Photography
on Another 500mm lens test. Uncropped, taken hanging out the kitchen window to get that dip in the trees.
Taken as the smoke from the wildfires was just beginning to ease out, but still definitely there, mixing with marine layer coming off the ocean.
on Quick study of the moon with the new lens. I learned a few things.
First, that the tripod will still oscillate a bit with the ginormous lens on this camera. 5 lbs atop a raised pedestal was bad. So I had to keep it just on the legs, and then I set the timer so there was a 3 second delay to give it a moment to settle.
Full moon is one week from today and it’s due to be warm and dry
B, if there is camera shake on the tripod, the AS does a darned good job of taking care of it.
And, 3, some of the images have a lot of noise. I think I have to overexpose the moon a bit to get the black of the sky to stay — black. Although it was quite blue when I took these pics, but obviously the moon is significantly brighter than the sky half an hour after sunset.
I took a few at different settings, different apertures, different shutter speeds. Except for the ones with noisy black areas, they all look just as good as one another by the time they hit jpeg. I guess that’s a good thing, though it sure is easy these days.
All manual — it will NEVER auto expose properly, no matter what I try — and on a tripod.
I’ll do more in the upcoming nights. Full moon is one week from today and it’s due to be warm and dry, so I bet I get some more chances.
Not worth another post, but I tried out the multiple exposure on the camera an hour ago. Took the stars first, then the moon, as a double exposure. By the beach on a hazy night, so the starfield isn’t super spectacular, but it gives me ideas. I can try this in the desert with less light pollution to make a fun image.
No photoshop. I don’t even have photo editing software other than the free Nikon stuff right now. I’m sure I could do composites in lightroom if I bothered to use it, but what the heck. This is old school, like how you’d shoot film.
on Ohhhhh!
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.
on 
I got my hands on a 200-500mm f/5.6 lens a few days ago. It’s heavy, and bulky, and big, and kind of enormous.1 But 500mm reach is interesting to me, and I am looking forward to experimenting with it.
I’ve almost forgotten how to deal with auto-focus, oddly, as I’ve been hand-focusing my vintage lenses all spring and summer
I have taken a few photographs to test it. The light in these will look sickly and awful, but that’s because it is. Smoke from the fires, and haze from the sea are making good old fashioned smog like nobody’s business. The air is terrible, and everything has an awful, brown tint to it. While better than it was last week, it looks gross. Like living in Delhi, or east of Los Angeles in the late 70s.
But I took pictures anyway. I’m learning to use this beast, and all of these are hand-held and auto-focused. I’ve almost forgotten how to deal with auto-focus, oddly, as I’ve been hand-focusing my vintage lenses all spring and summer, and I am finding a few quirks. It will hunt quite a bit when trying to get it to grab a lizard, going all the way out to infinity and then having to come back, which isn’t exactly fast. There’s a lockout from 6M to Infinity, I kind of wish it was 5m to closest focus!
It seems modestly sharp when I can get it in focus. The image stabilization works pretty well, allowing me to take hand-held shots at 500mm in marginal light. Alas, what I really got it for was taking pictures of birds in flight or maybe action shots of surfers, but zero visibility and smog kind of throw a kink in that plan, so dragons it is. Maybe we’ll have a blue sky next week.
Until then, behold:
The first gallery is random shots just before sunset from the day the lens arrived. Extremely low light, but you get a new lens, you take a pic. It’s the rule. The telephone pole is nearly 400 feet away, and you can read the markings clearly with a 500mm shot, handheld, in very low light. I took a picture of the sun to give an idea of just how icky it was.
The Stump Dragon was molting on Sunday. Again, light was bad, like it has been all week, but I never seem to see a molting lizard at the same time as I have a camera in hand, so I took some shots. I actually was lucky to get these as I spotted the molt Saturday, when all the scales on the front half were opaque, but it was while he was running to hide in the crack in the stump. Gone before I could retrieve a camera, alas. I would have liked to have gotten pics then, as they look almost like they are covered in fungus or something since the skin comes off of the scales rather than in one smooth shed like a snake.
