12 posts tagged “tucson az”

 

Thanks Anthrogrrl for putting this great Photo Quest together.  I was on a photo quest this weekend to get an exceptional photo of the Fish Hook Barrel Cactus blooming in my yard.  I have to take photos of them in full light as they start closing in the late afternoon and don't open fully open to nearly noon.  Then when the sun is up high it either throws harsh shadows or blows out the shinny petals of the flower.

Yesterday I had some success with my 50 mm on my Pentax k20d using a mono pod.  Today, I was going to use the tripod and both the 50 mm and my 70 -300 mm lens.  I read up on how to use the mirror up function and set my camera to a 2 second delay.  The Pentax k20d setting for mirror up is to put the camera on a tripod and set the drive for a 2 sec delay.  With the mirror up setting you get the least amount of camera shake possible. 

The 1st photo taken with the 50 m lens, F 8, ISO 200, shutter speed 1/60 was over exposed.  See the white spots on the petals, too much light.

 

Second photo was with 200 IS, 70 - 300 mm lens set at 220 mm, F11, shutter speed 1/250 mm, photo is clear but a little dark, better but still there are blown out areas on the petals.

3rd photo,  F-11, 70 - 300 mm lens at 220 mm, shutter speed of 1/125. This photo had more blown out areas and overall was too light.

 

This one was a surprise as I placed my knee pad over the top of the cactus to shade the flower, all setting the same as previous photo except shutter speed was 1/15, the slower shutter speed keept the rich color and gave more detail to the striping on the petals and it blew out the background, no nice green now all white.

 

Since I liked the last photo but not the background I cropped the photo and the last photo is the result.  Of all the photos I took today I like this one the best...only thing I might try to make it better is to add the last two photos together on layers and then erase the white background and allow the green background to come through and I'll clean up the petals in the background as they are some marks on them.

 

Thanks again Anthrogrrl as this Photo Quest keept me on task and I'm happy with the results.

I was feeling a little sorry for myself this morning so I did a photo shoot in my yard.  The original plan was to go on a Photo Shoot in Tucson with a group of people celebrating a World Wide Photo Walk.  I was so excited to be with other photographers and meet some new people.  The Photo walk was 2 hours from 8:00 am to 10:00 am and it was all mapped out...oh and there would be models dressed in period clothing.

Then my hives started back up yesterday!  Darn it all!  I couldn''t be out in the summer heat with these awful hives.  This time they are around my neck.  One gets about 3" long and is raised up about 1/2" inch or more and I can't keep from scratching them. Other gang up together and form one large lumpy mass.  I don't know what triggered them this time.  I  usually can pinpoint something that I ate, but this time I couldn't. 

This morning I decided to do the photo walk right here in my yard.  I took a lot of photos of my horses.  They were full of it this morning.  In the summer put them out in the turnout at night and bring them in to their stalls during the day.  This way they can hang out under their shades during the heat of the day.  Last night, it was raining so I didn't put them out and they were really at each other this morning when I turned them out.

It is so hard to take photo of them as they want to be right next to me.  Once I sat on an old tree stump to take some photos and Winn was breathing on my lens!  I got a couple of good shoots of them.  I love how they bite each other in play and how the bite each other's withers. 

This is a photo of Jr. Looking over Winn's back.  I liked the strong diagonal lines of Jr.s head and Winn's neck.  The sun was behind Jr. so I didn't get a lot of light in his eye.

 

This one I took with the sun behind them and then I made it black and white.  I was kneeling on the ground trying to take their photos and stay out of their way!  This photo also has a strong diagonal line running through the middle.  Jr. was pushing into Winn and he was getting annoed with him.  Can you see Winn's tail flipped up over his back?  When horses are mad they warn by flipping their tail or laying back their ears.   

 

 I was outside taking photos from 6:30 am to a little after 8:00 am.  The time flew away, I forgot about my hives and the missed photo walk and enjoyed seeing my yard through the viewfinder.

This morning we had a lot of clouds on the mountains and they made for the most wonderful sunrise.  I got this photo of the sunrise at about 5:30 am.  This photo wasn't cropped and I was happier with the composition.

 

Then tonight a storm was coming over the mountain and the sun was shinning in spots on the mountain.  I grabbed my camera and the tripod and headed down the hall.  I was trying to arrange the camera around my neck and dropped the tripod.  Crash, bang and down it went taking the glass on the end table with it.  The glass broke and fell to the carpet.  But that didn't stop this crazy old lady...off I went to capture the last minutes of sun on the mountains.  Here are the photos I got.

 

 

I'm still not happy with my compositions.  It seems that I get too excite over the subject matter and don't pay enough attention to the compositions of the picture.  I had to crop these two photos to get the right balance.  It just seems like I can't get it through my head to take my time and get the composition right!  Maybe some day!

I typed up this post on Sunday morning and then my PC crashed and I lost it all so here goes again.   I haven't posted in awhile been too busy again.

On the 20th I did a photo walk with a Val friend I met on Flickr.  We have done photo walks twice before.  Once to the hundred acres next to me, and the other time at Catalina State Park.  Both time I really enjoyed taking photos with her.  She is a retired teacher and love to take photos.  I think she has a Nikon 40. 

