Category: Landscapes

More 200-500 experiments

The Moose on

The sun came out this afternoon and the sky was almost blue. Quite an improvement from last week’s smoke and smog. I thought it might be a good time to actually take some shots of birds and lizards with light that worked.

the littler guy is about an inch long nose to vent … and the one on the stump might be a half inch longer.

Not too many examples, but here’s the young guy from the previous post, trying to lay claim to the stump again, and a younger challenger trying to own the steps to the front porch. Note, the little guy on the bricks is just as bombastic as the slightly larger one on the stump, he just does it to the hatchlings. I actually have some video of him showing off for one so small it probably hasn’t even molted yet. A 6 week old bossing around a 4 week old, bossing around a 2 week old. I guess this is the lizard version of shit flowing downhill.

Video later. For now some sample stills. One each, cropped to show how sharp I can get when the sun is shining, and one uncropped to show how much of the lizard actually fills the frame. Remember, the littler guy is about an inch long nose to vent — that brick is only 4 inches wide — and the one on the stump might be a half inch longer.

The one on the stump molted the day after I took the last pictures. So he’s out today in brand new skin and it looks to me like the color around his eye is getting more brilliant. The fact that you can see that with this lens kind of blows my mind. 500mm is quite the reach.

After more pics and videos of the baby dragons I waited a bit for the birds to come out. They like to feed on the berry bushes at the end of the yard nearest the street so I can find them there some evenings. I went out when I heard them chattering to get some shots.

At first I got one or two in the yard, hanging out on the wire above the berry bush and cactus along the fence. I was having issues exposing properly, getting the background more than the bird, but he flew off to argue with his finchy friends before I could switch to spot and try again. There were bluebirds and a goldfinch in the red berry bush so I thought to get into position to see them when all the birds in all the bushes flew away. Dammit!

I took a few pictures of birds on the wires, and even tried to get some in flight, but never got another shot of them in amongst the foliage with the nice green backdrop. Oh well. Here are some samples.

The reason they all bolted? Well, Creamsicle had to take a shit. He was walking up behind me and, though he’s a ridiculously lazy cat who doesn’t hunt much, the birds don’t know that. Lucy is the real hunter and, though I have never seen her take a bird, she has gotten mice, gophers, and more than a few lizard tails.

I think I might back up a bit here. Creamsicle is the orange and white cat that’s always in the yard. Unlike Lucy, who has the black cat habit of thinking I’m her very best friend, Creamsicle has never wanted anything to do with me. He used to see me and run away, in fact, but for the last six months I get his attention when he’s in the yard then just ignore him. Now he knows I’m not going to bother with him so he doesn’t run away. He doesn’t even look at me, in fact, just going about his business. And his business, in this case, is both metaphorical and, well, also metphorical, but in the more scatological sense.

I learned recently from the lady next door, who Lucy actually lives with as opposed to just inviting herself in like she does everywhere else, that Creamsicle is a stray. He just showed up one day so she gave him some food. He comes for a meal (or two) every day now. And generous meals they are, he has gotten rather rotund in the half dozen years I have known him. Creamsicle isn’t his real name, it’s just what I call him because there have been so many cats hanging out in the yard over the years my usual moniker for the cat that is usually hanging out in my yard, “Neighbor Kitty, ” wasn’t specific enough.

In the afternoons, however, Creamsicle “does his business” in the front yard. And by that, I mean he has decided there’s a specific spot in the yard to take a shit.

I kind of wonder how it is that it is so common an occurrence the last dozen years — that a cat has taken residence in my yard — that I need monikers for them. But this has been the case ever since the original Neighbor Kitty at my place in Oceanside. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to tell me something, but I intend to ignore the message for as long as possible.

Creamsicle spends time almost every day sleeping in the back yard. He has, at various times, found a nice place atop the shed, on a rickety wooden bench, or just on a bed he has stamped out of the grass and I can generally see him out the kitchen window when I’m getting a cup of coffee. This is the busy life of a stray cat. Get breakfast, find a nice place to sleep, rinse, repeat.

In the afternoons, however, Creamsicle “does his business” in the front yard. And by that, I mean he has decided there’s a specific spot in the yard to take a shit. Why that spot, and why here, I don’t know, but after I dug up some of the weeds to plant wildflower seeds this winter he chose one of the cleared areas as his new litter box and has been visiting it a couple times a day since.

This afternoon’s visit to the gentleman’s rest facilities completely disrupted the birdwatching session as he came sauntering past me. And sauntering is all he does any more. Maybe an amble, or a trudge now and again, but now that he isn’t afraid of me he doesn’t hurry at all. He won’t even look at me.

Oh well. Birds done, cat pics on deck. I almost think I need to make him scared of me again so he’ll look my way for better photos, but with this lens I decided to get in touch with my inner Marlin Perkins and take some photos like I was watching a lion stalking on the Serengeti.

