technology – A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens

attitude adjustments, facing facts, life goes on, nothing's easy, perseverance, photography, technology, unintended consequences

I’ve been driven to drink…

May 21, 2023May 20, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

The feature photo is something I saw while waiting for a traffic light the other day. It caught my eye because the day before I had dithered over buying this;

Eventually I said “Yes way to the rose”. Don’t take that as a recommendation, it was just okay.

I’ve been through several boxes of this after my friend Rita introduced me to it when I visited her. Nice and light. Summery. And the rose version isn’t bad either.

Happened into Sam’s in time for a wine tasting yesterday. This was so good, fruity, I’d have never looked at the bottle twice. I drank the last glass of the open bottle of ‘Yes way’ last night while I let this chill.

While my guy perused the beer isle at Total Wine I went outside and took pictures of the crazy clouds, then I wandered through Home Goods, and when I checked to see if he was done he was right where I left him in the beer aisle. So I wandered a bit and spotted this, but didn’t buy it.

In this particular case it’s technology that’s driven me to drink. I discovered that my camera will let you take a ‘precapture’. So you focus on a bird and when the action happens you take the shot and half the time you get this;

If you use this new feature you half-press the shutter button while you find your shot, then when to do push the shutter button all the way it takes the photos from a half second before you pressed the shutter. Great, right? So I took a ton of pictures that way the other day. but my software doesn’t want to open them. So this morning I upgraded the software, upgraded the camera firmware, and added a new editing program. And everything fought me as I worked on it. It’s been a long morning and I still haven’t successfully created even one picture. I have wasted half the day, but certainly it must be close to 5 o’clock somewhere…

'scene' along the way, a second look, attention to detail, attitude adjustments, facing facts, Florida landmarks, friends, fun, live and learn, perseverance, photography, technology

Oops…

April 24, 2023April 23, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

Saturday was our last scheduled photo walk to Tampa Bay Downs, and we were happy to not have to rush out as early as we usually do when we are meeting with the group. But when we were ready to leave I found I’d left the car keys in the house, so I set the camera down in the tricycle basket while I went to retrieve them. You know what happens next, right? Yes, I forgot to pick the camera back up and off we went without it. I didn’t realize what I’d done until I went to get the camera out of the back of the car when we got there. Bernie asked if I’d rather just go home, but I figured I’d just use my phone and take photos of the people instead of the races. Only my phone was down to 14% battery power. Sigh, but all was not lost since his phone was charged.

Here was a candidate right off the bat…

I guess I now had hair on the brain…

This tee shirt caused me to stalk this guy before I finally got a picture…

Really? Heels at the track when you have a kid to chase around? Or ever for that matter?

We wound up sitting up in the grandstand, which turned out to be a better vantage point than we thought. Even with the phone the photos were interesting, mostly because of the sky.

I even got a couple of horses with all four feet off the ground.

I stalked that little cutie as her family was heading away from me. If anyone had been paying attention I’d probably have been arrested. There is virtually no seating that is out of the sun except for the grandstand. I suspect that that’s where we’ll be sitting when next season’s photo walks start up again. The breeze was fabulous. Not a bad day all in all…

attention to detail, attitude adjustments, brainstorms, bugs, dragonflies, facing facts, Florida wildlife, nature, old dogs new tricks, perseverance, photography, technology

The Dunning-Kruger effect…

April 19, 2023April 18, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

Our fearless photo club leader has a name for the syndrome when you are such a novice at something that you don’t know what you don’t know. I hope I remember to ask him what it is so I can repeat it before I post this. He also isn’t a fan of Youtube videos, but I watched one yesterday anyhow. It was on setting my new camera to take stacked images in the camera. Yup, automatically. Plus when we got up this morning there was an upgrade to Lightroom that added a ‘denoise’ button to the editing panel. Be still my heart. So off I went, camera and tripod in hand, down to the little neighborhood park. I figured that the dragonflies stay still enough for the camera to shoot 20 or so images in a second or two, and I was right, I got tons of images. But I don’t think I got the effect that I was looking for. Operator error I’m sure. I over-estimated my abilities because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. At least denoise worked well though…

This tricolor heron was moving, so not the shot I had set out to take but I took the shot anyhow. I can’t resist posting it because he had a fish, and I had had no clue when I took the shot.

I don’t know what is so great about landing in the muck to pose for me, but that’s what they did.

