Flight

This past saturday, my brother-in-law, Lyle and I were out running around some wildlife management areas taking pictures of some of the wildlife we saw. At Camas we saw about 10 bald eagles, white tail deer, jackrabbits and hawks. The sad part, we weren't able to get close enough to get decent pictures. I guess too many people had been out and the birds and animals were too spooked.

This picture of the rabbit was the first not to flee as we approached. Maybe because we were still in the car at the time.

I was hoping to find the two great gray owls I had heard were wintering there. No such luck.

From there we decided to go on south to Market Lake and see what would present itself to us. We saw the usual hawks and a surprising number of Trumpeter Swans. After some long range shots of a few of them we continued on up the road and ended up in a farmers stock yard. Due to the no trespassing sign we started to turn around and leave when I said, "Oh crap" at which point Lyle stopped, I jumped out and got only one shot of these four beautiful birds flying over. We both agreed it was the shot of the day

We then left Market Lake and drove to Menan on our way back to his home in Rexburg. While driving through Menan, we saw this bald eagle land in a tree just above a house.

I managed to walk around the house somewhat and get some decent shots. If you notice, the head feathers are not totally white and his beak is not totally yellow. This is an indication of a young eagle almost grown out of the immature stage where the head is white and the beak yellow.

All-in-all it was a fun day.

Cool Cat

This picture looks like it was taken at night like in my first post. This is one of Pauline's cats, and the picture was taken during a saturday afternoon visit with her in Ammon. All three cats were very curious as to what I was doing and were just hanging around to see what I would do next. Of all the four favorites, this shows the feature of the camera I was using the best.





The picture was taken using the high speed sync feature of the camera and a compatible flash. In this case an SB-800 Nikon flash held off camera using a dedicated cord from camera to flash.

The picture of the iris presented a problem with getting a good sharp focus with no light to light it. In this case I had full daylight, focus was much easier for the camera to perform and the pictures were taken much faster.



This picture was taken with an aperture on f11 at a shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second.



Cool feature. Can't wait to use it some more.

Prize winner.

If you've read my profile, you will note that one of my favorite things to do is photography. So, with this in mind, I will be posting some of my favorite pictures on this blog along with a description of how and when I took the picture. I love the art of photography and the myriad of ways a subject can be photographed and the change in mood that can be created.

This first photograph is a favorite of my sister Iretta.

This was taken in my back yard between midnight and 1:00am. I used a single flash with a diffuser held at 90 degrees and slightly higher than the camera.

My younger brother, Richard, said it reminded him of the old masters style art work.

I entered it in the state fair floral professional category and won a third place ribbon. A first for me.