California – Page 33 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Camouflage

Today I went up to the Botanical Gardens, one thought on my mind: to take images of birds with my 70-300mm lens on the Nikon V3. As the V3 has a 2.7 crop factor, this makes the 70-300 the equivalent of 189-810mm.

I’ve never used this lens to specifically capture birds, but it did a pretty good job. My technique was shutter priority, with the shutter set to 1/1000 to keep blur to the least possible amount; I also set the iso to 3200 down (priority based) and the f/stop to about 5.6 to 8.

I have absolutely no idea what these birds are, nor was I really aware of birds until I was determined to find them. I had hoped to see a road runner – they are up there! – but I did see four distinctively different ones, which I caught. Looking in Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, this looks like a wren, but what kind???

The 1 Nikon 70-300mm lens does a pretty good job overall. It has the advantage of being lightweight with image stabilization. Coupled with the V3, I could catch multiple images in a row, clicking away as the birds moved around, and then choosing the best of what I got.

More to follow!

Note: A fellow on flickr says these little guys are White Crowned Sparrows!

Ablaze

A scene from the local botanical garden . . . piles of Pin Oak leaves against blooming Mexican sage. If you look in the upper left, you will see some pink blooms still clinging to a tree branch.

Touches of Light

I’ve been on quite a roll using my older cameras. This is one of maybe 2 or 3 images (out of 8 possible on a roll) taken with my only 6×9 camera, the classic Voigtlander Bessa RF from the 1930s. This my first experience with Fuji Pro 400H 120mm film. My scans were not the best, but worse was the amount of crud on the film. Processor or me?

Overall, pleased with both film and camera, especially how dark the trail was from being underneath so many trees, the fact that it was early morning, and that I had to handhold the camera – no tripod! – to get what I wanted. Oh, I guessed at all the exposures too!

Another Morning

Another image from last week’s morning hike through one of my favorite trails. The light was wonderful, brightening spots here and there, filtering colors above into greens and golds.

A Place for Birdsong

I thought I had left my Werra in Paris when I flew there a few weeks ago for lunch, but I didn’t. Lucky me! I found it this afternoon, and that inspired a hunt through the archives for some images I took last year when it first arrived in my hot little hands, all fresh and shiny from Holland. I currently have it loaded with Fuji Natura 1600, for night work (maybe I will try it for the super moon on the 13th or 14th).

This is one lovely little camera, and a very, very odd one. It’s a rangefinder, with all controls on the lens, including cocking the shutter and advancing the film. The lens is a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm, f2.8, and as you can see, it renders wonderfully sharp images. I’ve got a bunch of colored lens filters, for b&w work, so once the current film is used up, I’m going to try some Acros 100 or Delta 100.