Thursday, June 26, 2008

Summertime III

I am still trying to get lightning bug pictures, but I'm starting to think it's impossible. I want to capture all the trees sparkling, but it's just not bright enough to pick up. It would work if they were stationary lights that go on and off, because the light would just add to itself as the photo exposes. But they move, so it's just tiny flashes everywhere. I got a remote and some kick ass lenses for early birthday presents. The remote allows be to get into bulb mode, so now I can get longer than 30sec exposures. It's awesome!
But I still only seem to be able to pick up any stray guy that flies right through the field of view.

Totally unrelated to summer time, here's a fish picture. He's in the future (getting closer every day!) Discus tank.
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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Summertime II

These tiger lilies are all over the damn place here. I still like them, even though I think they are plotting to take over the world.


Taken on the D80, standard 18-55mm lens; f11; 1/125 sec; no manipulation. (Bottom one is just a crop of the top, original. No zoom.)
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Saturday, June 21, 2008

Summertime I

There was a dragonfly buzzing around while I was trimming a tree today, so I went for the camera of course. He was very cooperative and stayed put while I fiddle with settings. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I got a Nikon D80 for Christmas. It's awesome! So here's my buddy, the dragonfly (one of only a couple bugs I won't kill on sight):

All these are cropped from the originals, but there is no zoom done. I've got the biggest and highest size and resolution set on the camera, so you end up with gigantic pictures. This next one has such freaky colors because I did manual aperture and shutter, and it came out over exposed, so I tried to fix it.

This one has some sharpen done to it, but only one dose, I think. This was with auto settings, so I didn't have to change anything with brightness/contrast.

All pictures: Nikon D80, 18-55mm lens
top: f5.6; 1/100 sec; crop, slight brightness/contrast, sharpen
middle: f5.6; 1/50 sec; crop, -0.5 eV, brightness/contrast, auto level, auto color, sharpen
bottom: f5.6; 1/125 sec; crop, slight brightness/contrast, sharpen
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Friday, June 20, 2008

Animal update

So, the chameleon died a few months ago. While we were in Fiji, actually. The guy taking care of the animals feels pretty bad still, but I know it wasn't his fault. You see, it was a female, and females lay eggs even when they aren't fertilized. So, of course she died because she was egg bound. I KNEW that was going to happen.

And of course you can't just have an empty cage laying around, so I decided it was time to venture into the exotics. And by exotic I mean lizards than any fool can manage to not kill. My local pet store does lizards and fish, and they had a batch of Bearded Dragons and also a Uromastyx. These were the two I had decided on from the reading I had done, and didn't really know which I would get. I decided on the Beardie because they were babies. And they had a male, because I don't want a female lizard ever again, unless I want to make babies. So I was going to give this guy a cool Dragon name, but he is now know as Fat Boy.

Because he's fat. (he's stuck in this picture, and I ran for the camera instead of first helping him out)

And he's a real clown. Here he is in his favorite position, watching the fish that are right next to him (something to keep him occupied).


Whatchulookinat, bitch. Gimme food.

He is currently 16 inches long, which is within maybe 6ish inches of his final adult length, and is about 5 months old. These guys eat greens and live food like worms of all types and crickets. I finally broke down and ordered 1000 worms because I got tired of going to the pet store every other day. He eats Dandelion greens the best, which is good cuz that's free! But I do get him to eat other greens lie kale and chard. And yes, I buy that especially for him. I only like lettuces and spinach, and he can't have spinach. He's supposed to eventually eat less live stuff and go for the greens more, but so far no such luck.
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