In the past the lizards I spotted molting would be out of sight for a day or two and not reappear until after they’d shed. But this time I got to see stumpy here changing out of the worn out duds and putting on the Sunday Go to Meeting clothes.
My favorites are the ones facing away. You can see half the skin is old, half new.
Early this afternoon as I was headed out I caught the stump dragon showing off some. There are interlopers trying to steal the range from the stump to the chair, including a tiny but ridiculously brave male who is only three molts in and thinks he’s king of the world. So after shedding the old clothes, it was time to get out there and defend some territory.
For this and the following galleries, I have included both images cropped to refine the composition, and full sized, to give an idea of just how much of the frame these little guys are actually taking. You can get mightily close with 500mm of reach!
Also, nothing is photoshopped. Mostly I clicked “Auto” for sharpening and saturation in Nikon Capture, cropped, then dumped the file to jpg. What you see is what I got.
These first images are just after noon on the brick that sits half way between the stump and the chair — the range the Stump Dragon seems to have claimed the last week or two.
And here’s the young buck. This male has been around about two months, and is still barely more than bite sized. I’ve seen three color changes, so he may have molted three or four times, but that’s all. I actually have pics of him before the most recent molt around here somewhere, but for now the ones I took this evening.
He’s belligerent. Has been since the very beginning when he didn’t even have any color, which is kind of hilarious. Doing pushups and acting all threatening when he’s an inch long. Who knows if he’ll last long enough to make a breeding season after he matures, but for now he’s trying to make his presence known.
He’s also a special challenge as he tends to run around a try to be threatening to all of the others — the Trash Dragon, the Cardboard Dragon, and the Cactus Dragon — so he’ll sprint from one perch to the next, stopping and raising his tail or puffing up his neck before facing a different direction to try and intimidate the next guy. I get a few seconds or maybe a couple of minutes to compose and take some shots, then he’ll start sprinting around and I have to compose and focus quickly, hope I get a shot, then try to follow him to the next place he runs.
Of course, he is only running around and acting tough when Stump Dragon is elsewhere as, again, he’s literally bite sized. He wouldn’t survive an actual challenge.
My favorites are the last two, where he’s posing facing northwest, toward the Garbage Dragon. He’s saying “Rawr! I’m a Dragon! Fear me!” I don’t know if anyone else outside this territory actually cares, yet. It’s not breeding season anymore and most of the others are far more timid than they were in the late spring when they were courting. But the little guy is trying.
The ones with the neck display are facing northeast, for the benefit of the Cactus Dragon, and the ones atop the flat log are facing south, keeping an eye out for the Cardboard Dragon.
The one that DOES care is the Dragon who claims this range. After seeing the belligerent baby showing off on the stump, the full sized Stump Dragon chased him off and hung out there for a while.
Looking good with the fresh new skin! I get it. New clothes, you want to show ’em off to the world.
I also took pics of a hatchling in the evening. I think this is the one I had to escort out of the house a few times last week after a molt. This is a VERY small lizard, likely only two weeks out of the nest, and usually found hiding in the planter next to the steps to the front porch.
So, there are possibilities. It’s not exactly a carrying-around lens, or one of those innocuous do-all lenses that are great for street photography. But I bet I can get a great picture of the moon if the smoke clears out some before it is full again! And, when I get sick of lugging the extra five pounds around I’ll sell it on the e bays and find something else to play with instead.
Until then, “Rawr! I’m a Dragon!”
1 That’s what She Said
on 
A new denizen has moved into the stump. Actually, this was the Porch Dragon, whose portraits appeared in the post with mid day sun and dark shadows a few days ago. Porch Dragon moved out to the stump over the last week or so, spending less and less time on the porch and chair. PD now officially claims the stump, hanging out there for all the others to see every sunset. So I guess Porch Dragon is now New Stump Dragon.
That mad rush before last call and the lights all turn on is more universal than we might imagine.
