This is kinda cool

On the weekend, I popped over to the wildlife sanctuary to work with my new-to-me Canon T3 camera and a Sigma 18-250 lens.  I also took my "point and swear" bridge camera, a Sony DSC-HX99.  The sanctuary had recently added smaller gauge wire to some of the pens, making it harder for me to focus through the wires, so I wanted to practice different settings that 'should' minimize the bars of the pens while maximizing the focus on the bird or animal behind the bars. I also wanted to compare the efficiency of the more expensive Canon & lens to the less expensive but still versatile all-in-one Sony. 

Here's my subject, Elsa the snowy owl, who was found near starvation in 2013 and has never been able to fly well enough to be released back to the wild.  This first photo, taken on my Canon, shows you the gauge of the wire in her pen:

In this shot, with my Sony point-and-swear, I attempt to mask the wire and focus on Elsa.  It is somewhat successful, but you can still see the shadows of wires in front of her:

And this one, with my Canon and the Sigma lens (f 7.1, 1/400 sec, 250mm, ISO 1250) is almost as if the wires weren't even there!  With a bit more skill, I could probably have fine-tuned it so that even the slight blur wouldn't show. 

Pretty cool, eh?  

(None of the photos has been edited/retouched in any way except to add my signature in the corner.) 

Happy Holidays!

Bet you thought I'd gone for good!  A new hard drive, some frustrating challenges, a new photo-editor, and....a new-to-me camera!  It's a steep learning curve for this luddite, and I'm still working on replacing all the settings and software I lost (like my preferred font, all my labels and past blogger layout, etc.), but I still have fantasies of returning to blogging. I like writing and I like posting photos with prose - things that are rather limited on facebook.  However, only a very small handful of people actually read my blogs, even when I do a link to it on facebook, so is it worth the time, effort, and frustration?
Maybe.  Some of the eight or so blog followers have been with me since the early 2000s, when I used to blog for a sanctuary, and most have been with me since 2008 when I began this blog. And I value that sort of friendship.  Plus, sharing photos and stories is fun. 

So, here we are....my first attempt at making a card with the new photo-editor.  This photo was taking last week with my compact Sony, the camera I bought a year or two ago but which has been a big disappointment (especially with regard to sharpness, colour capture and the zoom feature) compared to my earlier versions of the same camera.  But Maggie doesn't care - she just likes posing for the camera!  I've done a bit of photo-editing on this to not only turn it into a card but also to sharpen the image. 

The following photos were taken with the new-to-me Canon Rebel I bought at my favourite household consignment store this week. It is much like the Canon I inherited from my sister ten years ago (which finally gave up the ghost).  It's an oldy - a Rebel T3 - but very lightly used and in outstanding condition, and it came with two lenses (one a telephoto 75-300) as well as charger, a nice case, battery and card.  I took the photos at the Wildlife Refuge near me and I'm happy with the results.  I've done no editing to the images except to add the watermark. 

So between a new hard drive, a new-to-me camera,  and the new photo editing program I just signed up for, I will hopefully get back to blogging.  Meanwhile, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and stay safe! 

A new camera, an old friend

Right around Christmas Day, my well-used point-and-swear camera died irreparably. I love having a small pocket camera for hikes and walks and everyday use, and so it became a priority to replace it. The day before yesterday (having finally got my car back from being repaired where someone backed into it while it was parked outside my home in early December), I headed into Nanaimo and bought a new point-and-swear.
Those who remember my frustrations with the last one when I bought it two years ago (yeah, I'm hard on cameras - stuff them in my pocket full of dog cookies and sand, take a zillion pictures every couple of days, never use a case for them......two years is a good run for me!), may be surprised to know I bought exactly the same kind (despite the swearing), just a newer version of the same model. I now own a Sony DSC-HX80, to replace my 2016 Sony DSC-HX60.
This is my third Sony, and I stuck with Sony for a few reasons:
1. I have test driven several other point and shoots over the years (Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Fuji) and never liked the results as much as I do with the Sony.
2. Sony has the best frames-per-second for continuous shooting [for capturing moving dogs or birds or whatever] of any compact point and shoot out there, by far. I liked the Canon point and shoots very much - nice sharp pictures, bright colours , extremely compact size - but their frames per second sucks at a lousy 2.5 fps compared to Sony's 10 fps.
3. This time, Sony hasn't changed the basic features as much as last time, so there should be a lot less swearing.
4. The changes they have made are awesome - a flip-screen for capturing things low down without lying on your tummy and which also can be used for selfies, and a pop-up view finder which I have been wanting point and shoots to add for years! Last time around, there was only one compact camera on the market with a view finder, and it was so big it wouldn't have fit in even the biggest pocket of my oversized clothing. Despite adding a view finder, Sony has also made this year's model a little more compact so it fits in my sandy, dog-cookie-filled pocket even better than the old one.
So, buying another Sony was rather like welcoming an old friend who just gets better with age.
I welcomed another 'old friend' today - my ever-so-talented artist friend Deb Strong and her dog Lily, on their way to visit family. Deb's work as an artist blows me away, and I was once again thrilled to receive a copy of her calendar which brings me great joy every month of the year.
Even though I hadn't had time to set up the camera just how I like it, I had to take it along with me when we took the dogs down to the beach.
So here are a few preliminary shots with the new camera, based on the factory settings and right out of the box. I'd say it's a keeper - just like my friends Deb and Lily.

