Here in Southern Ontario, we see plenty of Canada Geese. We watch them fly north in the Spring and fly south in the Fall. That distinctive Vee formation pointing South always makes us sad. It’s the end of summer and our feathered friends are leaving for warmer climes.
Same thing with the Monarch Butterfly. Before they fly to Mexico for the winter, they flutter all over the place. The first time I noticed them gathering was driving along the Gardner Expressway. At first I thought that someone was burning something and large flakes were floating around. Then I realized they were Monarch Butterflies getting ready for their big journey to Mexico. Isn’t Nature wonderful?
Back to the Canada Goose. Last May I was in James Gardens one Sunday morning. After parking my car and getting my gear out of the trunk, I was alerted by that distinctive honking the geese do. This one seemed different somehow. Louder. Almost alarming. I followed the sound. It became louder the closer I got to the Humber River. I looked and looked and finally raised my head to look in the trees and there he was, high on one of the limbs, making the world’s greatest racket.
I have no idea what was troubling him. Was he looking for a mate or his mate? I’ll never know but since I had never seen or heard of a Canada Goose in a tree, I took his picture – first with my 17-55mm lens and then with my 70-300mm lens for a better close-up. Here they are.
I went out last night into the garden hoping to practice my night photography skills and get some good shots. The sky was very interesting. Some very dark blue sky still to be seen, with white clouds moving by. I set up my tripod and clicked away. May I say I froze my tush off and I didn’t wear gloves so my hands were freezing. Oh well, I wouldn’t have cared if the pictures had turned out. As it was, I deleted them all.
Perhaps what I should have done is read the part about settings before venturing out. Better late than never and, at least I didn’t waste any film – thank you for digital photography. So here are some hints about night photography, courtesy of Digital Photography School.
- Place camera on a tripod
- Increase ISO setting to one down from the highest setting on your camera (if your camera’s highest setting is 3200, set it to 1600)
- Set shutter priority mode on your camera. If you don’t have this setting, set Night Photography setting. Both these settings will turn off the flash and that is what we want here.
- Plug in your external shutter release. If you don’t have one of these, activate the self timer on your camera. The self timer will activate once you fully depress the shutter button, giving you a few seconds to remove your hand away from the camera so it is steady when you take the shot.
- Compose the shot you’d like to take. Half depress the shutter to see if the camera can find the focus. If not, then point the camera towards a light source that’s about the same distance as your subject so it can focus. If you don’t have any other lights, shine your flashlight on the subject until it focuses.
- Fully depress the shutter and the first picture will be taken.
- Look at the image in your LCD screen, zooming in if necessary. If it is too dark the camera hasn’t focused properly.
- Fix your exposure problem by changing the Exposure Value (EV) setting of your camera. For images that are too dark, set the EV to -1 or -2 and take the shot again. If the resulting image is not right, try a lower EV value.
- Another way to fix exposure problems is to switch to Manual mode. Use the camera’s menu system to display the shot record (EXIF) data of the first shot you took. Make a note of the Shutter Speed and Aperture settings.
- Switch the camera to Manual mode, set the same Aperture and Shutter Speed and then take 4 more shots, each time varying the shutter speed to be slightly longer than the time before. Ie: if the camera chose an aperture of 5.6 and a shutter speed of 2 seconds, place the camera into manual mode, set the same aperture 5.6 and try 3 more shots with slightly lower shutter speeds – say 2.5, 3.2, and 4 seconds.
- Take a look at each of these photos on your camera’s screen. You will find each image to be brighter than the previous image. What you want is brightness where you can see the darker areas of your photo, but the lights aren’t too bright. Take one last shot , setting the shutter speed to be slightly lower once again because sometimes the image in the LCD doesn’t quite give the same view that you will see on your computer.
Well, it would have been great had I read his advice before going out in the cold night air. Live and learn or, shall I say, read and learn. I’ll try again tonight.
The guys at the club are great. Better yet, so many new young people are joining the club. That’s always good news. Some of the older guys have been members for the better part of 50 years. Well, you have to know that young blood is important for the club to last.
Anyway, last Saturday we had a workshop in the “Art of Seeing”. We gathered at a lovely country estate, very treed, very quiet.
This particular morning was especially beautiful what with the coloured leaves still on the trees as well as on the ground, the air so crisp and clear. It was joyous.
Marcus led this particular workshop. He brought a cardboard box containing a number of items. After each of us introduced ourselves to everyone else, we had to take a pictures of ourselves yelling “Yes” (self-portrait). Then we each had to reach into this box and pull out an item. I picked what turned out to be a glass flask with a cork stopper. Others picked things like plastic funnel, scotch tape dispenser, empty plastic water bottle, a roll of toilet paper, etc. We were given an hour in which to finish our project of at least 20 pictures.
After the hour was up, we met at the club, uploaded our creations and had a show of all the slides. You wouldn’t believe the creative stuff people came up with. It was great.
Next, we went to our favourite Tim Horton’s for lunch. Even though I had left the house at 6:30, I did not get home till around 1:PM. So, I’ll post some of my stuff. Sorry, that’s all I have for now.
The whole point of the exercise is that you can make something out of nothing. At least, nothing much.