The original Chair Dragon has moved down to the driveway and lives under the saw, where she has been courting with the big, bruiser, dominant male. I think she’s trying to get one more round in before mating season is over. That mad rush before last call and the lights all turn on is more universal than we might imagine.
The chair is now occupied by a juvenile, hardly more than a hatchling, who runs around trying to look threatening and doing pushups like the big lizards. He’s so tiny I’m surprised a bird hasn’t picked him off, as he’s snack sized. But his portraits are for another time.
For now, some studies in dynamic range, depth of field, and bokeh out by the stump. All taken with the 105DC, manual focus. I’m afraid the exif doesn’t record the defocus control setting, though.
Here’s the dynamic range study. Various settings at an angle with difficult light. Note the Bokeh on the f/2 shots with the green halo. A rare unpleasantness in that otherwise spectacular portrait lens, but I guess that’s why you have the defocus control. Spin it out to f/4 and use the DC to wash out the background. Enough writing, you can see it for yourself.
Behold!
And some work with easier light, playing with depth of field and composition.
And some portrait work. Mostly experimenting with exposure and composition here, some are spot, others center weighted. Seemed like an interesting experiment at the time, but after they’re processed the exposure differences are subtle. The composition and the lizard’s pose both make a bigger difference to my eye.
on Other than snapshots and quick street photography, I’ve actually gotten to really prefer manual focus anymore
Been taking some LBB1 pictures lately. Not because they’re particularly bright or colorful, like those Hooded Orioles were, but because they’re a bit of a challenge. Both in that they are very twitchy, so getting them sharp means fast shutters and a quick hand with the focus, and in that they never stay in the same spot for long enough to play with composition at all. Like billiards after eight beers. Or sex. It’s just point, shoot, and hope for the best.
We seem to have three or four species in the yard at the moment. Some orioles, though only females and I haven’t seen the brilliant yellow males in quite some time. Also a couple species of Finch, sparrows, and doves. There are, of course, crows and an occasional hawk, but this group of LBBs has been eating whatever the berries are on the bush next to the driveway, sitting in the pine tree behind the garage, and occasionally on the rafters and power wires.
They’re quite active mornings and evenings, so I took these shots while a pair were bickering and posturing this afternoon. This one would sit still for long enough to yell at the two smaller LBBs, so I was able to get some sharp photos, and even walk closer and take another pose.
I think the goal here was to see what composition and light can do to make a rather mundane subject look interesting. I tried a few different crops to see what I like. I won’t mention which is my favorite and which I like least, you can decide that for yourself.
Taken with a 105mm DC, manual focus, of course, the Z6 body and FTZ adapter not having the driver for the bayonette screw lenses.
Not going to complain in detail again about losing autofocus with the Z6 and my favorite legacy lenses, but I will say one thing. Other than snapshots and quick street photography, I’ve actually gotten to really prefer manual focus anymore. The autofocus is easy, but when DOF is razor thin it might not get the one bit I actually want in focus perfect. Like taking a lizard pic, to make it above and beyond you need to specifically get the eye and the nose in focus. Autofocus, even with the absolutely stellar Z lenses I have tried seems to want to get the whole lizard, and so most of the pics have blurry noses or blurry feet. Even using pinpoint focus, the pinpoint isn’t quite small enough for these guys. A quick touch of the focus ring will light up the focus peaking and let me see precisely what’s going to be sharp instead of trusting the camera and losing out on a good shot.
Not that losing out on ANOTHER lizard pic matters much. I have taken hundreds at this point. I really don’t need another.
1. Little Brown Bird. This stems from the times in the coffee shop when I got my very fist digital camera, the D70, and Jim and I would experiment, trying to take sharp pictures of sparrows that were always flitting about in the bushes behind the fire pits.
on 
Some dynamic range experiments with the Chair Dragon, who has been hanging out on the porch. Or maybe this is the Porch Dragon who has been hanging out on the chair. One of them is gone, now, and whichever this is has decided everything from the front porch to the gate all the way out to the stump belongs to her.
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.
on 
