No deep insight, equipment review or technique experimentation for this one. I was out in the back yard and a caterpillar was in the grass. The black and orange coloration combined with the hairy coat it had just seemed like it deserved to be photographed. A quick grab of the camera with a macro lens and a few shots and then I left it to do whatever it was doing.
One of the things that I knew would be a limitation of the RF 200-800 was the aperture which is a lot smaller than for really expensive lenses (yes, it is also expensive but not in the tens of thousands type of expensive). In low light, this is going to be an issue and it would be interesting to see how things worked out. When I got home with it, I was sitting on the deck when some hummingbirds started feeding on the flowers in one of our beds. This area is in shade a lot of the time so light was limited. I was rather pleased with the effectiveness of the focus, the sharpness at full zoom and the relatively limited noise related issues from the R3. This is a combination that looks like it could be quite useful for a wide variety of occasions. Not the solution for everything but definitely versatile.
A couple of years ago, when we redid our back yard, we planted a small plum tree in one of the beds. It has grown well and, last year we had a few small plums that developed. They all fell before we had a chance to pick them, so we had no idea whether they were any good or not. This year, we had a lot more plums as the tree has grown quite substantially. I picked one of them to see how it was doing, and it wasn’t too bad. It did have a split in it, though.
The following weekend, I decided to harvest the rest. One had already fallen, and I think I saw a rabbit having a good chew on it. The rest came off easily enough. Quite a few had splits in them which, from what we hear, is the result of them getting a lot more water than they have been used to. I put them all in a bowl to get a photo. For the first one, I put them all with their best sides up. Then I turned them to show the most damage. Selective angles in photos can really change the impression you give!!
The flowers were out on some of the plants in our front yard and they were attracting the bees, so I decided to try again to get some bee shots. Rather than try and follow the bees around the flowers, I decided to see the camera up on a mount aligned with one flower and wait for the bees to come there. I used a cable release so I could sit back a bit and wait. This did require the plant to stay steady which, when the wind was blowing, was far from guaranteed.
I was sitting so still for a long time as I waited that a rabbit came walking across the yard to nibble some leaves that were by my feet. Since I wasn’t moving, it was totally oblivious to me. Rather than spook it by trying to get my phone out to photograph it, I let it eat in peace. It wandered off soon enough.
The bees dutifully showed up in my flower from time to time. I wasn’t sure how well the shots were coming out since I was just triggering with the cable release when things were in roughly the right place. I didn’t know whether the autofocus was going to choose the bee or part of the plant. There were plenty of misses, but we did get a few good shots where the bees were in shot, in focus and interesting enough. I was pleasantly surprised how many shots actually worked out. I had been quite pessimistic when taking the shots, so this was more successful than I had expected.
I can’t imagine that there are too many parts of the world that didn’t hear something about the significant coronal mass ejection that came the way of earth in May 2024. If you lived nearer the poles, aurora discussions were everywhere, and social media posts were full of it. If you lived elsewhere, you probably still heard about the potential technical issues our infrastructure could experience. I have had no luck with previous aurora potential sightings so, while this was of interest, I had a dose of skepticism.
I didn’t make any plans to go and find a location to see the aurora if it was visible in our area although I had checked out the dark skies maps to see how bad the light pollution was here and how far I would have to go to make a difference. I didn’t do anything with this data though. We were watching a movie in the evening and, when it finished, I stepped outside to see if anything was visible. It was about 10pm and there was nothing.
I went to get ready for bed but kept my clothes on just in case. At about 10:30, I went out again and still the skies were clear. I had read that 10pm to 2am was a good window so I was still at the beginning of this so didn’t give up completely. I messed around with a few other things and then figured I would have one more go outside before giving up and going to bed. Fortunately, this proved to be the right choice. I stepped out of the front door and saw something strange in the sky above us like a streak. I watched for a bit and then things started to get livelier.
I grabbed my camera and the tripod and went out to grab some shots. I also let Nancy know this was all going on since I hadn’t taken my phone outside with me. For the next hour or so, I just stared at the sky. The colors that the camera reproduced are far different to what I could see. It is a more sensitive device for this light than my eyeball, but I could clearly see purples and greens in the sky. The colors weren’t rapidly changing but you could see the transitions occurring. One of our neighbors returned while I was out so wandered over to ask if I could see anything and I pointed behind them. They were amazed by the sight and spent the rest of the time I was out looking as well.