The day ended with a sunset, for the first time in weeks. These are straight out of the camera, no crop. The view from the kitchen window compressed by the 500mm perspective.

Sunset with the 20mm

The Moose on

Experimenting with the 20mm lens and sunsets. No parking near where I had hoped to shoot at the warm water jetty, so I went south of Terramar.

I had hoped to do some long exposure and get the washed out waves, but the crowd in the parking lot behind me was substantial and every time I’d leave the shutter open more than 2 seconds someone would turn on their car headlights, blowing out the bluff and weeds in the foreground. Oh, well. I’ll try again another night.

The people in the photos were just folks who were there enjoying the sunset. I decided not to move, and they make a good focal point. Alas, the traffic on the highway behind us kind of ruined most of the photos with glare from the headlights, but I cropped the glare out of a couple and posted them for fun. The one where the phone glow illuminates their faces is accidental. I promise I’m not being snarky, even though I have done that before.

The Comet of 2020

The Moose on

There’s a comet visible this week. It’s a special sort, only just discovered, and visible to the naked eye. It’s just a little blur, but the tail is quite visible with a decent pair of binoculars. It won’t be back for another 6000 years or so, so you should catch the sky to the north west just after sunset in the next few days as you won’t get another chance.

It reaches it’s closest approach to Earth around the 22nd and for the next week the tail will be lit by the sun beneath the horizon, so you can see its comety glory. To find it, draw an imaginary line between a spot just north of where the sun sets on the horizon and the big dipper. It’ll be somewhere along that line and it will be a little higher in the sky each evening.

Alas, as it has been very low to the horizon the last few evenings I haven’t seen it since the clouds are plentiful after sunset right now, but they drew back just long enough for me to get a few shots tonight. I was set up for the stars with my 20mm lens, and had no idea I’d be able to catch it so clearly, but I got lucky. Maybe I’ll try the 105 tomorrow night and get a little more up close and personal.

These were taken around 9:30 PM Pacific, and are about 5 second exposures. Two crops to show the comet, and one uncropped to show how wide the actual frame was.

And, while we are at it, shall we comment on how ridiculously sharp the Nikkor z 20mm f1.8 is?

Older Photographs

The Moose on

Since the only things to photograph here while under house arrest were what I could find in my yard, it was pretty much cats and lizards. So I decided to grab some older photographs for a little variety.

Many of these were taken with my old trusty D70. Extremely modest gear, compared to the current generation of digital cameras, but it’s what I had at the time. Like the old photojournalist’s credo “F8 and be there” it’s more important to take a picture than to take the most technically perfect picture ever.

Some were taken with my 7100, which was wonderful in its day, but on my trips to Taiwan and Italy I carried an 18-200 lens that I never bonded with. Just couldn’t make sharp images to save my life though it’s tack sharp with a 35mm 1.8 or even the 18-120 that camera wore as a walkin’ around lens after I sold the 18-200.

So, soon I’ll be adding some portfolios to prove that I don’t just take pictures of cats. And some pictures of cats.

Let’s begin with dogs. First, some photos of a young and handsome Shadow.

And Chopper and Cookie, plus bonus pics of a little smash faced yorkie who lived with a friend a decade ago.

There are occasionally photographs of actual people, too. Though that’s rare. Not much of a people person.

It’s always interesting to see what you get from a sunset. Or a blood moon eclipse. The eclipse was just the best I could do with the equipment I had, but something is better than nothing and I learned the difficulties of exposing for the surprisingly bright moon. F11 and the inverse of the ISO, a rule for the ages.

I took more than a few snapshots while on the road. I stumbled across some from the summer of 2007, where I started in Boston, DC, Chicago, London for a month, Belgium for a long weekend, Germany for a month, then home for a week before Mexico City… that was a busy year.

I have a lot of photographs from the era somewhere, but here’s a smattering. Some from Chicago, London, Munich, and the Mosel where it is always cloudy yet charmingly beautiful. Or maybe that was all the wine.

Then there were pictures of Doug’s little asshole dog. I hate that dog. Ugly as the day is long, but he makes up for it with an awful personality. The picture in the jeep is pure portrait art, though. I’m actually proud of that one.

Of course, there are about a billion photos of Nono. If I was taking a picture in the house, she’d find a way to get in it, so I often used her as a focal point anyway.

I recall once sitting in a coffee shop with a young girl I’d befriended a couple of years before at an open mic at a different coffee shop and meeting her there was pure happenstance. We had discussed photography in the past, and music, and cat memes, and whatever else it is you talk to 17 year old girls about… actually that’s pretty much all there was to talk about. So when she came over to say hello I showed her my brand new camera, which had arrived only an hour before. Her first comment was “I’ll be disappointed if the first thing you took a picture of was anything but your cat.”

I’d like to say I’d disappointed her, but the first few photos here were on the card when she pushed play. The rest are just random pics that were on this hard drive.