This time we took photos around her neighborhood.  We got an early start around 6:30 am and took the streets and walking paths around her hood.  Most of the photos I took weren't really that good but I did enjoy our walk and her company.  Here is a link to her site on Flickr.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/81022945@N00/

Last Saturday, another friend from Flickr came to visit.  She brought her family to see the horses and cocca puff.  We had a nice breakfast of a home made coffee cake that she brought and some donuts that hubby got at the store.  Here is a link to her site on Flickr.  We so enjoyed meeting Linda and her family, what great kids she has...Oh and her hubby is a doll!  Here is a link to Linda's Flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lsdinaz/.  She lives near me so our photos of sunrises and sunsets are similar.

Last weekend I broke down and bought a used laptop and it was just what I wanted.  Now tonight it is not charging.  So I'll have to contact the seller and take it in for repair.  I got it on Craigs list but it has a 30 day parts and labor guarantee.  So one step forward and two back now.

My PC is just choaking on the huge files from my camera.  I needed a faster processer and more ram.  Oh well hope it can be fixed quickly.

I spend a lot of time on Sat. looking through the photos I've taken recently.  I sure was disappointed in what I saw.  My background weren't good, subjects too much in the center of the photo.  So  yesterday I took a few photos in the morning and I was more satisfied with the results.

I got a nice photo of a lizzard that I see all the time in my backyard.  It was hot and muggy and I think this slowed the lizzard down a little as he didn't run away as I was getting closer to get my photos.

 

Here is a photo of a cute rabbit that I caught before he hopped away.  We have cottentail rabbits all over our yard but they usually dont' stick around when we get close.

 

I took some photos of the quail and their babies but I didn't like any of them.  Maybe next weekend I can get some good photos of the quail.

Hope you have a great week! 

Last week's Photo Quest was black & white landscapes.  I took a couple of photos of a great cloud formation over the mountains behind my house but didn't get them downloaded until tonight. 

So here are my very late entries for last week's Photo Quest. 

1st the color photo:

 

Now the b & w:

 

Next one in color:

 

Now b & w:

 

I like the last one the best as the sky is a little darker and the clouds show up better.  All photos shot in RAW, processing was setting the black point, contrast and used the vivid b & w in converting to b & W.

I'm way behind with everything so tonight when I came home instead of taking a nap, I took photos of the little round  tail ground squirrels.  Lori Faith said I should put them in a basket and their their pictures.  I didn't have a basket that would work..so I took a cute tea cup that was a planter for an African Violet and I put them in it.

I used a black sheet for a background and set the cup on a stack of magazines with a small box on top.  Camera stuff, 50 mm, F1.8, ISO 400, no flash, overhead ceiling fan light.  I'm going to try this again tomorrow and work on getting better light in the room.  Photos aren't as clear as I would like, have to work on that too.  I think I'll use a higher F stop and see if I can improve the focus.

 

 

Tuesday around lunch, I was working on my computer on and saw a Harris Hawk out my window.  I put my 70-300mm telephoto lens on my camera and ran out to see if I could get any photos.  I had my camera on auto for moving subjects and I got a few photos.  The hawks where over my head circling around.  I think they were looking for some lunch.  The photos are as clear as I would have liked but they were high in the sky and flying.

 

 

 

It was cold and rainy this morning and then we had some blue sky later in the afternoon. 

Here is another aloe I have in my yard.   It blooms later and the blooms are yellow.

 

I went out to take some photo of the aloe and the new leaves on the roses.  It was hard to get a clear shoot as it was windy and I hand held the camera.

 

I liked this purple cactus as it look like a cowboy with a purple cowboy hat on.  lol

 I liked this photo of the Santa Catalina Mountain in the late afternoon.

My neighbor drove by while I was taking photo so I took one of him in his truck.

A photo of tonigh'ts moon in the clouds.

Well not all of spring but my aloe plants are blooming and they aren't the easiest flowers to photography.  But yesterday I was looking at some photos of aloe blooms on flickr and got inspired.  So this morning I took out my old 500mm mirror lens and dusted it off and went hunting for aloe photos.

I could have gotten better, clear photos if I had used my tripod but it is hard to get the right angle with a tripod so for  these photos I hand held my camera.

This is one of the first photos I took and by far my favorite.  I like that the bloom in the background seems to mirror the flower in the foreground.  I loved the colors in this photo and didn't change a thing but did sharpen the photo a little. 

I took a lot of photos of the bees around the aloe flowers but most were too blurry.  Here are couple that are OK.  The first one I did lighten it up a little but no cropping.  The second and third photos I don't think I did a thing to change them.

I'm adding a larger picture of the bee for Patrick.

We took a drive up to our place in Benson to make sure everything was OK.  Since we got the renter out we have been working on cleaning the place up and we want to be sure the pipes didn't freeze.  Our lovely renter used up all the propane we left him and we had to get another load last week.  We leave the heater on 50 but we need to check on the place. 

We haven't tried to rent the place out as I'm tired of cleaning up after renters.  I would like to paint the outside of the place in the spring then see if we can sell it.

I'm so bored riding in the car so I brought my camera along.  Here are some photos I took during the drive.  There has been a lot of work on I-10 and they are making it look nicer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had some snow in the higher elevations on Friday and there was still snow and ice on I-10.

 

 

 

Then at our place in Benson there was more snow.

 

Then on the way back I got a nice photo of the downtime area of Tucson.