At one point, I was beginning to be a bit tired, and the colors were fading a little, so I decided to call it a night. Just as I said goodbye and walked back towards the house, the skies lit up again. It was not letting me go that easily. I watched for a little longer and then decided I had got a good enough experience and headed indoors. It was certainly an amazing thing to witness. Maybe somewhere with less light pollution would have made things better but it was pretty good seeing all of this over our houses. The following night was supposed to be another good one, but the intensity was less, and I decided to sleep instead!
When we first moved to our current house, we used to get lots of rabbits in the back yard. For a while, it was nice seeing them around. However, they did have a habit of “leaving” seeds for other plants in our grass and the weeds became an issue. We went about blocking up the various access points for them to keep them from coming in. This was broadly successful, but it is a continuous process as they find ways to breach the perimeter.
Recently I looked outside to see a rabbit not eating but stretched out and sunbathing in the back. Now that is taking the Michael. I went outside and he bolted so I saw where he had punched a new way in and closed it off. Later in the day, I saw him out front – where I have no issue with him being. Instead, I decided to get some images of my latest intruder. Now I’ll have proof if he ever denies being the one to break in previously!!
I have mentioned before the difficulty I have had when trying to photograph flickers. They are so easily spooked. When one showed up in the back yard recently, I knew there was no way I would be able to go outside and try for a shot. Through the windows was my only option. Two layers of glass are not ideal for photographic clarity, but it is better than nothing. Even then I have to be cautious since even the movement within the house is enough to scare them off. Some careful positioning and very slow movements meant I was able to get a few reasonable shots. It wasn’t long before they were off, though. Whether it was me or just time to go to the next spot, I don’t know.
Nice evenings during the summer mean balloon flights over Woodinville and the surrounding area. I was driving home one evening and, as I came up I-405, I could see a balloon that looked like it might be close to home. Rather than turn towards the house, I headed for one of the nearby fields that has been a landing zone for balloons before (and that have made it into posts on here). When I got there, the balloon was close but was tracking slightly west of the field so no way it was going to make it in. It was heading towards the town so I decided to drive towards the south side of the town to see where it might end up.
I was coming around the south side on the road that skirts the town and the traffic had come to a halt. This was because everyone was watching the balloon low overhead. I actually took a shot through the sunroof of the car as it came low over me. I looped around the roundabout but didn’t take the south exit because the crew seemed to be heading that way and I didn’t need to crowd things.
I went around to the next road and looked back across the fields as the balloon continued on its way. It wasn’t touching down so I guess the area was not ideal. I figured I might head a little further south and see if it came even further. I took the road to Redmond and pulled off at one of the field entrances. Sure enough, they were still drifting south but looked like they might finally be getting close to landing. I didn’t shoot much video, but I did get a little to emphasize the way the balloon was drifting through the trees. As I watched it, the ground crew pulled up and started honking at me. They were incredibly rude. As soon as I saw them arrive, I was getting out of the way. Not my fault that they were struggling to catch their balloon, but they behaved like everyone should just get out of their way. I did anyway but, if you are reading this balloon crew, don’t be assholes to bystanders if you are struggling to recover your balloon and its passengers.
While sitting on the deck one evening, a frog was climbing up a post. I didn’t know how long it would hang around, so I grabbed a few quick pictures with my phone before going inside to get the camera with the macro lens. It hadn’t gone too far when I got back but I was glad I had taken the phone shots when I did. The frog was now climbing up the post and it jumped in to one of the hanging baskets. This made getting shots a touch trickier. There were also bits of plant getting in the way. I ended up using the focus stack function to get a sequence of shots which I then processed in Photoshop later. I just love close up shots of wildlife like this.
The plants in our backyard attract a lot of insects and we get plenty of bees hanging out on sunny days. One of our hanging baskets gets a reasonable amount of attention but not a lot. However, one bee showed up on a Sunday afternoon and got our attention. First, it stayed on the basket for ages climbing over the same flowers repeatedly unlike the usual bee behavior or constantly moving from flower to flower. The other reason for our attention was the size of the thing. It was huge compared to our average bees. I wonder if it got so large by removing every morsel of nutrient from each flower!