I was attracting a crowd as I took my pictures.

I don’t feed them, but I guess they figure there is always a first time.

I had first gone to my usual spot that gives me my sunrise view from this park. But the sun was up high enough to be in my eyes, so I moved to the opposite side of the park to shoot these pictures. With the sun over my shoulder I was quite surprised to see that tri-color, I hadn’t noticed him before. Plus the shallow water revealed some bigger fish than I would have expected to be there. And it turned out that Google knew the term for not knowing what you don’t know. And now you do too!

'scene' along the way, a second look, attitude adjustments, Florida landmarks, friends, fun, old dogs new tricks, perseverance, photography, Rise and shine, technology

Off to the races…

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

We were up early on Saturday to get to a black and white photography class, but we also had to race from there to the Tampa Bay Downs to host a photo op for the club. Both things on the same day was a lot, and we were late getting to the track, but so was the only other person to show up. We had extra time before the first race however, so we got some lunch, and after that I was more ready for a nap than anything. But I was armed with the new 1.4 extender for my r7 camera and the 100-400 lens, so when the first race began I raced up to the balcony to get my one and only shot with that lens.

From the balcony and with the extra reach from the extender this is my shot of the far turn. From there it’s right down the final stretch to the finish line.

Back downstairs again I decided to switch to the 18-150 lens because the camera is so light with that lens on, and I was tired and hot. 90 degrees in February? I amused myself between races by taking pictures of the pretty flowers around the winners circle.

Without as much reach with my smaller lens I found like liked the view that included some of the scene as well as the start of the next race. I like to try to get an out of the gates shot, And I’m glad I did this time. Look at where horse #8 is.

From the balcony you have time to go inside the grandstand and shoot a picture of the finish line from that upstairs angle. And look, the winner was #8!

This is another winner, and it was the #8 horse in this race too!

Here’s the big picture. You can people watch from the balcony vantage point. And you can see the paddock area where the horses are brought out and the jockeys mount them before they are led onto the track for their race.

The feature photo shows you how futile it would be for me to shoot from the rail. I’m too short and there are several layer of fencing that would wind up in my shot. But in this case I saw that I could see the finish line sign between the people so I took the shot. Possibly my favorite shot of the day.

a second look, adventure, attention to detail, friends, fun, making memories, nature, pelicans, perseverance, photography, technology

Homosassa Springs residents…

February 3, 2023February 2, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

What a perfect day we chose to visit Homosassa Springs State Park. The weather couldn’t have been better, which the visitors appreciated, but the animals seemed to be enjoying it also. It was warm enough that the people didn’t need a sweater, but not so warm that the animals were hiding in the shade. Sometimes you see the foxes just pacing along the borders of their enclosure. The one in the feature photo looks to me to be just enjoying the day. Shortly after I took this picture it closed it’s eyes and went to sleep.

More often than not when you visit the park this bear is snoozing in the shelter of his ‘porch’, but on this day he was enjoying the sunshine.

Here is another resident who was out and about instead of looking for a place to nap.

This great egret is displaying her breeding plumage, so we know what’s on her mind.

I liked the expression on this pelican’s face. I think there were more pelicans than any other birds here in the pond.

Here you see Lu, the adopted Floridian who was allowed, by popular demand, to remain in place when this facility passed into state control. He has now reached the grand old age of 63 and is retired from his former role as a movie star.

There are a million pictures in the camera from this trip. Or 1357, I lost count. I chose to work on a few pictures of animals that I took fewer photos of and then moved on. The bursts of images that my new camera takes leaves me scratching my head as I try to choose the ‘best’ ones. I will have plenty to keep me busy tomorrow as rain is in the forecast. A great day of practicing with our new cameras, all three of us, and then lunch along the riverside.

'scene' along the way, a second look, attitude adjustments, birds, Florida landmarks, fun, life goes on, perseverance, photography, Pine Island, sunset, technology

Sunset songs…

January 28, 2023January 27, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

I’m pretty sure that the Ruddy Turnstones in the feature photo aren’t really one legged. They are the cutest little shore birds and I don’t get to Pine Island to see them often enough. It was a pretty sunset on Tuesday night. And, as I always say, there always seems to be something extra going on there. On this night there were two women playing their guitars and singing old songs that I not only remember and love, but I knew all the words. I wanted to sing with them, if only I had a decent enough voice. But the sunset was also calling me.