingham Fountain for the night, light show. I had no tripod, so I was leaning the camera against the little wire fence that surrounds the fountain (Ellen, Mary Lou, you know which one). Little kids kept banging it (from around the other side, but it still made the fence vibrate...)  This was one of my better efforts, cleaned up a bit in Topaz DeNoise and PS.

Whoop, whoop!

This whooping crane doesn't mind getting his feet wet as he wades through this little pond on a hot summer's day.

Photo was taken at the International Crane Foundation grounds near Baraboo, Wisconsin.