Deb offers Lily a little gift from Maggie and me.

Lily carried her new ball all the way to the beach, where the ball-obsessed girl was happy to chase it. 

Maggie found Lily's actions with the ball fascinating, and thought she might like to join in too - or at least run run run as far as she could.
Sorry, Maggie, no off leash time for you on that beach yet.

It was a gorgeous day, and the mountains across the strait
showed their snow-covered caps.

Lily, waiting for Deb to throw the ball......again.

I got it! I got it!  Here I come!

Hopefully, over the next week I'll find time to adjust the settings a bit and then it will be time to get serious about photographing our new community.

Blooms and Bloopers

The more photography I do, the more critical I become of the photos I take, and the longer it takes to correct the 'flaws' I see in them.  It's not unusual for me to take a couple of hundred photos on a hike, and post only half a dozen.  This was true of a hike yesterday to the beautiful Jack Point/Biggs Park near Duke Point ferry terminal in south Nanaimo.

I always love this fairly simple five km hike (three loooong flights of steep steps notwithstanding), for there are always beautiful seascapes, tall trees, bird life, and fascinating rock formations that make me think of dinosaur fossils.

On yesterday's hike, there were also masses of spring flowers in bloom: camus and seablush, monkeyflower and buttercups and paintbrush and chocolate lilies, as well as orange hawkweed about to bloom.  I took lots of photos, with and without dogs.

Camus

Camus and Sea Blush

Meadow of Sea Blush

Monkeyflower near a sandstone basin

But yesterday's photos also provided good examples of photographic bloopers.  Some bloopers are easy to fix. A photo with a slanted horizon , for example, can easily be improved by rotating it slightly, and dull colour can be brightened with the click of a key:

Before 

After two clicks - one to straighten the horizon, one to brighten

Others, where too little attention was paid to properly focusing the picture, are not salvageable even with the 'sharpen' tool available on many software programs.  None of the ones I took of chocolate lilies came out well - my camera was on autofocus and the settings weren't appropriate for closeup work:

Blurry chocolate lilies

But the ones that have me whacking myself upside the head are nearly always the ones that include dogs.   I become so intent on catching a great shot of the dog before he/she moves, that I forget all about watching the background.  That's why there is a tree growing out of my friend's head, when simply moving over a foot or two would have altered the background and provided a tree-free head.  Wiggly uncooperative poms caused me to miss a great photo op here, though using the crop and clone features of my photo-editing software, I was able to remove offending tree with some success:

Before - a tree grows from Pat's head

After a bit of cropping and a bit of cloning

And of course,  even without people, dog photos can be challenging.  Maggie made me laugh with these ones:

Wait a minute, mom - there's a good smell here!

Oh, wait, what's Auntie Pat doing?

Auntie Pat, are there treats in that bag?

YAWN!  Modeling is so tiring! 

Hahahaha - I love giving my mama a hard time! 

But my very favourite blooper of the day was this  next one - I was so intent on getting a nice shot of Maggie with flowers and seascape, that I failed to see a leprechaun-sized Pat placing a mini-Lexi on Mag's head.  In reality, she was well behind Maggie - probably 20 feet away, but up a hill, and thus the 'perfect' positioning of  Lexi above Mags without either Pat or I realizing what was happening. There's no fix for this.  I guess we'll just have to make sure we go back again next spring - and make sure Pat and the poms are standing behind me!

