Breeding season

It's breeding season for the birds. A quick walk around Lake Merced in California had lots of interesting opportunities. The Hummingbirds are out and fending off intruders to their territory.

When shooting this image of the Great Blue against the sky, I knew that the sky would fool the meter quite a bit, so I adjust the metering to be +1 stop. Since I was shooting in aperture preferred mode, that meant that the shutter speed was cut down by 1/2. This shot was f.8.0, iso 800, 1/2000 second at 400mm on the Digital Rebel XT. The lens was the 100-400mm IS Zoom from Canon. In Raw mode of course.

There is a little cropping, and some adjustment of exposure (Fill Light in Adobe Lightroom 2).

The camera was set up for AI Servo and spot metering.

One of the things I discovered is that I need to work on my panning. As long as the object is fairly large in the frame I don't have a problem (for example airplanes at an air show) but I was not able to keep the spot on this bird very well.

San Francisco light

There is a certain quality of light in San Francisco, and I am sure it is other places as well. It's that light that cuts through the fog, or in the case at the moment, under it. I think it allows a little more time for that golden hour, because the sunlight reflects off the bottom of the stratus layer and warms things up a bit.

It's an odd city, you have the actual city itself, with the high-rises, crime, shopping centers, street people. All of that is in one section, mostly. Then you have the suburbs, or everything West of 19th ave, which is where I currently live. And then you have the nature areas, Golden Gate Park (where this cormorant was resting), the area around the Legion of Honor, and the newly reintroduced wetlands at Crissy Field. All of these areas are great for bird watching. On the way to do some photography today, I was able to watch a red-tailed hawk grab something for dinner and fly off with it.
Even in the suburbs, you can see a red-tailed hawk perched on a telephone wire. This one was a few houses down from me, I was able to get my 100-400 mm zoom and take a fair number of shots without him (or her) paying a lot of attention to me.
The crows and blackbirds were distracting him.
And yet, I dislike the bitter wind that comes in off the Pacific Ocean at an average speed of 12 miles per hour in April. That's average, and there is nothing between the water and you. The houses act like a wind-tunnel, making it seem much higher.

How much camera do you need?

I used to work in the Film and Digital Media Department at U.C. Santa Cruz. When I was there, I would often have discussions with students and faculty on how much of a camera was needed to actually learn photography. My contention was that the principles are the same whether you are using high-definition cameras or standard-definition. A good film/video/photo doesn't necessarily require a high-end camera. Needless to say, they were not convinced. Many of the students believed that by using a high-definition camera, their films would be better. I argued that a good script, dialog, and plot were much more important. But, I'm an engineer, they are artists, and I no longer work there.

The photo shown (large version) was taken when I was driving home from work (I work as a computer engineer at Industrial Light and Magic) and was taken with a camera I carry around with me all the time. It is an Olympus FE-46 that I bought with some extra credit card points. It's basically the equivalent of a cell phone camera to me. But it does have several features that I count on:

• Settable ISO so I can control the grain
• Exposure compensation of + or - two stops
• 5x optical zoom
• 12 Mega pixels (which is nice but not really required)
  

Given the above, I can control the shutter speed (aperture on these cameras doesn't really count for much), the exposure from normal, and composition, three things that are critical to taking good photographs.

It would be nice to have bracketing as well, that way when the light is changing fast I can take several shots for HDR work, given it only takes JPEG images.

The fact that it is small, and I can easily carry it everywhere makes it a great camera. It will nor replace my SLR. But it does meet the requirement I recommend, buy a camera that you will use.

Seahorse exhibit

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium is an exhibit, "The Secret Lives of Seahorses". Just on its own it is a great exhibit. However, with a reasonable camera you can also practice some interesting photography.

I spent a fair portion putting the lens hood on my 18-250 mm Tamron zoom up to the plexiglass (the lens hood is a softish plastic) and letting the camera focus for me. That removed most of the reflections I would get and allowed me to shoot at around 1/30 second. Because I was using the plexiglass as a brace, the low speed wasn't a problem.

While it was rainy and windy most days, the day we were down there was nice, picturesque clouds and only some wind. I highly recommend going to a local zoo or aquarium, put a good 4+ gig card in the camera, play, and be prepared to throw some of the photos away. It's a great way to learn what you can do with your camera.

I know this sounds like a no-brainer (or at least it does to me), but sometimes I have to remind myself to just have fun. It is a hobby after all. I stopped one hobby (computer programming) because I do it for a living. Best to keep other hobbies just that.