Farewell to Fall

With the arrival of the Winter Solstice, it is time to say farewell to fall.  And what a fall it has been!  The colours were vibrant and lasted longer than I can ever remember - from early September, through a beautiful October, surviving heavy rains and strong winds in November, until the last of the reds and yellows floated to the ground within the past ten days.

First colours of fall - Sept 4, 2017

October

November

Early December

There seemed to be many more varieties of birds, and more wildlife visible also, this fall.  I saw owls and pileated woodpeckers,  sapsuckers and spotted sandpipers and kingfishers, many varieties of waterfowl including little pied-billed grebes that I'd not seen before, nuthatches and varied thrush and cormorants and oh-so-many types of sparrows.....and that just covers a fraction of them.

Bufflehead duck

Common Goldeneye

Female Common Merganser

Male Common Merganser, I think
(though it seems to have too much white on its body)

Male and female Hooded Merganser

Heron

Oystercatcher

Pileated woodpecker

Comorants

The Trumpeter Swans have returned for the winter - I saw the first flock in early November, and now spot large flocks in or near many slow moving waters.  These ones were a few of the ones we saw on the flooded swamp area in Hemer Park a couple of weeks ago:

Yes, really, truly....it was THIS big!

There he goes again.....he's such a braggart. 

We often see otters and seals along our shores, and this fall they were in greater evidence than ever.  Most mornings Maggie and I were entertained by at least two otters and sometimes a seal or two as we sat near the old wharf and watched the sunrise, but we also saw many on our various hikes.

Seal on the shore of Mudge Island, across from Dodd Narrows

Seal in Osborne Bay

And of course the deer were plentiful, wandering down the streets of town and across highways, often with little fawns in tow.

This fall I also saw a number of bear - fortunately from the safety of my car and not face-to-face on a trail!  The bears don't seem to hibernate here - I saw a mama and two very young cubs (standing up on their hind legs, for gosh sakes - how cute was that!) just two weeks ago, and in past years have seen them in late December and January.  This one I photographed in late October:

Most of the time, though, the 'wild' life I see are the four legged furries that live with me and my friends - a whole lot safer to be around than bears!

Maggie says the leaves match her colouring!

Pat's pom, Lexi, insists on carrying her own leash!

While November had some very rainy days, they were interspersed with sunny days too, and so all fall I have been able to hike on Mondays with Sally and Fridays with Pat.  So many beautiful places - some new, some familiar, each unique.

Cowichan River Trail

Dodd Narrows, Cable Bay Trail hike.

Fall grasses on Holden Lake at Hemer Park

Cowichan Bay

Rushes at Westwood Lake

An old car spotted while on a hike down the Trans Canada Trail

Pat and the poms at Osborne Bay Park

Sally on Trestle 70, Trans Canada Trail just east of Cowichan Lake

But my favourite experience of all, this fall, was the early morning walks with Maggie.  She loves our walks to the beach - along the seawalk, out the berm, sit on the rocks and watch the sun rise - often twice as it appears over Salt Spring Island, then disappears behind a part of the mountain before reappearing all over again.

Then we continue along the seawalk, watching the boats in the bay or in the marina, sometimes going past the ferry terminal to watch the boom boats shuffling the logs around, and the cargo ships being loaded with their goods, and the tugs pulling the barges in and out of the bay.  We are a deep sea port, and for a tiny town, we have a lot of waterfront comings and goings.

Sometimes we sit for an hour or more watching the otters play or the seagulls catch their breakfast of starfish or clams or the herons fishing from the dock.  It is never boring and ever changing.

One of two otters that were fishing near the wharf

The very large full moon this fall meant king tides - very high tides - which made for excellent reflections of the fall leaves along the seawalk.

And sometimes the day was so beautiful and the moon so bright that we returned to the seawalk for our evening walk too:

Sunset walk

It was an amazing fall, a stupendous fall, and I hate to see it end.  But the upside is that the days start getting longer again.  Sadly our walks for now are curtailed because Old Man Winter brought snow and ice this week, which makes for unstable footing.  But it also makes for pretty photos of dogs in snow:

Happy Solstice, everyone.  If winter is here, can spring be far behind?